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Entertainment December 13, 2017

Today in Movie Culture: Ralph McQuarrie's 'Star Wars' Art Comes to Life, the Dance Sequences of 2017 and More

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

Remade Trailer of the Day:

Just in time for the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, here’s a sweded version of the movie’s trailer from CineFix:

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Remade Movie of the Day:

Speaking of Star Wars, here’s an impressively made look at how Star Wars would have looked had it followed Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art more closely (via Geek Tyrant):

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Cosplay of the Day:

Fans are getting ready for the new movie by posting photos of their Star Wars cosplay. Here’s a great Rey:

I turned the Arizona desert into my own personal Ahch To for this shot of my Rey cosplay! #starwars#cosplay 1 day left… pic.twitter.com/twDOtyDEn8

— Aicosu (@Aicosplays) December 13, 2017

Cover Tune of the Day:

While we’re on the subject of Star Wars, here’s the series’ theme performed by one person with five calculators (via Geekologie):

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Movie Food of the Day:

One more Star Wars item for now, here’s Nerdy Nummies with how to make your own portion bread like Rey eats in The Force Awakens:

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Steve Buscemi, who turns 60 today, is highlighted in his color-specific character promo for 1992’s Reservoir Dogs:

Filmmaker in Focus:

BFI is doing an exhaustive Ingmar Bergman retrospective next year in honor of his centenary, and here’s their trailer for the event:

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End of the Year Recap of the Day:

Montage master Jacob T. Swinney compiled the many movie dance sequences of 2017 in this year-end mashup:

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Supercut of the Day:

The Uniballer chronicles the history of the line “that’s going to leave a mark” in movies in a supercut of all its movie and TV appearances [via Geekologie]:

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Classic Movie Clip of the Day:

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the release of A Few Good Men. Here’s an iconic scene from the classic courtroom drama:

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Business December 13, 2017

Episode 812: High Rise, Low Returns

Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. stand before the rendering of the under-construction Trump SoHo Hotel Condominium in September 2007.

Jennifer Altman/Bloomberg

Trump SoHo is a high rise in lower Manhattan, part hotel, part condos; it’s 46 stories tall, all slick grey glass. Conflicts, from zoning battles to accusations of fraud, have followed the project since it was announced during a 2006 episode of The Apprentice.

According to reports by Bloomberg News, Trump SoHo has attracted the interest of Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russian officials.

To build Trump Soho, the Trump Organization worked with a company called Bayrock, founded by the wealthy Soviet-born financier Tevfik Arif, who, among other things, owned a chromium plant in Kazakhstan. Questions also surround another major player in the project, Felix Sater, who has a criminal history that includes stabbing a man during a bar fight, and pleading guilty to a securities fraud scheme that involved the mafia.

Find us: Twitter/ Facebook/Instagram

Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, PocketCasts and NPR One.

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Health December 13, 2017

HealthCare.gov Enrollment Ends Friday. Sign-Ups Likely To Trail Last Year's

Isabel Diaz Tinoco and Jose Luis Tinoco had some questions for the Miami insurance agent who helped guide them in signing up for a HealthCare.gov policy at the Mall of the Americas in November.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

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Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Friday is the last day to enroll in a health insurance plan through the federal government’s insurance exchange, HealthCare.gov.

And in a little office park in Northern Virginia, Brima Bob Deen is dealing with the rush.

He is the president of a church-sponsored job training center called Salvation Academy. But this time of year, he acts mostly as an enrollment counselor for Affordable Care Act health plans.

And this week, his calendar is full.

“Every year when you get close to the end, that’s when you have a lot of people come in,” he says.

Deen has stopped allowing people to stand in line outside his office and instead now requires them to make an appointment. That way, he says, he can give them his full attention, rather than being distracted by impatient people waiting.

As we sit to talk, a client calls with an update. The man had been rejected by the HealthCare.gov system because of issues with his email. He tells Deen that his son has helped him resolve the problem.

“Yesterday I have a client and she has difficulty in choosing a plan based on her tax credits and her qualifications,” Deen says. “She has this bunch of plans — there’s silver, there’s gold, and she’s just confused.”

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As of Sunday, about 4.7 million people had enrolled in a health plan and more than a million of them were new customers. That’s about 650,000 more than signed up in the first six weeks of last year, according to Lori Lodes, who ran outreach for HealthCare.gov during the Obama administration and is now leading an effort called Get America Covered.

“We are seeing record demand,” Lodes says. “People want to get health coverage, and people are finding affordable coverage when they actually shop and sign up.”

“The problem is that the enrollment period is cut in half,” she adds.

Friday is the deadline, at least for people buying insurance through the federal marketplace. Several states run their own exchanges and those enrollment periods usually last longer.

The Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year cut the enrollment period, arguing that the shortened period would likely reduce the number of people who buy insurance only when they get sick. And the agency also cut the budget for outreach and advertising for HealthCare.gov by 90 percent.

Trump administration officials declined requests for an interview on this year’s changes to enrollment. But a spokesman says the HealthCare.gov website and call centers are working smoothly and handling the final week’s volume.

Lodes’ group has been enlisting big names to help drum up awareness, including a YouTube video featuring West Wing actors Martin Sheen and Bradley Whitford.

“We are both here to remind you about the Affordable Care Act,” they say. “And here’s what you need to know. You gotta sign up!”

Former President Barack Obama has been on Twitter reminding people to enroll.

“It’s up to all of use to spread the word. Sign up through this Friday,” he tweeted.

Just got off a call to thank folks who are working hard to help more Americans across the country sign up for health coverage. But it’s up to all of us to help spread the word: Sign up through this Friday at https://t.co/ob1Ynoesod. https://t.co/8TYpLCestp

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 11, 2017

And earlier this week, comedian Jimmy Kimmel gave HealthCare.gov a plug on his show.

“Obamacare is not dead,” he said, while holding his son, who recently underwent surgery, on his hip. “It’s very much alive. Millions of people qualify for a reduced rate or even totally free plans.”

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Sports December 13, 2017

Remembering Bruce Brown, Whose Search For The Perfect Break Redefined Surfing

Bruce Brown, seen in 1963, attempts to balance a mounted camera on his board while catching a wave. The man behind the seminal 1966 surfing documentary The Endless Summer died Sunday at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif., at the age of 80.

Bob Bagley/Bruce Brown Films via AP

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Bob Bagley/Bruce Brown Films via AP

Updated at 5:48 p.m. ET

Writing on June 16, 1966, just one day after the film The Endless Summer finally got a wide release, The New York Times remarked on its creator’s “courage — some might say foolhardiness.” For years, he struggled to convince film distributors that even people who had never seen a beach before would want to see his surfing film.

And Bruce Brown was right.

On Sunday, more than half a century since The Endless Summer hit big screens across America, Brown died at the age of 80 in Santa Barbara, Calif. He leaves behind a film that defined surfing for a worldwide audience and, after a slew of earlier big-screen misrepresentations, finally did so on the sport’s own terms.

There had already been a surfing boom in Hollywood by the mid-1960s, to be sure, but the surfers they featured rarely failed to be flimsy depictions of no-goodniks or ninnies — and rarely failed to frustrate actual surfers. Then, Brown’s film came along.

“What Bruce did, and what nobody has done since, was to square the circle,” Matt Warshaw, author of The History of Surfing, told The New York Times. “He was able to present surfing as it really is, to non-surfers.”

“Endless Summer is 50-something years old now,” Warshaw explained to Surfer magazine earlier this year, “and every year that goes by, it’s harder to remember the degree to which Bruce broke the laws of entertainment physics by managing to please and impress both his core audience and the general public.”

Bruce Brown readies his camera in this undated photo.

Bob Bagley/Bruce Brown Films via AP

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Bob Bagley/Bruce Brown Films via AP

The documentary, which featured two of Brown’s friends on a round-the-globe quest to find the perfect wave, was — as Ian Buckwalter wrote for NPR — “part surfing film, part travelogue, occasionally even anthropological study and wildlife film, but ultimately it visually taps into the wanderlust that sends us to far-flung beaches in search of an escape from life that we can’t find at home.”

It was shot on a shoestring budget of $50,000 and destined to earn more than $30 million. But it was by no means his first film.

“I started off when I was 14, with an 8-mm camera taking pictures of surfing to show my mom,” he told the skateboard company Dusters California in a 2014 interview.

He enlisted in the Navy after high school in the 1950s, drew a dream assignment aboard a submarine in Hawaiian and used his 8-mm camera to film home surfing movies in his down time. After his discharge, he would show the movies at small venues in Southern California for the price of a quarter, until a local surfboard manufacturer put up a few thousand dollars for him to produce a whole feature in Hawaii, Slippery When Wet.

What followed was a series of movies (one every year, in fact) that would get a limited release and were attended mostly by other surfers. But even these small-scale pictures made an impact. In fact, his 1961 film Surfing Hollow Days lays claim to its own corner of surfing history. It includes the first footage ever shot of surfers riding arguably the world’s most famous break, and even coined its name: the Banzai Pipeline off Oahu, Hawaii.

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But it was The Endless Summer that caught the world’s attention, at least eventually.

Prospective distributors were deeply skeptical about a beach film’s ability to draw audiences far from the beach. So Brown and his associates pursued a crazy idea to show the film about as far from the beach as they could get: Wichita, Kansas. The Inertia, an outdoors sports news site, sums up how the stunt “has become part of the movie’s lore”:

“Wichita was slammed with a huge snowstorm that winter and icicles dangled from the marquee of the Sunset Theater that bore the name of the film in February 1966. [Promoter R. Paul] Allen feared a flop, but beneath the frosty sign that first night stretched a long line of Kansans, hopping up and down to stay warm while waiting to watch the adventures of Robert August and Mike Hynson on the big screen. The movie sold out two straight weeks. Distributors in New York still weren’t impressed, but the movie’s success in the middle of winter, in the middle of America, convinced Brown and Allen to keep fighting, and they rented out a theater in Manhattan and finally got the buzz they needed to turn the film into a $30 million behemoth.”

“I put everything I had on the line,” Brown told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. “If it wouldn’t have worked, it would have been the ball game.”

The immortal film poster for The Endless Summer, which you may recognize from New York’s Museum of Modern Art, not to mention college dorm room walls across the country.

Monterey Media Inc.

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Monterey Media Inc.

But it did work. Shortly after the film hit the big screen on a wide scale, it became a cultural icon, one so recognizable that even its movie poster is now in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Brown was eventually enshrined in surfing’s Hall of Fame, and his film was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, which selects works for their cultural and historic importance to the U.S.

Brown would go on to earn an Oscar nomination for his documentary on motorcycle riders, On a Sunday. And after a long retirement he even returned in the early ’90s to release a sequel to his seminal surfing film. That sequel was co-written with his son Dana, who went on to craft documentaries in his own right, such as 2003’s Step into Liquid.

Still, it is The Endless Summer that defines the elder Brown’s legacy as a filmmaker and an ambassador for the sport he loved. And as soon as news of his death surfaced publicly, emotional tributes flowed in from some of the surfing world’s living legends — all-time greats such as Kelly Slater and Stephanie Gilmore, neither of whom had even been alive when the movie hit theaters.

“Thank you for showing us the world as you saw it,” Slater said on Instagram. “We need more like you. On to the other side. I hope to bump into you again in some other place and time.”

Ultimately, Brown says it was less his work as a filmmaker than his love of surfing that defined him.

“I had no formal training,” he told Dusters. Before heading to Hawaii to film his first full-length feature, “I got in the plane with a book on how to make movies. It was a real thin book, too.

“I had no interest in cameras other than surfing,” he added. “I just wanted to take pictures of me and my buddies surfing — you know, just to show people.”

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Entertainment December 12, 2017

Today in Movie Culture: 'Avengers: Infinity War' in Lego, 'Star Wars' Goes Indie and More

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

Remade Trailer of the Day:

Huxley Berg Studios works their Lego re-creation magic with the first Avengers: Infinity War:

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Mashup of the Day:

For another great Lego video, here’s a Furious 7-inspired Star Wars video in honor of the passing of Carrie Fisher:

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Fake Movie of the Day:

With so many Star Wars movies being made, why not a romantic indie set in the Galaxy like this parody from Funny or Die?

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Cosplay of the Day:

Need more Star Wars? Here’s a flaming bagpipe-playing unicyclist dressed as a Rebel pilot taking down an inflatable AT-AT (via Geekologie):

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Sketch of the Day:

One more Star Wars item, here’s a sketch from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert featuring Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker being denied entry into the Mos Eisley Cantina:

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Vintage Image of the Day:

What might that cake be made of? Edward G. Robinson celebrates the start of his 101st (and final) movie with co-stars Paula Kelly, Charlton Heston, Cheri Howell, Marion Charles and Joyce Williams on the set of Soylent Green in 1972:

Actor in the Spotlight:

Today is also Jennifer Connelly’s birthday, so IMDb made a supercut of her movie roles:

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Easter Eggs of the Day:

ScreenCrush looks through the new trailer for Ready Player One and spotlights all the Easter eggs and clues in the movie:

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Movie Influence of the Day:

Speaking of movie homages, here’s a BFI video eassy showing how Celine and Julie Go Boating influenced Desperately Seeking Susan:

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

This week is the 30th anniversary of the release of Danny DeVito’s Throw Momma From the Train. Watch the original trailer for the classic comedy below.

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Business December 12, 2017

Are $40 Toll Roads The Future?

Signs warn drivers of icy road conditions on Interstate 66 in Fairfax County, Va., in March 2014. The state’s Department of Transportation recently added rush hour tolls to the road, using dynamic pricing, which continuously adjusts the cost based on congestion.

Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images

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Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images

How much would you pay to avoid traffic jams on your daily commute? $10? $20? How about $40?

That’s how much a tollway in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., charged for a short time last week. Outraged commuters call it highway robbery.

But transportation officials say the high-priced toll is less about money and more about changing commuter behavior and reducing congestion, and commuters all across the country might soon see more tolls in the future.

The 10-mile stretch of Interstate 66 from the Northern Virginia suburbs into the District of Columbia is like no other road in the country. It was built in the early 1980s for carpools and buses to use during rush hour. Over the years, officials have opened it up to hybrids and a few other exemptions, and in recent years, scofflaw single drivers violating the high-occupancy-vehicle-only law helped choke the road with gridlock.

So Virginia’s Department of Transportation is trying something controversial: ending free rides for hybrids, expanding the restricted hours and allowing solo drivers on for a price. And oh, what a high price it is.

When merging onto I-66 inside the Beltway one recent morning from Leesburg Pike in Falls Church, Uber driver Alfred Hewton looks up at the sign showing the price of the toll.

“Eleven dollars [to] Washington, D.C. $11.”

That’s $11 to drive just 10 miles, so Hewton is relieved that for him today, it’s free.

“If we have two or more people, we don’t have to pay. If you’re driving by yourself, it will cost you that much.”

Actually, it can cost quite a bit more for solo commuters because under dynamic pricing, the cost varies, changing every six minutes based on demand and to keep traffic flowing at a minimum of 45 miles an hour. On Dec. 4, the toll topped $34 for a short period of time, and the following day, the toll hit $40.

That’s enough to make any driver spit out his coffee.

“I think it’s outrageous. It’s actually an abuse of power, as far as I’m concerned,” says Alan Bechara, who lives in suburban Chantilly, Va.

“Why do we need to pay $40 for a public road, to use a public road? We funded this road; we paid for it,” he adds. “I’m a Virginia resident for 38 years. I can assure you my tax dollars funded this road.”

Mary Jaber says she understands the need for a modest toll.

“You know, maybe $5, I mean, just something more reasonable,” Jaber says. “But a daily commute of $40 plus is extraordinary; it’s extreme.”

Transportation officials say that’s actually the whole idea.

“What the toll is saying is, ‘We don’t want you to use it.’ I personally wouldn’t pay that toll,” says Virginia Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne.

“We are definitely trying to change behavior because we have limited resources,” Layne adds. “We don’t have the money nor the political will to continue to build highways.”

Layne says heavily congested areas such as Washington, D.C., and its suburbs cannot build their way out of gridlock. So the idea behind opening up the I-66 carpool lanes to solo drivers for a high price is to actually persuade more people to carpool, to take public transportation, or to commute during off-peak hours when there is no charge.

And those who want to, he says, can spend the money to avoid congestion.

“This is a choice. No one is forced to pay this toll. And as a matter of fact, if you put someone else in your car, you never have to pay anything.”

Layne says the high prices of $34.50 last Monday and $40 on Tuesday were only charged for six minutes each, and no more than 28 drivers paid that $40 toll. Morning tolls averaged $10.25 over the first four days, and the round-trip toll price averaged $12 to $17 over the first week. Before the toll lanes opened, officials had predicted round-trip tolls would average $17 a day.

Then-Del. Bob Marshall, R-Prince William, holds a sign as he talks to the media at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., on Feb. 10, 2016, after the governor announced an agreement on an expansion plan for Interstate 66 in Northern Virginia.

Steve Helber/AP

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Steve Helber/AP

And because this wasn’t even a legal option for solo drivers during rush hour before last week, Layne says there’s been only a little spillover effect clogging other roads with drivers trying to avoid the high tolls, though some drivers complain about more congestion at entry points where commuters are trying to decide whether to get on and pay.

While the peak prices are among the nation’s highest tolls ever charged, some see them as a sign of things to come.

“You definitely are going to see much more tolling both for general purposes, and you’re going to see tolling like the price-managed lanes on I-66 to alleviate congestion,” says Pat Jones, executive director of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, which represents toll facility owners and operators. Jones says there are already 40 toll facilities in 11 states, including California, Texas and Washington, using dynamic pricing, and many more under consideration across the country. Most tollways with dynamic pricing don’t have a cap or a maximum price, but they sometimes have a minimum price and averages. On Southern California’s I-91, in Orange and Riverside counties, the tolls can reach as high as $25.05.

“I think in fact we are underpaying; we’ve underpriced the highway system and evidence of that is the congestion that we see in our urban areas,” Jones says.

But many Northern Virginia commuters are not convinced, especially those who say carpooling and public transportation are not realistic options for them.

Jaber doesn’t use I-66 and believes “it’s a very unjust system. I think there are a lot of people … that are not going to use it as a reflection of obviously cost and budgeting.”

Urd Milbury, who commutes to and from her job at the Norweigan Embassy, hasn’t taken I-66 yet “and I probably won’t because of the prices. It could be extremely expensive at times, which is probably exactly when I want to go to work.”

Milbury agrees with those who call the high toll prices outrageous and thinks it will be a hardship for some families.

“You’ve got the cost of your car, you’ve got the gas, you’ve got two rounds of tolls,” she says. “It’s not sustainable.”

Meghan Jackson says she and her family “dance around” using the I-66 tollway, taking alternative routes or the Metro subway into the city. “I’m not sure if this fix will really reduce traffic in any way and I’m not really sure if its really of service to those of us living in Northern Virginia who have to get into the city.”

But with the federal highway trust fund failing to keep up with needs, and with very little new transportation funding likely coming from Washington anytime soon, tolls increasingly are becoming a go-to source for transportation funding. Commuters trying to avoid traffic jams may need to keep one hand on the wheel, and the other on their wallet.

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Sports December 12, 2017

Writer Will Leitch Defends His Position That The NFL Is Ending

NPR’s Kelly McEvers speaks with writer Will Leitch about his piece in New York Magazine: “Is this the End of the NFL?” In his piece, Leitch notes that football used to bring people together across political lines, but that’s not the case anymore.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Is this the end of the NFL? That is the question at the top of a recent piece in New York Magazine. It was written by Will Leitch. And his answer to the question is, yeah, the NFL is kind of over. Will Leitch is here now to defend his position. Hello there.

WILL LEITCH: Hello. Good afternoon.

MCEVERS: You point out in your piece that football really used to be something that, like, brought people together. There’s this great detail you talk about, how Hunter S. Thompson and Richard Nixon even bonded over football. That’s obviously not true right now. I mean, how divisive do you feel, like, football has become?

LEITCH: Yeah. You know, one of the things – like everything else these days, the NFL has not been able to escape politics. And I think because it’s gotten so popular it is right there, dead at the center. But the problem is because it’s not been able to avoid politics it’s actually getting it from both sides. On one hand, you know, you have liberals saying that, like, the game is too cruel and worried about concussions and head injuries and the health of the players, or that the league is too militaristic and too much beloved love of the flag and all of that stuff. On the other hand, you have conservatives saying, we’re not going to watch this league until the players stop kneeling. And…

MCEVERS: Right.

LEITCH: …It’s left the league without a natural constituency.

MCEVERS: Did you ever think football would be at the – at – like, in the middle of the culture wars? Like, is this a surprise to you?

LEITCH: It’s so strange to think of the NFL, you know, which is – you know, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It is a game where people run around and throw a ball and tackle each other – has become some sort of big political thing. You know, and listen; sports has always wanted to consider itself separate than politics. Fans always claim that they want that. Like, they want to get away from politics for a day. You know, the way things are going it’s hard to blame them. I certainly understand the sentiment.

But, you know, standing for the anthem is a political act. Paying for your ticket is a political act. When these stadiums are built with public financing, these – sports has never been able to be completely separate from politics. And I think the reason the NFL has gotten caught up so much in this is it’s gotten so big. You know, the NFL really in the last decade has become so powerful in large part because how much power it has in the world of television. We’re all watching things on DVR.

MCEVERS: Right.

LEITCH: And sports, specifically the NFL, is not a DVR game. So people have to watch it live, which has helped them on ad rates. I would argue that one of the mistakes the NFL has made in that, however, is they have overcompensated in that way.

MCEVERS: Right.

LEITCH: And they’ve given away too much power to television.

MCEVERS: Whether or not this is the end of the NFL, I mean, we have to talk about concussions and injuries. I mean, I think, you know, when you used to watch a football game and you’d see a big hit you’d be like, wow. And now it’s – you know, I think we all have a very different reaction.

LEITCH: Yeah. You know, there was a time not long ago where those big hits were the highlight hits and really promoted the league. Now as more and more scientists come out about how – the damage it causes, it’s not just the big hits. It’s also just the actual sustained – they call them subconcussive hits.

MCEVERS: Yeah.

LEITCH: The dangers of the – playing football are so much more evident now. The NFL has tried to get out ahead of this, but I think you make an argument the games have actually gotten worse. The things that they’ve tried to get out of the game have not made the game safer, have made it less aesthetically pleasing. It’s an existential issue for the NFL, and it’s one they really continue to struggle with.

MCEVERS: And then you talk about how football’s really losing out to the NBA. What is it about that that they have this, like, inverse relationship, you know?

LEITCH: Yeah. The NBA is really in a peak period right now. You’ve got a team like the Golden State Warriors, an all-time great team including superstars like Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry, who is probably the most popular player in the league. You’ve got LeBron James, one of the best players of all time, who is not just, you know, a great player, but I think is one of the larger things that’s really helped out the NBA. They, unlike the NFL, have very much encouraged their players to express their personalities and sometimes to express their political beliefs.

I remember when LeBron James, after President Trump told – said that he was not going to invite Steph Curry and the Warriors to the White House, and LeBron James refuted that and actually called the president you bum, which is kind of a crazy thing to think of, an NBA player calling him you bum. But perhaps what’s even crazier is it seemed to work to shut Trump up. He actually has not talked about the NBA since then. So I guess it requires someone at the level of LeBron James.

But I do think that’s the issue. The NBA has encouraged social media. They’ve encouraged free sharing of highlights. They’ve encouraged their players to express themselves in a way that I think sells the individual and sells the excitement and the off-court stuff as well that the NFL is really kind of lumbering and struggled with.

MCEVERS: I mean, we should be clear. Like, a lot of people still watch football on TV. And this also isn’t the first time that someone has proclaimed that the game is done. I mean, it’s still holding down, like, No. 1 TV rankings.

LEITCH: Yeah. There’s no question. People are still watching the NFL. The numbers have been down a little bit, but not dramatically so. And mostly the numbers being down has just allowed people on both sides to claim that the reason they’re mad at the NFL is the reason the ratings are down. Oftentimes it’s a little bit more complicated than that.

MCEVERS: Yeah.

LEITCH: But, you know, these are – this is the type of thing where the numbers start to go down slowly and then perhaps very quickly. You know, you’ve seen the idea – you know, youth participation in football is way down. The more we understand about the damage of the game, there’s just a lot of different factors that are all kind of nibbling at the NFL on the edges. So it’s starting to wobble. And there was a time five years ago it felt like the NFL was unconquerable. And I think it’s – there’s no question there’s some wobbling going on.

MCEVERS: Will Leitch, thank you so much.

LEITCH: Of course. It’s my pleasure.

MCEVERS: Will Leitch is a contributing editor at New York Magazine and a senior writer at Sports on Earth.

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Health December 12, 2017

Forum: Examining Discrimination Against Native Americans

Join us for a webcast of the poll results on discrimination against Native Amercians hosted by The Forum at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

iStockphoto.com/GracedByTheLight

Editor’s note 1:13 p.m.:The webcast is over. We’ll update the post with an archived video when it becomes available.

How do Native Americans experience discrimination in daily life?

A poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is examining the extent of discrimination against five major ethnic and racial groups in America today. It finds that Native Americans experience very high rates of discrimination in everyday life.

More than a third of Native Americans and their family members have experienced slurs and violence, and close to a third have faced discrimination in the workplace and when interacting with the police. Native Americans who live in majority-Native American areas are significantly more likely to experience this kind of discrimination, the poll finds.

The results for Native Americans in the poll were released earlier this fall and will be highlighted in an expert panel discussion to be live-streamed here at 12 p.m. ET Tuesday, Dec. 12, as part of The Forum at the Harvard Chan School.

With unprecedented documentation, the poll provides results from police interaction, job applications, health care, racial slurs and more. The Forum will explore the results and their implications for society.

This poll is examining discrimination among African-Americans, Latinos, whites, Asian-Americans, women, and LGBTQ adults on their experiences with discrimination.

Joe Neel, deputy senior supervising editor on NPR’s Science Desk, will moderate the discussion with:

Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Kennedy School

Stephanie Fryberg, associate professor for American Indian studies and psychology, University of Washington

Michael Painter, senior program officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and former chief of medical staff at the Seattle Indian Health Board

Yvette Roubideaux, director of the National Congress of American Indians Policy Research Center and former director, Indian Health Service

Our ongoing series “You, Me and Them: Experiencing Discrimination in America” is based in part on a poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. We have released results for African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, whites, Native Americans and women.

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Entertainment December 11, 2017

Today in Movie Culture: Fan-Made 'Wonder Woman 2' Trailer, the ABC's of 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' and More

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

Dream Sequel of the Day:

Wonder Woman meets Hawkgirl and Green Lantern in Alex Luthor’s fan-made trailer for his idea for Wonder Woman 2:

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Cosplay of the Day:

The super power of love is strong with this Wonder Woman cosplayer proposing to her Supergirl-cosplaying partner as Darth Vader and Stormtroopers look on:

Bih this is so cute. Wonder Woman proposed to Supergirl. I’m. ?? pic.twitter.com/1v54BbSSGg

— Sven (@UltearGrants) December 11, 2017

Movie Primer of the Day:

Get your young ones ready for The Last Jedi with an alphabetical guide to the new Star Wars installment:

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Movie Parody of the Day:

Kylo Ren dances his problems away in this Nerdist parody mashing up Star Wars and Footloose:

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Mashup of the Day:

Darth Vader, Voldemort, Bane, the Joker, a Xenomorph from Alien and the Predator join forces in this Greenpeace PSA by Antonio Maria da Silva:

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Teri Garr, who turns 73 today, with co-stars Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle and Marty Feldman and writer-director Mel Brooks on the set of Young Frankenstein in 1974:

Actor in the Spotlight:

The latest edition of No Small Parts showcases the movie and TV roles of future royal bride Meghan Markle:

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Filmmaker in Focus:

Fandor looks at how Brian DePalma’s movies employ “a strong sense of color to describe his characters to the audience”:

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Video Essay of the Day:

In this video essay, Patrick Willems considers how comic book storytelling is changing the movies as a whole:

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Classic Clip of the Day:

Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Oliver Stone’s Wall Street. Watch an iconic scene from the classic drama below.

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and

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Business December 11, 2017

Congressional Republicans Hope To Pass Tax Overhaul Bill By Dec. 25

Congressional Republicans are working to merge House and Senate versions of a GOP tax bill. They’re hoping to reach their first major legislative milestone by Christmas.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

There is furious work going on behind the scenes on Capitol Hill so that Republicans can meet their goal of passing a final tax bill before Christmas. The House and Senate passed separate measures over the last few weeks. Members of both chambers will meet formally in a conference committee later this week to hammer out a final bill.

But a lot of that negotiation is well underway, and NPR congressional reporter Kelsey Snell has been keeping watch on Capitol Hill, where she joins us now. Hi.

KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Hi there.

SIEGEL: How close are we to seeing a final tax bill?

SNELL: Republicans I talked to say they are very close, but there is a lot still up in the air. They’ve been working behind closed doors all weekend to try to hash out these differences. The goal is to resolve any issues before they formally meet later this week. But there are a lot of fixes that need to be done.

SIEGEL: Yeah, in order to get the Senate bill passed, there were a lot of deals cut with individual Senators. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin wanted benefits for small businesses. Susan Collins of Maine wanted money to shore up the health care market. Are any of those concessions at risk as all this gets negotiated or renegotiated between the House and the Senate?

SNELL: Yeah. There were actually three main agreements during that last-minute haggling. And as of now, they all appear pretty solid. First we talked about Johnson and the small businesses. They really wanted to make sure that there were better breaks for small businesses to keep them better in line with corporations. Those kinds of protections have lots of support in both the House and Senate, but the two bills disagree on the best way to structure those benefits. So it’s unclear right now which side will prevail.

The second one, the deal with Lisa Murkowski of Alaska which involved oil and gas exploration in the ANWR, which is the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – that also seems pretty solid. She is on that conference committee, and so is Congressman Don Young of Alaska. So they’ll have a lot of power.

And last, there’s Maine Senator Susan Collins. She says she’s confident in an agreement she reached with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to vote on funding to help the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Here she is speaking to CBS’ “Face The Nation.”

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “FACE THE NATION”)

SUSAN COLLINS: I’ve talked to the president three times about this issue. And once again, I have no reason to believe that that commitment will not be kept. After all, who wants to see health insurance premiums become more unaffordable than they already are for individuals who are buying insurance, say, in the individual market?

SNELL: So there’s a lot to take in here, but Collins hasn’t fully committed to voting for the tax legislation. But it does seem clear that the health care measures will likely be part of the year-end spending bill that also needs to get done in the next two weeks.

SIEGEL: Now, it’s been said that the – most of the benefits in the tax bill would go to businesses. Would that change as they’re making these fixes this week?

SNELL: Actually from what I’m hearing, the bill could get better for some businesses. According to my reporting, a major issue, though, is how to handle a parallel minimum tax system for businesses. Companies have been pushing really hard to see that that is repealed. But it was kept in the Senate bill. Getting rid of it could cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and cost is incredibly important here. There are also some more esoteric issues like clearing up a potential conflict with the World Trade Organization. But all that is being worked out right now.

SIEGEL: And the middle-class tax cuts Republicans have promised – will those change?

SNELL: So first and foremost, the focus is still on lowering rates and doubling the standard deduction. But there’s a lot of talk about those state and local taxes that we’ve been hearing about. One option being discussed would be to let people deduct up to $10,000 of any state and local taxes they pay, not just the property deduction that’s allowed under the Senate bill.

SIEGEL: Well, NPR’s Kelsey Snell at the Capitol, thanks.

SNELL: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF RATATAT’S “NOSTRAND”)

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