April 27, 2016

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Today in Movie Culture: The Best of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney's 'The Revenant' and More

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

Movie Studio Showcase of the Day:

Get pumped for Captain America: Civil War with this great supercut of the best of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (via Live for Films):

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Casting Depiction of the Day:

Speaking of the MCU, Nathan Fillion was revealed this week to be playing Wonder Man in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, so here’s BossLogic’s depiction of what he could look like:

Reworked Movie of the Day:

What if The Revenant was a Disney animated feature? It might look like this redone trailer using footage from Brother Bear (via Cinematic Montage Creators):

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Location Vacation of the Day:

Relax to the sights and sounds of Dagobah in this 94-minute loop of a bit from The Empire Strikes Back that turns Yoda‘s backyard into a soothing retreat:

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Fake Outtakes of the Day:

Speaking of Star Wars, watch a reel of funny fake Kylo Ren bloopers that re-dub the masked villain’s dialogue from Star Wars: The Force Awakens (via Geek Tyrant):

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Vintage Image of the Day:

In honor of their latest collaboration, Mother’s Day, opening this weekend, here’s Julia Roberts and director Garry Marshall on the set of Pretty Woman in 1989:

Movie Poetry of the Day:

This supercut collects movie clips that rhyme with each for a video that gives new meaning to the term poetic cinema (via Live for Films):

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Character in the Spotlight:

See many different ways actors have played Macbeth in this Shakespearean supercut starring Michael Fassbender, Orson Welles and more (via Cinematic Montage Creators):

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Film Analysis of the Day:

In the spirit of Room 237, another Stanley Kubrick movie gets overanalyzed with this NSFW spotlight on the hidden jokes and cryptic metaphors in A Clockwork Orange (via One Perfect Shot):

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 60th anniversary of the U.S. release of the Americanized version of Godzilla, reworked with Raymond Burr starring. Watch the original trailer for what was retitled Godzilla: King of the Monsters below.

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FBI Explains Why It Won't Disclose How It Unlocked iPhone

FBI Director James Comey testifies March 1 before the House Judiciary Committee on the encryption of the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino attackers.

FBI Director James Comey testifies March 1 before the House Judiciary Committee on the encryption of the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino attackers. Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

The FBI has officially decided it can’t tell Apple how the agency hacked into the locked iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers.

The FBI paid undisclosed professional hackers more than $1 million to get inside the locked and encrypted iPhone 5C through a previously unknown flaw in the software.

The agency has been weighing whether it would submit the details to a review process that helps decide whether software vulnerabilities known to the government should be disclosed to companies.

FBI science and technology chief Amy Hess said in a statement on Wednesday that the agency has determined it won’t be able to submit the third-party iPhone hack to the review, called the Vulnerabilities Equities Process:

“The VEP cannot perform its function without sufficient detail about the nature and extent of a vulnerability.

“The FBI purchased the method from an outside party so that we could unlock the San Bernardino device. We did not, however, purchase the rights to technical details about how the method functions, or the nature and extent of any vulnerability upon which the method may rely in order to operate. As a result, currently we do not have enough technical information about any vulnerability that would permit any meaningful review under the VEP process.”

This was exactly the kind of challenge predicted by Robert Knake, former director of cybersecurity policy for the National Security Council in the Obama administration, in his recent interview with NPR. Knake offered a detailed description of how the Vulnerabilities Equities Process works and suggested that intellectual property lawyers will in the future fight over whether hackers can own the rights to a vulnerability.

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Jordan Reportedly Bans Band With Gay Frontman From Performing

Hamed Sinno (R) and Haig Papazian of the Lebanese alternative rock band Mashrou' Leila performing in Bourges, France in 2015.

Hamed Sinno (R) and Haig Papazian of the Lebanese alternative rock band Mashrou’ Leila performing in Bourges, France in 2015. Guillaume Souvant/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Guillaume Souvant/AFP/Getty Images

A popular and groundbreaking alt-rock band from Lebanon called Mashrou’ Leila was scheduled to play a big show in Amman, Jordan Friday.

Instead, their show was cancelled by the government — and the band says they have been told they can never perform again in the country, because of the group’s politics, religious beliefs and “endorsement of gender equality and sexual freedom.”

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Mashrou’ Leila YouTube

Mashrou’ Leila had been slated to play at the famous Roman amphitheater in Amman, where they have previously performed three times, as well as elsewhere across the country.

In a lengthy note posted on Facebook in both Arabic and English, the band alleges that the actual reason for the permission to be withdrawn is different:

“We have been unofficially informed that the reason behind this sudden change of heart, few days before the concert day, is the intervention of some authorities. Our understanding is that said authorities have pressured certain political figures and triggered a chain of events that ultimately ended with our authorization being withdrawn.

“We also have been unofficially informed that we will never be allowed to play again anywhere in Jordan due to our political and religious beliefs and endorsement of gender equality and sexual freedom.”

The lead singer of Mashrou’ Leila, Hamed Sinno, is openly gay, and the band has addressed gay rights as well as politics and corruption in both its songs and many of its interviews. In an interview last year with the CBC show Q, Sinno said that a show they did in a predominantly Christian town in Lebanon called Zouk Mikael was protested by people who believed that “homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to set foot on Christian soil.” Sinno attributed that attitude to “broader fundamentalisms in the region.”

According to a report on the Jordanian news site jo24.net published Tuesday, at least one public supporter of the ban is a member of parliament named Bassam al-Batoush, who has called for the group to be banned due to their “controversial” material that references sex, homosexuality, “calls for revolution” and promotes “Satanic” ideas.

The governor of Amman district, Khalid Abu Zeid, told the Associated Press Wednesday that the band’s songs “contradict” Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Initially, the AP reports, officials from Jordan’s Antiquities Department rescinded permission because such a show would “contradict the ‘authenticity’ of the ancient venue.”

Last year’s performance at the Roman amphitheater in Amman… #???_?????_??_???? #????_????_??_???? pic.twitter.com/UkfbK8bEzZ

— haig papazian (@haigpapa) April 26, 2016

Mashrou’ Leila violinist Haig Papazian has posted pictures of one of their previous three shows at the amphitheater on Twitter.

As the band also noted on Facebook, Sanno’s mother is from Jordan, and the members say that the country is “a formative part of his identity and writing, and a place we have always considered our second home.”

The Facebook note concludes, “We urge the Kingdom to choose fighting alongside us, not against us, during this ongoing battle for a culture of freedom against the regressive powers of thought control and cultural coercion.”

The U.S. State Department’s 2015 human rights report on Jordan includes this assessment: “While consensual same-sex sexual conduct is not illegal, societal discrimination against LGBTI persons was prevalent, and LGBTI persons were targets of abuse. Activists reported discrimination in housing, employment, education, and access to public services. Some LGBTI individuals reported reluctance to engage the legal system due to fear their sexual orientation or gender identity would either provoke hostile reactions from police or disadvantage them in court. Activists reported that most LGBTI individuals were closeted and fearful of their sexual identity being disclosed.”

The five-member band was founded at the American University of Beirut in 2008 and has released three albums. Their name translates as both Leila Project and Night Project; Leila is a Juliet-like figure in Arabic literature. A rapturous review from London’s Guardian last November said that they “charge the stage with electricity, sensuality and a dazzling aura of resistance.”

Mashrou’ Leila’s latest video, for the song “AOEDE,” which was released earlier this month, opens with a young woman recounting a story of police brutality.

The band is heading to the U.S. and Canada on tour this May and June, with dates scheduled in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Washington, D.C. and Vancouver.

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That Surgery Might Cost You A Lot Less In Another Town

Need knee replacement surgery? It may be worthwhile to head for Tucson.

That’s because the average price for a knee replacement in the Arizona city is $21,976, about $38,000 less than it would in Sacramento, Calif. That’s according to a report issued Wednesday by the Health Care Cost Institute.

The report, called the National Chartbook on Health Care Prices, uses claims and payment data from three of the largest insurance companies in the U.S. to analyze how prices for procedures vary from state to state, and city to city.

The takeaway?

Health care prices are crazy.

“There doesn’t seem to be a systematic pattern with respect to what’s high and what’s low,” says David Newman, HCCI’s executive director. Newman is lead author of an article published Wednesday online in the journal Health Affairs that accompanied the release of the Chartbook.

The reports compare average state prices for 242 medical services — from primary doctor visits to coronary angioplasty to a foot x-ray — to the national average price for those services. It shows that states such as Minnesota and Wisconsin have higher than average prices while others, such as Florida and Maryland, were cheaper overall.

Arizona’s health care prices were generally cheaper, about 82 percent of the national average, while next door in New Mexico, care was more expensive, about 25 percent above average.

And prices vary within states, too.

If a Sacramento knee replacement patient doesn’t want to drive the 871 miles to Tuscon, he or she could drive south to Riverside, Calif., and pay $27,000 less. In Florida, the surgery costs $17,000 less in Miami than it does 180 miles north in Palm Bay.

“For every mile that a consumer drives south on I-95, they will save $100,” Newman says.

The HCCI data is some of the most detailed and complete information available on health care prices paid by private insurance companies. It includes payment data from Aetna, Humana, UnitedHealthCare. It doesn’t include claims information from The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, which is the largest health insurer in the country.

The price variations revealed by HCCI show that the health care market is not following traditional economic and market rules.

“The market just isn’t working,” says Zack Cooper, a professor of health policy and economics at Yale University.

Cooper says in the past, analysts believed that health care costs were rising because people were using too much health care. That analysis was based on Medicare data. However, Medicare pays the same across the country.

The new data show that private-insurance payments vary widely and states that have low Medicare spending, like Minnesota, often have higher prices in the private insurance market.

He says one major factor is the consolidation of hospitals, leading to a lack of competition.

“Where one large hospital dominates the markets, that hospital is able to get higher prices,” he says. “Hospitals have gotten increasingly powerful over time.”

The new data may give insurers and consumers better ammunition to shop around for lower prices or to negotiate better deals.

But that will require people taking a different approach to choosing health care.

People should be willing to travel farther for services, Cooper says. That would put powerful hospital systems in different cities in competition with one another, perhaps putting pressure on prices.

And there are limits on where competition can bloom in health care, says
Sarah Dash, president and co-CEO of the Alliance for Health Reform.

“A woman is going to go to the one OB/GYN that she goes to. She’s not going to run all over town trying to find the cheapest one necessarily,” Dash says.

“Where it’s shoppable, where it’s elective, where it’s not an emergency and where the price is knowable, then there are things that can be done,” she says.

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Even Though It's April, Sports Headlines Scream Football

With the NFL draft and 2 quarterbacks in court, football proves it can make news year round, and not always for the right reasons. Our commentator says football, not baseball, is our national pastime.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Never mind that we’re in baseball season as well as the season of pro basketball and hockey playoffs. USA Today columnist Christine Brennan tells us that in America, there is still just one sport.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN: It’s April, but the sports headlines scream football. Tom Brady’s four-game NFL suspension for Deflategate has been reinstated by a federal appeals court. Yes, Deflategate is back. Johnny Manziel, the former Cleveland Browns quarterback, has been indicted on a domestic violence charge after allegedly hitting his girlfriend several times. Two young college players – Jared Goff of California and Carson Wentz of North Dakota State – Are about to be selected at the top of the 2016 NFL draft. So what season is this anyway? It’s football season in America, sports fans. It always is.

The NFL, not Major League Baseball, is our real national pastime. Oh, millions upon millions of fans will go to the baseball games this spring and summer. I’ll be among them. I love baseball in the summertime. There’s nothing better. Well, except for going to a football game in the fall – Or actually just watching it on TV. I’m speaking for the American sports fan here, not necessarily myself. The numbers bear this out. Sports TV ratings are at their highest for the National Football League, with college football not too far behind for its biggest games. And nothing gets close to the Super Bowl – Always the most-watched show on TV every year.

The NFL off-season lasted less than three months. And now here comes the NFL draft Thursday night, live from Chicago. In 2014, TV coverage of the draft reached a record 45.7 million people over three days. Those people were not watching anyone throw a pass or make a tackle. They were watching team executives sitting next to a telephone at a table, choosing a young man who then walks on stage and nervously adjusts his new team’s cap on top of his head. And then it happens again and again. It’s the pro-sports Groundhog Day. But it’s also really good reality TV. One of the reasons for the huge ratings in 2014, people couldn’t stop watching Heisman Trophy-winner Johnny Manziel slip all the way down to the 22nd pick, a slide greased by his off field antics. Turns out he should have slipped all the way out of the draft, but that’s another story.

Sports fans, by wide margins, chose to watch that NFL draft drama hour after hour rather than real live sports. The 2014 draft easily beat out two NBA and two NHL playoff games being played that same evening. See what I mean? The NFL is our national pastime. The NFL also spurs on important national conversations. The troubling Manziel news is a continuation of a domestic violence conversation begun after the release, a year and a half ago, of the Ray Rice elevator video – That punch and his punishment, or lack thereof. When something that big happens in the NFL, it instantly becomes conversation fodder for the nation. So maybe football headlines all year ’round do have their place after all.

INSKEEP: Christine Brennan is a sports columnist with USA Today.

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