November 9, 2017

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Entertainment November 9, 2017

Today in Movie Culture: How Thor Summons His Hammer, Christopher Plummer in 'The Usual Suspects' and More

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

Movie Science of the Day:

For Nerdist, Kyle Hill continues his focus on the science of Thor: Ragnarok and tells us how Thor summons his hammer:

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Future Recasting of the Day:

X-Men: Dark Phoenix hasn’t even come out yet, but BossLogic shows us what Millie Bobbie Brown could look like as Phoenix in the next reboot:

Thinking of doing a fun series of the #strangerthings kids as #xmen here is @milliebbrown as phoenix @netflix@Stranger_Thingspic.twitter.com/IHvY0VOGEl

— BossLogic (@Bosslogic) November 9, 2017

Retrospective Recasting of the Day:

With Christopher Plummer replacing Kevin Spacey in All the Money in the World, here’s a video where the actor has also replaced Spacey in The Usual Suspects (via Free Cinema Now):

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VFX Reel of the Day:

Hybride Technologies presents a breakdown of their incredible digital effects work for Kong: Skull Island (via io9):

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Dorothy Dandridge, who was born on this day in 1922, receives direction from Otto Preminger on the set of Carmen Jones in 1954:

Actress in the Spotlight:

In honor of her new movie, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Jacob T. Swinney and Fandor celebrate the many faces of Frances McDormand:

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Filmmaker in Focus:

For Trois Couleurs, Nicolas Longinotti highlights the panoramic landscape shots in Jeff Nichols movies:

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Movie Influences of the Day:

In this video essay, Patrick Willems looks at the origins of both Drive and Baby Driver:

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Cosplay of the Day:

Kotaku has compiled a great collection of people who’ve cosplayed as Star Wars vehicles:

The people who cosplay as Star Wars vehicles: https://t.co/0zzxoQRB9opic.twitter.com/IaE71Cpawn

— Kotaku (@Kotaku) November 9, 2017

Classic Trailer of the Day:

Today is the 10th anniversary of the release of the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men. Watch the original trailer for the Best Picture-winning classic below.

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and

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Sports November 9, 2017

Researcher Says Aaron Hernandez's Brain Showed Signs Of Severe CTE

Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez in a Boston courtroom days before he hanged himself in his prison cell.

Stephan Savoia/AP

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Stephan Savoia/AP

The Boston researcher who examined the brain of former football star Aaron Hernandez says it showed the most damage her team had seen in an athlete so young.

Hernandez, whose on-field performance for the New England Patriots earned him a $40 million contract in 2102, hanged himself in a prison cell earlier this year while serving a life sentence for murder. He was 27 years old.

Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist who directs research of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, at Boston University, said her research team found Hernandez had Stage 3 CTE and that they had never seen such severe damage in a brain younger than 46 years old.

McKee announced her findings at medical conference on Thursday in Boston where she spoke publicly for the first time.

Dr. Ann McKee of Boston University talks about the severe degenerative brain disease suffered by former NFL star Aaron Hernandez. Her research team examined his brain after Hernandez died from suicide in prison.

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Steven Senne/AP

Among the lingering questions in the sports world and among brain researchers is, why did a young man with wealth, fame and a potentially bright athletic career ahead of him kill a friend and wind up in prison?

“We can’t take the pathology and explain the behavior, but we can say collectively that individuals with CTE of this severity have difficulty with impulse control, decision-making, aggression, often emotional volatility, and rage behavior,” said McKee as quoted by the Boston Globe.

McKee, who has pioneered research in brain injuries at BU’s CTE Center, had previously issued a dispassionate stick-to-the-facts statement in September confirming that Hernandez had CTE Stage 3, (with Stage 4 being the most severe). At the time, Hernandez’s attorney, Jose Baez, announced the filing of a lawsuit against the National Football League and the New England Patriots, alleging that they “failed to disclose, treat or protect” against the dangers of repetitive injuries to the former tight end’s brain.

The organ appeared normal when the BU researchers received it in April, reports the New York Times. But after they sliced it in about half-inch sheaths, they found evidence of brain atrophy and damage to the frontal lobe. McKee showed slides comparing Hernandez’s brain to one without CTE. The differences in the two samples, reports the Washington Post, left some physicians and conference attendees gasping in reaction.

But McKee acknowledged that her researchers rarely get a chance to study the brain of someone of Hernandez’s age, so no conclusions could be drawn about whether his damaged brain was similar to those of other 27-year-old football players. But his brain is clearly at the severe end of the spectrum for his age group, said McKee.

“There is a concern that we’re seeing accelerated disease in young athletes. Whether or not that’s because they’re playing more aggressively or if they’re starting at younger ages, we don’t know. But we are seeing ravages of this disease, in this specific example, of a young person,” she said, as quoted by the Post.

McKee also said that Hernandez was born with a genetic marker associated with neurodegenerative diseases and that could have contributed to his CTE.

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Business November 9, 2017

Bruce Springsteen On Broadway Comes With An Economics Lesson

The hottest ticket on Broadway is for a one-of-a-kind, one-man-show. For a limited time, Bruce Springsteen is playing songs and telling stories in a 960-seat theatre. And those lucky fans are now learning a valuable, Nobel Prize Winning economics lesson. Something called: The Endowment Effect.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

One of the hottest tickets on Broadway is for a one-of-a-kind one-man show. For a limited time only, Bruce Springsteen is playing a 960-seat theater. And the luckiest fans are now learning a valuable, Nobel-Prize-winning economics lesson. Kenny Malone of our Planet Money team explains.

KENNY MALONE, BYLINE: What date – so what date are your tickets for?

DANIEL FLYNN: December…

MALONE: The biggest Bruce Springsteen fan I know, my friend Daniel Flynn, actually snagged two Bruce on Broadway tickets when they went on sale.

Fifteen – and how much did you pay for them?

FLYNN: Four-hundred plus fees.

MALONE: Four-hundred dollars plus fees per ticket – that is the face value. Now, Daniel knows he could resell these for a lot of money.

Have you looked at what they’re going for?

FLYNN: I have not.

MALONE: You still haven’t.

FLYNN: No.

MALONE: Because Daniel worries that if he sees what he could resell the tickets for, it would ruin the show for him.

FLYNN: I mean, it’s self-protection – right? – because I don’t want to know what a stupid decision from an economic standpoint I’m making.

MALONE: (Laughter) I mean, it is pretty stupid.

FLYNN: Yeah.

MALONE: Stupid because he does have another choice. Sell the tickets. Classical economic theory says that if you use a ticket that’s worth, say, a thousand bucks, it is like buying a ticket for a $1,000 because you’re choosing to give up $1,000 to see the show. Daniel would never pay $1,000 to see this show, but classical economic theory does not seem to apply to Bruce Springsteen tickets.

RICHARD THALER: Hello.

MALONE: This is Richard Thaler.

THALER: Professor at the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago.

MALONE: Thaler won the Nobel Prize in Economics this year for studying the many irrational ways human beings deal with money. And he did this famous study where he and two other colleagues told a classroom of students…

THALER: Bring money to class this day. We’re running an experiment.

MALONE: The kids walked in that day, and Thaler gave brand new coffee mugs to half of the students in the class.

THALER: Forty-four students – so 22 mugs.

MALONE: Then he basically said, sell your mug if you want to. And what they found was that people who had been randomly handed a mug suddenly really valued that mug.

If didn’t have this mug, I didn’t care about this mug. But now that I have it…

THALER: Yeah. I’m not giving that mug up.

MALONE: The discovery was that simply having a thing makes you overvalue the thing.

THALER: I ended up calling this the Endowment Effect.

MALONE: And this Endowment Effect – one of the places you’ll see it a lot is with concert tickets.

Are you and the orchestra?

FLYNN: Yes.

MALONE: You are in the orchestra.

FLYNN: I am in orchestra, and I know the row number.

MALONE: And so the way that I see my friend Daniel Flynn and his refusal to even look at how much his Bruce Springsteen tickets are worth is that he’s sort of accepting that he is a human and he is susceptible to this Endowment Effect. Once he had that ticket in his hand, he knew he was going to go with his dad even though it might be economically irrational.

I do have StubHub pulled up in front of me.

FLYNN: OK, great (laughter).

MALONE: I mean, do you want to know? You don’t have to.

FLYNN: Yes.

MALONE: Really?

FLYNN: Sure.

MALONE: OK.

I also checked with the ticket website SeatGeek about this, and they said there is a range, but tickets like Daniel’s have sold for as much as $4,000 each.

FLYNN: Oh my gosh, wow, yeah, man.

MALONE: Would you be willing to pay $4,000 to go to it?

FLYNN: (Laughter) Of course not. I wouldn’t even pay close to that. But I am honestly surprised it’s that high. But Bruce Springsteen is incredible. And how often do you get to see him in a theater with less than a thousand people?

MALONE: Well, I understand all of that, but now you’re just rationalizing spending $4,000 on it.

FLYNN: Right. It’s Bruce on Broadway, man.

MALONE: Kenny Malone, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SONG, “DANCING IN THE DARK”)

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