Quantcast
Channel: Business Insider
Viewing all 101983 articles
Browse latest View live

The FCC has issued a major ruling to protect consumers' privacy

0
0

US Consumer DesiresThis story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Digital Media Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

In a huge victory for privacy advocates, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that broadband-internet providers such as AT&T and Comcast will no longer be able to collect and distribute customer data without getting their consent. 

The new sanctions, which were first introduced in March, require fixed- and mobile-broadband providers to obtain permission from subscribers to use data related to their web browsing history, app usage, geolocation information and financial information, among others.

As of now, these firms can track user behavior and personal information unless consumers actively opt out. The rules are set to go into effect by the end of next year, and will apply only to broadband providers and telco carries.

Unsurprisingly, the cable industry voiced concern, largely because it gives digital companies such as Google and Facebook, who are not subject to the limitations, an unfair advantage. Both Google and Facebook collect vast amounts of consumer data, which they use to distribute and sell to brands and marketers. Since Google and Facebook are governed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and not the FCC, they are exempt from the new rules.

The FCC's decision could have major implications for AT&T’s pending takeover of Time Warner. AT&T recently agreed to purchase Time Warner for $85.4 billion with the intention of obtaining and merging its troves of consumer data – such as browsing history, viewing behavior, and app usage – with Time Warner’s media properties such as HBO, Turner, and Warner Bros.

This would enable AT&T to boost its audience-targeting capabilities while reaching customers across screens. The new rule could not only make it harder for the two companies to merge their data, but also any consumer data they obtain in the future.

At first glance, it seems clear that the new rules would benefit consumers worried about their online privacy, but could actually have a reserve effect. Indeed, among US consumers, 45% stated that they are more worried about their online privacy than one year ago, according to a survey conducted by the National Cyber Security Alliance. However, the rule could also negatively impact consumers.

Instead of being fed individualized content and product recommendations based on browsing history, users could now be overwhelmed with the same ad volume, but with less relevant content, thus further increasing their frustration and negative sentiment around advertising. 

To receive stories like this one directly to your inbox every morning, sign up for the Digital Media Briefing newsletter. Click here to learn more about how you can gain risk-free access today.

Join the conversation about this story »


Bill Murray had the best reaction to the Chicago Cubs' World Series Game 5 win

0
0

bill murray chicago cubs

Bill Murray's Chicago Cubs fandom runs deep, and he's not afraid to show it.

After other antics displaying his love for the Cubs, including rooting for the team in the White House press briefing room and singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during Game 3 of the World Series, Murray was in the stands for Game 5 of the World Series between the Cubs and the Cleveland Indians at Chicago's Wrigley Field (the actor is from the Chicago area). He had numerous notable reactions seen during the live taping of the game.

When the Cubs secured their 3-2 victory, Murray was overcome with joy. He even had tears in his eyes.

Another fan noted how the actor stole attention away from an interview with a player to flex the Cubs "C" on his arm.

That is how a great comedic actor celebrates his team's victory.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best movies of all time, according to critics on Metacritic

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Judge Judy makes $47 million a year —here’s how she became one of the highest paid TV stars in the world

There's a good argument that Apple should buy Netflix (AAPL, NFLX)

0
0

reed hastings, netflix, sv100 2015

Last week, Apple finally revealed its grand plan to conquer your TV: a new Apple TV app that brings all your shows and movies together in one place and serves you recommendations.

The idea makes sense. Apple thinks apps are the future of TV, and that eventually you will have separate subscriptions to Netflix, HBO, Showtime, Hulu, and so on — maybe you already do.

In that world, it will be annoying to have to navigate a bunch of different interfaces and menus. So Apple will do it for you with a new app called TV, which not only works on your Apple TV, but also on your iPhone or iPad.

Apple's TV app will provide you with one place to find new shows to watch, pick up shows where you left off, and buy episodes or seasons from iTunes. It's "the one place to access all your television," CEO Tim Cook said last week.

With this app, you can see the outline of Apple's ambitions for Apple TV: a universal search, browse, and suggestion platform that fetches you the right content as fast as possible.

screen shot 2016 10 27 at 1.18.46 pm

Sorry, Apple

But there's a big problem with Apple's vision — Netflix and Amazon don't seem to be on board. Neither company, so far, will be part of Apple's new TV app.

Netflix, which told Business Insider it is still evaluating the opportunity, is a particular blow.

Why is Netflix wary? In note this morning, Stratechery analyst Ben Thompson explains it this way:

"Apple's desire to be 'the one place to access all of your television' implies the disintermediation of Netflix to just another content provider, right alongside its rival HBO and the far more desperate networks who lack any sort of customer relationship at all. It is directly counter to the strategy that has gotten Netflix this far — owning the customer relationship by delivering a superior customer experience."

Netflix's direct relationship with its customers is valuable, and it doesn't want to give that up. And the problem for Apple is that without Netflix (and Amazon, increasingly), the TV app isn't compelling. In our current TV landscape, if you don't have these two streaming heavyweights, you aren't providing a "unified TV experience," as Cook said Apple wanted.

apple tv app 4

This is a position Apple doesn't normally find itself in. Thompson pointed to Apple's domination of the music industry, which played out very differently.

"The truth is that Apple's executives seem stuck in the iPod/iTunes era, where selling 70% of all music players led to leverage over the music labels," he wrote.

But the Apple TV is just another streaming box, and Netflix can already put its content on it with its own app. Unfortunately for Apple, "selling hardware isn't a point of leverage," according to Thompson.

That's why Thompson makes the case that Apple should buy Netflix.

"If Apple wants its usual ownership of end users it needs to buy its way in, and that means buying Netflix," he wrote.

Analysts at Bernstein also argued earlier this month that Apple could use Netflix to create a competitor to Amazon's Prime bundle and move Apple away from a transactional business model toward a subscription-based one.

Whatever the reason, Apple would likely have to pay a hefty premium, and Netflix might not want to sell.

But Apple's current strategy just doesn't have the juice to conquer TV without Netflix and Amazon. It needs something else.

Read Thompson's full argument for Apple buying Netflix »

SEE ALSO: This chart shows how the number of TV shows being made has exploded in the last few years

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The 7 best TV shows on Netflix you've probably never heard of

John Oliver explains the massive school segregation problem all over the US

0
0

john oliver school segregation last week tonight hbo

John Oliver laid out how the problem of segregated schools still persists in America more than 50 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

HBO's "Last Week Tonight" host kicked off the segment on Sunday night with the alarming statistic that between 1988 and 2011, American schools in which 1% or less of the population is white, also referred to as "apartheid" schools, doubled.

"Even as our society has grown more diverse, nearly 7,000 schools have the racial makeup of the audience of your average Tyler Perry movie," Oliver said. “And that one white guy is [film critic] Leonard Maltin, and he has to be there. It’s his job."

What's even more interesting is where the problem of segregated schools is most prevalent. According to the UCLA Civil Rights Project, the South is the least segregated region of America while the most segregated state is New York. And that's primarily driven by the large amount of segregated schools in New York City.

"Of course racism exists in New York. Have you never seen 'West Side Story'?" Oliver joked. "It's a musical about love transcending the obstacle of one person being Puerto Rican. It will never work!"

It turns out that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forced states to integrate schools where there were segregation laws. So many of the Northern states got away with never integrating their schools at all.

Oliver explained, "So if a New York school was all white, because it was drawn from an all-white area, even if that area had been kept that way due to a host of explicitly racist housing policies, that was somehow fine."

And just in case we still held the belief that the North was much more accepting of integrated schools, Oliver played a clip of a black man describing the bigoted community welcome he received when he was being integrated into a white neighborhood in Boston.

"Things got just as ugly as they did down South," Oliver said.

Why is it important to focus on segregation in schools?

"Funding tends to follow white people around the way white people follow the band Phish around," the host said.

Watch the video below:

SEE ALSO: The history of Donald Trump and NBC's love-hate relationship that made him a star

DON'T MISS: Seth Meyers: Donald Trump 'doesn't even seem to know' what Obamacare is

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta is obsessed with UFOs and aliens

Playing this virtual reality game was the scariest thing I’ve ever done

0
0

To get in the spirit of Halloween we decided to have our easily scared coworker Alex Heath try out a virtual reality horror game on the Oculus Rift.

Horror inside of virtual reality is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. It feels like you’re really inside a scary environment — and at any moment a demon or monster will reach out and grab you.

Follow Tech Insider: On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

12 of the greatest ways famous people wanted to be remembered on their tombstone

0
0

Your epitaph — the text written on a headstone — is the last thing you can say to the world.

Sometimes it's a matter of getting your own account of your life out there. Richard Nixon, disgraced by Watergate, wanted to be remembered as a peacemaker.

Others, like F. Scott Fitzgerald or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., highlight a favorite line from their major works.

Or you might just want your bones to be left alone, like William Shakespeare, who was buried with a curse.

Keep scrolling for the best in headstones.

Drake Baer contributed to an earlier version of this story.







See the rest of the story at Business Insider

How James Cameron is pushing boundaries to make 'Avatar' sequels unlike anything you've seen

0
0

James Cameron

Even before "Avatar" became the highest-grossing movie of all time thanks in large part to its incredible technological advances in 3D, director James Cameron was always looking to use groundbreaking equipment that would make audiences more immersed in the stories he was telling.

As he's moving forward on multiple sequels to "Avatar," Cameron also plans to give fans an experience that will be light years beyond the 2009 original.

“I’m going to push," Cameron said while accepting honorary membership into the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers on Friday night, according to Indiewire. “I’m still very bullish on 3D, but we need brighter projection, and ultimately I think it can happen — with no glasses. We’ll get there.”

billy lynn finalCameron is likely keeping a close eye on the reactions people have from watching Ang Lee's new movie "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk," which is the first film ever to be shot in 3D in 120 frames per second (the standard is 24 frames per second).

It's so advanced most movie projectors can't play the movie in that format when it opens nationwide November 11 (only one theater in New York City and one in LA will be able to), but those who have watched it say the visuals are incredible.

"Avatar 2" opens in theaters in 2018. It will be interesting to see if Cameron will push for the industry to make movies in 120 fps available in more theaters or if he'll work on evolving 3D in a lower frame rate.

SEE ALSO: Miles Teller says he's relieved he didn't get the Han Solo role: 'I'm cool right now not being attached to a franchise'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Letterman rips Trump, calls him a 'damaged human' who should be 'shunned'

Why the movie that HBO's 'Westworld' is based on was way ahead of its time

0
0

Westworld 4 MGM

I was around 9 or 10 when I first saw Michael Crichton’s 1973 “Westworld.” The movie was on TV one night and though I didn’t understand what was going on, the ending scared the hell out of me and gave me nightmares for days.

From time to time since, I've remembered that visual of a robotic Yul Brynner roaming around the futuristic amusement park going on a killing spree. But watching the movie again on iTunes earlier this week, I pinpointed what my major fear was back then: helpless isolation.

The main character, Peter Martin (played by Richard Benjamin), after surviving the robot attack, sits by himself as the screen goes to black. What the hell does he do now?

With HBO’s sci-fi hit “Westworld” in full gear, I decided to rewatch the 1973 movie that inspired the show’s creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy along with executive producers J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk (maybe a few of them had nightmares watching the movie, too?) to go deeper into the story than the movie’s writer/director Michael Crichton ever could.

Michael Crichton Keith Bedford GettyThough the movie does not hold up well at all, there are still some groundbreaking elements to it that certainly inspired many filmmakers/authors who would go on to thrive in the sci-fi genre.

“Westworld” was Crichton’s first feature film and was kind of doomed from the start. The script was turned down by most studios when the author shopped it around, and he finally found a taker in MGM. But the studio squeezed Crichton on the budget and his lead actors, Richard Benjamin and James Brolin, weren’t signed on to the movie until 48 hours before principal photography began. Brynner was so strapped for cash he took the gig for $75,000 and showed up on set wearing the all-black costume he wore in “The Magnificent Seven.” 

Despite all that, the movie, which was made for around $1.5 million, earned $4 million at the box office and was MGM’s biggest release of that year

What has drawn viewers to the HBO series likely is the same thing that grabbed the attention of audiences in 1973: the desire to see a thrilling experience that we the viewers will never be able to have ourselves.

Westworld 2 MGMPeter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and John Blane (James Brolin) are friends who are on board a hovercraft en route to an amusement park called Delos when “Westworld” begins. For $1,000 a day, Delos provides the experience of a lifetime, as you have your choice of three worlds to immerse yourself in: Westworld, Medieval World, or Rome World. All are inhabited by robots who look and act like humans, except their hands are not humanlike (with all that detail, you think they would have mastered the hands).

John is the more confident of the two and has been to Delos before. Peter is shy and reserved. We are basically going through the whole experience from his perspective.

If this sounds familiar to a pair of characters from the HBO series, I’m with you. Though TV's “Westworld” is far more ambitious than the movie, one thing that certainly feels taken from the movie is the duo William (Jimmi Simpson) and Logan (Ben Barnes), though Logan is a lot more of a jerk than John.

Westworld HBOOnce Peter and John get settled into Westworld, it’s then an hour of cliche after cliche in all the worlds. Peter and John get into bar fights, have sex with the town whores, and shoot people, like the dressed-in-black Gunslinger (Brynner).

There’s also a subplot in Medieval World where a guest has a tryst with the queen and must prepare to fight the Black Knight.

But then things start to go haywire. John gets bitten by a robotic rattle snake (none of the robots is supposed to harm the guests) and a beautiful maiden doesn’t give into the advances of the Medieval World guest (sex robots were created to, well, have sex).

This introduces us to the most comical part of the movie: the staff behind the scenes running Delos. All dressed in white lab coats, they spend their time staring at monitors showing the park, griping about nothing ever working, and fixing robots who have been shot.

Westworld 5 MGMOne of the most fascinating parts of TV's “Westworld” is watching the characters who pull the strings at the park, but Crichton didn’t seem to worry about that too much. The biggest moment for the staff in white coats is after the rattlesnake bite when they converge and wonder if they should close down the park. It doesn’t take them long to decide to push through and keep it open.

The last 20 minutes or so comprise the best part of the movie. The Gunslinger is back in town and he’s new and improved, now with heightened heat censers for sight. He confronts Peter and John again but when John draws, the Gunslinger shoots and kills him. This begins a cat-and-mouse game between the Gunslinger and Peter throughout all the worlds.

Westworld POVBehind the scenes, the dimwitted staff are confused by what has happened to their creations as all the robots in all the words are killing the guests (yes, the Medieval World guest is killed by the Black Knight). In a panic, the staff shuts down the power to the park. But that also causes all the doors in their control room to automatically lock as well. And I guess those doors were pretty tightly sealed because they all suffocate to death.

Meanwhile, Peter is running from the Gunslinger, who can track his footprints thanks to his heat sensor-powered sight.

Finding his way into the control area of the park, Peter gets the drop on the Gunslinger and after throwing acid on him, the Gunslinger finally stops operating.

Peter ends up in Medieval World, hearing the cries of a woman locked in a dungeon. When he unlocks the chains and tries to give her water she begins to spark. She’s a robot, too.

Westworld 2 MGM
Peter is alive, but alone (let the nightmares begin).

Yes, “Westworld” sounds cheesy, but there are some very important takeaways.

Once the Gunslinger is given the heat sensor, the movie suddenly has a lot of POV shots from the perspective of the Gunslinger, a pixelated view that was a groundbreaking work of visual effects for the early 1970s.

Then there’s the unstoppable Gunslinger played by Brynner, who today you can’t help but compare to James Cameron’s Terminator.

jurassic parkAnd then there’s Crichton himself. “Westworld” is in many ways a test balloon for the 1990 novel in which he once more highlights a unique amusement park that goes awry, “Jurassic Park.”

But this time, without the restrictions of a Hollywood budget, through the written word, Crichton creates a world that he could have only dreamed while making “Westworld.”

His work once more became responsible for elevating VFX, as Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the book in 1993 proved that Hollywood had caught up to Crichton’s imagination.

Because of the success of “Westworld,” a sequel was made, “Futureworld,” in 1976. Crichton had no involvement and Brynner makes a small cameo. It’s awful.

There was also a short-lived TV series, “Beyond Westworld,” on CBS. It's awful, too.

It took over 40 years, but a worthy companion to “Westworld” has finally been made with the HBO series. I highly doubt the series will end with Dr. Ford and Bernard suffocating in a control room. But it is important to recognize the significance the movie has had on the sci-fi genre, and in many ways the work of Crichton.

Would he have written “Jurassic Park” if he made “Westworld” the way he wanted to?

SEE ALSO: The history of Donald Trump and NBC's love-hate relationship that made him a star

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The first trailer for the 'Power Rangers' movie is here and it blows the TV show away


How the writer of 'Arrival' spent a decade getting his sci-fi Oscar contender made

0
0

Arrival square Paramount

Eric Heisserer was leaving a meeting with the production company 21 Laps in 2010 when he was asked one last question: “Is there anything you would want us to get the rights to?”

Heisserer turned and gave the pitch he’d been giving and which had been turned down for the last five years, but he thought, “Why not?”

He told 21 Laps producers Dan Cohen and Dan Levine about a short story he was obsessed with, “Story of Your Life.” Written by sci-fi writer Ted Chiang, it follows a linguist named Louise who is recruited by the military to help understand the language of aliens who have just landed on earth.

To Heisserer’s surprise, Cohen and Levine were interested, and suddenly the movie that would become known as “Arrival,” the highly anticipated sci-fi drama starring Amy Adams in the Louise role, had life.

Though Heisserer, 46, is best known in Hollywood for his horror scripts — which include this year’s surprise box-office hit “Lights Out” and 2010’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street” reboot — he’s always been looking to branch out into other genres. A script that he wrote on spec seems to be the one that’s going to do it.

Around 2005, Heisserer read “Story of Your Life” and was completely taken by Chiang’s touching story of life and loss.

“The end of the story just had me bawling and I knew at that point I wanted to share that feeling with the world,” Heisserer said to Business Insider. “And I didn't worry so much about the fact that it wasn't inherently cinematic in its original form.”

That’s the biggest reason why it took so long for Heisserer to find producers who were interested. He was told meeting after meeting that he either needed a star or a name director to move forward, and he had neither.

But with 21 Laps on his side after their meeting in 2010, he was a step closer. The company, founded by director Shawn Levy (“Night at the Museum”), was beginning to come into its own and would soon get behind two unknown filmmakers with a project called “Stranger Things,” which would go on to become one of Netflix’s biggest hits.

When Heisserer teamed up with 21 Laps for a new round of pitches of his story idea, studios rejected it again. So Heisserer was content to put the project aside and move on.

Or he thought he was.

Eric Heisserer Matt Winkelmeyer Getty"The next morning, I called the Dans and I said, ‘It's too close to my heart. This is a story that's in my bones. I will write this on spec,’” he said.

Heisserer spent all of 2011 writing the script, which then got on the coveted Black List, an annual list of the best unproduced scripts in the business. That led to independent financiers FilmNation and LavaBear offering the money to finance the film in 2012 (Heisserer received the Writers Guild of America minimum fee, which at the time was around $100,000). 

Along with screenwriter credit, Heisserer also negotiated an executive producer credit on the film.

“It was an insurance policy to make sure I would have a seat at the table and help answer questions,” Heisserer said of pushing for the EP credit. “Every page had a reason for being there. It was a script that was very purposely constructed and it’s like a Jenga game. If anyone took something out it was important for me to be there and say, ‘Hang on!’”

This systematic adaptation of Chiang’s story started out with two simple elements: a cork board and magazines.

Heisserer used the board to separate the story into two sections. One column of the board was dedicated to the story’s core structure while on the other side he posted images from magazines that evoked something from the story — like visuals for locations, dreams, even the cast.

“I find this so amazing, but the picture I put up on the board for the character of Louise was an Amy Adams photo,” Heisserer said.

And as he suspected when he first read the story, Heisserer had to change a few elements from Chiang’s story to make it more cinematic. A big shift was having the aliens come to earth.

In Chiang’s story, the aliens communicate with Louise light years away via a video screen, and they never do come to the planet.

“It was the first major change from the original material,” he said. “Have the aliens right there next to us.”

Arrival YouTube:ParamountThat then led to the idea of multiple alien ships landing across the globe, which then caused Heisserer to think up how the world would react to them landing. Turns out not well.

“The more I thought about how our population would react to this, the more I realized this is just going to get worse the longer the aliens stay around,” Heisserer said. “The longer these are parked here and no real answers are forthcoming, the more our population is going to freak out.”

But outside of the tricks a screenwriter uses to build drama and thrills in a movie, by the end, Heisserer wanted to stay true to Chiang’s story.

“That emotional reaction to the ending when you realize Louise’s journey, that’s all Ted,” Heisserer said. “I don’t get to take credit for that, nor would I want to.”

That pull at the heartstrings has led audiences at the Venice, Telluride, and Toronto film festivals to fall in love with — and generate Oscar buzz for — “Arrival,” thanks greatly to the vision of director Denis Villeneuve ("Sicario"), who didn’t take the job until he met with Heisserer (six meetings later he signed on to do it).

Looking back on the project, Heisserer said the best thing that happened to the movie was that a studio didn’t nab it early on (it was eventually acquired by Paramount). Independent financing meant there was little interference in the making of it.

“This was like a breath of fresh air,” said Heisserer, who is very familiar with top executives flexing their muscles for creative change.

Heisserer will likely go back to the horror/thriller genre, but there’s one more takeaway from writing “Arrival.”

“I couldn't need any bigger proof that it's important for me to write what I'm passionate about on spec,” he said, as “Arrival” and “Lights Out” were both done on spec. “It has reaffirmed my commitment that no matter what is going on in my career I will write one spec a year regardless.” 

“Arrival” opens in theaters November 11.

SEE ALSO: How the man behind Netflix hit "Stranger Things" is taking over Hollywood

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 'Media rigging the election!': Trump slams SNL for mocking his debate performance

Tina Fey defends Jimmy Fallon's 'softball' Donald Trump interview

0
0

Getty Images jimmy fallon tina fey

Tina Fey thinks that Jimmy Fallon didn't deserve all the backlash around his recent interview with Donald Trump.

Back in September, Fallon interviewed Trump on "The Tonight Show." Many believed he was too soft on the controversial Republican presidential candidate. His toughest move was messing up Trump's infamous hair.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the actress and producer defended the "Tonight Show" host during a speech for the Producers Guild of America on Saturday.

"This election is so, so ugly, it’s not business as usual," Fey said. "I really felt for Jimmy when people were so angry... It’s not Jimmy who peed in that punch bowl, it’s not Jimmy who created this horrible world that we’re currently living in.”

At the time, Fallon told TMZ"Have you seen my show? I'm never too hard on anyone."

And later when Hillary Clinton came on the "Tonight Show," he poked fun at the controversy by giving the Democratic presidential candidate actual softballs.

SEE ALSO: Jimmy Fallon mocks his Donald Trump interview by gifting Hillary Clinton actual softballs

DON'T MISS: Jimmy Fallon mocks his Donald Trump interview by gifting Hillary Clinton actual softballs

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This is why Tina Fey and Amy Poehler never want to star in a TV show together

The 23 best horror movies on Netflix for Halloween

0
0

hellraiser

Halloween is getting close, so it's time to search though Netflix for some scary movies.

There are so many to choose from, so to make the rest of your October movie-watching easier, here are the 23 best horror movies you can stream on Netflix right now.

Grab a friend and come on in.

Brett Arnold contributed to an earlier version of this story.

SEE ALSO: 100 movies on Netflix that everyone needs to watch in their lifetime

23. "The Taking of Deborah Logan"

An impressive "found footage" horror film that looks at a documentary crew filming a woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease and finding a lot more.



22. "Honeymoon"

Newly married and spending their honeymoon in a rustic cabin, Bea and Paul don't have a care in the world. Until they go mad.



21. "The Wicker Man" (2006)

Neil LaBute's remake of the 1973 horror classic is pretty forgettable, except for the performance by Nicolas Cage. Numerous vintage Cage crazy scenes show his character's evolution into madness.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Actress Anna Camp says she was sexually harassed on the set of 'Good Girls Revolt'

0
0

anna camp good girls revolt amazon.JPG

Anna Camp says she got a surprising reminder that sexual discrimination can rear its ugly head anywhere when she experienced it on the set of Amazon's new drama "Good Girls Revolt."

"It blew my mind. Sexual harassment is prevalent in our industry," Camp, 34, recently told Business Insider. "I was telling people earlier that we get all dolled up for the show, right? Especially my character, to the nines with the hair, and I go over to crafty [craft services] and I’m eating food and I’ve never been called 'doll,' 'honey,' and 'sweetie' more than when I’m on this show."

Camp had good reason to be surprised. One would think the show's cast and crew would be more sensitive about such behavior. "Good Girls Revolt" is based on a series of events in 1970 in which a group of female researchers at Newsweek filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming the magazine only allowed men to become reporters. It portrays a culture in which men regularly call women by sexist names and hit on them.

"I just want to say, ‘Do you guys know what show we’re working on right now? That we’re doing a feminism show and we’re talking about sexual harassment and equality and I’m getting called doll, honey, and sweetie more than I ever have?’ It’s fascinating," Camp continued.

anna camp good girls revolt amazon 3Camp plays researcher Jane Hollander. With her high, coiffed hair and perfect outfits, Jane is probably the show's most unlikely character to rebel against the glass ceiling between researcher and reporter at the show's fictional publication, "News of the Week."

"Jane is a woman of the '50s really. She’s got her plan to get married, have a baby. She’s not going to work at News of the Week for a long time at all," Camp described her character. "But she’s great at her job. She loves being at work. So why does she feel guilty about being fulfilled by work? Because in her mind she’s supposed to be fulfilled only by family and her husband and that kind of thing. So she’s definitely questioning things."

Jane's growth isn't limited to the workplace.

"She definitely unravels, the hair gets looser, there could be some drugs involved at some point with Jane which is really fun," Camp teased.

SEE ALSO: Inside 'Sleepless in Seattle' screenwriter Nora Ephron's pivotal role on Amazon's 'Good Girls Revolt'

DON'T MISS: The 10 most talked-about new TV shows of the fall, ranked

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Don't be afraid to cancel cable — here's how to watch all of your favorite shows for less than $42 a month

The costume from Netflix's hit 'Stranger Things' that's blowing up this Halloween

0
0

eleven

Your head has to be in the sand if you haven't recognized that Eleven, the powerful little girl with a healthy appetite for Eggos, is the most popular "Stranger Things" Halloween costume.

But Business Insider wanted to see just how popular the character from Netflix's show really is this Halloween. To find out, we partnered with technology and marketing platform Amobee.

It analyzed real-time content consumption across the internet, video, social, and mobile in the week leading up to Halloween (October 23-to-31) to determine which "Stranger Things" characters were generating the most engagement.

And what Amobee found supports the popular sentiment. Eleven is the most popular "Stranger Things" topic of discussion in the week leading up to Halloween and in discussions involving costumes in the same period. The last time discussion about Eleven costumes peaked was during last month's New York Comic Con.

Stranger things #happyhalloween from Eleven and Dustin!

A photo posted by @amyschumer on Oct 29, 2016 at 4:33pm PDT on

SEE ALSO: The 50 best TV show seasons of all time, according to critics

So which characters were the runner-ups to Eleven? No. 2 is Barb.

Never again will Barb go forgotten. She received 76% of the digital engagement Eleven did in the week leading up to Halloween. And in costume-related engagement, Barb got 38% of the engagement Eleven got.



 



 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

This hot podcast company's new shows promise crime, psychological thrills, and controversy

0
0

Dov CharneyThe podcasting industry is on the cusp of breaking mainstream in a major way, according to Gimlet Media cofounder Matt Lieber.

And Lieber wants Gimlet to be one of the few big podcasting giants that rules the industry.

Gimlet's new slate of podcasts, announced Tuesday, seems to reach for that mainstream buzz with controversy, crime, and psychological thrills.

Growth story 

Gimlet, a podcast-making company founded in 2014, has seen its business triple in the last year by revenue, audience, and headcount, Lieber tells Business Insider. “We’ve had our fastest year-over-year growth this year,” he continues. The company is on track to make $7 million in sales this year, according to a recent segment on one of its shows.

Gimlet's fall season adds three new shows to its (formerly) five-show roster, and features a fourth season of hit “StartUp,” which will follow American Apparel founder Dov Charney as he tries to start a new company after being ousted under dramatic circumstances in 2014.

The three new podcasts mark Gimlet’s entry into hot formats: a fictional psychological thriller, a true crime series from the creators of HBO’s hit “The Jinx,” and a show that re-examines historical moments. Compared to the quirky “Mystery Show,” which Gimlet declared “unsustainable” and recently canceled, these podcasts show an ear toward mass appeal.

The transition

We’re in the midst of a big transition in audio, Lieber says. Radio will slowly lose dominance to digital. Smartphones have pushed us toward the transition, but cars are helping radio hang on pretty tight, Lieber says. Eventually, however, on-demand audio will have a huge market — think of it like the on-demand video market that Netflix kick-started. In that world, there will be a big demand for podcasts.

That demand will lead to a handful of prominent podcast studios springing up, Liber says (as well as a bunch of independents). He thinks Gimlet is well-placed to be one. The company has used the $7.5 million in venture capital money it’s raised to build up a stable of well-respected shows, like “Reply All” and “StartUp,” as well as its own ad agency that creates custom audio ads and branded podcasts. The pieces are in place if podcasts continue to grow in popularity.

Lieber thinks now is the time. "[Podcasts are] becoming a mainstream phenomenon,” he says. Total podcast listening in the US grew by 25% year-over-year, and even Malcolm Gladwell is getting into the game.

And Gimlet’s new shows, which can go through an incubator process of up to a year, seem designed to get people's attention.

Take the fourth season of “StartUp,” for example, which Lieber says he’s most excited for of the new slate. The show tracks Dov Charney from the inception moment of his new company, as he tries to “recapture the magic of American Apparel” (as Lieber describes it). Charney was ousted from American Apparel in 2014, by the board, which said the firing "grew out of an ongoing investigation into alleged misconduct.” At American Apparel, Charney faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Charney was described by Business Insider's Jim Edwards as "infuriating, charming, arrogant." Lieber calls Charney “controversial but compelling,” and says the show does not shy away from the accusations. “It’s not purely a celebration,” Lieber says.

But you can bet Charney will get people chattering around the internet.

Here are Gimlet’s full descriptions of the new fall season:

SEE ALSO: Cable TV price increases have beaten inflation every single year for 20 years

Undone (Premieres Monday, November 14)

"When big news happens, the world tunes in and then moves on. But often the stories we thought were over haven’t really ended. They were the beginning of something else. Undone is a new show from Gimlet Media that digs up the surprising things that happened when we weren’t looking.

The first, seven-episode season of Undone explores:

  • Disco Demolition Night, a crazy night in 1979 in Chicago, where a huge crowd of rock fans lit thousands of disco records on fire, leaving an indelible impression on America’s black and LGBTQ communities and the music they loved

  • A 20 year fight over the oldest skeleton ever found in North America -- a battle that has raised big questions about who owns America’s history: science or the indigenous people who lived it

  • The Deacons for Defense and Justice, a group of black men who in 1965, armed themselves to face down the KKK in one of the worst Klantowns in the South

  • The world’s first computer dating company, started at Harvard in 1965, with a computer the size of a van

  • The story of a small Michigan town who unexpectedly found themselves fighting with the Department of Homeland Security over their neighbor and friend, Ibrahim Parlak, who looked like the perfect American immigrant, until DHS called him "the perfect terrorist package" and arrested him

Undone is hosted by Pat Walters and premieres Monday, November 14 from Gimlet."



Homecoming (Premieres Wednesday, November 16)

"Homecoming is an groundbreaking new audio series from Gimlet Media, starring Academy Award-nominee Catherine Keener (Capote), Golden Globe-winner Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Force Awakens), and Emmy-nominee David Schwimmer (American Crime Story: The People Vs. OJ Simpson).

This six-episode psychological thriller centers on a caseworker (Keener) at an experimental facility, her ambitious supervisor (Schwimmer), and a soldier eager to rejoin civilian life (Isaac). Homecoming is told through an enigmatic collage of telephone calls, therapy sessions, and overheard conversations.  

Featuring a script by bestselling author Eli Horowitz (The Silent History, The Pickle Index) and Micah Bloomberg (Creative Control), coupled with intricate, textured sound design by Mark Phillips (Serial), Homecoming brings Gimlet’s award-winning audio storytelling into an entirely new realm.

Homecoming launches Wednesday, November 16 and continues for six weekly installments."



Crimetown (Premieres Sunday, November 20)

"Welcome to Providence, Rhode Island, where organized crime corrupted an entire city and infected every aspect of public life. In their new podcast, the makers of The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, tella story of alliances and betrayals, heists and stings,cops and mobsters, politicians and ex-cons. Actually, some of the politicians are ex-cons.

You’ll meet one of America’s most notorious mob bosses, Raymond Patriarca,who owned casinos in Vegas with Frank Sinatra and ran the New England mafia from a little vending machine company called the Coin-O-Matic. You’ll meet longtime Providence mayor Vincent “Buddy" Cianci, who resigned from office after kidnapping and torturing his wife’s lover—only to run again and win by a landslide. And you’ll meet a host of other crooks, cops, politicians, and priests, all of whom battled for the soul of this city.

In Providence, it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Crimetown premieres Sunday, November 20."



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Daily Beast president Mike Dyer will share the secrets to driving direct web site traffic in a crowded market at IGNITION 2016

0
0

mike dyer daily beast

For the first time, teens are watching YouTube more than cable. Young people are getting the news on their phones. The way we consume news has changed.

The future belongs to digital media, but with so many outlets available, it can be hard to make a splash in a crowded, competitive market.

Enter Mike Dyer, The Daily Beast’s president and publisher.

Dyer is all about establishing a personalized connection when it comes to his news site's readers and advertisers.

Instead of slapping traditional ads all over its site, The Daily Beast has individualized content campaigns that audiences actually want to engage with. Rather than relying on Google and Facebook for traffic, like most digital-media organizations, the IAC-owned outlet focuses on building up a loyal base of readers with its email-subscription service and lightning-fast mobile app. All of this innovation has been working. The website has grown to 22 million monthly uniques, up from 14 million just a few years ago.

All of this is why we're thrilled to announce that Mike Dyer will be speaking at IGNITION: Future of Digital. He'll be joining the stage with Dave Finocchio, founder and CEO of Bleacher Report, and Adam Singolda, founder and CEO of Taboola, to discuss the future of online media.

IGNITIONwill take place December 5-7 at the Time Warner Center in New York City. Speakers include Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL; Mathias Döpfner, chairman and CEO of Axel Springer; and Peter Moore, chief competition officer of Electronic Arts.

Sign up today before tickets sell out!

Join the conversation about this story »


Samantha Bee says she's pretty sure Donald Trump can't read

0
0

Samantha Bee Donald Trump Read TBS YouTube final

Samantha Bee hasn't been shy about who she's rooting for this election. And it's not Donald Trump.

The latest example is a segment called "People Are Saying..." that showed up on the "Full Frontal" Facebook page Monday, in which Bee makes the case that Trump can't read.

Bee says in the segment that it first dawned on her while watching a deposition Trump gave in June that was made public in September.

In one part of the taped deposition, Trump refused to read from a legal document because he said he didn't bring his glasses. Then his lawyer stepped in and said Trump didn't have to read it because he's not a lawyer.

"At first, I thought Trump was lying, but then it hit me," Bee said. "You heard it here first: People are saying Donald Trump can't read."

The segment continues with numerous examples of Trump's disinterest in reading, including him saying that he doesn't actually write his tweets and instead tells his staff things to tweet; past accusations that he hasn't read a book in 20 years; and "Saturday Night Live" cast member Pete Davidson telling the "Opie Radio" XM station that Trump refused to read the scripts given to him when he was a guest host.

Bee says what she's doing here is showing "how easy and fun it is to take random scraps of evidence and spin them into ridiculous conspiracy theories." It's a practice that has become widespread this election season.

Watch the entire segment:

SEE ALSO: Actress Anna Camp says she was sexually harrassed on the set of "Good Girls Revolt"

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: LL COOL J: The biggest workout mistakes people make at the gym

Barack and Michelle Obama handed out candy and did a 'Thriller' dance for Halloween

0
0

obamas halloween candy

President Barack Obama is making his way through the final months of his presidency with a smile on his face.

That was the takeaway from a video of the trick-or-treat gathering Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama hosted at the White House on Halloween for children and their families in the area.

In the video from the Associated Press, before handing out the candy, President Obama jokes that for once kids don't have to listen to Michelle's dietary advice. He also advises them, "The more candy, the later you eat the candy, the better, because I think being up all night with a sugar rush is exactly what your parents are looking for."

The Obamas also busted out what looks like a spontaneous dance routine to Michael Jackson's "Thriller," but it clearly wasn't the "Thriller" dance, and their moves were a tad shaky. But it's hard not to find Barack's dad dance endearing.

Watch the video below:

 

SEE ALSO: The 50 best movies of all time, according to critics on Metacritic

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here is the best cosplay of the 2016 New York Comic Con

Acting legend Michael Douglas made some comments that should terrify Hollywood — and thrill Netflix

0
0

Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas' superstar film career, as both an actor and a producer, has netted him a pair of Oscars, not to mention a big pile of cash.

But in a recent interview, the 72-year-old said he was considering moving back to TV. One big reason: Netflix.

Douglas' career first started to take off in the 1970s thanks to a TV show, "The Streets of San Francisco," but he then moved to the greener pastures of Hollywood films.

Lately, however, Douglas says, he has been "considering looking at a series," according to The Herald. This is something he told the Scottish newspaper he "never, never" thought he would do.

So why is he thinking about it? The main issue is that Douglas feels limited by movies in a way he doesn't when contemplating working in TV.

"The quality of the work going on in television now, and the limited number of my kind of movies that I made in the '70s and the '80s, that are so difficult to do now," he said. "But when I do them I get paid nothing, and the minimalist, tiny audience in the theatrical area."

The audience for the kind of movies he wants to do just isn't there in the traditional theatrical space anymore. That's not the case in TV, especially with the emerging streaming players like Netflix, which will spend $6 billion on content in 2017.

"Whereas in the streaming or this independent Netflix or HBO," Douglas continued. "It's a real opportunity to do good work."

Stagnant films

Douglas' sentiments are a horrible sign for Hollywood films, and they echo something to which Netflix CEO Reed Hastings recently pointed.

Last month, Hastings said that the state of film was a "real tragedy" and that movie theaters were "strangling the movie business." Hastings came down hard on theater owners, saying there had been no innovation in the movie-theater business in recent years, even as TV has been shaped by the rise of cable and internet networks. "Money" and "innovation" has flooded to the TV industry, Hastings said. Not so with film.

But Netflix has a long history of clashing with movie theaters, particularly over Netflix's commitment to making its movies available to stream on the same day they appear on the big screen. So when you hear these sentiments from Hastings, it’s good to take them with a grain of salt.

When you start to hear it from one of the most respected movie stars in Hollywood, however, that's a different story.

SEE ALSO: This hot podcast company's new shows promise crime, psychological thrills, and controversy

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: China flexes its military might by unveiling a new stealth fighter jet

President Obama tells a Donald Trump horror story for Halloween on 'Samantha Bee'

0
0

obama samantha bee

President Barack Obama appeared on a Halloween-themed "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee" on Monday, in which he told a scary story of a Donald Trump presidency and predicted what Hillary Clinton's version of the "birther" controversy would be if she were elected.

POTUS came on the show primarily to emphasize how important it is for millennials to vote, so Bee challenged him to speak to her as if she were a potential millennial voter. Her impression cracked up Obama, but he composed himself long enough to emphasize Clinton's plans for affordable college education and the importance of climate change.

"Young people have a bigger stake in this election than anybody," Obama told Bee. "I would hope that you'd be willing to take about the same amount of time that you spend just looking through cat videos on your phone to make sure that democracy is working."

"Sorry, I was just Snapchatting myself as a bottlenose dolphin," Bee answered.

Since many see the "birther" campaign alleging that Obama wasn't born in the US as racist, Bee then asked him what he thought the "female equivalent of 'you weren't born in this country'" would be if Clinton were elected the first woman president. 

"I think the equivalent will be 'she's tired,' 'she's moody,' 'she's being emotional,'" he said. "When men are ambitious, it's just taken for granted... When women are ambitious, 'Why?' That theme will continue throughout her presidency and it contributed to this notion that somehow she is hiding something."

To top off the Halloween night interview, Bee asked Obama to tell her a spooky story about what happens when people don't vote.

"Donald Trump could be president," he said. 

Watch Bee's full interview with Obama below:

SEE ALSO: Tina Fey defends Jimmy Fallon's 'softball' Donald Trump interview

DON'T MISS: The history of Donald Trump and NBC's love-hate relationship that made him a star

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Obama says the Affordable Care Act double-digit premium increases are 'growing pains'

Lena Dunham wore an NSFW anti-Donald Trump costume for Halloween

0
0

Warning: Image below is NSFW.

Lena Dunham has always used sexuality to drive conversations about real-world issues, and that was evident with her Halloween costume.

On Monday night, the "Girls" creator and star posted this photo on Instagram of what she was dressing as for Halloween:

Happy Halloween! With love from a Grabbed Pussy ✋🐱📸 by the very tolerant @jenna_wb #imanasshole

A photo posted by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on Oct 31, 2016 at 6:36pm PDT on

That's right, she went out as a "Grabbed P---y," as she called it. She's, of course, referring to the now infamous remarks Donald Trump made while shooting a segment for "Access Hollywood" in 2005, a tape of which leaked in October.

"I know that hearing those words was painful for everybody," she told People of the inspiration for the costume. "I think women, and people of color, and Muslims who have been searched at the airport, and trans people who have been denied their rights all know what it feels like to have their body taken from them. Those comments aren't just about women — they were about everyone whose body is treated like the property of other people."

SEE ALSO: Miles Teller says he's relieved he didn't get the Han Solo role: 'I'm cool right now not being attached to a franchise'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The first trailer for the 'Power Rangers' movie is here and it blows the TV show away

Viewing all 101983 articles
Browse latest View live


Latest Images