Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:
Cosplay of the Day:
For those of you still undecided about the presidential election, is it because you think both candidates are just evil aliens in disguise? This cosplay of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in They Live represents you (via Fashionably Geek):
Movie Scene Reenactment of the Day:
Watch Sam Neill re-create a scene from Jurassic Park with help from Miranda Hart as Ellie, John Bishop as a stand-in for the dinosaur and Ewan McGregor as the voice of the dinosaur on the Graham Norton Show (via Mashable):
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Animated Short Film of the Day:
Speaking of Jurassic Park, Lego and Universal joined forces for an animated Jurassic World short that is part prequel to and part reworking of the plot of last year’s hit. Watch the first part below (via /Film).
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Movie Marketing of the Day:
This banner for Doctor Strange spotted in China and tweeted by director Scott Derrickson should easily make a few heads turn and take note of what it’s selling:
Lin-Manuel Miranda hosted Saturday Night Live over the weekend and performed in a parody of The Music Man that satirizes the current Wells Fargo controversy:
Vintage Image of the Day:
Ed Wood, who was born on this day in 1924, with Bela Lugosi on the set of 1953’s Glen or Glenda?:
Celebrity Film Analysis of the Day:
Julie Delpy selects, watches and analyzes Martin Scorsese’s After Hours in this Academy Originals video:
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Video Essay of the Day:
Now You See It looks at geometry in the film frame with particular focus on animation and the use of round and angled shapes to represent good and evil:
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Classic Trailer of the Day:
Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Peggy Sue Got Married. Watch the original trailer for the time-travel movie below.
Samsung says it is suspending production of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 after reports that its batteries overheat and catch fire. The U.S. government recommends powering down and not using the device even if it is a replacement phone. Richard Drew/APhide caption
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Richard Drew/AP
Updated 9:50 p.m. ET with FAA statement
There’s more bad news for Samsung Electronics as the South Korean company was trying to solve the problem of its flagship Galaxy Note 7 smartphone catching fire. Samsung, the global leader in smartphone production, announced that it is suspending sales of the smartphone after reports that some replacement devices were also spontaneously igniting.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a statement advising “all consumers who own a Samsung Galaxy Note7 to power them down and stop charging or using the device.”
“Samsung is being squishy on the details. Samsung says in a statement that ‘we are readjusting our supply,’ without specifying if it’s [the] supply of batteries or another phone part.”
The New York Times reported that the company hoped to provide an update within a month.
“Samsung made the decision to halt production for consumer safety reasons and in cooperation with the authorities in the United States and China, according to the person familiar with the process.”
The news comes after Samsung announced last month that it would recall 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7 smartphones amid reports that batteries were overheating and were a safety risk. The company reportedly changed battery suppliers, but that doesn’t appear to have solved the problem. Last week, a Samsung Note 7 began smoking on a Southwest Airlines flight, prompting an evacuation of the plane. The phone was reported by the owner to be a replacement phone.
The four top U.S. telecom companies, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint have announced that they will no longer sell the replacement version of the Note 7. All four are offering to replace existing Note 7 phones.
Australia’s top three telecoms—Telstra, Optus and Vodafone Australia—also announced that they would no longer ship the Note 7.
Among technology publications and writers, the question now is, how much damage will the battery malfunction do to Samsung’s reputation?
The chief analyst at Jackdaw Research, Jan Dawson told Wired:
“This is the worst-case scenario for Samsung. Now that the replacement devices seem to be having the same problems, it calls into question Samsung’s whole product testing methodology and its scrutiny of its suppliers. That’s much worse than a one-off.”
Here’s what the chairman of Reputation Management Consultants, Eric Schifffer told Reuters:
“If the Note 7 is allowed to continue it could lead to the single greatest act of brand self-destruction in the history of modern technology. Samsung needs to take a giant write-down and cast the Note 7 to the engineering hall of shame next to the Ford Pinto.”
Mylan CEO Heather Bresch holds up an EpiPen two-pack while testifying about price increases to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Sept. 21. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/APhide caption
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Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
Three doctors who have led a task force that evaluates preventive medical services say the group’s recommendations shouldn’t be tied by law to insurance coverage.
The former chairmen of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force say the link between medical recommendations and insurance coverage leads to financial incentives that can corrupt the process and distort people’s health care decisions.
Under the Affordable Care Act, any preventive service that receives one of the USPSTF’s top two ratings must be covered by insurance without any out-of-pocket cost for the patient. The doctors advice to decouple the task force ratings from insurance coverage would require a change in the health law.
The authors of the commentary, which appears Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, point to heavy lobbying by the pharmaceutical company Mylan N.V. to get its anti-allergy device EpiPen deemed a preventive service. They say such lobbying can interfere with the task force’s mission to evaluate medical services to improve the health of the overall population.
“When people try to twist that mission for their own purposes, essentially what they’re doing is violating the integrity of the task force process, and it’s distracting from the mission,” says Dr. Virginia Moyer, the lead author of the commentary. Moyer, a former chairman of the task force, is now a vice president of the American Board of Pediatrics.
The USPSTF is an independent group of volunteer physicians who review the research on preventive medical services, such as vaccines and screenings tests, and recommend who should get them and how often.
Mylan has been lobbying the task force to have the EpiPen listed as a preventive device, even though it is used by people with diagnosed allergies. The EpiPen is an automatic injector that delivers a dose of epinephrine to stop dangerous allergic reactions. A two-pack costs more than $633, according to GoodRx.
The company has been under fire in recent months because it has raised the price of the device more than fivefold since 2007, even though the product has been on the market for decades. Mylan CEO Heather Bresch has blamed the uproar on trends in insurance coverage that leave patients responsible for a larger share of their medical costs.
If EpiPens were covered as preventive medications, patients could get them at no cost. The price increases Mylan has put in place would be invisible to consumers but would have to be borne by insurers.
“What Mylan has done, or what they’re attempting to do with this effort, is use a provision in law, which is intended to give people access to preventive services, and use it to their advantage for something that just plain is not a preventive service,” Moyer says.
That effort by Mylan, which was detailed in a story by The New York Times, spurred Moyer and her two colleagues, Dr. Michael LeFevre and Dr. Ned Calonge, who were also task force leaders, to write the opinion piece that questions the overall idea that insurance coverage should be tied by statute to the recommendations of the volunteer medical group.
The authors say the issues with the link go beyond the problem of lobbying. By putting prevention ahead of treatment of illness by making it free of cost, the system created by the ACA may be making treatment of illness more expensive and putting it out of reach of some patients.
“If such financial access comes at the cost of increased deductibles or copays for equally important services that are not preventive, then we must question whether the link inadvertently discourages other important care,” they write.
“Perhaps it is time for the USPSTF to inform, but not determine, coverage,” they conclude.
A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that more than half of people with insurance through their employer have policies with deductibles of more than $1,000.
Many advocates and economists agree that preventive services can cost more but also can improve the quality of health care. When the Affordable Care Act was being debated, advocates on both sides argued whether or not preventive services would save money in the long run.
“Preventive health services have become quite expensive over time,” says Joe Antos, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
He says some preventive services such as vaccines are inexpensive and undoubtedly valuable. Others, such as mammograms, are also medically important but don’t necessarily save money.
When those services are provided free, the costs are spread across all policy holders through premiums and deductibles.
But Antos cautions against blaming rising deductibles and premiums only on preventive care.
“To what extent have preventive services been responsible for the big increase in deductibles and co-payments over the last decade or so?” he asks. “I would argue that they’ve contributed. But we’re really talking about rising health care costs, not just preventive services.”
