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Paula Deen Once Tried To Cook A 'Sambo Burger,' And Other Anecdotes From Her Memoir

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Paula Deen

Last month’s taped deposition in which celebrity chef Paula Deen admitted she has used the N word and hoped to have a “very southern style wedding” with an all-black waitstaff for her brother isn’t the first time the Food Network host has frankly discussed her evolving views on race with a unique mix of self-reflection and obliviousness.

In her 2006 memoir “It Ain’t All About The Cookin’,” while describing her early experiences with race, Deen wrote at length about growing up in the segregated South. Among her recollections was an incident from her youth where she hit a black girl “with a bolo bat” and the girl’s mother wound up in jail. She also wrote about a time later in her life when she attempted to make a “Sambo burger” on her TV show and had to be dissuaded by producers.

In the book, Deen, who was born in 1947, frankly wrote about her youth in Albany, Ga., where she “never thought” about the fact she was living “in the mix of what was fixin’ to be a huge social change.”

“It was happening right under our noses: our local African-Americans were claimin’ their right for fair and equal treatment and some white folks were inspired to rethink old ways,” wrote Deen. “Still, I hardly noticed.”

Deen described having regrets about the way she treated some of the black people she encountered as a child. The recollections are candid, but perhaps more revealing than Deen knew or intended.

In one passage, she detailed a particularly troubling experience she had at the age of 10 with a “real nice black woman” who “often babysat” her and that woman’s child:

“This one day she had brought her little girl to work, and that child had many big, fat blisters on her hand, probably from helping out her momma. Something about those blisters just attracted me and I remember hitting those little hands with a bolo bat, and it busted her blisters good. It was pretty satisfying.

I don’t know why I did it. I have a hard time thinking I did it out of meanness. But her mother—I can’t remember if she slapped me across the face or she spanked me or both—but either way, now I know I sure had it comin’.

Well, still I was heartbroken and I went running to find my Grandmother Paul and Granddaddy and my momma. And my granddaddy had the woman arrested for hitting me. The little black girl’s momma went to jail.

All this time it’s bothered me.

It was me who deserved to be sittin’ in that jail for breaking a little black girl’s blisters in 1957.”

Though she said she and her family felt like the civil rights movement “didn’t have nothin’ to do with us,” Deen said she did have some black friends as a child.

“I played with the kids of the black women who took care of me and they were my friends,” she wrote.

In her book, Deen was introspective at times, such as when she recalled seeing segregated buildings.

“Remembering now, it just shocks me,” she said of Jim Crow. “I’m plain horrified that things could have been that way and I was so blind I didn’t get that it was wrong.”

According to Deen, the senior class of her high school was “the first class in our neck of the woods to be integrated.” Though Deen said, as far as she knew, “no one harassed” the “five black girls” who entered her class, she also noted “no one was particularly tight with them either.” In the memoir, Deen described regretting that she did not do more to welcome the black women into her school:

“I felt a little sorry for them, but you know why? For all the wrong reasons. I felt their families had to have been paid or somethin’ to convince them to put their girls in such a hard position—the only black girls in our all-white school. My parents wouldn’t have put me in an all-black school. I’m so embarrassed and ashamed to admit it to y’all that I thought that. Those families were pioneers. They were so effin’ brave. … The five girls hard to be majorly lonely. … I so wish I could take back my actions then. If I could do it all over, I’d have dragged them all into cheerleadin’, I’d have shared my lunches with them, I’d have held them to my heart.”

Along with these incidents from her youth, Deen also wrote with a surprising lack of self-awareness about a situation that occurred after she began her television career when she wanted to make a recipe she called the “Sambo Burger” on her show:

“I’ll never forget the day I was doing hamburgers, and I was cookin’ what ended up being called a Beau Burger, which was topped with a fried egg. Actually I wanted to call it a Sambo Burger. It came about when this motorcycle-driving, long-haired lawyer named Sam told me about his favorite little hamburger joint owned by a guy named Beau. When Sam was out tooling along on his cycle, he’d stop off for the best burger in town, topped with a fried egg, some melted cheese, a load of grilled onions—out of this world! One day, Sam was on my set because we were doing a show about motorcycles, and we were standin’ around talking about these burgers and I told him, ‘Sam I am going to do that burger on the show. We’ll call it after you—the Sambo Burger. You know—Sam, Beau. Sounds great, doesn’t it?’”

Deen claimed her producers forced her to rename the burger.

“My producers said no—I had to find another name, because some people associated the name with an old children’s book that was insulting to black people,” wrote Deen. “So we called it a Beau.”

Since Wednesday,when the deposition Deen gave was first reported on by the National Enquirer, the celebrity chef has been under fire. She recorded the deposition as part of a discrimination suit filed by a former employee of one of the restaurants she owns. The employee, Lisa Jackson, claimed she was subjected to racist and sexist behavior by Deen’s brother, who runs the restaurant and is suing Deen, her companies, and her brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers. Lawyers for Deen and Hiers, denied the allegations, which include black employees being forced to use separate restrooms and entrances.

On Friday, Deen released a video statement addressing the deposition.

“I want to apologize to everybody for the wrong that I’ve done. I want to learn and grow from this,” said Deen. “Inappropriate, hurtful language is totally totally unacceptable. I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but I beg you, my children, my team, my fans, my partners. I beg for your forgiveness. Please forgive me for the mistakes I’ve made.”

The Food Network said Wednesday that it will “continue to monitor the situation.” A spokesperson for the network told TPM they had no update on that statement Thursday. On Friday, Deen’s publicist and the network did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the excerpts from her book.

This story was originally published by Talking Points Memo.

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FORMER 'BLACK SWAN' INTERN: People Aren't Mocking My Crusade Against Unpaid Internships Anymore

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eric glatt

Former Fox Searchlight intern Eric Glatt won a major victory for unpaid interns last week when a judge ruled interns are employees entitled to at least minimum wage.

We spoke to the former "Black Swan" intern recently about unpaid internships, and about his lawsuit against Fox — which is now moving forward as a class action.

Glatt, 43, accused Fox of continued violations of labor protections for unpaid interns like him in 2009 when he was working on "Black Swan." At the time, Glatt says, he suspected his lack of compensation as an "accounting clerk with the word intern tacked on the end" was illegal. His tasks were, he said, normal entry-level accounting clerk duties.

"If I wasn't there, either the rest of the staff would have had to work longer hours or they would have hired someone else to do it," says Glatt.

It wasn't until a year later in April 2010 when he came across a New York Times article, which detailed six internship criteria from the Department of Labor, that a light bulb went off. Employers must meet those criteria in order to get away with having unpaid interns.

By Glatt's logic, his internship with Fox Searchlight had violated all six of the criteria in the unpaid intern test.

The criteria said the internship had to be similar to the training given in a vocational school or academic institution; that the employer should derive no immediate advantage from the intern’s activities; and that an intern should not displace regular paid workers. 

"When I saw this article, I realized that this wasn't some fuzzy gray area. The six federal legal criteria proved that my internship was cut and dry wrong, illegal," Glatt told us.

"I realized why no one was raising a red flag. Most people in an internship aren't 40, most people are early on in their careers. Even if they object they probably recognize that if their sole goal out of college is to work in the industry, this is the necessary thing they have to do."   

Glatt was infuriated and filed a lawsuit, feeling that he was uniquely positioned to do so given his older age and legal knowledge. (He is now enrolled in law school as a Public Interest Fellow at Georgetown University.)

Glatt knew that filing an independent claim would result in a settlement amounting to "a drop in the bucket" for Fox Searchlight. Moreover, nothing about the unpaid nature of internships would change. So, he filed a proposed class action.

His decision was initially met with outrage. Glatt says some people tacked him as "a whiny kid who didn't appreciate the opportunity he had."

Now he's been hailed as a hero for unpaid interns.

While Glatt hasn't won his lawsuit against Fox Searchlight, the judge granted an important incremental victory by ruling interns need to get paid and that he can pursue the case as a class action.

Since the ruling, he says the reaction has been markedly different. With job openings scarce for young people, the average hourly wage for a worker coming out of college lower than a decade ago, and college graduates shouldering a trillion dollars in college loan debt, "the feedback [to the ruling] has been overwhelmingly positive. It's an injustice that employers are earning money off of what amounts to a crisis for other people."

He says that job boards continue to be littered with employers looking for skilled, experienced workers they don't want to pay, and some lack even a semblance of "educational value."

Glatt hopes college graduates don't undersell themselves in the labor market and learn to target their job search to paid opportunities.

"One of the things that is so pernicious about unpaid internships is that they signal to employers that you don't recognize the value your labor provides," says Glatt. "Who can blame college students? When you're young and haven't been paid yet, you think that being smart, hard-working, and determined doesn't matter. You think, 'I've only had school learning, why should they pay me?' Employers take advantage of that." 

The ruling last week could make it easier for unpaid interns to sue employers. The judge's decision is also an opportunity for employers to critically think about how they structure their internship programs. Glatt encourages employers to proactively go to the Department of Labor and ask an administrator to review their program to determine if it is in compliance.

Ultimately, his goal is to have the practice of having unpaid internships be eliminated completely.

"The wages that have been stolen from thousands of hard-working people lie in the pockets of employers,' says Glatt. "This is entry-level work that is productive and necessary, being performed across the country and someone is simply slapping the word 'intern' across it. I want that to end." 

Fox issued this statement to the Hollywood Reporter after last week's ruling:

"We are very disappointed with the court’s rulings.  We believe they are erroneous, and will seek to have them reversed by the 2nd Circuit as quickly as possible."

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Tour The Filming Locations Of Superman Reboot, 'Man Of Steel'

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superman

When Zack Snyder set out to make "Man of Steel" he wanted to make it as realistic as possible.

To accomplish that, Snyder set out to use practical locations for filming and also used a handheld camera to deliver a "gritty, embedded journalistic documentary style."

While a lot of the film takes place in Clark Kent's hometown of Smallville, Kansas; however, no filming occurred in America's heartland.

Rather, most of the production took place in Illinois.

If you haven't seen the film, there are some mini spoilers.

Early film sequences were filmed on Vancouver Island.

(Source: "Man of Steel" production notes)



Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) works on a real crab boat, the Debbie Sue.

(Source: "Man of Steel" production notes)



You can see the boat in the background of the film when Lois Lane (Amy Adams) goes on the hunt for Clark Kent.



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5 Bands You Should Be Listening To This Weekend

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FidlarA ton of great music comes out from week to week and it’s sometimes difficult to sort through everything. Sometimes we end up missing out on some great music that could end up being part of our daily soundtracks.

Lucky for you, we at FILTER love digging through every little niche of music and so we have compiled a list of great bands you may have missed!

With summer officially here, we’re taking the beach vibe of sunny Los Angeles and bringing you some of our favorite LA bands that just epitomize summer in their own way.

FIDLAR

There is nothing better than starting off the summer with pure, youthful fun and this party-punk band represents everything about that. Their debut self-titled album came out earlier this year and we enjoyed it so much that we were listening to these guitar-driven, surf-tinged tracks in the middle of winter. Now that barbecue season is finally here, tracks like “Cheap Beer” and “Max Can’t Surf” seem to fit in much better.

Bleached

bleachedWith their blonde hair, retro sunglasses and California style, it’s no surprise that the sister duo have laced their songs with beach, summer vibes. They find the balance between girly vintage and pop-punk, creating a sound that is infectiously catchy. It is easy to relate to the themes of their album, "Ride Your Heart," and even easier to sing along to tracks like “Next Stop” and “Love Spells.” 

IO Echo

io echoWhen their debut album, "Ministry Of Love," came out earlier this year, they sparked an interest because of their individual style. Their songs reflect a breezy, carefree nature as their sound—quite appropriately—echoes through your ears. However, what makes them unique from other indie bands like this is the evident Eastern inspiration that resounds in their music. Just by listening to range of sound between “When The Lillies Die” and “Addicted” you can tell this is a unique band to fall in love with.

Cayucas

cayucasThis indie-pop outfit made a big splash onto our radar with their infectious electronic tunes. They blend the sounds of the digital era with the retro vibes of an earlier decade. Each one of the songs on their debut album, "Bigfoot," captures that sunny, beachside style in a way that makes for a great summer jam. We can’t help but feel like doing a tropical dance every time we hear “East Coast Girl” and “High School Lover” has a way of making us want to sit around on the beach.

Foxygen

FoxygenTheir album, "We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic," left us in a completely blissful daze the first time we heard it. Months later, we still love this album that takes us right into a world of classic rock nostalgia. Songs like “San Francisco” and “No Destruction” provide a dreamy vibe that set a perfect soundtrack for enjoying those long summer days and there’s no better way to welcome the warm nights than with the groovy “Shuggie.”

SEE ALSO: 5 new bands we listened to last weekend

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Tumblr CEO David Karp Now Partying With Diddy After Selling His Company For $1.1 Billion (YHOO)

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david karp rachel

Tumblr's CEO David Karp is now pretty rich.

About a month ago he sold his company to Yahoo for $1.1 billion.

The success has helped the young entrepreneur to shed his previously "nerdy" persona and now he's partying with superstars like, Sean "Diddy" Combs.

Page Six reports: 

... the newly minted multi-millionaire was surrounded by women as he downed bottles of Dom Perignon Lumiere at jet set club Gotha, where Diddy spun records and performed until 4 a.m. Also at the lavish party was rapper Nas, Steve Stoute and a host of top ad execs.

Karp has spent the last few days at the Cannes Lion Advertising festival where he gave a speech at what is known as the "Oscars of advertising."  

Page Six also points out that in his speech Karp said, "a lot of my friends have come to the Gutter Bar, but I have mostly been waving from across the road, sitting under a palm tree."

Pictures from Cannes suggest otherwise. You can check them out over at Page Six

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This Tiny $99 Android Game Console Is Meant To Destroy PS4 And Xbox One (MSFT, SNE)

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ouya console

SAN FRANCISCO, (Reuters) - Ouya's $99 Android videogame console goes on sale on Tuesday, the latest attempt by a growing crop of niche hardware makers to chip away at a market dominated by Sony Corp, Microsoft Corp and Nintendo Co Ltd.

Ouya hopes its cheaper cube-shaped console will prevail over the long-established gaming triumvirate's pricier hardware. The new device has more than 150 free-to-try games, media features such as Flixster and radio service TuneIn, and an open ecosystem built on Google's Android operating system.

Founded by Julie Uhrman, a former executive at entertainment website IGN, the hackable, or customizable, device will go up this Christmas season against the $399 PlayStation 4 and $499 Xbox One. Both are packed with exclusive blockbuster titles from top developers, cloud gaming and other social features .

Ouya is going after core console gamers, as well as the mass market of college students, young adults and families that plays mobile games and is price-conscious, Uhrman said.

"Ouya is not an 'either-or' decision," Uhrman said. "It stands on its own and it's something that gamers are going to want in addition to whatever device plays the game that they've been playing for the last five years."

Ouya and other hardware companies, big and small, are hoping to claw their way into a global video games market expected to touch $66 billion in software and hardware sales this year, up from $63 billion in 2012, according to research firm DFC Intelligence.

The 2013 holiday season is shaping up to be the most hotly contested in years, with Microsoft launching its Xbox One and Sony's Playstation 4 coming to market.

Saratoga, California-based BlueStacks, will launch a $129 cube called GamePop that is expected to available this holiday season. Alternatively, gamers can pay $6.99 monthly for access to over 500 games and get the console and controller for free.

ouyaNext week, graphics giant Nvidia Corp will release its handheld Shield device, which runs games available on Android tablets and smartphones and streams titles from computers.

Demand for the new gadgets is unclear. Ouya has begun taking pre-orders, but is mum about figures. Just this week, Nvidia cut the price of the Shield, which starts sales on June 27, to $299 from $349, responding to what it called feedback from gamers.

"For a new product, we're satisfied with the reservation," Paul Raines, CEO of the world's largest games retail chain, GameStop, said about the Ouya.

But he added: "To really grow to billions of dollars, you've got have great IP that people want to play. People often talk about open platform gaming, but there's only one device that plays 'Halo' and that will be Xbox One, there's one device that plays 'Uncharted' and that will be the PlayStation 4, so the importance of the IP cannot be overstated."

DEVELOPER INTEREST

Ouya has received support from the gaming community. It racked up $8.6 million from 63,000 backers, mostly game enthusiasts and developers, on crowd-funding site Kickstarter. And it got $15 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, with participation from the Mayfield Fund, Shasta Ventures, Occam Partners and Nvidia.

Developers can earn revenue on Ouya's platform through several avenues, including selling virtual goods, subscriptions and donations. Sales will be split along the traditional 70-30 model, with Ouya getting 30 percent.

Over 17,000 developers are using the Ouya software development kit to bring games to the new device, including Square Enix Holdings Co Ltd's "Final Fantasy III" and nWay's "ChronoBlade", the company said.

Nvidia's Shield is intended for hard core PC gamers with a yen for continuing to play on the go.

Meanwhile, BlueStacks will target a younger demographic of 10 to 30 year-olds hooked on tablet and smartphone games, said Apu Kumar, senior vice president of global sales and business development, said.

Its GamePop is "bringing the games you are most familiar with on iPhones and Android to the large screen," he said.

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'The Amazing Spider-Man 2' Was Filming Outside My Apartment This Morning

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I woke up this morning to find an interesting scene outside my window: a motorcade of 20+ police cars driving by Lincoln Center with their lights on, but no sirens.

motercade police cars outside my window

It led me to believe something was going on, so I went downstairs with my iPhone. I first noticed this flyer saying they'd be filming a "Movie" on my block, so buses wouldn't be stopping at their usual spot.

movie filming spideman

I came across this truck that said Sony Pictures. I figured only a big-budget film would have the means to shut down a busy Broadway intersection on a Saturday morning.

sony pictures presents spiderman filming

Crew members were taping blue X's over the NYPD police cars.

police cars spiderman movie filming

They were also fixing fake license plates onto the cars:

IMG_1015

Hey! There's a huge group of what appears to be cast members, posing for paparazzi photos in between scenes.

case of spiderman movie filming

Here, the paparazzi capture the moment:

paparazzi spiderman movie filming

I zoomed in on the group shot and noticed this guy in the back row, standing next to a girl wearing a Spider-man shirt. He looked a lot like Andrew Garfield, the star of the upcoming "The Amazing Spider-man 2" movie.

andrew garfield body double spiderman

Could it be his body double? He was wearing some sort of body suit that looked like it would be helpful for filming stunts.

andrew garfield body double spiderman

Here were two other interesting characters from the group shot: A homeless man with a boom box around his neck and his lady friend getting cozy.

homeless extra spiderman movie filming

This fruit cart in the scene looked nicer than the carts you see on the streets of Manhattan.

nyc fruit cart spiderman filming

At closer glance, the sign seemed fake to me.

nyc fruit cart spiderman filming

I was right; it's a prop! Here is the crew packing it up.

food cart spider-man fake

Whatever scene they'd been filming with the police car motorcade was over, so I followed the cast and crew to their lunch spread a few blocks away where there was a solid assortment of hot food. Actors got in line to eat first, followed by production assistants.

food line spiderman filming

I stayed just in time to see what looked like the real Andrew Garfield ride off into the distance in a black car.

andrew garfield in a limo spiderman filming

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Do Americans Have Terrible Taste In Movies?

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Gigli Ben Affleck

It is impossible, this time of year, not to assume that all Americans are idiots, throwing billions of dollars at movie studios for producing terrible movies meant to numb us into becoming drooling popcorn-digesters. But that's not entirely the case! We looked at nearly 800 movies from the past four years, and learned that America actually does spend money on good movies!*

(We'll get to that asterisk in a bit.)

To figure out the relationship between quality and cash, we looked at the top-grossing 200 movies for the past four years. For each of those movies, 797 in total once we removed some outliers, we looked at the first weekend earnings, how many theaters it ran in, and overall earnings (via BoxOfficeMojo.com) and the average critic ratings (via, of course, Rotten Tomatoes). Then we took that data and made graphs.

We're going to tease you with this one. It shows the first weekend, per-theater earnings of movies in five groupings, from lowest tier of Rotten Tomato rankings at left (the worst movies) to highest tier (best movies) at right. And, voila. Americans spend more money on better movies. If you thought that marketplace for movies doesn't reward quality, you were wrong. * ** *** (And more asterisks to come.)

Atlantic Movies Screenshot 1

The first qualification of that graph comes from a more detailed look at the data. Let's start with gross earnings — how much each of our movies made, in total, since release. A quick bit of explanation on these charts is in order. The horizontal x-axis on each of the blue charts shows Rotten Tomatoes rating which, if you're not familiar, is a percentage of critics' ratings. A 100 means every review was positive; a 50, the reviews were mixed; a zero, everyone hated the film. The vertical y-axis shows earnings. So a dot at the upper left of a graph earned a lot of money but was a poorly reviewed movie.

Atlantic Screenshot 2

This is clearly not as definitive as that first graph. If our hypothesis is that crappier movies earn more money, though, this is at least some indication that it's not true. The right (better movie) side of the chart has more movies earning more money. But there are a lot of movies in that thick cluster at the bottom of the graph that suggests the numbers might not be as clear as they at first seemed.

If anything, we've added an element of doubt. So next we looked at debut weekends. After all, how a movie premieres is a huge predictor in its longevity. Here are first weekend totals. As you can see, far more crappy movies — Twilight Saga — had big first weekends than overall totals. (Again, The Avengers floats up to the top.)

Atlantic Screenshot 4

Here again, though, there's a qualifying factor. Big movies debut in more theaters, which often means bigger receipts. A movie that grossed $10 million running in one theater for a weekend is probably better than a movie that earns $20 million running in 100 theaters. But, on the other hand, finding 4,253 theaters in which to open Iron Man 3 means booking a lot of theaters that might not get a lot of traffic (or even seat that many people).

Nonetheless, the graph is suggestive. There is a giant stack of movies in the 75 percent-plus rating range that doesn't exist for worse films. We also see Twilight sink — too many theaters.

Atlantic Screenshot 5

Another asterisk: Air Racers 3D doesn't have enough critic ratings to earn a Rotten Tomatoes score. In situations like that, we gave the film a mid-range 50.

Back in our original graph, opening weekend box office followed the critics ratings pretty consistently. But for total earnings, with the left axis in millions, the chart look very, very different.

What can we learn from these graphs? Apparently more people fill theaters for good movies when they first come out — but then later on go watch a lot more junk. Apparently. That's not the only issue.

Rotten Tomatoes ranks movies as good (or, in their verbiage, "fresh") with a ranking of 60 percent or higher. Movies below that level are "rotten." Fine. But here's the distribution of all 797 of the movies, by year and ranking. There are more 50 percent films both because of our assigning that value to unranked movies and because 50 percent comes up more in the math: four of eight reviews, six of twelve.

The Atlantic Screenshot 6

You may notice that the graph is a little heavier on the right side of that middle point. In fact, here's the distribution by year. Over the four-year spread, ratings have gotten better — perhaps because the movies are, but that seems debatable.

atlantic screenshot 7

Here are the median ratings for each year. At left is the overall median ranking — 58. Meaning that the graph above showing that we are more likely to go see good movies that first weekend is a bit warped by the fact that more of these movies are "good."

Atlantic Screenshot 8

One possible reason for this is that we only took the 200 highest-grossing movies from each year. Really terrible movies probably wouldn't get into that cut. But even with that criterion, each year included a number of movies that we'd never heard of. (Kings FaithNowhere Boy?)

There's another possibility. Prestige films, ones critics love, are more likely to open in a smaller number of theaters, often in markets like New York and L.A. which have high-grossing theaters.

Atlantic Screenshot 9

Fewer theaters, especially if they're the biggest theaters in the country, means a higher likelihood that a good film can fill those seats — meaning more money per theater. Particularly if it's opening weekend, right after those critics' reviews have come out.

So we're left with one moral. If you're going to see a movie when it opens, you're probably making a better decision than the ones you see that have been out for a few weeks. But when it comes down to it, people are little more than inscrutable popcorn-digesters.

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Matthew Weiner Speculates On How 'Mad Men' Will End Next Year

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Don Draper Jon Hamm

Mad Men's penultimate season ends on Sunday, leading to preemptively high spoiler-alert levels of conversation at the water cooler: How will this show, however flailing, ultimately come to close? But TV endings are tricky, especially when you're talking about one of the greatest shows of all time. The final chapter can be absurdist, like Seinfeld's, or confusing, like The Sopranos. To some, however, Mad Men had its ending in its beginning, thanks to that instantly iconic animated man of opening-credits infamy, setting down his briefcase and tumbling down past buildings with billboards of beautiful women and happy families, perhaps toward his shadowed death. And while creator Matthew Weiner now says that his show will not end with a jump—just think how clichéd that would be—the image seems ever more important as Mad Men hurdles toward the brink.  

During an interview, The Wrap's Tim Molloy said: "With so many people saying the show should end with a jump out the window, that must be pretty much the only thing you can't do." To which Weiner responded: 

It never even occurred to me. I’ll be honest with you. Never occurred to me. That jump out the window was always meant to be symbolic and internal. I never meant it literally. I think it’s fascinating, though—I think people think it would be cool. But it hasn’t been an option. And now that we’ve had this conversation, I really can’t do it. 

Weiner has always said that the man falling to the theme song was not supposed to be Don. He told an audience at the Paley Center that "the origin of the credits was I had an idea about a guy getting up in the morning—a faceless man, not even Don, I didn't know who he was—going to work and going in, walking past the office, going into his office, opening the window and jumping out." He explained: "To me the American businessman jumps out the window, that is a statement and it only happens—it's part of our iconography, so I wanted to say that's what's going inside of this man."  

Over time, Mad Men's jumping American businessman has served as fodder for both conspiracy theories—they're fun to indulge, but ultimately worthless—and heady controversy. Last year's season-five posterisolated the show's falling man, and was deemed insensitive for recalling another falling man, the one so famously photographed leaping from the World Trade Center on 9/11. "On the one hand, the poster is merely a continuation of the art that has accompanied the show since its inception — a bit of shorthand that refers as much to the viewing public's impatience to get Mad Men back after its extended hiatus as it does to the existential consequences of Dick Whitman impersonating a dead man named Don Draper," wrote Tom Junod, who chronicled the 9/11 photograph for Esquire. "At the same time, the poster dispenses with the corporate context specific to Mad Men, indeed with context altogether, and, by concentrating on one falling man, seems out to remind viewers that the show is really about the Falling Man... that for all its American-Century trappings, it's set squarely in the age of American decline."

jumping mad men

So, Mad Men will not end with a jump, but the image—or at least what Weiner wants the image to represent—appears increasingly relevant as we approach Sunday and the finale season. We entered season six in a haze of death, with Don pitching ads that were not so veiled premonitions of killing himself. And that was right after season five had left us reeling from the suicide of Lane Pryce—in perhaps the moment that had most resembled the opening credits, here was a man at his wits end, driven by office culture to take his own life. Mad Men returned with Don's collapsed doorman. The rest of the season has existed in a depressive, drug-induced fog. In 1968, the world has collapsed around our besuited cocktail drinkers. With riots and war and rage, they are anomalies, so much so that Peggy stabs her boyfriend in an effort of self-preservation. 

Our characters, at this moment in their fall, are miserable. Don is disgusted with himself. Sally is disgusted with her father, having walked in on him cheating with the next door neighbor. Peggy, despite her remarkable progress, still is not getting the treatment she deserves. Ted, the good man, is in love with Peggy, who is not his wife. Pete has, for all intents and purposes, been abandoned by his family. Bob Benson has now been outed in more ways than one. There's something ghostly about this season. Margaret Lyons at Vulture has espoused the theory that Don is a version of Rosemary from Rosemary's Baby, which Sally Draper read and multiple characters went to see at the movies this season. Over at Grantland, Andy Greenwald writes: "Don Draper has been surrounded by doppelgängers, mocking shadows that flit around him the way ghosts teased and enveloped Dante on his long walk to hell." Even though Weiner has said that no one is going to die this season, it wouldn't be shocking if one of the characters—maybe Don, maybe Pete—took that leap.

But that leap is a metaphor, Weiner insists, as so much in this show is. So while Mad Men may not end in a leap, we may feel a progressive push of our favorite doomed characters toward that window, toward the edge. Don, all curled up in the fetal positon as he was at the close of the last episode, now seems to understand that his American Dream, his assimilation as someone not himself, was futile. 

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The 10 Best Zombie Films Of All Time

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From Night of the Living Dead to 28 Weeks Later, Telegraph film writer Anne Billson lists her 10 favourite horror films of all time.

I Walked with a Zombie(1943)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies isn't the first mash-up of 19th century Eng Lit and zombies. It's 70 years since legendary RKO B-movie producer Val Lewton asked screenwriters Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray to update and transpose the story of Jane Eyre to a Caribbean island.

"There's no beauty here, only death and decay," says a plantation owner to the nurse who has come to the island to care for his sick wife – but Jacques Tourneur's directing ensures this is the most hauntingly beautiful zombie film ever made.

Night of the Living Dead(1968)

George A Romero 's low-budget sleeper shattered horror movie conventions, transformed movie zombies from the traditional drugged labour of voodoo lore into the flesh-eating ambulant cadavers we know and love today, and has lost none of its power to horrify.Romero followed it up with the marginally jollier but just as influential Dawn of the Dead (1978) and the criminally underrated Day of the Dead (1985).

Zack Snyder 's 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, in which the dead no longer walked but ran, was visceral fun, but lacked the original's trenchant social satire; Romero's subsequent zombie pics have been less well received, yet still contain more intelligence in their (rotting) little fingers than in pretty much all of his imitators' films laid end to end.

The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue(1974)

Jorge Grau's Spanish-Italian shocker is set in the Lake District, not Manchester, and like many Italian horror movies revels in multiple alternative titles (15 at the last count, including Non si deve profanare il sonno dei morti and Let Sleeping Corpses Lie).

But it's one of the earliest and best of the Night of the Living Dead rip-offs, with a uniquely unsettling atmosphere and the Spanish-Italian cast supplemented by American character actor Arthur Kennedy as an Irish cop. Agricultural insecticide causes the dead to walk; the resulting zombie mayhem is relentless.

Zombi 2 (1979)

Romero's Dawn of the Dead was released in Europe as Zombi, hence the title of this unofficial sequel (also known as, among other things, Zombie Flesh-Eaters) directed by Lucio Fulci and starring Tisa Farrow (Mia's sister) and British TV stalwarts Ian McCulloch and Richard Johnson.

After a sublimely creepy opening in New York harbour, the action shifts to the Caribbean for gore galore, a zombie-versus-shark fight and a memorably nasty encounter with a large splinter. Best line: "I've just been informed that zombies have entered the building... They're at the door... They're coming in... AAAAGH!"

Re-Animator (1985)

Radical Chicago theatre director Stuart Gordon made his film-directing debut for Empire Pictures, the company responsible for some of the zippiest low-budget horror of the 1980s, with this splatterfest adapted from a story by HP Lovecraft and garnished with music that's such a blatant steal from Psycho it's a wonder Bernard Herrmann didn't rise from his grave in protest.

Jeffrey Combs hams his way into cultdom as the frankly rather bonkers Dr Herbert West, whose experiments in reanimating dead tissue result in a zombie cat attack, the heroine sexually molested by a lascivious severed head, and zombie mayhem a-go-go.

Braindead (1992)

Before Peter Jackson went mainstream with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he dabbled in deliberately tasteless horror comedies like this cheerful romp set in 1950s New Zealand. The hero's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey, leading to Wellington being overrun by the walking dead, some of whom are defeated by a kung fu-fighting priest who triumphantly declares, "I kick ass for the Lord!"

Gross-out humour and a superabundance of splatter climax with one of the goriest bloodbaths ever filmed when the hero uses a rotary lawnmower to eviscerate, dismember or otherwise incapacitate about a trillion gazillion zombies.

Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)

Michele Soavi started out as assistant director to Dario Argento before making his debut as a horror film-maker. He has since gone mainstream, but not before giving Rupert Everett what was arguably the finest role of his career in this Franco-Italian-German co-production (also known as Cemetery Man) adapted from Tiziano Sclavi's "Dylan Dog" horror comics.

Everett plays a world-weary live-in caretaker of the cemetery adjacent to a small Italian town, where his job involves dispatching the walking dead who routinely rise from their graves seven days after interment. The plentiful zombie action is enhanced by some astonishing flights of visual surrealism.

Versus (2000)

Ryûhei Kitamura, whose horror-thriller No One Lives opens in the UK this autumn, made his feature debut with this low-budget Japanese splatter action-horror-comedy in which pretty-boy Yakuzas ill-advisedly bury the corpses of their victims in the all-too-aptly named Forest of Resurrection, with exactly the results you'd expect.

What you might not expect are the barking mad camera angles, crazed zombie-fu, Kenji Matsuda's insanely over-the-top performance as a nattily dressed gangster, and the cunning way in which Kitamura manages to insert historical samurai into the mix.

shaud of the dead zombie

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

This "zom-rom-com" from the team that brought you TV's Spaced works because its genre-savvy director, Edgar Wright, and his co-writer and star Simon Pegg take both the horror and the comedy aspects seriously.

Slacker Shaun is so cut up about being dumped by his girlfriend he initially fails to notice North London is being overrun by the walking dead. Brimful of very British humour and packed with familiar faces (some of whom meet extremely gruesome fates), it's the perfect balance of gags and gore.

Watch the Shaun of the Dead trailer

28 Weeks Later (2007)

28 Days Later shifted the goalposts by making the homicidal hordes a) fast sprinters, and b) not dead but infected by a rabies-like virus, leading to much quibbling as to whether they qualified as zombies at all. But I'm calling them zombies, and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's sequel is even scarier than its predecessor.

It begins with an act of extreme cowardice, and becomes steadily more intense as Jeremy Renner and his American-led NATO force struggle to secure their safe zone on the Isle of Dogs. Metaphor alert! But the pace is so frenetic there's no time to dwell on it.

Read a review of 28 Weeks Later

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All Of The 'Mad Men' Conspiracy Theories You Need To Know Before Tonight's Finale

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Is Don an alien? Is Joan a wizard? Is baby Gene a Russian spy who will one day grow up and be your father? According to the internet: Yes. "Mad Men" conspiracy theories are our guiltiest Monday morning pleasure, and after this Sunday's season finale we'll be stuck waiting months for the next crop (or will we?! See: conspiracy #467). After the media exploded with suspicions about a Megan Draper/Sharon Tate connection, we decided to dive all the way down the rabbit hole and see what other interesting theories we could come up with. It was quite a trip. 

Some of these notions have roots in reality, and many took us back to our film school days of picking apart the mise en scène to determine a character's fate. And some of them are just bonkers. Either way, we whittled down the hundreds (probably more, we're still digging around down here) to the best and craziest "Mad Men" conspiracy theories out there.There are no spoilers here, unless these bloggers, journalists, and redditors are right. In which case — watch out, Pete Campbell. You're about to be eaten by a bear.

Megan Draper = Sharon Tate Because Of This T-Shirt

Aforementioned internet explosion occurred after Jessica Pare appeared in this top during the last scene of this season's ninth episode. Sharon Tate wore the top in a famous 1967 Esquire shoot, so naturally, we assumed Megan would soon be preggers and/or dead. According to Matthew Weiner and Janie Bryant, it was actually just about some boring argument they had over whether or not women wore T-shirts in the 60s. OR WAS IT, WEINER?





No Wait, Megan's Been Dead The WHOLE TIME

A smaller (but no less vocal) group of conspiracists insist that Megan has been dead this entire season. It's something to do with the fact that she appeared in Don's stoner fantasy out in L.A.. We don't get it, but we liked her headband. 



Betty Is Going To Die Because We Hate Her

Some speculate the whole Megan-will-die theory is just a red herring, and really it's the former Mrs. Draper who's about to bite the dust. Fine, by us. Can Sally kill her?



See the rest of the story at Business Insider
    


Female Screenwriters Hit Rock Bottom In Hollywood

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hollywood walk of fame starsHollywood has long been inhospitable to women, and it is only getting worse for those who are also aspiring screenwriters.

According to Suzana Orozco’s analysis of recent sales of spec scripts — scripts written with no deal in place (hence speculative) — women make up a smaller percentage of those sales than any time in the last two decades.

While the spec script market as a whole has cooled from its heyday of the mid-1990s, the impact on female writers has been even more severe.

Between 1991 and 2000, women accounted for 14 percent of spec script sales.  The numbers remained high in 2001, 2002 and 2003 as women sold more than 20 spec scripts each year.

Since then the bottom has fallen out (see the chart below). Only three times — 2004, 2007 and 2009 — have female scribes sold more than 10 percent of specs. Female writers sold the same number of scripts in 2001 as they did in 2011 and 2012 combined.

Between 2010 and 2012, the last three full years this has been measured, scripts written by women constituted just 9 percent of sales.

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Compare that to the ratio of women writers in other areas of entertainment:

spec sales inside

Translation: women have better luck selling books and TV shows than film spec scripts.

spec sales inside

The ranks of active duty female soldiers is higher: Women constitute 14.5 percent of soldiers on active duty, well above the 9 percent of female screenwriters with spec sales between 2010 and 2012.

SEE ALSO: 'Fifty Shades Of Grey' Film Takes A Chance On Fairly Unknown, Female Screenwriter

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Famous Chefs And Foodies Partying At The Food & Wine Classic In Aspen [PHOTOS]

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aspen food wineThe annual Aspen Food & Wine Classic is one of the most highly anticipated food festivals of the year.

After stuffing our faces for three straight days last weekend, we showed you everything we tasted during the twice-daily grand testings.

And now we take you inside the glamorous, gluttonous parties where celebrity chefs and "Top Chef" stars such as Tom Colicchio, José Andrés, Gail Simmons, Danny Meyer, Mario Batali, Marcus Samuelson, David Chang and Thomas Keller partied literally until the sun came up.

A highlight of the weekend was Food & Wine magazine's Best New Chef's party at the top of Aspen mountain. Can you recognize all of the famous TV chefs?



You had to take a 25-minute gondola ride just to get there.



All of the "Top Chef" personalities, from "The Chew" star Carla Hall to Marcus Samuelsson and Susan Feniger, made sure to attend.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider
    


'Monsters' Scare Off 'World War Z' Zombies — Here's Your Box-Office Roundup

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Both "Monsters University" and "World War Z" did extremely well at the box office this weekend, but it was Pixar's prequel that edged out Brad Pitt's zombiefest. 

Disney's "Monsters Inc." prequel had the second largest opening for a Pixar film since 2010's "Toy Story 3." 

With comparisons to "I Am Legend," the zombie thriller didn't quite hit the $77 million opening weekend of Will Smith's apocalyptic film. The 2007 film earned a total of $585 million worldwide. 

Meanwhile, Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring" nearly ousted "Iron Man 3" from the top ten this week earning $2 million. Starring Emma Watson, the film's wide release had it in 650 theaters this weekend compared to the average theater count of films atop the box office. 

Out of the top ten this week include DreamWorks Animation's "Epic." The animated film dropped 73% this weekend with competition from Disney and Pixar's "Monsters University." 

Will Smith's "After Earth" also tumbled far down the box-office earnings. The film is earning most of its money (67%) overseas. The film, which cost an estimated $130 million to make, has earned $171.5 million worldwide.  

Here are this week's winners and losers in Hollywood: 

10. "Iron Man 3" continues its 8-week run in theaters with another $2.2 million. The film has now earned $1.2 billion at theaters. Robert Downey Jr. just signed on for another two appearances in upcoming sequels to "The Avengers." 

9. "Star Trek Into Darkness" adds $3 million to its $430 million haul at theaters. J.J. Abrams' 2009 film earned $385.7 million worldwide. 

8. $3 million horror film "The Purge" earned $3.4 million in its third week. The low-budget thriller starring Ethan Hawke isn't faring as well overseas, but has earned a huge $66 million worldwide. 

7. "The Internship" narrowly edged out "The Purge" earning $3.43 million. The Google film is still below its $58 million estimated budget in week three. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson's comedy has earned $43.5 million to date. 

6. "Fast & Furious 6" continues its phenomenal run with another $4.7 million this weekend. The film is soaring overseas ($417.3 million), bringing the film's worldwide total to $645.7 million. The film has now grossed more than any film in the franchise. Hard to believe Universal once wanted to make future releases straight-to-video.  

5. Magic movie "Now You See Me" beat out the racing cars with $7.9 million in week four. Lionsgate's film has earned $122.2 million worldwide. Compared to other magic films, "The Prestige" and "The Illusionist," the film has already earned more than both movies. 

4. With three other mammoth films out, no one's discussing how well Sony's offbeat comedy "This is the End" is doing at theaters. The film earned $13 million in its second week and has now earned about $58 million at theaters. 

3. "Man of Steel" had a big second week earning $41.2 million. Since its release, the film has earned $283.3 million worldwide. The Superman reboot did something no other superhero film has been able to do. It had the largest opening weekend of any first film in a superhero franchise surpassing the $114.8 million weekend of "Spider-Man" in 2002. 

2. "World War Z" had a good first weekend bringing in $66 million despite its PG-13 rating and troubled production. Brad Pitt did a lot of press for his film in the weeks prior to release, necessary for a film whose budget reportedly ballooned north of $200 million. The film has earned $111.8 million so far worldwide. 

1. Zombies were no threat to the comedic monsters of "Monsters University" with $82 million. Though the film had the second-highest Pixar opening behind 2010's "Toy Story 3," adjusted for inflation, the scare team of Mike and Sulley come shy of its predecessor "Monsters, Inc" ($87.8 million).

SEE ALSO: The original ending to "World War Z"

NOW: Tour the filming locations of "Man of Steel"

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James Gandolfini's Body Returns To US For Thursday Funeral — Here's Today's Gossip

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James Gandolfini

  • After dying in Rome Wednesday, James Gandolfini's body has been returned to the U.S. ahead of his funeral, set to take place Thursday on Manhattan's Upper West Side . Family spokesman Michael Kobold said: "On behalf of the Gandolfini family, I would like to thank the Italian authorities for all the assistance they have rendered in expediting the formalities necessary to repatriate James Gandolfini's remains to the United States.  We are fully aware that this process usually takes seven days, and we are extremely grateful for their efficiency in dealing with this matter."
  • Despite negative buzz preceding the film's release, Paramount and Brad Pitt are already talking about a "World War Z" sequel.
  • After canceling on him last week, Paula Deen will sit down with Matt Lauer on Wednesday's  "Today" to talk about her recent racism scandal.
  • Beloved "Family Ties" and "Spin City" creator Gary David Goldbergdied at age 68 from brain cancer at his home in Montecito, California.
  • Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer and more turned out for the big "Lone Ranger" premiere at Disney’s California Adventure on Saturday.
  • "Real Housewives of Atlanta" and "New Normal" star NeNe Leakesremarried her ex-husband Gregg on Saturday in Atlanta in front of approximately 400 guests, as well as TV cameras for her upcoming Bravo show, “I Dream of NeNe: The Wedding.”
  • Demi Lovato's dad Patrick died over the weekend. Her sister Dallas revealed the news on Twitter late Saturday, writing, “Rest in peace daddy I love you..”
  • Looks like Katy Perry and John Mayer are back together.
  • Maroon 5 frontman and "voice" star Adam Levinedebuts his latest model-of-the-moment girlfriend, Nina Agdal.

SEE ALSO: The animated movie that beat "World War Z" at this weekend's box office

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The Truth About Video Game Journalism At Gaming Conferences

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E3 2013 Journalists

So you run a gaming web site. You have a decent following, land some big exclusives (even if no one believes you) and good traffic and while you’re not an internet celebrity, you are willing to travel halfway across the country (or further) on your own time and dollar to cover the latest and greatest games for your readers. But even after building a network of contacts, you’ll simply be shut out by the biggest companies, even lied to. Coverage of the expo’s biggest events are ruled by an exclusive few, an inner circle – the IGNs, the GameTrailers and the Giant Bombs – and everyone else is shut out entirely. Unless you’re in the business of covering indie titles by small developers, gaming journalism boils down to being in an established circle of friends – the touted 300-400 full-time gaming journalists that this industry can support – having a lot of financial backing to kick your way in or being a major news outlet like ABC or Fox News. If you’re not any of those, you’re iced out of coverage at the highest tiers. Let me explain how getting your gaming site into E3 works. 

Step 1: You Start Getting Appointments, But Only After A Bunch Of Faff

E3 2013 StuffA

The first year you come to E3 as a media outlet, you’re out to get business cards and make contacts. Your conversations with Microsoft, 2K and EA will usually look like this:

You: “Hi, I want to have a permanent contact with your company so we can cover your games. Our traffic is <admirable number> and <other qualifying remarks>.”
PR: “That’s cute.” (hands you a business card with a “PR@gamecompany.com” e-mail address on it or “press.gamecompany.com”)
You: “Yeah, I’ve already done that, then dug through your web site and Google to find all the other e-mail accounts you have.”
PR: “Just e-mail them again, they’ll get back to you and we’ll take care of you.”

And then they don’t. So you find someone or know someone who knows someone and you manage to get some e-mails out to the right people. Over the next year, you set up appointments for the next E3. You’re going to count on all of them and plan your day around them. Despite the effort, some publishers don’t really care, but I’ll explain that in a bit. You’ll also get a lot of e-mails back about how review copies are restricted for games you want to review (because your site’s not worthy, obviously) while some random fool on YouTube gets one inexplicably. What?

In the lead-up to E3, we were told by Microsoft that there wouldn’t be any behind-the-scenes booth tours, no appointments to book to see games and because they were being dodgy in their answers, we didn’t even know what they were unveiling – even under embargo – to see these games in advance. How do you get an appointment for a game you don’t know exists? Ubisoft said their press conference was full and we would be notified if space became available.

So you book the appointments you can with some great publishers like Deep Silver and other independent studios, you book the hotel and you make it to Los Angeles. Then what happens?

Step 2: You Realize It’s Pointless To Attend E3 Press Conferences

Do you know what the difference is between being in Los Angeles attending E3 game conferences and watching them on Spike TV or through your web browser? In the case of the former, you have to wake up at 5AM to get priority seating starting at Microsoft’s (since theirs is usually first) and then begin the dire march from conference to conference over the next twelve hours. For the latter, you can sit comfortably with a good meal and plenty of available water when you’re at home. So what’s the point of even having such big press conferences to physically be at when the stuff is being streamed to all channels of the internet forever?

There isn’t. So who’s making money off being in-person and reporting on these things? That same inner circle of massive game outlets; the big players who can make tons of revenue off providing proprietary streams and tied-in content and live shows and analysis after the fact with exclusive interviews with the big developers and game makers who are at the show. If you can’t do that, it’s absolutely pointless to attend these shows in person.

So why are these crowds so full? Why do they send invite so many people attend and have them standing in gymnasiums for hours at a time to see exactly what everyone else around the world with an internet connection can see? Because then they would have to fill those seats with actors and extras, which they already do, to a lesser extent.

And Ubisoft? Those who went told me they scrambled to fill seats, they just didn’t want to invite us I guess.

So now you go to the show floor…

Step 3: You Realize Media Badges Are Useless

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If you’ve made it this far, let me give you a golden nugget of advice: never book an appointment in the first half-hour of any expo day because you’ll never make it.

At E3, there are various badge levels. You have the Exhibits Only kids that we’ve frequently ragged on, which are qualified to be at E3, but are really just playing new games early. You have the Media badged people like us. Then you have the Exhibitor badges for people who run the booths and need to be in and out frequently at any time. So what’s the advantage of having a media badge? There is none. I mean, you have a different colored tab on the edge of your badge holder, but that’s it. Heck, the LACC staff doesn’t even bother checking your badge holder if you’re up in the “media exclusive” upstairs meeting rooms, which are only a destination if you booked an appointment in advance (read: media or big-time playa). Media badge holders still need to stay outside the halls before the show opens, where they’ll be let in very slowly, 25 at a time, onto the show floor and are given absolutely no priority at all when they have pressing business to attend to.

So how do big media outlets get in and out with ease? Why, you’ve already figured it out: they set up booths to create a loophole. If you’re Geoff Keighley, Jeff Gerstmann or Stephen Totilo, you just show off your Exhibitor badge for GameTrailers, Giant Bomb or Kotaku and you’re in and out like flint, ready to see the appointments that only you were invited to. In other words, a media badge only looks like you did your homework despite the fact that you worked your ass off every week to write gaming content.

Then your appointments evaporate…

Step 4: You Realize That You Aren’t Going To See Any Big Titles

We were invited to see Thief at E3 and scheduled a first-thing appointment to see it – which is mitigated because of Step 3. We didn’t get first showing, but we did line up outside of Square Enix’s theater in the “priority” queue so we’d have better seating as opposed to the Exhibits Only kids. This isn’t anything new. We stood behind a velvet rope for 20 minutes when a group of other people gathered in front of me by the entrance to the theater. “Excuse me,” I said, “why are these people being let in first when I was the first person to line up and I’m media, so I’m covering your game?” “Oh, these people have interviews with the developers.”

What.

We were never even invited for interviews with the developers. Why did we set up an appointment for your theater when the people who have absolutely no media contacts whatsoever are going to see the exact same thing that I do at any point they want to show up at your booth at all? So the presentation goes on and the Thief design lead providing the narration keeps alluding to playing the game, like it was something we could simply apply for at the media desk. In fact, I gave them a “Best Of E3 2013″ nominee sticker on the assumption that we would be able to play the game, a guideline to our awards process. After the demo, I march back to the media desk and ask the two reps at the desk to play the game.

Square Enix Rep #1: “We don’t have it/It doesn’t exist.”
Me: “The design lead told us to go play it.”
(The two reps look at each other)
Square Enix Rep #2: “It’s actually really tight, let me go check-” (she makes a motion to leave)
Square Enix Rep #1: (waves her hand over her Thief schedule without looking at it) “Yeah, you can’t even try to see it today, sorry.”
Square Enix Rep #2: (bounces back to table) “Come back first thing tomorrow and we can get you on a waiting list.”

So I do.

Me: “I was told to come back today to play Thief. I was told there would be a waiting list.”
Square Enix Rep #3: “Nope.”
Me: “So they were blowing smoke up my ass?”
Square Enix Rep #3: “Sorry.”

E3 2013 StuffC

This repeats several times. Remember when Microsoft said that they weren’t going to be showing off anything behind closed doors and we couldn’t schedule any appointments to see their games? Half of their fucking booth was closed off to the public so they could preview games to the media via appointment. I’m media: show me your games, I want to cover them. No doing. Meanwhile, the big outlets brag about how they were. We couldn’t even get a word in edge-wise with Sony or Nintendo to see their games despite the fact that we’d been to their conferences the year before (and I managed to get in this year… just barely). Other games, like Ubisoft’s new The Division? Had to be invited. How do you get invited? Had to be a major outlet.

In many ways, we actually saw less from the big publishers over last year despite being a larger outlet now.

See us in the bottom left corner there? The Witcher 3 Is an incredible title that CD Project Red thought we should see, even offering us interviews.

Step 5: Find Hope In People Who Want You At E3

So after all the big names have let you down, you still have work to do. This year I got to meet with some incredible indie games and I’ll be writing about them over the next few days. Deep Silver, Bethesda, CD Projekt Red, Indiecade, Focus Home Interactive and many others opened their arms to us and we were really happy to see their games. If you’re a game developer that didn’t think you got enough coverage during the show, drop me an e-mail and I’ll be more than happy to give it a look.

While a company like ours is checking out games for the first time, Gamespot and Destructoid are handing out Best of Show awards. Why? Because they were also invited out to pre-E3 events weeks ago to judge everything in advance on top of their exclusive show floor access. It makes award decisions incredibly difficult, especially when the difference between winning and losing may be just getting your hands on a controller. Do I understand why Microsoft targets the big outlets? I sure do. My site gets a fraction of IGN’s traffic, so the same hour with me carries a lot less weight than an hour with them. That doesn’t mean you need to lie to me.

In the meantime, the big will continue to remain big and the small media outlets like us will continue to wonder why they get treated so poorly.

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs Shoot The First Music Video Atop The Empire State Building

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs Karen O


Yeah Yeah Yeahs have become the first band to shoot a music video at the top of New York City's Empire State Building. The clip for Despair – a small part of which has been posted online– was made in the early morning, 373m off the ground, before the tower's viewing platform was open to the public.

"It's like the American dream for us, singing your song on top of the Empire State Building," singer Karen O told the New York Times. "It's hard to do something like that and not feel like it's symbolic … Feeling like: man, where were we 10 years ago, when we were sitting around in some punk-rock dive bar, thinking about what to name our band … and now here we are at the top."

It was certainly "an iconic moment", she said. But it was also the 34-year-old singer's first visit to the summit of the legendary skyscraper. The same was true for the video's director, Patrick Daughters. "I don't like heights," he explained. While Yeah Yeah Yeahs performed on the 86th floor, a camera crew circled in a helicopter. "It was plenty loud," Daughters said. "I don't think they had to worry about the neighbours."

Although bands have applied before to shoot videos at the 23rd-tallest building in the world, nobody had met the production requirements. "[The review] was not casual," said Anthony E Malkin, president of the Empire State's operators. "[The video] had to be appropriate for the building." But Malkin is still surprised it took 84 years for the first video to happen. "Credit to [Yeah Yeah Yeahs] for having the gumption to ask."

"It [was] definitely not just another cool day in the life of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs," Karen O said. "Anything I say is not going to do justice to how cool it was."

Despair is the latest single from Mosquito, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' fourth studio album. It reached No 9.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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Jim Carrey Says He Can't Support The 'Level Of Violence' In His New Film 'Kick-Ass 2'

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jim carrey kick ass 2

Jim Carrey is refusing to support his new film "Kick-Ass 2" out in theaters this August. 

The outspoken actor on gun control violence took to Twitter yesterday saying he couldn't back the movie because of its amount of violence.

Carrey slammed gun control opponents earlier this year in a "Funny or Die" parody of former NRA president Charlton Heston. 

"Kick-Ass" comics creator Mark Millar was baffled by Carrey's comments. Millar took to his website in a lengthy message recalling the reason Carrey was attracted to the film was because his character refuses to fire a gun. 

Here's part of Millar's message:

"Jim, I'm horrified by real-life violence (even though I'm Scottish), but Kick-Ass 2 isn't a documentary. No actors were harmed in the making of this production! This is fiction and like Tarantino and Peckinpah, Scorcese and Eastwood, John Boorman, Oliver Stone and Chan-Wook Park, Kick-Ass avoids the usual bloodless body-count of most big summer pictures and focuses instead of the CONSEQUENCES of violence, whether it's the ramifications for friends and family or, as we saw in the first movie, Kick-Ass spending six months in hospital after his first street altercation. Ironically, Jim's character in Kick-Ass 2 is a Born-Again Christian and the big deal we made of the fact that he refuses to fire a gun is something he told us attracted him to the role in the first place."

"Kick-Ass 2" is in theaters August 16. 

Watch a trailer for the film below:

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The 10 Most Pirated Shows On Television

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Daenerys Targaryen dragon game of thrones

"Game of Thrones" fans really, really like watching the show illegally.

For the second year in a row, the HBO gold mine held onto its title as the most pirated show of the spring 2013 season, according to TorrentFreak.

Nearly as many viewers download it on the file-sharing site BitTorrent as watch it on television — three times the amount garnered by several of the programs further down TorrentFreak's Top 10 List. The season three premiere was downloaded by a record-breaking 5.2 million people, showing a 25 percent increase compared to last year.

When director David Petrarca was asked about the unprecedented piracy ratings earlier this year, he responded, NBD. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Petrarca said illegal downloads don't matter because the show capitalizes on "cultural buzz."

"That's how they survive," Petrarca said.

"The Big Bang Theory" and "How I Met Your Mother," round out the TorrentFreak list's top three, with 2.9 million and 2.85 million downloads, respectively. 

Check out the views per single episode below.

Most Downloaded TV Shows On BitTorrent, Spring 2013
RankShow

Est. downloads 

US TV viewers
1Game of Thrones5,200,0005,500,000
2The Big Bang Theory2,900,00020,000,000
3How I Met Your Mother    2,850,00010,510,000
4The Walking Dead2,700,00012,420,000
5Hannibal2,100,0004,380,000
6Vikings1,900,0006,210,000
7Arrow1,850,0004,140,000
8The Vampire Diaries1,800,0003,180,000
9Modern Family1,750,00012,520,000
10Revenge1,700,0009,740,000

SEE ALSO: Each 'Game Of Thrones' House Reimagined As A Global Corporation

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Kelly Rutherford Files For Bankruptcy Amid Bitter Custody Battle

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Kelly Rutherford kid

She may have played a wealthy Upper East Side divorcé on "Gossip Girl," but in real life, actress Kelly Rutherford just filed for bankruptcy following a bitter, ongoing custody battle.

According to legal docs filed by Rutherford and obtained by TMZ, the 44-year-old mother-of-two has "assets totaling $23,937  dwarfed by debts totaling $2,021,832."

Rutherford's current monthly income is $1,279.33, way down from her $486,000 paycheck during the final season of "Gossip Girl," which wrapped for good in December.

The actress owes more than $350,000 for income taxes in 2012 and $25,251 in Amex charges.

Her expenses are only off-set by the $11,487 in her checking account, $5,000 worth of furniture, $5,000 in clothing and $1,500 in jewelry.

According to the docs, the former "Melrose Place" star also "borrowed 10's of thousands of dollars from friends and relatives to dig out of the hole," reports TMZ.

As we previously reported, Rutherford has been in an expensive four-year fight against her ex Daniel Giersch over custody of the former couple's two young children.

Thanks to a judge's ruling, the children currently live in France with their father, who is refusing to let them live with Rutherford in the United States — despite this being their country of birth.

ABC News called the decision “one of the worst custody decisions ever."

Rutherford has been fighting the judge's ruling, but legal expenses have reportedly mounted to over $1.5 million.

"I've traveled 40 times to either facilitate contact with their dad or visit them and bring them back and forth and paid for everything," Rutherford told E! News in April. "Every penny from 'Gossip Girl,' my pension, my stocks, it's all been spent fighting for my children."

The bankruptcy petition was filed last month.

SEE ALSO: Jim Carrey Says He Can't Support The 'Level Of Violence' In His New Film 'Kick-Ass 2'

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