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AMC's 'Halt and Catch Fire' explores tech's 'Silicon Prairie'

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There’s been a lot of talk about how AMC’s new tech drama, Halt and Catch Fire, is getting in the Sunday night elevator just as Mad Men is getting off—at least until the second half of the final season. “Is this the new Mad Men?” we whisper, breathlessly, into the void.

It’s easy to draw dotted lines between the shows; both attempt to dramatize the history of two industries—computers and advertising—within two very important decades for commerce and innovation. In fact, Mad Men recently acquired a new cast member, in the form of an IBM System/360 computer.

Halt and Catch Fire’s May 18 pilot foreshadowed what the season might bring: Lee Pace plays Joe MacMillan, a Bryan Ferry lookalike and former IBM employee hired at Cardiff Electric, who elbows fellow employee Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy) into reverse engineering an IBM computer with him, in hopes they can beat the computer giant at its own game. Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis) is the smart young student they rope in to help with the coding. Kerry Bishé plays Gordon’s wife, Donna.  

It’s set in Dallas, Texas, one of the real nexuses of the early ‘80s computer revolution—the “Silicon Prairie.” North Texas's Dell and Texas Instruments were among IBM’s competitors. In the show, Donna works for Texas Instruments; they even have a Speak & Spell, one of the company’s most popular toys, which has been deconstructed by many an aspiring engineer since its debut.

Writer and co-creator Christopher Cantwell grew up in Plano, a suburb of Dallas, and had some experience with Texas’s ‘80s tech boom. Cantwell’s father was a software salesman when Christopher was a kid, so he asked his dad to fill in some of the blanks. Cantwell started scripting a new kind of oil boom, one where “closers” and engineers worked together to test the limits of their bubble, to see how far into this brave new world they could venture.

“He arrived in ‘82, right when personal computing was taking off," Cantwell explains. "And from there, we started to research what was going on in Texas at the time, and stumbled upon this story of reverse engineering on an IBM PC, which was first done by a company called Compaq.

"And we thought, let’s tell the story you don’t know, of what was happening there. Then it became a story of people looking for a second chance, who have maybe been washed out of the bigger hubs of the time. Let’s thrust them together in this wild West.”

The show’s engineering took a little more time. Cantwell and co-creator Christopher C. Rogers met in California, where both were working marketing jobs at Disney. In their free time, the two started writing scripts together, though neither had experience in a writers' room. They shopped the pilot for Halt and Catch Fire to several networks, and stared down a lot of dead ends. They finally ended up at AMC, and Cantwell says the vibe was different: The execs had the script "in their hands." AMC gave it a green light in late 2011. 

The early ‘80s tech revolution mirrors the current Silicon Valley rumpus in many ways, one being gender disparity. The show’s portrayal of women seems promising from the pilot: Donna’s not just the worried wife chasing her husband’s regrets. They seem more like a team, and the pilot hints that they once programmed a computer together. Though Cameron and Joe have an early scene in which his misogyny is exposed mid-tryst, she represents a character not often seen in Silicon Valley boardrooms. 

Cantwell recently wrote on his Tumblr about how important it was that they didn’t fall into stereotypes:

“HALT premieres in five days. Are the female characters perfect? No. Does the first episode pass the Bechdel Test? No (we do in Episode 2, though…). Did I, my partner, our showrunner, our exec producers, the network, our room of seven writers endeavor very, very hard to write authentic women who aren’t mere accessories to a male story? Yes. I believe we did. I love our female characters. Did we screw up with them at times? I’m sure we did.

“We created these characters as an attempt to portray realistic human beings who are women.”

“From the beginning, we didn’t want Donna Clark to be a mere accessory to [her husband's] story,” Cantwell says. “When we cast Kerry Bishé, and saw what she brought to the character in the pilot, you just wanted to write to her. And you wanted to see someone like Donna struggling with the ‘80s universe of feminism, which is, ‘OK, you want to work? That’s fine, work, but you’re going to be [working at] home too.

“Cameron is on the opposite spectrum from Donna. She’s of the new guard, she represents what’s coming. She’s a proto-hacker, a punk. Someone who sees technology a bit more like we do today, and she’s thrust into the hierarchy that’s very foreign to her.”

The social media marketing for the show has been inspired. AMC partnered with Tumblr, and screened the show for an exclusive Tumblr audience. AMC is streaming the pilot episode on its Tumblr until May 31. Remember that Fine Bros. video of kids trying to understand old computers? Another bout of synergy from the show’s promotional department. The video has more than 7 million views.  

Sima Sistani, Tumblr’s new director of media, says it was an organic conversation, and AMC wanted to integrate their Tumblr into the larger community.

“It really made a lot of sense for them to try to think of new and interesting ways to promote the show, and fill their fandom on Tumblr,” she says, “given that the show is about technology, and we have such a passionate community of influencers.”

Sistani came on with Tumblr in January, with the specific task of partnering with media and entertainment companies. She explains they're currently doing a screening of the new season of Orange Is the New Black for a group of “influencers,” and she hopes the initiative can “connect these artists with the greater creative community on Tumblr.”

“I think AMC has done a really fantastic job of building fandoms for their shows: The Walking Dead, Mad Men, Breaking Bad. I don’t think there’s a particular genre you have to be in to build a fandom on Tumblr. … Any niche interest, there’s someone for you to connect with.”

While some of the pilot's dialogue felt a bit stiff, the characters are encouraging. The show's debuting in the midst of the Internet and entertainment's love affair with tech and its past. It will be interesting to see whether Halt and Catch Fire's viewers get in the elevator. 

Photo via AMC


Is a new 'Mortal Kombat' game going to be announced tomorrow?

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It’s been three years since gamers were able to take a crack at the epic fighting style of a Mortal Kombat game. Now it looks like the classic franchise might be returning—if hints dropped over the last week are any indication.

The trail began on Reddit Wednesday when a user shared a photo of what looks like a possible promotional poster for what could be Mortal Kombat 10. It shows the bones of a spine with the Mortal Kombat logo on the bottom above the words “Who’s Next?”

Photo via Reddit

Ed Boon, co-creator of Mortal Kombat, has also been dropping hints of a possible new installment on Twitter. His tweets seem to to be a countdown that ends on June 2 and he changed his profile picture to the recognizable logo.

Whether it’s a new Mortal Kombat game or new Mortal Kombat Vs. game, the creators have certainly figured out the trick to building buzz on social media.

H/T International Digital Time| Photo via SobControllers/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

 

The latest 'Dragon Ball Z' movie is coming to U.S. theaters

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Start practicing your Super Saiyan transformation reenactments everyone, because the new Dragon Ball Z movie Battle of Gods is coming to US theaters.

For the days of August 5, 6, 7, and 9 US audiences will be able to see Goku duke it out with whatever asenine threat is trying to destroy the universe.

The movie saw it’s theatrical debut in Japan back in March of 2013, and since then has grossed over 47 million worldwide. The reported budget of the film was around 50 million yen, roughly 50 thousand dollars.

It’s quite the resounding success, and still shows the cachet the series has 25 years after its animated debut back in 1989.

The film will feature a new Super Saiyan transformation, Super Saiyan God. That's the fifth Super Saiyan transformation in the series. Many have wondered if the series really needs another transformation, considering characters were already powerful enough to destroy entire planets after the Super Saiyan 3 transformation.

The film will release nationwide to 350 theaters. You can catch the trailer below.

Image via dragonballz.com

This guy figured out how to play 'The Sound of Silence' with floppy drives

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Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” is a fairly somber song, but would it sound the same being churned out of noisy floppy drive?

YouTuber Arganalth found out by orchestrating floppy and hard drives to perform the song, which still sounds fairly somber. According to a previous video, the suitcase setup runs on Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

This isn’t Arganalth's first take on “floppy music.” There's also a recreation of the Back to the Future theme song, which seems appropriate.

Screengrab via Arganalth/YouTube 

Meet Dormtainment: 6 guys, 3 rooms, one comedy troupe

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Every morning at 10am, the six gentlemen of Dormtainment gather in the living room of their shared three-bedroom Hollywood apartment to begin their day’s work. Together, they write, rewrite, dissolve into laughing fits, film, edit, upload, make their audience of 709,000 subscribers keel over in laughter—and then they do it all over again the next day.

Dormtainment is made up of six best friends—Chaz Miller, Cameron Miller, Amanuel Richards, Jerome "Rome" Green, Mike Anthony, and Daunte “Tay” Dier — and runs on a chemistry that takes years of inside jokes and “you had to be there” moments to develop. Each member adds a different ingredient to the mix: Tay, the self-described ghetto nerd; Rome, the group-described ladies man; Chaz, the health enthusiast; Mike, the charmer whose unintentionally blunt; Amanuel, the leader without the proper tools; and Cam, the class clown who is simultaneously the most responsible of the group. The group’s care for one another is easily apparent as they finish the others’ thoughts and joke about living together forever.

Dormtainment originally began creating comedy sketches on YouTube in 2009 before expanding their brand to include live comedy shows, merchandise, musical albums, and traditional media collaborations.

“Our goals were to always get better as creators, and I feel like that’s the biggest thing we try to do [with] everything is just get better,” says Mike, a handful of snacks crammed into his cheeks. “Whether it’s just watching something or reading a script, just try to make yourself better and never feel like you’re good. That’s just the motto we live by.”

Over the years, the group has racked up numerous viral hits—“Straight Out of Dunwoody,” “Ass on the Internet,” “Harlem Shake (1st Black Version)”—but credits consistency as the reason for their success.

“I’d definitely take the consistent, quality content over one viral video [and] then all of a sudden nothing,” states Chaz. Mike adds: “We have consistent content that our fans and people really adapt to, and they want to see it next week. They’re not just going to watch it and share it and never come back, but what’s next week!”

Though Dormtainment got its start on YouTube, the group is quick to correct that they identify not as YouTubers but as entertainers—ready to adapt to all platforms. Their content borders on unprecedented territory, both in traditional and digital media, as it has created a space for black creators to present genuine representations of themselves rather than the supporting characters often assigned to them by Hollywood. By doing this, Dormtainment has made itself adaptable to all forms of media by sticking to the age old rule: Be yourself.

“When you make videos that are more about you, or more about your style,” explains Tay, “you can go to TV because you just take your style and put it on TV. We do live shows, and people come to live shows, and they’re not going to expect a vlog; they expect an extension of ourselves.”

Last year, the group made the decision to move from Atlanta to Los Angeles in order to pursue their dream of growing into a production company. And while the move has given them access to an amazing new network of contacts, it also came with a series of drawbacks, including sharing one Honda among six people and a rotation of each group member having to sleep in the living room.

“People need to see these things. They think we’re out here living the life!” Rome laughs after sharing he’s already served his time in the living room. “We’re living the life that we [want]. We’re not going to work every day—we’re going to work in our group doing something we love—but at the same time, we still got to get gas, we still got to pay rent, we still got to get groceries, so it’s hard.”

Tay explains, “We know there’s been a big YouTuber move to L.A. This is definitely a good move for us, but it’s not the [only] answer out there.” Following up, Mike retorts, "And it depends on what your goals are like. If you don’t want to get into TV and Hollywood, then you don’t need to be here.”

For Dormtainment, TV and Hollywood are only two of many stepping stones on their path to dominate the world of entertainment. This year alone, the guys released a comedy album titled “Lost Tapes,” are in post-production on a webseries for Comedy Central, plan to publish a cookbook, and have still managed to put out a comedy sketch every Sunday.

Their upcoming Comedy Central webseries will highlight the trials and tribulations the group faces in L.A. and give Dormtainment fans insight into the group's daily life. The collaboration originally started in November 2011 after Comedy Central watched the group’s “Straight Out of Dunwoody” video.

“I mean everybody has different personalities and it’s kind of hard… Well not hard, but watching the sketches, it’s hard to get a feel for everyone,” says Tay on the new webseries. “Now, you’ll see more of Chaz’s personality, how he likes to stay fit constantly and stuff.”

“And constantly eating,” adds Mike.

Webseries, albums, and YouTube fame—it’s your move, Dormtainment.

Photo via Dormtainment.com

Oh no, the Based God's curse is real

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Three years ago, Lil B tweeted, “KEVIN DURANT WILL NEVER WIN THE TITLE AFTER HE SAID ‘LIL B’ IS A WACK RAPPER.” He then launched “THE BASEGODS CURSE” which is, to the best of my knowledge, the only lasting curse in NBA history, as well as the most powerful.

Saturday night, at the end of the fourth quarter of Game 6 of the NBA's Western Conference Finals, with a trip to the NBA Finals on the line, Kevin Durant took the ball at the top of the key and was in a position to give the Oklahoma City Thunder the lead against the San Antonio Spurs. When he tried to cross over his defender, he slipped on what may have been a wet spot on the floor. Everyone watching immediately thought the same thing:

The Thunder lost and were yet again knocked out of the playoffs—their third such departure in as many years.

There have been attempted curses before, but none as explicit as Lil B’s. Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cavaliers, famously pledged in a letter typed in comic sans after LeBron left his team that, “THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE." This was proven erroneous on June 21, 2012 when LeBron and the Heat beat—you guessed it—Kevin Durant’s Oklahoma City Thunder.

That was 390 days after Lil B tweeted his curse.

Gilbert's curse was easily trumped by Lil B's. Who knows what would have happened if LeBron hadn’t faced the cursed Thunder. Would he still be wandering the earth, a pariah of unclutchness?

Read the full story on Noisey.

Photo via chamberoffear/Flickr (CC-BY-SA 2.0)

Hate 'Game of Thrones' spoilers? Don't follow the actors on social media

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Warning: This article contains spoilers from Sunday’s Game of Thrones episode, “The Mountain and the Viper.”

Even the most casual Game of Thrones viewer knows to avoid spoilers on social media following an episode, but now we have to try to avoid them even before the episode airs.

The final moments of “The Mountain and the Viper” were devastating, to say the least. Even though we’ve been through this many, many times before, we fell in love with a character and his very hopes and dreams (along with his skull) were crushed in front of our eyes.

Fans were quick to call Oberyn Martell’s death the worst thing they’ve seen on TV since the Red Wedding, and the book readers, apt to remind everyone that “they knew it was coming,” were shocked at just how brutal and gory the scene played out.

But, as the credits started to roll, people had realized that they had seen one aspect of the fight between Oberyn and Ser Gregor Clegane before. Two months ago, in fact, on Lena Headey’s Instagram account.

The photo of Headey and Pedro Pascal, who played Oberyn, came from a photoshoot they did in Hunger Magazine. A screenshot of the magazine article, where Headey interviews Pascal, appeared on WinterIsComing.net in March.

The photo itself showed up on Instagram in April. At the time, it looked like two costars and friends horsing around in a photo shoot. Now that we’ve finally witnessed how the Red Viper met his end, it doesn’t look quite as innocent.

And this isn’t the first time that Headey’s Instagram account has provided potential spoilers. We’re still waiting to see if another photo she posted in April will play out in two weeks’ time.

If you follow Pedro Pascal on Twitter, you might have seen this tweet pop up a half hour after the episode aired. It’s the understatement of the season.

That isn’t to say that every single thing that a Game of Thrones actor posts on social media is a spoiler. Yes, there is that risk, especially for the actors who like to livetweet the show, but if that was the case, many of us would be left scratching our heads over what alternate universe something like this would happen.

Photo via Game of Thrones/YouTube

George R.R. Martin doesn't care about your feelings

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Warning: This article contains spoilers for A Song of Ice and Fire and the latest episode of Game of Thrones.

Last night on Game of Thrones, bisexual badass Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper of Dorne, had Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides, on his back, hamstrung and speared in the gut in the trial-by-combat to determine Tyrion Lannister's guilt or innocence in the murder of Joffrey Baratheon. Oberyn Martell stood over Gregor Clegane and demanded a confession of guilt for the rape and murder of his sister Elia and her children years before. Oberyn gets his confession, but only as the Mountain punches out his teeth, thumbs in his eyes, and crushes his skull with his bare hands.

GIF via Reddit

Fans' reactions were swift and horrified. Facebook statuses and tweets poured in all night, each more disturbed than the last, while redditors turned to their dedicated subreddit to commiserate with one another. But is there a method to the madness?

Oberyn's death is so upsetting not only for its brutality but also because viewers (and readers) came to believe that Oberyn knew how to play the game. In the books, Oberyn is an even more well-developed character by the time he meets his end, and readers are given to understand that he can (and has) matched any Lannister for cunning and cruelty. Like Tyrion said, you don't get a nickname like "The Red Viper of Dorne" for nothing.

Like Robb Stark, Oberyn is out for justice. But unlike Robb Stark, Oberyn has no higher aspirations to rule, no apparent desire for power. This is a man the audience can root for—especially now that we think we've learned our lesson, after all. We think we get it; we think he gets it. Oberyn, like Arya Stark, simply wants to kill the people who have hurt him. We think, at last, we can recognize which characters have the ruthlessness to survive in this world and which do not. Or, at least I do (did?).

As awful as George R.R. Martin is to his characters, I'd like to believe that there is a pattern to all of this death and suffering. He's not just killing off your favorite characters for fun. If that were the case, readers and viewers would not stick with the series. There is a logic, horrible though it may be, to all of this violence; it is neither coincidence nor sadism that the characters toward whom we feel the most affection ultimately suffer the most.

GIF via Reddit

Oberyn visits Tyrion in his cell before the trial by combat and tells him the story of Elia Martell. He tells him that he has come to King's Landing to spill Lannister blood, starting with Gregor Clegane. "If you want justice, you've come to the wrong place," Tyrion tells Oberyn. Tyrion, of course, is right: Oberyn was dead the instant he had the chance to cut the Mountain's throat and chose not to, instead madly demanding a confession that on some level he must have known he would never receive. "Maybe I could take him, dancing around until he's so tired of hacking at me he drops his sword. Get him off his feet somehow," Bronn had said to Tyrion earlier, describing what it might take to defeat the Mountain. "But one misstep, and I'm dead." Oberyn's misstep is in seeking justice rather than simply vengeance.

"Given the opportunity, what do we do to those who've hurt the ones we love?" Littlefinger asks of Sansa Stark. In Westeros the answer is this: You can seek justice, and you may receive it, or you may end up getting your skull exploded while your paramour watches, justice being little more than a word used by the powerful to legitimize their actions. Or you can seek vengeance, as Arya Stark does: One way or another, you kill the people who have hurt you and the ones you love. Arya Stark has no interest in confessions, because Arya Stark knows firsthand that there is no justice in King's Landing or anywhere in Westeros. She just wants people to die; it doesn't really matter how.

GIF via Reddit

There is, however, a slight twist in all of this, and if you have not read the books through A Dance with Dragons, be warned that there are slight spoilers ahead (slight because they are only relevant to the fate of Ser Gregor Clegane). After the trial, the Mountain falls ill; the blade of Oberyn's spear was poisoned. The Mountain suffers, long and loudly, before dying. So it is that Oberyn does receive vengeance, posthumously, and casts his action (or inaction) during the duel in a different light. Tyene Sand, one of Oberyn's bastard daughters, confirms that a mere scratch from a blade laced with this particular poison would be deadly enough to kill.

Given this, we come to understand Oberyn's choice not to cut the Mountain's throat and be done with it in a different light. That is to say, Oberyn knows the Mountain is doomed—he knows that no matter what happens in the course of the duel, the Mountain will die. His mission is accomplished. He liberates himself to accuse Tywin Lannister of ordering the Mountain to do what he did, free to rage and to gesticulate wildly and ultimately to get himself killed. It's selfish, really: He lets himself be consumed with his righteous rage, martyring himself needlessly, leaving his daughters without a father and his paramour without a partner (to say nothing of Tyrion).

"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die," Cersei says. Oberyn Martell, we come to understand, was playing a different game, his own game. But it did not keep him from dying.

Image via Zippo514/deviantART | GIFs via Reddit


Watch the 1995 short that eventually became 'Family Guy'

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Before there was Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane created a short film that’s... very much like Family Guy.

While he’s currently on a press tour for A Million Ways to Die in the West, much of MacFarlane’s early work is being revisited. One such project is the short film he made in 1995 while he was still a student at the Rhode Island School of Design that turned out to be the inspiration for his first network show five years later.

The Life of Larry mainly features Larry Cummings and his cynical dog Steve, who would eventually become Peter and Brian Griffin. It has the same kind of gags and parodies you’ve come to love and hate from Family Guy, with appearances from MacFarlane, who was just 21 at the time, as a hoity-toity Hollywood producer-type.

Is it a treasure trove or a reminder of how good things used to be? You decide.

H/T Reddit | Photo by posterboynyc/Flickr (CC By 2.0) | Remix by fern

Get pumped for 'Star Wars' with Lupita Nyong'o and Gwendoline Christie

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It turns out rumors that there might be one more woman cast in Star Wars: Episode VII weren’t quite right—the truth is even better! Lucasfilm announced Monday that Academy Award winning actress Lupita Nyong’o and actress Gwendoline Christie will be making the trip to a galaxy far, far away.

It’s been suspected and hoped that Nyong’o, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in 12Years a Slave, would be added to a group of actors that sadly lacked diversity and disappointed fans when initially announced. Nyong’o shared her excitement on Twitter.

The addition of Gwendoline Christie as well comes as an extremely welcome surprise. Christie plays fan-favorite character Brienne of Tarth on Game of Thrones and also has a role in upcoming film The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2.

“I could not be more excited about Lupita and Gwendoline joining the cast of Episode VII,” Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said in a statement. “It’s thrilling to see this extraordinarily talented ensemble taking shape.”

With the addition of Nyong’o and Christie, we’ll now have three new women (including actress Daisy Ridley) in the cast. They join Carrie Fisher, returning for her iconic role as Princess Leia. Why Nyong’o and Christie weren’t announced with the initial cast remains unclear. Possibly they’ll have smaller roles than Ridley, but considering the size of their talent, one can hope they’ll still be major players in the film. 

While this doesn’t exactly make up for Disney and Star Warsmisstepsrecently when it comes diversity in such a classic franchise, it hopefully signals a step in the right direction.

Photo via StarWars.com

Justin Bieber apologizes after footage of racist joke emerges online

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Amid conflicting reports about when exactly damning footage of Justin Bieber making a racist joke first surfaced, the pop star has apologized profusely for the prank, saying he was just "a kid" when it happened.

A day after British newspaper the Sun posted a video of Bieber telling the joke, Bieber has declared in an extensive apology posted to Twitter that he "made a reckless and immature mistake." 

But it may not have been all that immature. If TMZ's timeline is accurate, they received the footage four years ago, and claimed it was taken when Bieber was 15. Bieber himself claims the footage was taken five years ago, which backs up TMZ's claim. But a report from the Sun, echoed by People, claims that Bieber actually made the joke just three years ago, when he was 17 and the cameras were rolling for the documentary movie Never Say Never

In the video, Bieber looks directly at the camera, then sets up an obviously racist joke. Over his friends' objections ("Don't say it, don't say it") he then goes on to spill the punchline: "Why are black people afraid of chainsaws?" "Run n––, n––, n––, n––, n––."

"That's just straight ignorant," one of his friends replies.

TMZ claimed it waited until now to leak the video both because Bieber was underage at the time and because he had immediately apologized to his friends for the joke. On Twitter, Bieber's apology seemed heartfelt:

As a kid, I didn’t understand the power of certain words and how they can hurt. I thought it was ok to repeat hurtful words and jokes, but didn’t realize at the time that it wasn’t funny and that in fact my actions were continuing the ignorance. Thanks to friends and family I learned from my mistakes and grew up and apologized for those wrongs. Now that these mistakes from the past have become public I need to apologize again to all those I have offended. I’m very sorry. I take my friendships with people of all cultures very seriously and I apologize for offending or hurting anyone with my childish and inexcusable mistake. I was a kid then and I am a man now who knows my responsibility to the world and not to make that mistake again. Ignorance has no place in our society and I hope the sharing of my faults can prevent others from making the same mistake in the future. I thought long and hard about what i wanted to say but telling the truth it always what’s right. Five years ago I made a reckless and immature mistake and I’m grateful to those close to me who helped me learn those lessons as a young man. Once again…. I’m sorry.

But it's hard to reconcile his claims of being too young and ignorant to know better with the contrasting reports of his age. 15 is already old enough to understand how powerful a slur Bieber was wielding: at 17, it seems largely inexcusable. Compounded with the Bieb's well-known relationships with veteran black performers including former mentor Usher, whose influence Bieber recently dismissed, it's hard to know how making a racist joke on camera could have seemed like a good idea to him at any time post-stardom. 

It's also hard to take Bieber's assertion that he learned from his mistakes at face value given how many petty crimes the no-longer-teen heartthrob has been racking up lately.

Still, Bieber's fans rushed to forgive him:

The Sun claimed that Bieber originally tried to buy the footage in order to suppress it from being released. Here's a thought, Bieb: next time, just save yourself all these years of trouble and don't be racist to begin with.

Photo via Instagram

The first manned mission to Mars will have its own reality TV series

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In yet more news of science fiction meeting real life, there’s going to be a reality TV show about a manned journey to Mars.

If you think that sounds like a weird decision for NASA (or any other country’s space exploration program) to make, then you’d be right. The Mars One project is run by a private company, led by Dutch billionaire entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp.

The search for potential Mars astronauts began last year, with the caveat that it will be a one-way journey. From a pool of over 200,000 candidates, 705 have been chosen to go through a rigorous training and selection process so Mars One can pick the right team for the task.

Deadline revealed on Monday that this process will be made into a reality TV show, created by DSP, a production company that has previously made documentaries for National Geographic,  the Discovery Channel, and the BBC. The series will start in 2015, as the 705 candidates are whittled down to the four who will actually end up going to Mars.

Explaining his desire to connect Mars One with a reality show, Bas Lansdorp said:

“Our team felt all along that we needed a partner whose strength lies in factual storytelling to an international audience.  DSP will provide that to Mars One, while allowing our selection committee to maintain control of the applicant selection process.”

In other words, it’s going to be less Jersey Shore and more Cosmos.

Mars One’s first unmanned mission is scheduled to set off in 2018, with the first team of astronauts following in 2025. That means that whoever gets through next year’s televised selection process will have to wait the best part of a decade before they’re actually on their way to another planet.

Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Wikimedia Commons

What to expect from Oliver Stone's film on Edward Snowden

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The older Oliver Stone gets, the closer his political films follow on the heels of the true events that inspired them. Now he’s set to tackle a thrilling story of geopolitical intrigue and government secrecy that, by all indications, is far from over: Edward Snowden’s. 

His source material on the National Security Agency whistleblower is Luke Harding’s The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man, an account praised for its “acute” insights and “often-cinematic” drama by critics in the New York Times and Washington Post

Anyone familiar with Stone’s biopics, however, knows he like to take some artistic license with his facts—or at least wildly speculate about what Donald Rumsfeld might call the “known unknowns.” So what wacky choices can we expect from the hit-or-miss auteur?  

Well, for starters, we’re sure he’s in Snowden’s corner, not Obama’s. Duh:

Next, as usual, is the question of casting:

But can he make the complicated spy saga entertaining?

At the end of the day, most observers are more concerned about how Stone might twist the tale to his own ends—and misinform the public in the process.

Stone’s film, moreover, may face competition from Sony Pictures, which just last month snapped up the rights to Glenn Greenwald’s book on the same subject, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State. Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, producers of the James Bond franchise, will helm that project.

One things for sure, though—both movies ought to be better than The Fifth Estate.

Photo by Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

DJ Flula Borg lands a role in 'Pitch Perfect 2'

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BY SAM GUTELLE

YouTube’s favorite German producer is coming to the big screen. DJ Flula Borg, who is known for his improvisational music, his goofy on-screen personality, and his frequent guest appearances on other channels, has landed a role in Pitch Perfect 2, the sequel to critically-and-commercially-acclaimed 2012 movie musical Pitch Perfect.

Borg’s exact role is unknown, though Deadline’s Jen Yamato–who first reported the news–speculates that he will be a member of a rival a capella team that will take on the film’s protagonists. As Yamato notes, that role would have star-making potential for Borg; Workaholics star Adam DeVine had a breakout role as the first film’s antagonist.

Borg is the latest YouTube star to make the jump to Hollywood. On June 13, Jimmy Tatro will make his film debut when 22 Jump Street arrives in theaters. Later this year, Harley Morenstein will feature in Kevin Smith’s Tusk, and Ray William Johnson recently landed a leading role in an upcoming indie film. Of course, none of those people can claim to be the Dirk Nowitzki of rap, the Boris Becker of beat, the Magellan of maps, and the bratwurst of meat:

The first Pitch Perfect film made a big impact on YouTube. In particular, Anna Kendrick’s performance of the song “Cups” has become one of the most popular music videos on the site, scoring more than 134 million views and inspiring many covers. If Borg’s role gives him enough screen time, he’ll be able to populate Pitch Perfect 2 with some musical gems of its own.

On competition reality shows, everyone loses—to YouTube

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To this day, nearly a decade later, my mother holds a grudge against me and the fourth season of American Idol. It was the penultimate episode of the season, the last performance show before the winner would be crowned the following night. I voted—by dialing the phone number stripped across the screen and repeated by the eternally boyish, unwaveringly chipper Ryan Seacrest at least three times—for Carrie Underwood, the blonde with the warm voice obviously destined for a country music career but charading as a pop singer just fine. She sang a killer Heart cover one week while sick. 

My mother had been clear since the beginning of the season: She wanted Bo Bice, he of the throaty rocker growl and the well-groomed locks of a romance novel cover, to win. My entire family (my parents, my three brothers, and I) gathered in the living room the next night for the finale. When Seacrest announced at the end of the star-studded finale show (which included Rascal Flatts, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Babyface, Kenny G, and curiously, David Hasselhoff) that Underwood was the winner, our new American Idol, my mother turned to me and said, unequivocally, “This is your fault.”  

•••

What made American Idol the massive success that it was (and still feebly is, on paper), what made people like my family and especially my mother care so much, was that the stakes felt real. In a pre-YouTube, pre-Tumblr, still-nascent Internet fandom era, the idea that you could be plucked from obscurity and made legitimately famous by a reality show (in America, where the people chose you) made those shows feel genuine in their oversized spectacle. But singing shows' and other competition reality shows’ influence, their ability to turn a relative nobody into absolutely somebody, has wavered in the age of the Internet. 

And yet, these competitions continue, with new judges, new prizes, new contestants, with zombified persistence. ABC, which never found a singing show that managed to click but did find success with Dancing With the Stars, is trying again: The network announced that Ke$ha and Ludacris would be “experts” on their summer singing show Rising Star.  

Part of what keeps these shows alive is that they still garner respectable ratings (even in Idol’s seriously diminished numbers, it’s still a top 40 Nielsen program), they’re cheaper to produce than scripted shows, and they have the potential for multiple revenue streams in iTunes sales and tours and merchandising. But the way in which these shows have lost their relevance and importance to the Internet is emblematic of how the Web has harvested one of TV’s greatest powers: to make you famous. 

•••

There are innumerable accounts of people finding real-life fame by breaking out of their little portals on the Web: on their blogs, on Tumblr, on Instagram, on Twitter, on YouTube, on Reddit; there is seemingly no space on the Internet, no site too small or too hidden, that does not hold some latent potential to turn its users into someone whom thousands of people follow, whom millions of people are aware of. An even younger Justin Bieber put videos of himself singing and performing on YouTube—you know who he is now. YouTube’s latest aggressive ad campaign for its high-profile creators is built upon the central conceit that a network of strangers clicking and viewing their videos have made them Web famous and modestly profitable. But also that you, too, can forge your own semblance of microfame. Just talk into your webcam and be yourself. 

Or the version of yourself you find most appealing. An insidious part of Web-enabled fame’s appeal has always been the almost granular-level narrative control it allows and the faux veneer of scabrous transparency that creates. The ways in which you can control your image online are beginning to rival what would normally take a team of professionals—hair, makeup, PR, business, law—to build out for you. True, traditional pathways to fame like TV are still huge, but the Internet is proving just as loud. The potentially infinite points of entry and levels of fame promised by the Web and the ways in which mainstream media have embraced covering them (hello, Daily Dot readers!) offer a tempting corrective to the old models of becoming suddenly and explosively famous. For the aspiring singer, what American Idol could maybe, possibly do for them, the Internet could do just as well, offering more control, more interaction, and virtually zero barriers to entry. 

•••

The Web strips away much of the red tape and bureaucracy incumbent with network television, but it is also ensnared by an unbreakable feedback loop; all behavior is quantified, collated, commented on, and retweeted. When it comes to fame-seeking, television offers insulation and clearly delineated modes of conduct: You sing, they judge, America votes, you win. But the Web is at once tightly controlled and so large as to be unwieldy; it’s truly a matter of a single click between fame and infamy.

What’s most interesting about a large swath of the Internet’s celebrities, especially on YouTube, is how uninteresting so many of them are. What are teens watching on their phones all day? People just… living their everyday lives and telling people about them. And what stands out in New York Magazine’s recent cover story package about people made famous by the Internet is that, for almost all of them, it happened by accident. The right person shared their video or saw their tweet or happened to look at their Instagram photo. They all just decided to make the proverbial lemonade out of all the attention they were suddenly receiving. 

•••

As recently as five years ago, American Idol was biggest show on television, steamrolling the competition and making Fox the No. 1 network in the U.S. Carrie Underwood’s coronation was watched by more than 30 million people in 2005. Last month, the show posted its lowest ratings ever with the final performance show of its 13th season with just 6.6 million viewers. That’s fewer than reruns of some CBS sitcoms.

In the lead-up to the broadcast networks’ presentation of their new shows and schedules to advertisers, called the upfronts, speculation abounded that Fox would cut Idol down to one night a week; some even thought Fox would make its 2015 cycle the show’s last. The former proved more likely, and come upfronts, true: Fox president Kevin Reilly announced that the network would be trimming the number of hours Idol would air from more than 50 a season to 37, still a significant portion of Fox’s programming hours, but an acknowledgement nonetheless of the show’s (and genre’s) waning powers. Last year, the network cancelled its other singing competition, an American version of British hit The X Factor, with original Idol judge Simon Cowell, after three lackluster seasons. 

Other networks have also tried, and continue to try, to replicate and surpass the gangbusters success of American Idol, mostly in vain. NBC’s The Voice, with its swinging chairs of even more famous judges and mentors, is the only one that’s come anywhere even close to matching Idol’s place in the ratings, its ubiquity in the zeitgeist. (For comparison’s sake, its season finale notched 11.6 million viewers last month.) But The Voice has yet to produce a winner or contestant to break out in the same way Kelly Clarkson became a legitimate, chart-topping pop star. Ditto for any of The Voice’s also-rans or favorites eliminated too soon, like Idol’s Chris Daughtry and Clay Aiken, who despite not winning their seasons, have enjoyed their own visible success. This is to say nothing of Jennifer Hudson, whose post-Idol ascendance speaks profoundly to the show’s almost magical sense of irony—two weeks before she was eliminated, placing seventh in the show’s third season, she sang “The Circle of Life” from the Lion King soundtrack. Three years later, she won an Oscar for her first ever acting job, in Dreamgirls. And when Kelly Clarkson won, the lyrics to her thrust-upon winner’s song were on-point: “Some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this.” 

•••

Idol’s importance and influence should not be understated, even if you hated it or never watched it. It is the antecedent and forebear to the modern reality competition series, shaping the archetypes of the genre for good. Survivor, whose American incarnation debuted on CBS in 2000, may have cemented the concept of being “voted off,” but Idol synthesized the showmanship of game shows, the voyeurism of the Real World, and Survivor’s elimination process into a crudely alluring pop package. Most importantly, it professed to be about craft and about talent, allowing Idol to usher in other competition series like America’s Next Top Model, Project Runway, and Top Chef. 

Idol is the kind of genre-breaking show that not only taught you how to watch other shows but also what you expected of them. This is perhaps best exemplified by the exploitative carnival ride that is audition rounds, where viewers are asked to work in psychic overtime: to mock the tone-deaf saps singing for all of America to see and then to sympathize with those same saps for having been goaded and cheered on by the show’s producers, who prey on their enthusiasm and invite them through reality TV’s backdoor so that they may be publicly humiliated. That audition rounds also veered into crass depictions of institutionalized American racism and homophobia speaks to how the format, even in its ugliness, was a four-quadrant hit (e.g. William Hung singing Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” for our collective sneering, pity, and encouragement).

We framed our viewing of the especially critical or harsh judges of other shows as “the Simons” of their shows. Indeed, the glamorization of the reality show judge has almost became a genre and industry all in its own. Part of it, at least at first, felt legitimate: Who better to help decide who America’s next singing sensation than actual singing sensations themselves? In practice, this proved mostly impractical: Paula Abdul may have enjoyed her share of ’80s pop hits, but that didn’t make her a helpful judge, especially given how resistant she was to being critical. Same goes for Randy Jackson, who, despite helming hits for Mariah Carey (herself briefly a judge on the show), was never really able to articulate any kind of meaningful evaluation—most everything was “a’ight.” For his part, Cowell, a record label guru, was a blunt-force object; he actually offered critiques, often so overwrought as to bludgeon you. 

The Voice has turned into its own little cottage industry for celebrity judges, upping Idol’s ante by courting artists currently on the charts or ones that are just more famous than Idol’s: Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, CeeLo Green, Christina Aguilera. NBC just announced that Gwen Stefani and Pharrell would be joining, subbing in for Aguilera during her pregnancy and replacing Green. The contract and payday negotiations for singers looking to moonlight as judges for a singing competition show have made larger and louder headlines than any of contestants from their respective shows—Jennifer Lopez reportedly commands around $15 million a season for Idol

•••

Neither my mother nor I have watched a season of American Idol or Project Runway or Top Chef in ages. Instead, when I’m home visiting during holidays and vacations, it’s The Real Housewives franchise or the adventures of various, gruff men behaving either as boorish caricatures of Southerners or as exactly you wish them to. Where Web celebrities’ star power is entwined with their quotidian qualities, reality TV’s fourth wave of stars are beholden to our feelings of superiority and judgment of them. 

Call it the Kim Kardashian effect. The new Mrs. Kanye West is certainly pop culture’s savviest wielder of ephemeral Internet fame (may we all continue to look on in awestruck wonder at the woman who turned having appeared in a sex tape with Brandy’s brother into media empire all her own). But she also represents the bridge between Idol-esque fame to the Internet-rooted kind: The original idea for Keeping Up with the Kardashians came from Ryan Seacrest.

Photo via Belisa Giorgis/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) | Remix by Jason Reed


These bowling trick shots look extremely dangerous

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BY KEITH ESTILER

Dude Perfect is a YouTube channel made for lovers of comedy, sports and especially trick shots. In their latest video they teamed up with number one ranked professional bowler Jason Belmonte for some truly nutty bowling trick shot action.

Knocking down pins but not this dude's head

Strike it up with the gang!

This bowler's got a ton of trick shots. Do you have more time to spare?

Photo via riekhavoc/Flickr (CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0)

'Godzilla' proves that when it comes to Hollywood, size matters

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BY CHRIS OSTERNDORF

With its worldwide box office approaching $400 million, it’s fair to say the newGodzillais huge. But the money isn’t the only thing that’s big about the giant lizard.  

Lisa Wade, a professor at Occidental College with a Ph.D. in sociology, recently wrote a piece for the website Sociological Images commenting on a graph that’s been circulating online regarding the size of the new Godzilla. Wade explores several theories of why this might be the case, ranging from the enlargement of actual skyscrapers to compensation in order to keep up with our increasing inundation of commercial media.

But the super-sizing of Godzilla isn’t only related to a general culture of excess. More specifically, it’s tied to the super-sizing of all things Hollywood.

Even without this newest growth spurt, Godzilla has always been big. In addition to the formidable size of its titular character, the original film was also big on ambition. A metaphor for a post-nuclear world, the original Godzilla became part of a long line of monster films designed to do more than just scare. Ian Buckwalter of NPR has praised director Gareth Edwards for understanding the film’s heavy themes, writing that he “demonstrates a clear understanding of what made 1954's Godzilla such an enduring story.”

The difference, however, between the Godzilla of 60 years ago and the Godzilla of today is that the original seeks to explore the relationship between man and the world around him, while the remake frames man as a peripheral factor. Now, Godzilla’s immenseness doesn’t just overwhelm the screen, it overwhelms the narrative, too. Humans are puny compared to him—in every possible sense. The Dissolve’s David Erlich finds Edwards’ decision to let Godzilla grow not only in size, but in importance. “The film’s evocative closing shot serves as a resonant reminder that just because we’re the planet’s predominant storytellers doesn’t mean that the story is necessarily about us," Erlich admonishes.

Godzilla’s messy combination of giant showboating, political undertones, and attempted character nuances are especially resonant of one filmmaker: Christopher Nolan. As a reflection of George W. Bush’s America, Nolan’s Batman Begins was the first in a series of blockbusters from its era to use a trope that’s been recycled again and again in the last decade: the rise of massive urban destruction.

In an op-ed for the Hollywood Reporter, screenwriter Zack Stenz (who has himself written several big superhero movies), commented on the irony of this trend. Stenz observes, “Certainly the earnest predictions that post 9/11, audiences would reject lighthearted scenes of urban destruction that felt too much like real life are looking more absurd with each film that features falling skyscrapers, crushed urban infrastructure, and dazed, ash-covered survivors and strikes it rich at the box office.”

Michael Phillips, of the Chicago Tribune, has a slightly different take on all this amplified destruction. On an episode of the popular movie podcast Filmspotting, Phillips wondered, while reviewing 2013’s Man of Steel, whether the on-screen destruction of all these cities hasn’t happened in spite of 9/11, but because of it.

The level of destruction… is kind of grotesque. In other words, people get thrown through not just one building but 17 buildings, so that Metropolis, by the end, and again this is conscious, by design, looks a lot like New York 9/11… those visual echoes of real pain and destruction are deliberate and they’re extremely heavy-handed, and I think they just sit on the damn movie… and really throughout a lot of Zack Snyder’s Superman film, I just felt… too much… The Michael BayTransformers films are full of images like that.

Godzilla has always been a story about destroying a city, but the need to make him bigger, and in turn, to make that destruction bigger, says more about the current climate of Hollywood blockbusters than it does about staying true to an original version. Phillips might be able to argue the merits of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, but his statements about a larger problem with cinematic destruction are extremely troubling—the implication being that what started out as a way to acknowledge where the country was after 9/11 turned into a way to exploit that.

What’s worse is that over time, people forgot that exploitation was even happening. When you add up the destruction of the Dark Knight trilogy, the initial Transformers films, Marvel’sThe Avengers, Man of Steel, and numerous other tentpole movies, it’s hard to even distinguish what’s being destroyed anymore. It appears it no longer matters how the destruction occurs, just that it's bigger and badder than the previous time.

And the technique isn’t solely applied to blowing up cities. Just look at the first photo from Zack Snyder’s upcoming Batman vs. Superman movie; the caped crusader is almost alarmingly muscular. He’s no longer a superhero; he’s a bicep in a suit. Then there’s the advent of 3D and IMAX screens; inflated budgets, ticket prices, and runtimes; and additional food items at the concession stand. More and more, going to a Hollywood movie is starting to feel more like a trip to the Cheesecake Factory. You have lots of options, all of them very large, and all of them very bland.

In this sense, Godzilla is the perfect movie star for today’s audience. He (or she) is not uninteresting, yet because he’s not a person, he also doesn’t have to be anything more than a metaphor. But where that metaphor once revolved around nuclear warfare, now the metaphor is for cinema itself. As digital effects eclipse real people and spectacle eclipses story, Godzilla’s hugeness represents an effort on Hollywood’s part to substitute bigger for better. It isn’t as if the two are exclusive, but there’s a fine line between the likes of The Empire Strikes Back and The Phantom Menace.   

Like King Kong before him, Godzilla is an indelible cinematic figure. He keeps coming back again and again, and with each resurrection, his appearance says a little something about the time period he was brought into. When Peter Jackson released his version of King Kong in 2005, it turned out to be indicative of the future of his career—and of blockbuster movies on the whole. His Kong was an inflated bit of chaos, which sacrificed human feeling for digital excess. The motto was more, more, more.

Flash-forward to 2014 and the release of Gareth Edwards’Godzilla: That model has not only advanced; it’s become the standard. Godzilla’s new size might seem alarming, but even monsters have to go on steroids to compete in today’s multiplexes. 

Chris Osterndorf is a graduate of DePaul University's Digital Cinema program. He is a contributor at HeaveMedia.com, where he regularly writes about TV and pop culture.

Photo via galactic.supermarket/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Jimmy Fallon and Ricky Gervais are terrible at this word game

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There’s really no way to throw “gerbils” or “spandex” casually into a conversation, but dammit if Ricky Gervais and Jimmy Fallon won’t try their hardest anyway.

The two played a game of “Word Sneak” on The Tonight Show, in which they each had to insert five random words into the conversation so that they wouldn’t be able to tell what words the other had. Naturally, the words could hardly be thrown into discussions in which they were relevant.

It’s a conversation that goes nowhere, and the duo fail spectacularly at hiding their words from each other—something that tends to happen when Fallon tries to hide something—but it’s worth it alone for that discussion on Richard Gere, gerbils, and Keanu Reeves.

Photo via The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon/YouTube

Megan Mullally rapped a very explicit love letter to Nick Offerman

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Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman are the couple we all aspire to be: They complement and support each other, make each other laugh, and have no problem expressing their love via explicit rap songs. 

Last night on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Mullally performed a bleep-filled rap, which may or may not be included in their new theatrical production, Summer of 69 (no apostrophe). 

Please, the world needs a Mullally/Offerman rap album, perhaps accented with the smooth sax of Duke Silver?

Here's part one of the interview: 

Screengrab via Late Night with Seth Meyers/YouTube

A bar full of ‘Game of Thrones’ fans react to the show’s latest twist

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Warning: Spoilers ahead!

In case you hadn’t realized yet, George R.R. Martin and the Game of Thrones showrunners do not care about your feelings.

The award-winning HBO fantasy series is notorious for its twists, in which anything can happen and no-one is safe. However, the books the series is based on are currently ahead of events in the show (though perhaps not for long!), meaning book readers still know more-or-less what is to come.

For more mischievous Game of Thrones fans, this presents the perfect opportunity to capture some killer reaction videos. The Internet exploded with them after Season 3’s infamous “Red Wedding” scene; now, a Chicago bar has decided to take it to a whole new level.

Every Sunday, The Burlington Bar invites fans to come and watch the latest episode live, whilst they record their reactions and subsequently post them online. And last week’s episode—”The Mountain and the Viper”—produced some pretty fantastic reactions, as Oberyn Martell duelled Gregor Clegane to decide Tyrion’s fate.

Watch it all below, and jump to the 2:35 mark for the exact moment the watchers’ jubilation turns to horror, when they realize this isn’t going to be a happy ending for Oberyn.

Game of Thrones, never change.

Screengrab via Game of Thrones/HBO

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