Pop Culture Roundup 22

- Pop Culture

This one goes out to my favorite baller, Clyde “The Glyde” Drexler. Check the deuce-deuce, it’s Pop Culture 22, Frens.

What a controversial week for Prometheus. I gave you my immediate reaction in PCR 21 after seeing the blockbuster, this was followed by an updated reaction to its box office performance and the ensuing backlash (in the same post). That post also included Adrian Bott’s (@Cavalorn) Lindelof-endorsed essay that illuminated the recurring themes and allusions of the film. The text went quickly viral. Cavalorn has responded to the overwhelming reaction to his piece and also pointed out a homage to Ellen Ripley/Sigourney Weaver within the movie.

I posted this earlier in the week, it also quickly went viral with the likes of Roger Ebert and Damon Lindelof posting it; the Red Letter Media video reviews are hysterically funny and on point. There’s also a host of other relative Prometheus links within that post.

The another mysterious viral video teaser at the header with Peter Weyland.

More links and videos:

AV Club podcast: while they both liked the film, Tasha Robinson and Genevieve Koski disagree on several issues. One includes how people in horror movies are stupid. Tasha can’t get over the characters’ stupid behavior, but Genevieve doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal.
Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald discuss the film at the beginning of this Grantland podcast.
CliffNotes for the film? Prometheus in Fifteen Minutes.
Ropes of Silicon asks, “What is going on with Prometheus?” They provide some answers and theories.
Roger Ebert has an enlightening discussion with his Creationist friends about Intelligent Design and Prometheus in his post, Promethian panspermia.
An interview with Sir Ridley Scott where he explains Prometheus, explores our past and teases future Alien storylines.
A couple links from Drew McWeeny (formerly ‘Moriarty’ from Ain’t It Cool News) from HitFix. His initial review where he speaks of the film’s potential for greatness, along with the frustrating screenplay. He then takes a second look and digs deeper into the many questions.

SoundWorks Collection: The Sound of Prometheus. The SoundWorks Collection talks with the sound team of Director Ridley Scott’s latest science fiction film Prometheus including Supervising Sound Editors Mark Stoeckinger and Victor Ennis, Sound Re-recording Mixers Ron Bartlett and Doug Hemphill, Sound Designers Ann Scibelli and Alan Rankin, and Sound Effects Researcher Charlie Campagna.

This crew of 35 friends hosted a two-day Alien and Predator marathon of all ten movies. Everyone rated the films they watched, 0 through 10, and then ranked them accordingly. On the first day, the films were played on Blu-ray format in original theatrical versions for consistency. On the following day, they saw Prometheus on a big screen at the Hollywood Arclight Cinerama Dome in 3D. A time lapse camera took two frames every minute of the experience. Interesting project but I want to know who’s the asshole that gave the original Predator only a ’4′. That’s blasphemy, seriously, a classic movie. If it bleeds…we can kill it. Stick around…

A clean, simple graphic by Carlos Poon that explains the confusing crossbreeding which happens in the film; the origin of the different species that populate this Alienverse, if you will.

I saw the film a second time this week, time to move on…

Django Unchained International Trailer.

Flight, in this action-packed mystery thriller directed by Robert Zemeckis, Academy Award winner Denzel Washington stars as Whip Whitaker, a seasoned airline pilot who miraculously crash-lands his plane after a mid-air catastrophe, saving nearly every soul on board. After the crash, Whip is hailed as a hero, but as more is learned, more questions than answers arise as to who or what was really at fault, and what really happened on that plane?

THE INVISIBLE WAR is a groundbreaking investigative documentary about one of our country’s most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within our US military. Today, a female soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire with the number of assaults in the last decade alone in the hundreds of thousands.

Focusing on the powerfully emotional stories of several young women, the film reveals the systemic cover up of the crimes against them and follows their struggles to rebuild their lives and fight for justice. THE INVISIBLE WAR features hard-hitting interviews with high-ranking military officials and members of Congress that reveal the perfect storm conditions that exist for rape in the military, its history of cover-up, and what can be done to bring about much needed change.

A decent clip from The Amazing Spider-Man.

A videoblog about the costume design for Skyfall. Costume designer Jany Temime talks about how she worked with Bond star Daniel Craig and fashion designer Tom Ford.

They’re rebooting the Judge Dredd franchise, the British science fiction anthology. The 1995 adaptation with Sylvester Stallone as Judge Dredd was a debacle and huge fail (you can stream the original piece-of-shit HERE). A ballsy move, they’re attempting to revive it by recruiting Alex Garland as the scribe who wrote the classic 28 Days Later… with Karl Urban in the titular lead role as the one-man police/ judge/jury/executioner. This one has a lot of potential; it is simply titled Dredd and comes out September 21st. Anyway, they released the movie poster.

Mad Men wrapped up its fifth season, another powerful and intense one. Extremely smart but divisive and polarizing; seems to be a theme in the pop culture-verse these days…polarization. I applaud the risky moves. Here’s a roundup of some great pieces around the blogosphere.

Grantland: Toxic Fog by Andy Greenwald
HitFix: Season finale review: ‘Mad Men’ – ‘The Phantom’: The tooth hurts by Alan Sepinwall
HitFix: ‘Mad Men’ creator Matthew Weiner talks Peggy, Joan, sci-fi and more about season 5
The Hollywood Reporter: ‘Mad Men’ Spoiled Bastard: Ep. 13: ‘The Phantom’ by Tim Goodman
Vanity Fair: Bed, Bond, and Beyond: The Mad Men Season Finale by James Wolcott
The New York Times: Arts Beat: The ‘Mad Men’ Season Finale: Series Creator Matthew Weiner Discusses ‘The Phantom’ by Dave Itzkoff
The Wall Street Journal: Speakeasy: ‘Mad Men’ 101: Two Professors Explain the Season Finale
The AV Club review by Todd VanDerWerff
Slate: Mad Men Style: The Power of Red

I’m the President of the Howdy Doody Circus Army!

Breaking Bad is coming back shortly and we await with bated breath.

The final season of Breaking Bad will in fact be a BLOOD bath.

— Aaron Paul (@aaronpaul_8) June 13, 2012

Some more prints from Breaking GIFs. Los Pollos Hermanos by Jessica Deahl and Jesse Pinkman by Rhys Cooper.

How about some Heisenberg needle art?! Steotch!

The Save Walter White site is still up. Comical. Walter White is gone, Man, all hail Heisenberg. The King is dead, all hail the King. By the way, AMC is rerunning all of the episodes from the beginning, each night, until the Season 5 premiere on July 15th. They started with Season 1 last Sunday, here ‘s the schedule. Refresh yourselves; I am completely picking up on new things that I missed, like all of the ingenious foreshadowing, this second time around. Best show ever, Buddy.

That’s the sound downtown right now, check ya next installment…

-@teemunny