It’s the end of an era that we thought had already ended. After nearly three decades of stubborn persistence, Sony has finally chosen to discontinue the Betamax videotape. For those who missed out on the 80s, Betamax tapes were the main rival for VHSes before it was clear which videocassette format would be most popular. […]
Continue readingTag Archives: timely things
Brave Wired blogger binges the entire Bond series for your benefit (and amusement)
From Moonraker, one of the Bond movies on the “Nah” list James Bond’s latest adventure, Spectre, hits theaters tomorrow. Reception on this one is decidedly mixed (Daniel Craig’s Bond seems to get it right every other movie), but it will no doubt be a box office sensation here as it has been in the United […]
Continue readingDC rings in the official arrival of The Future
At long last, 26 years after the film’s release, today is the day that Marty McFly and Doc Brown arrive in the future in Back to the Future Part II. Despite occupying only a fraction of the running time of the entire trilogy, the futuristic 2015 is one of the most iconic and memorable depictions […]
Continue readingAlternative programming: How about a different holiday?
From The Native Americans We probably don’t need to recap the reasons why Columbus Day has lost favor in the past few years. Ask your favorite history professor or the ghost of Howard Zinn. But, if you’re looking for more material about the real history of Columbus’s expeditions and the lives of Native Americans we […]
Continue readingDC’s most genuinely spooky place becomes a landmark
If you’re an AU student who has made the trek to Georgetown, you’ve probably encountered the Exorcist steps, the legendary staircase famously used in a climactic scene from the bone-chillingly terrifying film The Exorcist. It’s in an unassuming spot – behind a gas station on M Street – but it has for decades served as […]
Continue readingSnag an armload of Criterion titles for half-off today!
Like an Arby’s selling piles of loose beef, the Criterion Collection has opened the floodgates on their store and is selling their entire DVD and Blu-ray stock for 50% off for the next 24 hours. This is a fantastic sale that every film buff should consider taking advantage of. The Criterion Collection sells the definitive […]
Continue readingClap in a circle to mourn the end (?) of fake birthday songs
After a court decision last night, movie and television characters might finally be able to sing “Happy Birthday to You.” The Summy Company contested for decades that it owned the copyright to the universally recognized birthday song and charged productions $10,000 to include its melody and lyrics. No one really wanted to pay all that […]
Continue readingA look back at Hugo Award-winning television and film
Yesterday marked the 73rd WorldCon, an annual assemblage of science fiction and fantasy fans and writers that hosts the prestigious Hugo Awards. Named after science fiction editor Hugo Gernsback, the Hugos are awarded every year to groundbreaking genre fiction and proudly include legends like Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick among their winners. This year’s […]
Continue readingFour years ago, Scottish environmentalists took on Trump
With all the hot air swirling about Donald Trump in the past week, now because of his debate performance, we often forget that he was a blowhard in business before he was a blowhard in politics. He’s received flak for some of his higher-profile real-estate projects, many of which involve taking over historic spaces like […]
Continue reading75 years later, celebrating Bugs Bunny – and looking at his contentious history
Today marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of Bugs Bunny, Warner Bros.’s de facto cartoon mascot and a symbol of the golden age of animation (and maybe LeBron James’s future co-star?). Though Bugs is an immediately recognizable icon today, it took hundreds of theatrical animated shorts and countless years of Saturday morning television shows to get there. […]
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