July 26, 2016

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Entertainment July 26, 2016

Today in Movie Culture: Gene Roddenberry Biopic Trailer, the Movies That Influenced 'Stranger Things' and More

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

Redone Trailer of the Day:

With only days left until Jason Bourne arrives in theaters, here’s a version of its trailer redone in 8-bit video game style:

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Proof of Concept Trailer of the Day:

With good timing for the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, below is a great proof of concept trailer for a Gene Roddenberry biopic that’s in the works called The Pilot. It repurposes clips from Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Argo and other movies (via Geek Tyrant):

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Cosplay of the Day:

This little girl cosplaying as Chewbacca (at Comic-Con?) would be adorable enough to share, but the fact that Peter Mayhew loves it makes it all the more wonderful:

The cutest picture I’ve seen all day? Here you go… pic.twitter.com/wCmA9pSOf7

— Peter Mayhew (@TheWookieeRoars) July 26, 2016

Alternate Ending of the Day:

X-Men: Apocalypse could have been much better if a handful of scenes went different ways, as seen in the following animated parody:

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Ending Explanation of the Day:

Do you love Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige but still don’t quite get the ending? WhatCulture is here to help, with obvious spoilers:

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Stanley Kubrick, who was born on this date in 1928, directs a famous scene from A Clockwork Orange, which turns 45 this year:

Homage Supercut of the Day:

Scenes from the Netflix series Stranger Things are shown side by side with the movies they pay homage to, including E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, in this comprehensive video (via Cinematic Montage Creators):

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Video List of the Day:

Must See Films spotlights the 50 (actually 54) most under-appreciated, forgotten and misunderstood movies of all time:

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Filmmakers in Focus:

Star Wars: Episode VIII director Rian Johnson and Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright unite in this amazing filmmaker fan art (via Twitter):

Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 20th anniversary of the release of Kingpin. Watch the original trailer for the Farrelly Brothers comedy below.

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Business July 26, 2016

Fewer Young People Buying Houses, But Why?

First-time home buyers participating at lower rates in the otherwise booming housing market, and experts offer differing opinions on whether, or when, younger buyers are likely to return.

Robert Carter/Getty Images/Ikon Images

Trevor Burbank is single, 27 years old, and has been house hunting in Nashville for the last year.

“My rent’s going up in August, so I have to figure out what I’m doing,” he says.

The last time Burbank looked for a place was five years ago. He decided to use his down payment to start a business instead.

“There was a house that I really liked that was going for $60,000, and I saw the house being sold in the past few months for just shy of $300,000,” Burbank says.

There’s a big debate in real estate over where home ownership rates are headed, and whether Millennials — people who came of age around 2000 — will get into the housing market the way generations before them did.

The percentage of people younger than age 35 who are homeowners went from 42 percent a decade ago to just a little more than a third now.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, says young people are squeezed from both sides. Rents are increasing even faster than home prices.

And, he says, city politicians aren’t making it easy for developers to build condominiums that would be good starter homes.

“We are creating this divide because of the ongoing housing shortage,” Yun says.

There are other factors everyone agrees are making it harder for today’s younger home buyers. They’re delaying marriage, mortgages are harder to get, and people are staying in school longer, taking larger loans.

Which has the biggest effect, though? Is home ownership on a permanent decline because of high costs, changing demographics or new attitudes about home ownership?

“That’s the million-dollar question,” says Jonathan Spader, senior researcher at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing.

He takes the view that ownership may stay the same, just delayed for the younger generation.

“We really haven’t seen a shift in interest in home ownership among younger households,” Spader says.

In surveys, a huge majority — 90 percent — of those younger than age 30 expect to eventually own, he says, but their earnings took a hit in the recession eight years ago and it’s taking them longer to save up a down payment.

Laurie Goodman, co-director of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute, takes a different view: she thinks the younger generation is simply less interested in home ownership.

“This is a permanent shift,” Goodman says.

She cites a 2014 study by Fannie Mae of “prime” home buyers. It found that among young, college educated, upper-income, white families, home ownership fell 6 percent from 2000.

“And that sort of best captures the subtle change in attitudes towards home ownership, because this is a group for whom there’s no reason not to be homeowners,” Goodman says.

Of course more than 80 percent of them eventually buy, but, she says, “they’re doing it later, and a lower percentage of them are eventually doing it.”

And then there are the views of Ted Gayer, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

“I actually think home ownership rates are likely to increase,” he says.

Gayer says many young adults lived with their parents to weather the post-recession years, but as they age, more will start new households and that trend will increase.

“This Millennial generation is actually a rather large generation,” he says.

At 82 million people, he says, it outranks the Baby Boomers in size. And Gayer expects that means a bigger housing boom is around the corner.

As for Burbank, his startup isn’t generating much salary yet. Qualifying for a mortgage took some finagling.

He’s looking for a fixer-upper, but sellers are driving hard bargains on those, too.

“In some cases, there’s not even photos online,” Burbank says. “So you don’t get a tour, you don’t get photos.”

He’s losing out to investors buying sight unseen.

That’s a bridge too far for Burbank, so for now, he remains on the sidelines.

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Health July 26, 2016

Insurers May Share Blame For Increased Price Of Some Generic Drugs

When your health insurer reclassifies a prescription drug you take from tier 1 to tier 2, it can sharply increase the portion of the drug's cost that you're expected to pay.

When your health insurer reclassifies a prescription drug you take from tier 1 to tier 2, it can sharply increase the portion of the drug’s cost that you’re expected to pay. Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images

With recent reports that drugmakers have sharply raised the prices of some prescription drugs, a reader has written in to ask why a common generic drug is also suddenly costing him more. Another reader has questions about health plans with high deductibles. Here are those readers’ questions, and what I’ve learned about the answers.

I take levothyroxine, the generic form of Synthroid, to treat a thyroid disorder. This generic has been on the list of drugs that cost $10 for a 90-day supply at my pharmacy for as long as I can remember. Starting in April, the drug was dropped from the list and the price rose 300 percent. The pharmacist tells me all the generic drug manufacturers are raising prices. How is it possible that this drug increased in price so quickly?

Generic drug price hikes have come under close scrutiny lately, as reports continue to surface of significant and seemingly inexplicable increases. Some drugs affected — including your thyroid medicine, as well as the common heart medicine digoxin — are widely used and have had relatively modest prices for years.

What gives? Health care professionals like your pharmacist often blame drug manufacturers, claiming they raise prices simply because they can. There’s no question that happens, says Dan Mendelson, president of the consulting firm Avalere Health. But there are other reasons that generic drug prices may increase as well.

For example, insurers may have simply changed the design of their health plan’s drug benefit, Mendelson says. They may have moved the drug into a higher tier — one that requires consumers to pay a bigger chunk of the cost. Drug prices also sometimes increase because the cost of manufacturing or distributing the drug has increased.

But consumers don’t have to simply pay up. Drug costs often vary widely from pharmacy to pharmacy, so shopping around makes financial sense. In addition, some retailers offer rock-bottom prices on dozens of generic drugs to consumers who pay cash. If you’re ponying up $4 in cash instead of a $30 copay for each refill, the savings can quickly add up.

Do you know of any insurance carriers that are selling high-deductible marketplace plans where once the deductible is met, the plan pays 100 percent of the costs after that? In other words, the deductible and the out-of-pocket maximum would both be the same?

It’s not unusual to find plans that are structured the way you describe, particularly among bronze-level plans, says Linda Blumberg, a senior fellow in the Health Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Blumberg and colleagues analyzed the availability of these plans on the federal marketplace, which runs the insurance exchanges for about two-thirds of U.S. states.

Such a plan might have a deductible of $6,850 for individual coverage, for example, which is also the maximum that someone with an individual plan can be required to spend out of pocket for covered care in 2016.

Some insurers have touted this type of plan for its simplicity, noting that there’s only one number to keep track of. Still, at the bronze level, a health plan that picks up all costs after the deductible is met is likely to have a deductible of several thousand dollars. Bronze plans are the least generous of the four levels of coverage on the exchange.

Still, even in a high-deductible plan, some care is covered before the deductible is met, including preventive services. Under the Affordable Care Act, consumers don’t have to pay out of pocket for preventive care if it has been recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. In addition, some insurers offer plans that cover a certain number of primary care visits or generic drugs, for example, that are exempted from the deductible.

If you’re considering a plan whose deductible and out-of-pocket maximum are the same, Blumberg says, carefully check the particulars of what’s covered.

Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Health care reporter Michelle Andrews’ column appears as part of NPR’s partnership with Kaiser Health News. Andrews is on Twitter: @mandrews110

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Sports July 26, 2016

Ichiro Suzuki Closes In On Baseball's 3,000-Hit Club

Ichiro Suzuki of the Miami Marlins is just four hits shy of 3,000 hits. He’s expected to reach that milestone during Tuesday’s game. The 42-year-old came to U.S. Major League Baseball from Japan in 2001, when he was met with much doubt. Only 30 baseball legends have hit 3,000.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Miami Marlins outfielder Ichiro Suzuki is on the verge of reaching one of baseball’s great milestones – 3,000 career hits.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Ichiro to right field – he’s got another hit, four away from 3,000.

SIEGEL: He’s 42 years old, and he could hit that mark as early as tonight.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

His fans across the country and around the world have been waiting for this moment. Amy Franz of Seattle took three planes and rented a car to be in Miami this week to see her favorite player.

AMY FRANZ: I started counting his hits in 2004. I watched Ichiro play most of his career in Seattle, and the location of my seats was directly behind him. And I just felt that I really needed to be present for the milestone.

SIEGEL: When Ichiro steps up to the plate tonight, he’ll be greeted with the kind of fanfare he didn’t get when he came to the U.S. in 2001 after nine years in Japan’s professional league.

RICH WALTZ: There was doubt as to whether he could come over and perform at the same level.

SIEGEL: Rich Waltz is the play-by-play announcer for the Miami Marlins on Fox Sports Florida. He says Ichiro turned doubters into believers, starting with his first manager in his very first week of spring training with the Seattle Mariners.

WALTZ: Ichiro spent that week hitting weak balls foul on the third base side. His manager Lou Piniella called him into his office and tried to get it across. Look; you need to pull the ball. You need to hit it with a little more authority.

MCEVERS: Lou Piniella wasn’t sure he got the message, but in the game that day…

WALTZ: Ichiro hit three balls off the wall in right field. As he walked through the dugout on his way to the clubhouse, he looked at Piniella and said, are you happy now?

MCEVERS: The hits keep coming, though Waltz says Ichiro doesn’t exactly look the part and even once described his slender arms as…

WALTZ: Toothpicks – if you walked by Ichiro, you would have no idea that he is one of the greatest players in his time in Major League Baseball. And Ichiro said it, look; if a guy that looks like me and is built like me and has success in this game, I think it’s a signal to other kids in both Japan and the United States that in baseball, you don’t have to be 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds.

SIEGEL: Ichiro Suzuki and the Miami Marlins take the field against the Philadelphia Phillies tonight with baseball history in the balance.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Entertainment July 26, 2016

After His Assassination, A Pakistani Artist's Family Keeps His Song Alive

Pakistani cyclists ride past a wall image of late Sufi musician Amjad Sabri alongside a street in Karachi on June 27, 2016.

Pakistani cyclists ride past a wall image of late Sufi musician Amjad Sabri alongside a street in Karachi on June 27, 2016. Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images

It’s been about a month since Amjad Sabri’s voice was silenced. He was shot dead in his home city of Karachi by two men on a motorcycle, and his millions of fans are still in shock and anger.

So are his family. Sabri’s oldest brother, Sarwat, hopes the police will soon arrest the culprits. He has many questions for his brother’s killer: “Why did you do it? Are you doing it for God? For evil? Or for a man? For money? And he has to give the answer to the whole nation — not only the nation, the whole world now, because the whole world is listening.”

Qawwali is what made Amjad Sabri world-famous. It’s devotional music linked with Sufism, a mystical variant of Islam deeply entwined with the traditions of South Asia.

Sabri was a brilliant performer and a pioneer. At his family home in the back streets of Karachi, visitors still flood in every day to pay their condolences. An entire wall is devoted to a portrait of Amjad’s father, also a legendary qawwali singer.

We’re met by Amjad’s brothers, including Talha Fareed, who performed alongside Amjad for many years.

“He was like my father,” Talha says. “I am still in shock. I feel as if he is coming in here. I feel he is just coming.”

Relatives have come from far and wide. “We are proud that we were related to him,” says Mohammad Taha, 15, who flew in from his home in London to mourn his Uncle Amjad. “We are proud to be his family. The thing I don’t get is, who would want to hate him? He loved the world, the world loved him. But there is always a hater. Where there’s friends, there’s always enemies as well.”

Those enemies include the Taliban. For years now, the Taliban and other Islamist fundamentalists have fought a war against music. In Pakistan, they’ve burned down CD shops and attacked musicians. Soon after Sabri was shot, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban took responsibility. Sabri’s family aren’t sure that’s true, yet there’s no doubt their form of Sufi Islam, with its emphasis on spreading faith through music, is anathema to hardline Islamists like the Taliban.

His brother Sarwat says their faith is all about tolerance. “Our message is for humanity,” he says. “It is not for one sect. It is not for one religion. It is for the all human.”

Then, as we’re sitting and talking, something strange happens. The Sabri family starts singing. We didn’t ask them to; it was spontaneous. Amjad’s brother, Azmat, starts; his younger brother Talha Fareed joins him for a duet; and then it’s Amjad’s uncle Mehmood’s turn.

There is a message behind this. Amjad’s home is a house of mourning right now, but it will always be a house of music that will not be silenced by violence. The next generation of Sabris also don’t seem scared.

Amjad’s sons and nephews are busy learning qawwali, according to Sarwat. “How many of them are learning to sing? All of them!,” he says. “And all of them are very talented!”

Twelve year-old Bilawal Sabri, singing one of his Uncle Amjad’s songs, is happy to prove that point.

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