July 8, 2015


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Today in Movie Culture: Christie Brinkley's 'Vacation' Self-Parody, the Books of Wes Anderson Movies and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Movie Redo of the Day:

In honor of another Terminator sequel being in theaters, CineFix gave Terminator 2: Judgment Day an 8-bit remake:

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Movie Props of the Day:

Wes Anderson‘s love for literature comes through in this supercut of all the fake books featured in his movies (via Devour):

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Toys of the Day:

Jason Potato Head and Freddy Potato Head want to slice each other up into thinly sliced chips (via Topless Robot).

Star Wars Cosplay of the Day:

In the movies, Anakin was much younger when he met Amidala, but this reversal is pretty adorable (via KamiKame):

Movie-Inspired Car Commercial of the Day:

As if it’s not enough we’re getting an actual new Vacation movie this summer, here’s a new Infiniti commercial starring Christie Brinkley poking fun at her role in the 1983 original:

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Study of an Actor:

It’s amazing Jim Carrey hasn’t permanently crippled himself with all the falling down he’s done, as seen in this supercut (via Geek Tyrant):

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Professional Lithograph of the Day:

I can’t call this fan art since it’s by professional illustrator Mark Englert and part of a Comic-Con promo of Fox’s 25th anniversary Blu-ray of Edward Scissorhands, but it’s too beautiful not to share. Click on the image below to see it nice and big (via /Film).

Classic Cartoon of the Day:

Chuck Jones‘s Merrie Melodies short 8 Ball Bunny, starring Bugs Bunny and “a boid in a tuxedo,” hit theaters on this day 65 years ago. Watch it in full:

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Celebrity Good Deed of the Day:

Johnny Depp visited a children’s hospital in costume as Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (via THR):

Classic Trailer of the Day:

Even 45 years ago, you could find the summer populated by sequels, like the one for In the Heat of the Night that premiered in New York on July 8, 1970. They titled it They Call Me Mister Tibbs, after a memorable line from the first movie, which is like titling Terminator 2 “I’ll Be Back.” Watch the original trailer for Tibbs below.

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Establish A Niche To Quickly Grow Your Business

One of the most common complaints I hear from businesses executives is about the competitive nature of their business. They’ll often say to me “We offer the same service as our competitors. So, if we…



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Facebook's New Logo Is A Visual Nod To Gender Equality

A woman designer at Facebook recently updated the company’s iconic “friends” logo, making the woman’s silhouette larger and moving it in front of the man’s. Facebook hide caption

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One of Facebook’s iconic logos just got an update. That tiny image that lingers in the corner of most Facebook pages — two small silhouettes of a man and a woman — it will be a little different on Facebook mobile pages starting this week.

The old image featured the woman’s silhouette behind the man’s, with the woman’s figure a bit smaller. In a Medium post published yesterday, Facebook designer Caitlin Winner said she didn’t like that. “Much to my dismay,” she wrote, “not long into my tenure as a Facebook designer I found something in the company glyph kit worth getting upset about.”

She continued, “The iconic man was symmetrical except for his spiked hairdo but the lady had a chip in her shoulder. After a little sleuthing I determined that the chip was positioned exactly where the man icon would be placed in front of her… I assumed no ill intentions, just a lack of consideration but as a lady with two robust shoulders, the chip offended me.”

So, Winner went about changing the friend logo. She fixed that drooping, chipped shoulder, and updated the hair, which she said previously was a “Darth Vader-like helmet.” Winner also updated the man icon, adding a “slight slope to his shoulders” and a hair style that is “smoothed down.”

This biggest change, though, was what Winner did with the proportion and framing of the two icons in relation to each other. Winner placed the woman in front of the man, and made their sizing appear more equal. She said of her urge to make that shift, “As a woman, educated at a women’s college, it was hard not to read into the symbolism of the current icon; the woman was quite literally in the shadow of the man, she was not in a position to lean in.”

Facebook designer Caitlin Winner went through several styles until she found the best one to replace the previous woman icon’s “Darth Vader-like helmet.” Facebook hide caption

itoggle caption Facebook

Facebook heralded the update. In a statement sent to NPR, Maxine Williams, Global Director of Diversity for the company, said, “Caitlin’s fearless approach to changing our design is a great example of our open and bold culture – so much bias operates as a result of unconscious choices and influences. The more diversity there is in our population, the more we will be able to check ourselves on bias in product decisions and elsewhere.”

Williams continued, “We want to represent the many kinds of people that use Facebook – from the biggest to the smallest details – and this is a great example of what happens when you are not afraid to identify and address issues while being conscious that we will always be on a path to improvement.”

But besides this symbolic gesture at Facebook, gender diversity at the tech giant still needs work. Internal numbers from Facebook published last month show that more than two-thirds of all Facebook employees are male. Only 16% of Facebook’s tech employees are women, and only 23% of the company’s senior leadership are women.

The American Association of University Women (AAUW) has published extensive research on gender issues in Silicon Valley. They found in their most recent report that women make up only 26% of the tech workforce, and earn only 19% of all computer science and related bachelor’s degrees. Catherine Hill, VP of Research at AAUW said of the findings, “These numbers represent a decline in women’s representation over the last two-three decades.”

Hill does say she is pleased with Facebook’s new friend logo, but that it is not enough on its own to change lingering gender issues in the tech world. “We are pleased to see a new Facebook Friends Icon, and appreciate that it presents a different, more powerful vision of women,” she said in a statement to NPR. But she continued, “We hope that the company lives up to these changes, as we have a long way to go for women in tech.”

Facebook has made other gender changes recently. Last year, the company gave people wider choice in selecting a gender description on the site, adding a “custom” option that includes choices like Trans Male or Female, Cisgender or Androgynous. And the company has softened its stance on all users using their “real names” on Facebook profiles, after it led to the deactivation of dozens of accounts belonging to drag queens.

However much of a change for Facebook the new friend symbol represents, one thing is clear: when work spaces include more women, women are more likely to stand shoulder to shoulder with men — even in tiny Facebook logos.

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Medicare Plans To Pay For Voluntary End-Of-Life Counseling

Medicare says that starting Jan. 1, 2016, it plans to pay doctors to counsel patients about end-of-life care.

Julie Rovner, senior correspondent with Kaiser Health News, tells our Newscast unit that many medical groups, including the American Medical Association, have long recommended the move.

“This is actually pretty much the same provision that created the huge outcry in 2009 when it was added by Republicans to the Affordable Care Act,” Julie says. “It would allow doctors to be reimbursed for talking to patients about what they want to do about end-of-life care; not necessarily at their end of life, but before that.”

Counseling would be voluntary for the patients.

The announcement comes just weeks after a Supreme Court decision solidified the Affordable Care Act. Julie tells Newscast that decision might have prompted Medicare officials to conclude that “it was safe politically … to go ahead with this.”

The Associated Press adds:

“Supporters say counseling would give patients more control and free families from tortuous decisions. Even so, there are often no simple answers. Patients may want less invasive care if they believe they will soon die, but predicting when death will happen is notoriously inexact. Terminal patients can live for years, potentially complicating a choice of less intensive treatment.

“Interested parties will have 60 days to comment on the new regulation before it is finalized.”

U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who repeatedly sponsored bills seeking to improve Medicare’s support for end-of-life planning, applauded the decision in a statement:

“Patients and their families should be encouraged to think about how they want to be treated at the end of their life and to express their goals, values, and preferences to their physicians. I encourage them, as well as providers and advocates, to support this proposed benefit.

“I’m confident the Obama Administration will consider all of the available social and medical evidence in favor of advance care planning to finalize this decision in the coming months.”

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'The Finest Hours' Trailer: Chris Pine and Casey Affleck Fight to Save a Sinking Ship

Hollywood and audiences alike have long held a fascination with dramas on the high seas. It doesn’t matter if they’re entirely fictitious (The Poseidon Adventure, Life of Pi) or based on a true story (The Perfect Storm), there’s just something about men and women trying to survive while the ocean rages around them that people love.

In the next few months we’ll actually be getting two movies that fit the bill. First up is In The Heart of the Sea, directed by Ron Howard and hitting theaters on December 11, 2015. And now today gives us the first trailer for The Finest Hours, starring Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Holliday Grainger, and Eric Bana and hitting theaters on January 29, 2016.

Directed by Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl), The Finest Hours takes on the true story of an oil tanker that was literally ripped in half by a storm in 1952 and the Coast Guard team that set out to rescue them. Chris Pine leads the Coast Guard team, while Affleck is the man trying to hold the survivors together on the sinking ship. It looks like a dash of The Guardian, a sprinkle of The Perfect Storm, and one giant heaping of Disney’s sincere optimism that makes movies like this so irresistible.

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