culture - page 3

An Apple Car? Yep, you know it! Cupertino is all abuzz with latest evidence that the fruit-flavored computing company is taking a run at the highway with a possible new iCar, and we’ve got Lewis with the features we’d like to see there. Plus, Luke spends some time with the exhaustive New York Times post on Jony Ive, design genius, Alex dives deep into your new favorite iPhone game (Alto’s Adventure), David chats about one auteur’s thoughts on the film completely shot on an iPhone 5s, and Luke gets the inside scoop on one 25-year-old who’s made 600 iOS apps without even knowing how to code.

All this, plus a ton more (see below) in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, ready for download at your pleasure.

“Sometimes the more you look,” says Tony Shaloub as Freddy Riedenschneider in The Man Who Wasn’t There, “the less you really know.”

Which, of course, sounds like the main theme of almost any Coen brothers film you might have seen; the duo tends to pack even their more mainstream film work with quirky, interesting characters who muse on the meaning of life while behaving, well, oddly.

Steven Baxter, an author, broadcaster and filmmaker, has edited all the films from the Coens’ oeuvre into one stunning visual essay that focuses on themes present in many of the Coen films.

“…this essay has the characters talk to one another across the films so we can more clearly hear the Coens’ dominant concerns: identity, miscommunication and morality,” writes Baxter in the video description. “Taken as a trinity, these elements indicate that the Coens’ true subject is the search for value in a random and amoral universe.”

The Brits surely know how to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day, with a lovely meal full of pleasure food, like pancakes. Tuesday, February 17 is this year’s celebration, and we’ve got a tasty video below to celebrate.

The Star Wars UK YouTube channel wishes all of us a happy Pancake Day with this delicious video full of edible Star Wars characters, like Yoda, Boba Fett, a Stormtrooper and Darth Vader. Apparently, these chefs have a soft spot for the Dark Side.

Hit the jump below to see how strong the Force is with these foodie artists as they create delicious snacks for your Pancake Day celebrations.

When Prince presented the Grammy for best album this week, he made an impassioned case for a musical format that many seem ready to write off as dead.

“Albums, remember those?” he said. “Albums still matter. Albums, like books and black lives, still matter.”

That’s how you present an award, folks.

Albums are collections of musical pieces that work together to create an auditory gestalt larger than the individual songs themselves. With the massive growth in streaming audio these days, many people might be missing out on this incredible old-school experience.

Here’s the cure: a list of amazing albums you should listen to in their entirety, even if you don’t do vinyl. iTunes might have helped kill CDs, but it’s still a great place to buy albums rather than shortchanging yourself with a bunch of singles. There are dozens of other albums you should explore, depending on your musical tastes, but this list should remind us all how awesome albums are as a concept. You can thank us later.

Silicon Valley, HBO’s half-hour comedy series about a bunch of nerds trying to change the world with code, is headed back to your television screen in April. HBO posted a trailer for the hotly anticipated Season 2 premiere on its Facebook page Friday to let everyone know.

Check it out below for a ton of slow-motion shots of all your favorite characters with the whole geeky gang back for another run.

It’s time for another weekly dose of all the great stuff from our intrepid news hounds and reporters within the digital confines of Cult of Mac Magazine.

Buster has the lowdown on eight of the hot new features in Apple’s upcoming Photos for Mac, and he also takes a good long look at the mysterious vans owned by Apple that have been spotted around the San Francisco area. If you need to protect your precious new iPhone, Stephen drops a video spotlight on five cases you’ll want to consider for your fancy Apple smartphone. Rob digs deep into a new digital comic — companion to the Midnight Star video game — and how the award-winning team brings the game world to life. Jim drops in on a hip retro gaming shop in Portland, too, coming back with some stunning pictures of this old boys (and girls!) club.

All that and more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine – check out our top stories below, and then click on through to get your own copy for free.

You’ve surely seen the ultra-expensive Super Bowl commercials by now (and if you haven’t check out our round up), but I doubt you took time to recreate your favorites as stop-motion Lego animations.

That’s precisely what A+C Studios did, however, over the last 36 hours since the commercials aired.

Check it out below for some great Lego animation.

You’ve seen it before, of course: the parting of the clouds, the nuclear-reactor-powered city of Springfield, Bart’s varying chalkboard standards, Lisa’s inability to stay in key (so jazzy!) in orchestra, skateboarding past tons of regular characters through the streets, and the final landing on the living room couch.

But you’ve never seen the iconic television show intro like this before, decked out in deliciously retro pixel art, directed and animated by Paul Robertson and Ivan Dixon, with music by Jeremy Dower.

It used to be that you had to wait until Sunday to see the hot, out-of-this-world-expensive Super Bowl ads during the big game.

In our modern, always-connected age of sneak-peek overindulgence, you can actually skip the game itself and watch the ads on your own time, via YouTube and your sweet iPad or iPhone.

Here are 13 of the most hotly anticipated short films that you can preview right now, and spend your commercial time during the game making snacks and taking bathroom breaks.

This week, Luke details all the ways those original iPad haters were utterly wrong on the fifth anniversary of Apple’s category-busting tablet, Luke has a sneak peek at the stunning mural for a new Apple retail store in Chongqing, China, Evan takes us into the bizarre world of the latest Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell game, Buster slams through the seven biggest reveals in Apple’s record-smashing quarterly earning’s call, and Rob writes up five super easy tips to master iPhone, with a huge assist from video auteur, Stephen Smith.

Be sure to catch all of these stories and many more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, available for free right now.

The Grand Theft Auto series is known for its violence; you’re usually cast as a thug or criminal of some sort, and set loose on a rampage across an open world landscape, able to steal cars, beat up civilians, and even gun down the cops.

Watch as these older folks do just that in Grand Theft Auto V, reacting to the crazy violence with fear, loathing, and a little bit of evil joy.

Fresh off his deep dive into CES, Alex takes on home automation and how HomeKit may just change everything, making the dream of an easy, ubiquitous home future a reality. Rob takes a look at a new game that turns your Apple TV into a motion-controlled gaming console, Buster shows us how the Apple Watch has already won the war for your wrist, Luke builds his own fun with a shoebox full of maker-kit for kid-friendly iPad gadgets, and Lewis spends a little time in Microsoft’s holographic future.

We’ve got all this and more in this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, so make sure to subscribe and download your copy today.

It’s true — Hollywood has fully exported its heroes to the newest media kid on the block, video games. It wasn’t enough for Martin Sheen to play the chain smoking Illusive Man in 2008’s Mass Effect 2 , or Kevin Spacey to turn in a star performance in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

Now John Malkovich, Bill Paxton, Rose McGowan and Jon Bernthal lend their voices and likenesses to the sci-fi-tinged military shooter for the new Exo Zombie mode that comes with the new downloadable content pack “Havok,” available January 27.

Here, they’ve even made a video to show you.

Candide Thovex is having another one of those days in an aptly named new YouTube video, “One of those days 2.”

The professional skier from France has released yet another amazing point of view of his extreme skiing, and in this one, he skis through the actual mountain.

Dillon Markey animates one of the hottest Adult Swim programs on television, Robot Chicken. Better yet, he uses an old Nintendo Power Glove to do it.

The Emmy-winning show consists of short sequences of stop-motion animation using action figures of pop culture characters, like Bill Gates or Shigeru Miyamoto, the famed Nintendo game designer. Funny enough, Markey used his modified Power Glove the first time on that specific scene in Robot Chicken.

Check it out in the video below.

There are tons of new games out every week, and it’s hard to decide which ones to purchase, let alone which free games to download. We’re here to take some of the guesswork out of your decision, though, as we’ve scoured the best games that have come out so far this year.

From time wasters to deep strategic gems, this list will have you gaming in no time. Grab your copy of these five great –and brand-spankin’ new — gaming experiences today and you can thank us later.

There was a time when LEGO brick sets were anything but prescriptive. You’d be lucky to get a wheel or axle part, or maybe even a door or window piece in your giant set of loose bricks.

These days, of course, LEGO typically means putting together a complicated model that just doesn’t need glue (though you can certainly use it to make things permanent).

Imgur user “fickle” put up this photoset showing what a couple of enterprising young women did with their toy juice bar, from the LEGO Friends set.

“It was supposed to be a juice bar,” they wrote on the photo sharing service, (but) “a set of ED-209-inspired power armor is far better!

The Cult of Mac team spent the past week sweating it out in Las Vegas and gathered up a ton of hands-on looks at some of the hottest products heading down the tech conveyor belt to you in the near future.

We’ve got the two guys who’s gadget can help you bake the perfect cookie, a self-adjusting belt for when you’ve eaten too many cookies, and a sexy sci-fi car that will help you feel better about not having your futuristic flying vehicles, yet.

Be sure to click on through and see this week’s top stories, and subscribe to our free weekly digital magazine right here.

When we first saw the new Jurassic World trailers, we were stunned and excited. Then, after it sunk in that the actor that plays doofus Andy Dwyer on NBC’s hilarious Parks and Recreation would be fighting dinosaurs, we sort of imagined a mashup of the two.

Apparently, Thanks Mom Productions had a similar thought, as they’ve taken footage of Chris Pratt from both the movie trailers and the TV show and edited them together for a funny video that’s all kinds of awesome.

Check it out.

Imagine walking five street blocks in a city like, say, New York. Then think about climbing that distance straight up.

That’s what Kevin Schmidt does for a living: changing the airplane warning lights at the top of super tall TV towers.

This drone from PrairieAerial caught the guy in action as he climed the now-defunct analog KDLT antenna in Salem, SD. Watch the whole thing as he grabs a vertigo-inducing selfie at the top.

Nearly 900 insanely complex shots full of live-action and computer-generated imagery were created for Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier by the geniuses at Industrial Light and Magic, the effects house created by George Lucas back in the original Star Wars days.

The movie is an action-fest full of fighting, exploding, and comic-book reality all rolled into an engaging tale of patriotism, loyalty, and the possible corruption of big government. To create the magical movie illusions that help you suspend your disbelief in superheroes, the crew of more than 300 at ILM did a ton of painstaking work.

Here’s a short reel representing only a small sample of the full work done by the effects house – it’s amazing how complicated and layered everything is in a movie like this. Check it out.

If your idea of high comedy is waggling your hind parts at people with a smarmy smirk, Jib Jab’s new funny video is right up your, well, alley.

“2014, You Are History” is a celebrity character-filled musical video in which the biggest names of the year sing a parody song set to the melody of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

Watch the video below and remind yourself of this silly year, including ice bucket challenges, hacked celebrity nudes and Kim Kardashian’s shiny hindquarters.

It’s easy to list off classic songs of the season, isn’t it? Even now, the hit holiday tunes we all know by heart rush up the music charts every year, gracing radio and streaming options for the happiest season of them all.

Of course Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)” — written in 1944 by Mel Torme — is currently No. 5 on the Billboard charts, while “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee (1958) tops even that chestnut at No. 3 of the top hot holiday songs as well.

But what about all those other holiday songs that never had a chance to be on a chart anywhere, except perhaps the chord charts these bands use to play live gigs? How will the odd songs, the weird ones — the tunes that just “think different” — ever get heard?

That’s why we’re here, with a bunch of weird tunes you just have to hear. Happy holidays!

There’s nothing better than a snowball fight, unless its a snowball fight you can watch from the comfort of your couch and Macbook Pro.

Even better is a snowball (or two!) in the face of a bunch of adorable hipsters from Exit 10, a design studio in Baltimore that put together this ultra-slow-mo snowball massacre for you to enjoy.