November 25, 2015

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Entertainment November 25, 2015

Today in Movie Culture: Doctors Diagnose 'Home Alone' Injuries, Quentin Tarantino Talks 70mm and More

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

Classic Movie Injuries of the Day:

In honor of this month’s 25th anniversary of Home Alone, a bunch of doctors diagnosed Harry and Marv’s injuries inflicted by Kevin (via Devour):

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Animation Studio Tribute of the Day:

In honor of this month’s 20th anniversary of Toy Story, here’s a tribute to the past two decades of Pixar (via /Film):

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Cosplay of the Day:

Hayao Miyazaki cosplay is always wonderful, and this Princess Mononoke is no exception (via KamiKame):

Vintage Film of the Day:

George Melies‘s The Legend of Rip Van Winkle was released on this day all the way back in 1905. Watch it below.

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Film History Lesson of the Day:

In a new featurette, Quentin Tarantino and others give a little history of movie roadshows, 70mm and Ultra Panavision to prepare us for The Hateful Eight:

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Filmmaker in Historical Focus:

Explore the start of Woody Allen‘s half-century career as a filmmaker in comic strip form below. See the rest at Signature.

Video Essay of the Day:

Another filmmaker in focus, here’s a look at the movies of Paul Thomas Anderson in chronological order of their settings (via Filmmaker IQ):

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Supercut of the Day:

Burger Fiction has another supercut of improbably weapons in movies, including two that feature death by corn on the cob:

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Movie Comparison of the Day:

Since we’re all revisiting the Rocky movies in honor of Creed, Couch Tomato shows us how Rocky IV and Kick-Ass 2 are the same movie:

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

This week is actualy the 30th anniversary of the theatrical release of Rocky IV. Watch the original trailer for the blockbuster sequel starring Sylvester Stallone and Dolph Lundgren below.

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Sports November 25, 2015

Former NFL Great Frank Gifford Had CTE, Family Says

Frank Gifford attends the 19th Annual Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame Awards on Oct. 20, 2009, at The Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

Frank Gifford attends the 19th Annual Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame Awards on Oct. 20, 2009, at The Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. Andy Kropa/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Andy Kropa/Getty Images

The family of Hall of Fame running back Frank Gifford says signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy were found in his brain after his death in August. The diagnosis, which can be made only after death, has been linked to the deaths of other famous football players, including Mike Webster, Junior Seau and Dave Duerson.

Gifford’s family said it hopes the announcement of the diagnosis leads to more research about head trauma in football, according to NBC News:

“We as a family made the difficult decision to have [Gifford’s] brain studied in hopes of contributing to the advancement of medical research concerning the link between football and traumatic brain injury.

“Our suspicions that he was suffering from the debilitating effects of head trauma were confirmed when a team of pathologists recently diagnosed his condition as that of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) — a progressive degenerative brain disease.”

After playing college football at the University of Southern California, Gifford played for the New York Giants from 1952 to 1964. He made the Pro Bowl in eight of his 12 NFL seasons. Gifford also went on to enjoy a successful career as a broadcaster. He married talk show host Kathie Lee Gifford in 1986.

The Gifford family’s CTE announcement comes days after concussions once again dominated NFL news. During Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens, St. Louis Rams quarterback Case Keenum suffered a concussion when his head was slammed to the ground. Though he was visibly dazed and unable to stand up on his own after the hit, he was left in the game for the next two downs. The incident prompted an NFL investigation and a mandatory conference call with head athletic trainers from each team to review concussion protocols.

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Business November 25, 2015

Fine Brine From Appalachia: The Fancy Mountain Salt That Chefs Prize

Nancy Bruns, CEO of J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works, gathers finished salt from an evaporation table in Malden, W.Va.
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Nancy Bruns, CEO of J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works, gathers finished salt from an evaporation table in Malden, W.Va. Noah Adams for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Noah Adams for NPR

Thanksgiving feasts are always in need of something special.

Can a sprinkle of artisanal salt noticeably pump up the experience?

Let’s meet a new Appalachian salt-maker in West Virginia and find out.

J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works is nestled in the Kanawha River Valley, just southeast of the capital city of Charleston in the small town of Malden (not to be confused with Maldon, a sea salt brand from the U.K.). It’s mostly pasture land, with cows nearby.

Amid the livestock, there’s a new, small — you could call it micro — salt works.

“This is our well, in the field over here. It goes down 350 feet,” Nancy Bruns, CEO of J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works, says.

The wellhead is simple, white and about 2 feet high. It took a couple of weeks to drill, and then came the salty water.

“It did gush; it absolutely did gush. We went through a lot of fresh water on the way down. And we all had cups, we were tasting it on the way down, and I just said no, keep drilling, it’s not salty yet.”

She’s a seventh-generation descendant of salt workers who started the original J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works in 1817. This is a revival of that company.

Finished salt crystals are spread out on an evaporation table before being raked and packaged.

Finished salt crystals are spread out on an evaporation table before being raked and packaged. Noah Adams for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Noah Adams for NPR

Long ago, when the mountains rose up, an ancient ocean went underground. But some of it stayed near the surface.

The pioneers needed salt and the meatpackers in Cincinnati did, too. There was only one choice: drill deep. Fifty companies did, burning timber and coal to evaporate the water. Slaves were brought in for much of the labor.

It was a big, noisy, extractive industry.

At the new Dickinson Salt-Works, an almost-worn-out electric pump is the only real industry. There are two large and peaceful greenhouses — here they call them sunhouses.

“It gets up to around 150 degrees here in the summer,” Megan Parker, the operations manager, says.

Parker is happy to be using sunlight instead of burning fossil fuels.

The salt water is stored in large trays lined with black polyethylene. You can see the beginning of white salt crystals — they’re in graceful, almost mystical patterns.

“It is magic. It’s my favorite part of the process, to see a bed that, like this on our right, that’s completely clear, clear liquid, and then the next day you come in and you start to see these beautiful crystals forming,” Bruns says.

A 3.5-ounce jar of finished salt from J.Q. Dickinson.

A 3.5-ounce jar of finished salt from J.Q. Dickinson. Noah Adams for NPR hide caption

toggle caption Noah Adams for NPR

Bruns uses a wooden rake to gather finished salt crystals into a pile. Her company will produce about 10,000 pounds this year to be dried, sorted, put in small jars and shipped out to top restaurants like The French Laundry in northern California, Husk in Charleston, S.C., and Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore.

“I think of salt as like wine, so the minerality of our salt is different from the minerality of any other salt, kind of like a pinot noir grown in California is different from a pinot noir grown in France. Could be exactly the same vine but because of the earth that it’s grown in it gives you a different flavor,” Bruns says.

A suggestion from the expert salt-maker for your holiday feast?

Whisk up some dark caramel sauce, sprinkle away and approach cautiously with a small spoon.

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Health November 25, 2015

To Reduce Infant Deaths, Doctors Call For A Ban Of Crib Bumpers

Babies have suffocated after being trapped in padded crib bumpers, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Babies have suffocated after being trapped in padded crib bumpers, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. iStockphoto hide caption

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Flip through a popular children’s furniture catalog and you’ll find baby cribs with bumpers — a padded piece of fabric that ties around the wooden slats, making the crib look cozy and cute. The problem, researchers say, is these bumpers can be deadly, because babies can get caught in the fabric and suffocate.

“They are dangerous; don’t use them,” says Dr. Bradley Thach, a professor emeritus of pediatrics at the Washington University School of Medicine. Thach was the author of a landmark study in 2007 that first documented crib bumper deaths. He says things have gotten worse since then.

Thach is one of the authors of a study, published Wednesday in The Journal of Pediatrics, that shows the number of deaths attributed to crib bumpers has increased significantly in recent years.

Using data reported to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent federal regulatory agency that oversees consumer products, the study found that 23 babies died over a seven-year span between 2006 and 2012 from suffocation attributed to a crib bumper. That’s three times higher than the average number of deaths in the three previous seven-year time spans. In total 48 babies’ deaths were attributed to crib bumpers between 1985 and 2012. An additional 146 infants sustained injuries from the bumpers, including choking on the bumper ties or nearly suffocating.

“These deaths are entirely preventable,” says N.J. Scheers, the study’s lead author and former manager of the CPSC’s infant suffocation project. Babies either got their face caught in the bumper and couldn’t breathe or they got wedged between the bumper and something else in the crib. In all of these instances, Scheers says, “If there were no bumper, the baby would not have died.”

Bumpers were originally intended to stop babies from falling out of the crib; regulations now require the wooden slats to be narrower. Bumpers were also designed to prevent babies from bumping their heads or getting their arms and legs caught in the rails. But Scheers says a sleeping sack is a safer way to keep arms and legs safe, and a little bump on the head is not worth the risk of suffocation.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American SIDS Institute have both issued warnings about crib bumpers; they advise parents not to use them. But Scheers says when parents go to buy a crib, they see them decorated with bumpers and say, “if they are dangerous, why would the stores be selling them?”

The safest choice is a crib with no bumpers, pillows or quilts, according to the CPSC.

The safest choice is a crib with no bumpers, pillows or quilts, according to the CPSC. iStockphoto hide caption

toggle caption iStockphoto

In 2012, a voluntary industry standard was revised to decrease the thickness of the bumpers to 2 inches or less, with the hope that thinner bumpers would be less likely to cause suffocation. But this most recent study found that three deaths occurred with the thinner bumpers.

In 2011, Chicago became the first city in the country to ban the sale of crib bumpers. And in 2013, Maryland also banned the sale of crib bumpers with two exceptions: mesh or breathable bumpers made of thin fabric that allow air to pass through, and vertical bumpers that wrap around each individual crib rail. Scheers wants a similar ban nationwide, with the caution that mesh and vertical bumpers still need to be studied because there’s no data available to prove they are safe.

The CPSC is currently in the process of putting forward a recommendation on how crib bumpers should be regulated. In the meantime, it recommends that “Bare is Best” — the safest way for a baby to sleep is in a crib with nothing but a tightly fitted sheet.

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Entertainment November 25, 2015

First 'Captain America: Civil War' Trailer Breaks Out Black Panther

The character list for Captain America: Civil War looks like Marvel’s most ridiculous roster yet. Not only does it have Captain America, but it’s also bringing out Iron Man, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man, Falcon, Hawkeye, Winter Soldier, War Machine, Baron Zemo, Vision, Black Panther, the new Spider-Man and surely some people we don’t even know about yet.

But even with that deep of a role call, one thing is clear from the first trailer for Civil War. This isn’t Avengers 2.5. This is still a Captain America movie through and through.

The trailer doesn’t show us every single person listed above, but it does offer our very first look at Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) in all his glory. It also sets up the film’s premise without really giving much away. Cap wants to protect his friend Bucky Barnes, AKA the Winter Soldier. The government not only wants the Winter Soldier dead, but they also want all of the superheroes to be under their management. Cap disagrees and is willing to fight anyone, even a team lead by Iron Man, for the right of superheroes to do their thing without government oversight.

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One thing the trailer doesn’t make clear is where the allegiances will lay in the movie. Thanks to some concept art released by Jeremy Renner, we’ve got that covered.

Team Captain America

Hawkeye
Winter Soldier
Falcon
Scarlet Witch
Ant-Man

Team Iron Man

Black Widow
Black Panther
Vision
War Machine

Captain America: Civil War hits theaters on May 6, 2016.

Follow @PeterSHall Follow @MoviesDotCom

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