Saturday, July 23, 2016

SDCC: "Batman: The Killing Joke" Screenwriter Explains Controversial s*x Scene


Batman: The Killing Joke Official Trailer 1 (2016) - Mark Hamill Movie

Before and after the Comic-Con International screening of "Batman: The Killing Joke," the film"s cast and crew talked about the process of adapting Alan Moore and Brian Bolland"s seminal DC Comics tale from page to screen. In particular, screenwriter Brian Azzarello and director Sam Liu spoke about the decision to introduce s*x to the relationship between Batman and Batgirl.

"The thing about this is that it"s controversial, so we added more controversy," explained Azzarello. "I think she is stronger than the men in her life in this story. She controls the men in her life in this story."

"They both make mistakes, but she"s the one who decides, "I have to stop. There"s a problem here, and I need to step away from this,"" Liu explained. "I think that comes from an emotional strength. I think she makes the decisions that strong people make."

"She comes off as a stronger character at the end of that arc," Azzarello agreed.

Warner Bros. Animation"s "Batman: The Killing Joke" stars Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hamill as the Joker, Tara Strong as Barbara Gordon and Ray Wise as Commissioner Gordon. Directed by Sam Liu ("Justice League vs. Teen Titans"), the film comes from a script by Eisner Award-winning writer Brian Azzarello. Bruce Timm and Sam Register are executive producers, and Alan Burnett is co-producer.

"Batman: The Killing Joke" will be available for Digital HD download on July 26, and arrives on Blu-ray/DVD on August 2.

Discuss this story in CBR"s Batman forum. |

TAGS: sdcc2016, the killing joke (film), the killing joke, brian azzarello, sam liu, alan moore, brian bolland, batman, batgirl, warner bros animation, dc comics, dc entertainment

Source: http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/sdcc-batman-the-killing-joke-screenwriter-explains-controversial-s*x-scene

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Ivanka Trump Sends Shoppers to Donald"s Nemesis


Full speech: Ivanka Trump addresses the 2016 RNC

Why let a good feud get in the way of business?

Taking a page from runway shows, Ivanka Trump took advantage of all the attention paid to the $138 dress she wore during her father Donalds speech at the conclusion of the Republican National Convention late Thursday to send out a tweet telling people where they could buy the garment.

It turns out where they can buy it is a retailer that has some bad blood with Donald Trump: Macys. m

That retailer has been the object of Donald Trumps wrath since it ended their relationship last year after the Republican candidate called some Mexicans rapists and murderers. Trump, who this week clinched the Republican nomination for the Presidential elections, has repeatedly taunted Macys in the last year, taking delight in the department store chains travails, and precipitous share price drop. (Last month, Macys announced that its CEO of 13 years was stepping down in 2017 as it looks to snap one of its worst spells ever.) Macys started selling Trumps menswear line including $70 dress shirts, $65 ties, and cuff links and watches in 2004. Trump has also appeared in Macys commercials.

While Ivanka was never dragged into that contretemps, some find it surprising she has maintained her relationship with a retailer her father has wished ill fortune upon. Its all the more surprising given that the dress is also sold at Nordstrom, a retailer that has never fought with Trump father, and she could have directed shoppers there instead.

And just like Donalds former line at Macys, Ivankas clothes are made in China, a contradiction of the presidential candidates desire to see more items Made in the U.S.A. Whats more, Donald has on a few occasions raised the specter of a trade war with China (including a 45% tariff on Chinese imports), something that presumably would hurt production of Ivankas apparel lines. A spokesperson declined to comment on the matter but Ivanka Trump has in the past indicated she would like to produce more of her clothes in the U.S. but the infrastructure for that is insufficient as of now. Still, American production would almost certainly lead to much higher prices.

Forbes this week reported that her clothing line did $100 million in revenues in the last fiscal year, citing G-iii, the maker of her apparel lines.

And that success appears to be continuing: the dress she wore Thursday night sold out quickly on Macys and Nordstroms site by mid-afternoon on Friday.

Source: http://fortune.com/2016/07/22/invanka-trump-dress/

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Friday, July 22, 2016

Gunmen kill six in Munich shopping mall, three shooters on the run


LIVE COVERAGE: Shooting rampage in Munich, multiple deaths reported, gunmen at large

MUNICH Gunmen attacked a busy mall in the German city of Munich on Friday evening, killing at least eight people and sending shoppers running for their lives from what police said was a terrorist attack.

Authorities told the public to get off the streets as the city - Germany"s third biggest - went into lockdown with transport halted and highways sealed off.

A police spokesman said three gunmen were on the run after the initial shooting subsided. The city was placed under a state of emergency as police hunted for them.

"We are telling the people of Munich there are shooters on the run who are dangerous," he said. "We are urging people to stay indoors."

Police said later that eight people had been killed and an undetermined number wounded. A ninth body had also been found and they were checking to see it was one of the gunmen.

Munich newspaper TZ said one of the shooters was dead. German news magazine Focus said a gunman had shot himself in the head. Reuters could not immediately confirm either report.

As special forces deployed in the city, some people remained holed up in the Olympia shopping center which police said had been evacuated.

"Many shots were fired, I can"t say how many but it"s been a lot," said a shop worker hiding in a store room inside the mall.

It was the third major act of violence against civilians in Western Europe in eight days. Previous attacks in France and Germany were claimed by the Islamic State militant group.

A police spokesman said there was no immediate indication that it was an Islamist attack but it was being treated as a terrorist incident.

Friday is also the five-year anniversary of the massacre by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway in which he killed 77 people. Breivik is a hero for far-right militants in Europe and America.

IS SUPPORTERS CELEBRATE

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but supporters of Islamic State celebrated on social media.

"The Islamic state is expanding in Europe," read one Tweet.

Two witnesses told n-tv television that they saw a man dressed as Santa Claus walking away from the scene of the shooting with a crowd of people. One said the man had blonde hair, was not carrying a weapon but had a suitcase.

A video posted online whose authenticity could not be confirmed showed a man dressed in black outside a McDonalds by the roadside, drawing a handgun and shooting towards members of the public.

A worker at a shop in the mall, Harun Balta, said: "We are still stuck inside the mall without any information, we"re waiting for the police to rescue us."

Police spokeswoman said six people were killed and an undetermined number wounded. They were treating it as a terrorist incident.

Witnesses had seen shooting both inside the mall and on nearby streets, he said.

Munich"s main railway station was also evacuated. BR television said police had also sealed off many highways north of Munich had been shut down and people were told to leave them.

The shopping center is next to the Munich Olympic stadium, where the Palestinian militant group Black September took 11 Israeli athletes hostage and eventually killed them during the 1972 Olympic Games.

Friday"s attack took place a week after a 17-year-old asylum-seeker wounded passengers on a German train with an axe. Bavarian police shot dead the teenager after he wounded four people from Hong Kong on the train and injured a local resident while fleeing.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas told Bild newspaper"s Friday edition before the mall attack that there was "no reason to panic but it"s clear that Germany remains a possible target".

The incidents in Germany follow an attack in Nice, France, on Bastille Day in which a Tunisian drove a truck into crowds, killing 84. Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende said on Twiiter: "Horrible killings in Munich. Taking place on the same day as we mourn & remember the appalling terror that hit Norway so hard five years ago."

U.S. President Barack Obama pledged support for Germany.

"We don"t yet know exactly what"s happening there, but obviously our hearts go out to those who may have been injured," Obama said.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon, Andrea Shalal, Christina Amann, Karin Strohecker; Editing and writing by Robin Pomeroy and Angus MacSwan)

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-crime-munich-idUSKCN1021YZ

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How "Lights Out" Went From Viral Horror Short to Major Studio Scare-Fest


Lights Out - Who"s There Film Challenge (2013)

Teresa Palmer inLights Out. (Warner Bros.)

This weekend, the horror movie Lights Out will attempt to scare audiences silly with its tale of a woman (Teresa Palmer) trying to protect her younger brother from a malevolent spirit that only comes out in the dark. Helmed by first-time Swedish director David F. Sandberg, its got an excellent horror pedigree with Saw, Insidious, and Conjuring director James Wan serving as a producer. Its also got something else going for it: a fascinating origin story that starts with a terrifying two-and-a-half-minute viral video.

Lights Outs journey to the big screen began one night in 2013, when aspiring filmmaker Sandberg and his wife, Lotta Losten, shot a chilling horror short. They had no budget to speak of, used their Gothenburg apartment as a set and Losten herself as the star, and built a camera dolly with lights, rubber, and wood from (naturally) IKEA. Sandberg had been making animated shorts and working on documentary crews since 2006, but he was eager to break into horror and thought he had just the right scary idea: a story about a woman haunted by a shadowy figure who appears every time she turns off the light. (Sandberg created the onscreen special effects using Photoshop.)

Ive had that happen a lot, when you turn off the lights at home and you think you see like a shadow, or someone standing there, and you have to turn it back on, Sandberg told Yahoo Movies. Its nothing, but you think, Hmm, what if there actually was something in the dark every time you turned off the lights?

Sandberg entered the short in Britains b****y Cuts Horror Challenge. It didnt win it wasnt even a finalist but Sandberg was named Best Director. Yet a far greater prize came in the months that followed: The short went viral on Vimeo, YouTube, and other video platforms, racking up more than 20 million views. Watch it here if you dare.

Soon Sandberg was being bombarded by calls from managers, agents, producers, and studios. It was insane how much attention a two-and-a-half-minute short could get, he recalled. I had to make a spreadsheet of everyone I talked to just to keep track of everyone and what everyone was saying. One of those suitors was Lawrence Grey, a former Fox Searchlight executive who has since produced films like Hope Springs and Last Vegas and discovered the short film on Reddit in early 2015.

It was one of those things that just blew me away, said Grey. I watched it in my office during the day on a bright and sunny L.A. morning I shouldnt be scared at all. But I jumped every time. I went to bed that night seeing that thing in my dreams.

The next day Grey tracked Sandberg down. Sandberg said he and Losten had no intention of turning the short into a full-length feature, and even Grey wasnt sure it was possible. But Grey and Sandberg hit it off and started workshopping the concept, based on the premise of an adult having an imaginary friend, who turns out to be the spirit going bump in the night.

Grey also had the perfect collaborator in mind horror hitmaker James Wan. The two had known each other since the early 00s, when Grey attempted to bring the then unknown Wan into the Searchlight fold for a microbudgeted film he wanted to make called Saw (which, like Lights Out, was based on a short). Searchlight ultimately passed, and of course Saw and its six sequels went on to make over $400 million. But Grey and Wan had kept in touch. I said, You know, James, Im thinking back to when you and I first met when you showed me Saw, and I think I might have a guy whos like you, 10 years [earlier], recalled Grey.

Wan had seen the short, and while he was skeptical Sandberg could make the jump to a feature film, he was impressed by the treatment they created. What I really liked about it was the simplicity of the concept, Wan said. The idea is very universal: people afraid of the dark. Wan made Lights Out one of the first films hed produce under his new production banner, Atomic Monster.

Grey recruited screenwriter Eric Heisserer (who wrote theThing and Nightmare on Elm Street remakes) to pen the feature version. The filmmakers cast Teresa Palmer as a young woman who has to care for her younger brother (Gabriel Bateman) while attempting to save her mentally troubled mother (Maria Bello) from the evil spirit named Diana. Warner Bros. signed on to distribute, and Lights Out went into production with a $4.5 million budget (meaning, no more IKEA-based equipment).

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Watch the trailer:

Wan said one of the reasons he launched Atomic Monster was so he could give young genre filmmakers the tools they needed to make names for themselves. Im very thankful for the opportunity I had starting off, and I want to do the same, he said. Im not going to give [them] a lot of money, but what I think it does is it allows them to be very creative as a new, upcoming filmmaker.

Warner Bros. is obviously satisfied and the reviews so far have been solid. Sandberg has already gone into production on another one of the studios tentpole genre films, Annabelle 2, the sequel to the hit 2014 Conjuring spinoff that is currently shooting in Atlanta. (The film is again being produced by Wan.) It just went really fast and really smooth and people keep telling me, Dont get used to that, Sandberg said. Because thats not usually how it happens.

Lights Out opens July 22.

Watch Teresa Palmer talk about her own haunted house:

Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&ct2=us&usg=AFQjCNHlbKvn3DxMKihqHIZ3_H20l2A0cA&clid=c3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331&cid=52779161222063&ei=1YOSV8jDNZXWpwfp1bbQDA&url=https://www.yahoo.com/movies/how-lights-out-went-from-viral-horror-short-to-180304475.html

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Former NFL Coach Dennis Green Dies At 67


Football Pioneers - Dennis Green

Heat Advisoryissued July 22 at 2:36PM CDT expiring July 22 at 7:00PM CDT in effect for: Dane, Jefferson, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Racine, Rock, Sauk, Walworth, Waukesha

Heat Advisoryissued July 21 at 11:42AM CDT expiring July 22 at 7:00PM CDT in effect for: Dane, Jefferson, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Racine, Rock, Sauk, Walworth, Waukesha

Heat Advisoryissued July 20 at 9:30PM CDT expiring July 22 at 7:00PM CDT in effect for: Fond du Lac, Ozaukee, Sheboygan, Washington

Excessive Heat Watchissued July 20 at 10:16AM CDT expiring July 22 at 7:00PM CDT in effect for: Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Green, Green Lake, Iowa, Jefferson, Kenosha, Lafayette, Marquette, Milwaukee, Racine, Rock, Sauk, Walworth, Waukesha

Source: http://www.wtmj.com/newsy/former-nfl-coach-dennis-green-dies-at-67

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PokeVision fr Pokemon GO: Karte zeigt euch, wo Pokemon spawnen


POKEVISION - WEB que TE DICE DONDE ESTAN TODOS LOS POKEMON DE TU ZONA!

Pokemon GO darf auch heute Thema sein, am Wochenende werden sicherlich wieder viele Leute auf den Straen unterwegs sein und deshalb stellen wir euch mit PokeVision ein interessantes Tool vor.Insofern die Server des inoffiziellen Dienstes halten, kann man hier auf den Google-Karten sehen, wann und wo Pokemon in Pokemon GO gespawnt sind und wie lange sie vermutlich noch in dem jeweiligen Gebiet und somit fr die Spieler fangbar bleiben.

Wie schon einleitend erwhnt, hat dieser Dienst wie auch das Spiel selbst mit dem Besucheransturm zu kmpfen, ganz besonders in den kritischen Tageszeiten, wenn zu viele Lnder live im Spiel sind. Luft der Dienst, werden tatschlich Pokemon angezeigt. Man muss dafr einen Punkt der Karte pinnen, den eigenen Standort automatisch freigeben oder in die Suche eintippen. Eine neue Anfrage soll aktuell nur alle 30 Sekunden mglich sein.

Warum kann der Dienst so exaktfunktionieren? Nach eigenen Angaben wird die Niantic API angezapft, daher stammen die akkuraten Daten der gespawnten Pokemon. Diesem Link folgen und ausprobieren, wenn die Server mal nicht down sind.

mehr zu Pokemon GO

(via Caschys Blog)

Empfehle den Artikel weiter, danke!

Source: http://www.smartdroid.de/pokevision-fuer-pokemon-go-karte-zeigt-euch-wo-pokemon-spawnen/

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Steelers star Le"Veon Bell facing four-game suspension, per reports


2016 Fantasy Football: RB Rankings Update Le"Veon Bell Suspension, DeAngelo & Ezekiel Elliot

The news that Pittsburgh Steelers star running back Le"Veon Bell is potentially facing a four-gameban for violating the NFL"s drug policy may not affect the Ravens directly. The two rivals don"t play for the first time until Nov.6 at M&T Bank Stadium with the rematch set for Christmas Day at Heinz Field.

However, it certainly could affect how the AFC North plays out, as the Steelers are considered by many pundits as the preseason favorite to win the division. Pittsburgh is already playing the season without wide receiver Martavis Bryant, who was suspended for at least a year for violating the league"s substance-abuse policy.

Now, Bell, one of the league"s top all-purpose backs, will be suspended for the first four games unless he wins his appeal, which should be heard before the start of the regular season, according to ESPN.

Bell reportedly faces the suspension for missing drug tests, which constitutes a violation of league policy. The running back served a two-game suspension last year after he was arrested for marijuana possession and driving under the influence.

The Steelers have a proven veteran backup in DeAngelo Williams and former Raven Fitzgerald Toussaint should also have a role in replacing Bell. However, Bell is still a significant loss, given his versatility and explosiveness.

The Steelers" first four regular-season games are at theWashington Redskins, home against the Cincinnati Bengals, at the Philadelphia Eagles and home against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bal-steelers-star-le-veon-bell-facing-four-game-suspension-per-reports-20160722-story.html

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