culture - page 6

At a Time Warner investor meeting on Wednesday, Warner Bros. Chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara laid out his company’s plans to plaster movie houses with big DC-themed movies over the next six years, starting with Zach Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, set to release in 2016.

Disney-owned Marvel already dominates the box office with its comic-book team-ups like The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy as well as movies based on top characters like Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America.

It’s going to be a tough job for Warner Bros. to catch up to Marvel, which has already laid a ton of groundwork in it’s previously released films for the ongoing cinematic dynasty, but this new list promises to please fans new and old.

Is there anything cooler than images of our solar system? Especially ones of the actual Sol, or, our sun. No, there is not.

This fantastically seasonal Halloween image was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which does nothing but stare at the sun all day and night in complete disregard of what its mother told it not to do.

Regardless, this image is amazing.

“The active regions in this image appear brighter,” writes NASA on its website, “because those are areas that emit more light and energy. They are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona.”

This image blends the images taken with two different ultraviolet wavelengths highlighted, one at 171 and the other at 193 Ångströms, to create this one-of-a-kind jack-o’-lantern sun.

Whatever — this thing is just creepy cool and I want a giant poster of it.

Source: NASA

My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle. Ponyo, Kiki’s Delivery Service. Chances are you’re thinking of these lovely, peaceful, wonderful animated films right now.

And these are just a few of the fantastic and bewitching animated films that Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have made together over the past couple of decades. Now, however, Miyazaki has retired after making one final, autobiographical film, The Wind Rises. Studio Ghibli has put its film-making on hold, as well, citing restructuring.

Independent filmmaker Pablo Fernandez Eyre was a little sad when he heard the news.

“I decided to make a tribute to show my love for movies like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away,” he told Cult of Mac in an email. Check out his moving 8-bit piece below.

A young girl gets out of jail and is given back her paltry few belongings. A baseball cap, some gum, and a pin. The pin? Isn’t hers.

“What if there was a place, a secret place,” says the voiceover in this new teaser trailer for Disney’s Tomorrowland, “where nothing was impossible. A miraculous place, where you could actually change the world.”

As she touches the pin, the world around her changes. She freaks out.

Says the man in the voiceover, “You wanna go?”

If this would have happened to me when I was a young kid, enthralled with the idea of sci-fi-themed Tomorrowland as the best place to go when visiting Walt Disney’s happiest place on earth, I would have grabbed the pin in a heartbeat. Check out the trailer below.

Got three minutes? Then you can travel Turkey, north to south, through this shifting and cunningly edited short film, called Watchtower of Turkey, by Leonardo Dalessandri.

He traveled over 3500 kilometers in 20 days, filming the lush landscapes and varied peoples of this middle eastern land, across eight different regions and cities in the Republic of Turkey, a land that has been inhabited since the paleolithic age.

“I’ve crossed Cappadocia, Pamukkale, Ephesus, Istanbul, Konya; and tasted baklava, kunefe, doner, the turkish tea; and got the chance to meet the soul of Turkey, its people,” writes Dalessandri on the video page, “and got their smiles and their hospitality.”

You’ve got to see this short film below.

Careful now – Pixar’s upcoming film, Inside Out, takes place within the emotional centers of a pre-pubescent girl. There’s some crazy characters in there — including Joy, Sadness, Anger and Fear — and they’re all just so happy to meet you.

In this brand new, super-short trailer, we get a tiny peek at what’s in store from us from Pete Doctor, the director of both Monsters, Inc. and Up.

Check it out below.

Sure the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have an amazing camera with all sorts of improvements to make stunning use of in the pursuit of the perfect high-definition time-lapse or slow motion video.

But the video (below) is so stunning, so amazingly beautiful – there’s no way you’re going to be able to pull this off on your iPhone 6, no matter how amazing Apple’s latest gadget is.

It’s hard enough to sing and play guitar at the same time, let alone manage a floor full of guitar effects pedals. Add to that trying to create vocal effects like most listeners expect and you’ve got a solo musician’s worst nightmare.

The folks at TC-Helicon have come up with a couple of pretty nifty floor-style pedal boxes that have you covered though: You can dial in a fantastic guitar sound for either acoustic or electric guitar, fill a room with amazing vocal effects and backing harmonies, and even loop musical phrases to create a song with multiple parts on the fly. Dubbed Play Acoustic and Play Electric, these simple stomp boxes contain some serious technology in an easy-to-use platform.

Here’s how it plays out.

This new trailer has flying robots, stunningly massive spaceships, and baroque alien societies galore. It’s a heart-pounding glimpse into the new film, Jupiter Ascending, which comes out in February of 2015.

It’s also got some Channing Tatum with pointy ears (a sci-fi staple!) and Mila Kunis looking badass in pleather. Also, some delightful moments with Sean Bean, and he doesn’t even die in this trailer. The trailer is stunning, and you can see hints of The Matrix and Cloud Atlas all over this thing, which makes sense — it’s a Wachowski film, thorough and through.

Give this two minute eye-candy reveal a look.

3D printing is our current generation’s new home computing, says a new documentary airing on Netflix later this month. The film focuses on the first 3D printer company, Makerbot, and the several new entries into the field since.

What happens when you can suddenly print your own robotic hand? What about your own handgun? The world is suddenly both more dangerous and a better place to be.

Check out the trailer below for a sneak peak at the documentary, Print the Legend, scheduled to go live on Netflix September 26.

As Bono came in chanting and The Edge power-chorded his guitar for the radio-friendly chorus of “The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)” today, we hoped for a revitalized big-arena rock band performance from the biggest Irish rock band of all time.

What we got was the boys miming a well-rehearsed, highly-produced single that sounds like anything but The Ramones. Bono sings, “I was young/Not dumb/Just wishing to be blinded/By you/Brand new/We were pilgrims on our way” and, frankly, we wish they were young again. We wanted to be blinded by rockstars, but we really only got an ad for Apple.

At first listen, Songs of Innocence is a musically safe choice, a collection of songs that will sound just fine in the background as you wait in line for your first latte of the day at Starbucks. This isn’t the same band that had us thrilling to “In the Name of Love,” or “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” let alone snake-dancing to the mysterious syncopations of “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses” or the gospel-tinged “One.”

The new album is being pitched by the band as intensely personal, but it comes off as more craftsmanship than artistry. It’s not all bad, and chances are U2 super-fans would have bought it even if it weren’t free, but the music lovers in us were a little disappointed.

American Horror Story: Freak Show is set to premiere this October 8 on FX. As each season of the acclaimed FX series is a self-contained mini-series, this fourth season will focus on a big-top freak show.

Below is the first full reveal of the main cast, which includes a mysterious Jessica Lange (who’s played a different character in each season of this drama), dressed in a circus tent-style dress that just begs to be compared to the tents that fall to the ground at the end of the trailer. Also, as above, Kathy Bates is playing a bearded lady for the win.

Check the trailer out and enjoy the creepy music, courtesy of Melanie Martinez’s haunting “Carousel.”

SEATTLE, Washington – Walk into a comic shop, and you’ll probably see titles from publisher Dark Horse Comics. Known for its creator-owned series like Mike Mignola’s Hellboy and Sergio Aragonés’ Groo the Wanderer as well as television and movie adaptations like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or 300, the comic book publisher has a booth at the Penny Arcade Expo this weekend in Seattle to show off a different genre of comic.

The booth at the Washington State Convention Center in is full of video game-themed books of all stripe, from Mass Effect and Tomb Raider single-issue comics to larger, coffee table volumes like Hyrule Historia, which is chock full of the lore of The Legend of Zelda, and The Art of Naughty Dog, an art book that focuses on the popular game developer’s artistic output.

Dave Marshall says that video game books are the third pillar in the Dark Horse publishing strategy, and have become just as valuable a content stream as the creator-owned or media-based titles.

“We get the original writers and artists from the video games themselves to actually write or consult on these books,” he told us at the Dark Horse booth Saturday morning, “so we can come to the fans at a deeper level than just a crummy tie-in or cash grab.”

Instead of just another HD video project clogging up his Mac, filmmaker Mike Ruocco set out to capture his cross-country road trip with something just a bit more retro: a 45-year-old Canon Auto Zoom 814 with a broken light meter and two cans of Super 8 film.

Ruocco, his wife, her sister and their dog Riley traveled across 20 states, spent time at nine national parks and then spent a week in the Adirondack Mountains, filming it all along the way.

What results is a video so warm and nostalgic that we just had to share. Check out this amazing blast of Americana below.

We’ve all heard it: “Turn that TV off or I’m gonna take it and toss it out the g*dd*mn window.” Chances are, if you’re a parent, you’ve even said such a thing (I know I have).

That’s why after repeated watchings we just had to share this viral video from YouTuber McJuggerNuggets about a crazy family with a dad that resorts to mowing down his layabout son’s video game collection to intimidate the kid into getting a job.

Check out this NSFW video (F-bombs galore) below and you’ll be as hooked on the uncomfortable family drama as we are.

Earlier this week, a copy of the holy grail of comic book collecting, Action Comics No. 1 from 1938, sold on eBay for a record shattering sum of $3.2 million.

This pristine copy of Superman’s first appearance in comic books sold for a whopping $1,046,852 more than the previous record-holder, a less pristine copy of Action Comics‘ first issue, which sold for $2.1 million back in 2011. There are only an estimated 50 copies of the hotly collectible title left in the world.

With ski season closer than you can believe, it’s time to start drooling over the amazing HD footage out there on the web. So you can dream away your workday with these moving images, you’ll need to check out this amazing footage from four powder fanatics who used only Go Pro cameras to film their fresh exploits across the coolest drops in Hokkaido, Japan, Pemberton, British Columbia and Mt. Hood, Oregon.

Check out the extreme shots below and start gathering your lift tickets, high-end goggles and ski wax.

In an amazing twist of celebrity, Community star and rapper Donald Glover has gotten to voice Miles Morales, the Ultimate Spider-Man, in the Disney XD animated series.

As it’s Glover that was the original inspiration behind the alternate universe Spidey, written by comics star Brian Michael Bendis, this is a treat for fans and the actor himself.

“That’s the great part about the Spider-Man costume: He can be anybody,” Glover told USA Today. “Spider-Man could be a girl. Spider-Man could be an old man. You don’t know. So I just tried to be as me as possible, because you’re always just going to bring it back to yourself when you watch the show.”

Check out the clip below as Peter Parker (voiced by Drake Bell) meets Miles Morales, voiced by Glover.

It’s time, Tru Believers, to watch the very last episode of HBO’s vampire romantic drama, True Blood.

Overall, this final episode is slow and sweetly-paced, funneling down from the crazy, too-many-characters and plot lines of the past several seasons to a gentle, musing (and ultimately narratively safe) tale of people trying to find themselves and growing up in the process.

Luckily, since this is TV, they all eventually do. Hoyt and Jessica, Jason and Bridgette, and — of course — Bill and Sookie all find their own version of a happy ending, with very few surprises along the way; it’s a very safe finish to seven seasons of fangbangery.

As always, spoilers ahead. So keep reading at your own peril.

Gabe Ibañez directs and Antonio Banderas stars in this gritty, realistic near-future sci-fi flick, Automata.

The premise is that, in 2004, robots have found a way to circumvent built-in Protocols against harming human beings or self-altering their own physical form.

The award-winning film looks to be a fantastic take on the robots-gone-wild sub-genre, and it’s got Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men) as a rogue killer robot and Melanie Griffith as a scheming politician; what’s not to like?

If you’re freaking out about the new words added to OxfordDictionaries.com — like “adorbs,” “listicle,” “hate-watch” and “acquihire” — you’re not alone.

Most folks learn their vocabularies while growing up. Adding new words or changing the meaning of existing ones can be confusing to the human mind. Many of us pass judgment on these new words, upset about how technology is “dumbing down” the language.

This type of linguistic change — and the inevitable backlash to it — is nothing new, says Roy Mitchell, assistant professor of anthropology at University of Alaska Anchorage. “All living languages are always changing,” he told Cult of Mac over the phone. “Even some dead ones change,” he added, noting that Neo-Latin is simply the addition of Greek roots to a long-dead Roman lexicon.

You don’t have to like it. You just have to accept that it’s happening. And that there’s nothing you can do about it.