Living

Aug 11, 2012 9:00 PM   Yes. I'm going there. While considered to be one of the worst movies ever, I maintain that watching Battlefield Earth can be a fun, education experience so long as you pair it with two things: friends and alcohol. Obviously I'm coming at this from the "so bad, it's good; let's all laugh at someone else's horrifying inadequacy while tacitly patting ourselves on the back for not having failed so miserably in such a public way" angle, but that's not the only way to come at it. If you're interested in the mechanics of how good fiction works, how the seams are sewn, and how the pieces fit together, there's only so much to learn from good examples. Yeah, good movies are actually enjoyable on a level other than the ironic, but the gears are hidden. Battlefield Earth lets you see how the mechanisms of story-telling work by showing you how bad they can fail. Really bad. Battlefield Earth is streaming on Netflix now, so if yo...

The night before I'm supposed to pose as an extra in Jobs , the first biopic to begin filming in the wake of Apple icon Steve Jobs' untimely 2011 death, I stay out until 2 in the morning. When I order a big bottle of Spanish cider at 1:15, five hours before my alarm is set to go off, and five hours and 45 minutes before I'm supposed to be on set, I justify it by remembering how Jobs spoke often and openly about his "important" experiences with recreational drugs. "Steve would have wanted it this way," I think, pouring myself another glass of the cloudy cider and starting in on another story. The next morning, when my phone alarm finally starts dinging its low gong sound, I have to crawl from my bed to my closet, where I find it still stuffed into the back pocket of the pants I'd worn the night before. My mouth tastes like rotten apples, the pesto papardelle I ate for dinner, and foot. I'm hungry, dizzy, and exhausted, ailments not improved by th...

Jul 26, 2012 9:00 PM   The guys behind South Park might laugh a lot during the process, but the making of the weekly animated show is a brutal endeavor. This documentary, released last fall, joins creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone after the debut of their Broadway show "The Book of Mormon," just as the pair have returned to LA to work on the TV show's 15th season premiere. You have to admire the intense work ethic driving the show's breakneck production cycle. "It looks like it's going to be...not a 5 am night," Parker says at one point. "But more like a 9 am or 10 am night." The day before the episode ships, he's explaining, the crew will be up all night, working past dawn the next day, to get the scenes written, the voices recorded, the animation finalized and the content transferred to the East Coast. In spite of all the supporting illustrators, writers, and technicians, it really is mostly Parker and Stone running the show. The stor...

Jul 24, 2012 8:30 PM   The year? 1981. The place? Camp Firewood, where everyone's trying to get laid before the summer is over. Wet Hot American Summer is the classic teen movie scenario: everyone's trying to get a little action before the end of [insert memorable adolescent event] but they're all striking out. Naturally, hilarity ensues. The off-beat 2001 flick is a satire of all those familiar big screen situations, like unrequited love and awkward sexual encounters. Dorky guy likes hot girl but she's dating the popular, albeit unfaithful, jock—we all know how that story goes. Except it's at summer camp, that magical place where there are no parents and kids are for some reason entrusted into the unreliable care of college-aged folks who aren't much older—or much more responsible. The comedy, written by Michael Showalter, doesn't take itself too seriously, and though it wasn't a box office moneymaker, it has since gained something of a cult followi...

Jul 23, 2012 6:26 AM   We've known for some time that Amazon is planning to make original TV content. But now Bezos and co have announced that Amazon is turning its back on the US, instead choosing to develop a center in London to spearhead its move into media. The Telegraph reports that the Seattle-based firm has named London "the obvious choice" for the new "digital media development" center, because "Britain has led the way in pioneering on-demand services which allow users to rent films and television over the internet." Amazon has announced today that it's taking over an eight-story, 47,000 square foot office near Barbican tube station, in the heart of London. Speaking to the Telegraph, Paula Byrne, the center's managing director, explained: "I wouldn't underplay the value that the UK has brought to this sector. When you look at the specialist skills that are available here, it is the obvious place to come... Innovation is part ...