#Library of American Broadcasting Foundation

[djkerr]

Christine Baranski accepting her Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2024 Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts luncheon and awards ceremony. The annual event celebrates the remarkable creators, innovators, leaders, performers, and journalists who have blazed trails in the radio and television broadcasting industry.

Presented by The Library of American Broadcasting Foundation (LABF) whose mission is dedicated to preserving the history and heritage of broadcasting and other electronic media.

Gotham Hall, NYC | November 12, 2024

[source]

[reasonsforhope]

The loss of life and impact on the communities in Helene’s path is unfathomable — and both the immediate and long-term needs are vast. 

If you’re reading this, it’s likely because you want to help and care about making a difference for those who’ve been impacted by Hurricane Helene.

You’re in the right place. When we see tragedy like this happen in the news, it’s important to not tune it out. Instead, pay attention and truly feel the heartbreak of it — t​​hen, look for and be inspired by the people stepping in to help, and use that energy to make a difference ourselves.

Looking for the helpers

Instead of turning away from tragic events like the devastation from Hurricane Helene — we look closer for people stepping in using what they have, where they are, to make a difference for others.

Inspired by Mister Rogers’ famous quote, we call them the “helpers,” — and they’re usually found wherever there’s bad news in the world. Hurricane Helene is no different. Here are some people, businesses, and organizations helping right now:

Chef José Andrés and ​World Central Kitchen teams are serving thousands of meals to communities in need — from Mexico, and the Big Bend of Florida, and into Appalachia.

Volunteer pilots with the Port City Aviators Flying Club are flying supplies to storm victims in western North Carolina.

The national Disaster Distress Helpline is providing free multilingual crisis counseling to those in need.

Southern Smoke Foundation, an organization that supports food & beverage workers in crisis, is providing financial support for groceries, medical bills, lost wages, and more.

Volunteers with veteran-led disaster response organization Team Rubicon are on the ground in Greenwood, South Carolina clearing roads of trees and debris.

A local library branch in Asheville, North Carolina served as a hub for community members in need of internet service.

Workers at Waffle House were “unlikely heroes” providing food to people in need.

A local Fox News correspondent stopped his live broadcast to help rescue a woman trapped in her car in rising floodwaters.

Emergency response teams rescued more than 50 staff, patients, and caregivers from the roof of a hospital in Erwin, Tennessee.

The SPCA of Brevard rescued 20 animals from Hurricane Helene’s path — and it’s now helping them get adopted.

‍

How to make a difference

After we’ve allowed ourselves to feel the weight of the pain and heartbreak associated with bad news, and look for hope and helpers in the midst of it — we always have the opportunity to join in and make a difference, too. 

Here are some ways to help — whether you’re local or far away:

Donate to national organizations 

Here are just a few large-scale organizations that have helpers on the ground in the region.

American Red Cross

World Central Kitchen

Feeding America

United Way

Salvation Army

CARE

Donate to local organizations

Local organizations, recovery funds, and mutual aid groups have been deployed across the states impacted by Helene. Find donation links and updates below:

All States:

GoFundMe Hub for Hurricane Helene Relief

Mutual Aid Disaster Relief

Southeast Climate & Energy Network

Convoy of Hope

Appalachia Funders Network

Americares

Organizing Resilience

The National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster

Tennessee:

East Tennessee Foundation

First Aid Collective Knoxville

RISE Erwin

Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee

North Carolina:

North Carolina Community Foundation

Hearts With Hands

Manna Foodbank

BeLoved Asheville

Foothills Food Hub

Haywood Christian Ministry

Samaritan’s Purse

Forsyth Humane Society

Hope Mill

‍

Volunteer locally

Organizations in the affected area are seeking volunteers to help distribute resources and support crucial aid efforts. While many of us are not local to the region, those who are nearby are encouraged to join in a myriad of volunteer opportunities.

(Note: If you aren't in the area, the best way you can help is by supporting local efforts with a donation. Keeping roads clear for rescue crews and local relief agents is vital in maintaining safety in these already devastated regions).

For local volunteers, check out:

World Central Kitchen

Operation BBQ Relief

Marco Patriots

Operation Airdrop

Baptists on Mission

‍

Contact your elected officials and ask them to take climate action

Climate scientists agree, the intensity and extent of the devastation brought by Hurricane Helene was made worse by climate change. 

While we can’t go back in time and burn less fossil fuels — we can make a difference now to secure a safer future and prevent future climate disasters. 

In addition to talking about how this disaster is connected to climate change in our own conversations and holding media outlets accountable for how they talk about climate change — this is a great time to tell your elected officials that you want them to take meaningful climate action.

We’re making incredible progress in the U.S. and globally in reducing emissions, but we need to work even faster — and incorporate climate mitigation efforts into our plans — to limit the most severe impacts of global warming.

[mercurygray]

So I Hear You Liked...World War Two Dramas

What's that? You said you wanted a World War Two series where women actually speak to each other? Have I got a deal for you!

When Band of Brothers first came out, I did not have cable, but what I did have was a card at a library that owned seemingly every PBS drama ever broadcast. I know and love a lot of these shows, and I hope you do, too.

As we wait for Masters of the Air to join us, maybe you can fill some time with one of these!

Classic: These shows were made in the 70s and 80s and while the production values are not the same as something made more recently, they're all fun to watch.

Danger UXB - daily life in a bomb disposal unit.

Dad's Army - comedy show about the Home Guard.

Hogan's Heroes - situational comedy about life in a POW camp.

Piece of Cake - follows British pilots stationed in France as the Phony War begins.

Homefront Perspectives:

✨Housewife, 49 - Based on the wartime diary of Nella Last, who participated in the Mass Observation project. One of my favorites.

✨Foyle’s War - procedural crime drama following DCS Foyle and hsi team as he solves murders in wartime Britain. Another favorite.

Island at War - Wartime life on the Channel Islands during the German occupation

Land Girls - Follows the lives of a group of Land Girls working on an estate farm.

Bomb Girls - Follows the lives of a group of workers in a Toronto munitions factory.

Home Fires - Life in a small British town near an air base. Based on a book.

World On Fire - Follows the disparate lives of several people in several countries as the war begins.

✨All Creatures Great and Small - The life of Yorkshire Vet James Herriot, based on the book series of the same title. A favorite, both the 1970s original and the 2020 version.

A French Village - Daily life in a French village is upended as the Germans invade. Follows the same village through the entire war.

My Mother and Other Strangers - An Irish village deals with the introduction of an American Air Force base.

Colditz - life in one of the war's most infamous POW camps. Features Damian Lewis!!

Atlantic Crossing - the life of Crown Princess Marta of Norway as she tries to advocate for her country while living in the United States.

The Halycon - Life in a posh London hotel during the 1940s

Spies and Science:

X Company - Canadian drama about life overseas for spies

Resistance - French wartime drama about a woman in the French underground movement

Restless - Postwar drama about a woman who spied for the Russians in England during the war.

✨Manhattan - If you liked Oppenheimer, have I got a show for you!! Follows the lives of several scientists and their families as they move to Los Alamos. A favorite.

✨The Heavy Water War - Norwegian/British operations Grouse and Gunnerside to destroy German heavy water plant. A favorite.

The Twelfth Man - Norwegian sabotage operation gets shot down in occupied Norway.

✨Generation War - German experience of war from variety of perspectives. This show is excellent. Everyone should watch this.

✨SAS: Rogue Heroes - Follows the foundation of a parachute regiment in North Africa that would eventually become the basis for Britain's commando units. A favorite.

Postwar:

A Place to Call Home - very soapy Australian post-war drama about an upperclass family.

Our Wonder Years - Follows three sisters in post-war Germany as they attempt to confront the past.

Tannbach - Follows a family whose German town is split in two along the new East-West border.

The Defeated - Crime drama following a policeman trying to find his brother in post-war Berlin

Small Island- a Jamaican woman moves to London after the war and tries to adjust to a country that doesn't want her there

Call the Midwife - Social drama in the 1960s addressing the health and lives of the post-war poor of London.

[broadcastarchive-umd]

#VoxPop On March 23, 1942, the long-running radio program Vox Pop broadcast from the Armored Force headquarters at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Here, host Parks Johnson is shown interviewing Sgt. John L. Berlew, a milkman from Jamaica, Long Island. The object in Berlew's hand is a gold brick from the gold repository at Fort Knox. 

If you want to learn more about the other men interviewed at Fort Knox or other broadcasts Vox Pop made in 1942, we have created a program guide that can be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet. This guide allows users to explore details about the broadcasts and the more than 3,000 men, women, and children interviewed on the program. 

A link to the program guide and tips on using it can be found in this article on the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation exhibition page: The Voice of the People in Times of Crisis, A Vox Pop Radio Program Guide, 1935 - 1948.

[gunlovingpacifist]

Now I have to block you because people on the right celebrate ignorance and Mooch of blue states. Them gunz ain't gonna feed your family......

I have posed this question a few times and never get a response

.... 🤔

Here is why I am a liberal...

Why are you a Republican?

The 40-hour work week, and thus, weekends!

Overtime pay and minimum wage.

Paid Vacations.

Women’s Voting Rights

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

The right of people of all colors to use schools and facilities.

Public schools.

Public libraries

Public transportation

Public universities

Public broadcasting

Public police and fire departments

Worker’s rights

Labor safety and fairness laws

*Nixon gave us the EPA

Child-labor laws.

The right to unionize

Health care benefits

National Parks, Monuments, and Forests, “America’s Best Idea”

Interstate Highway System (Eisenhower (R) and Al Gore Sr. (D)

Safe food and drugs (via the FDA)

Social Security

NASA

The Moon Landing and other space exploration

Satellites

The Office of Congressional Ethics.

The Internet

National Weather Service

Product Labeling/Truth in Advertising Laws

Rural Electrification/Tennessee Valley Authority

Bank Deposit Insurance

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Consumer Product Safety Commission

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Rights of the disabled (via Americans With Disabilities Act)

Family and Medical Leave Act

Clean air and water (Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency).

Civilian Conservation Corps

Panama Canal

Hoover Dam

The Federal Reserve

Medicare/Medicaid

The United States Military

The FBI

The CIA

Peace between Israel and Egypt

Peace between Israel and Jordan

Veterans Medical Care

Federal Housing Administration

Extending Voting Rights to 18 year olds

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Religion/Separation of Church and State

Right to Due Process

Freedom of The Press

Right to Organize and Protest

Pell Grants and other financial aid to students

Federal Aviation Administration/Airline safety regulations

The end of slavery in the USA (The Emancipation Proclamation, The 13th Amendment)

Unemployment benefits

Smithsonian Institute

Americorps

Mandatory Food Labeling

Peace Corps

United Nations

World Health Organization

The Lincoln Tunnel

Sulfur emissions cap and trade to eliminate acid rain

Earned Income Tax Credit

The banning of lead in consumer products

National Institute of Health

Garbage pickup/clean streets

Banning of CFCs.

LGBT rights

Expanded voting access via polling places

Erie Canal

Bailout — and thus continued existence — of the American Auto Industry

Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

Established the basis for Universal Human Rights by writing the Declaration of Independence

Miranda Rights

Banning of torture

The right to a proper defense in court

An independent judiciary

The right to vote

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

Fair, open, and honest elections

The founding of The United States of America

The defeat of the Nazis and victory in World War II

Paramedics

Woman’s Right to Choose

The Civil Rights Movement

National Science Foundation

Vehicle Safety Standards

NATO

The income tax and power to tax in general, which have been used to pay for much of this list.

911 Emergency system

Tsunami, hurricane, tornado, and earthquake warning systems

The Freedom of Information Act

Water Treatment Centers and sewage systems

The Meat Inspection Act

The Pure Food And Drug Act

The Bretton Woods system

International Monetary Fund

SEC, which regulates Wall Street (weaked by conservatives)

National Endowment for the Arts

Campaign finance laws (weaked by conservatives)

Federal Crop Insurance

United States Housing Authority

School Lunch Act

Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act

Vaccination Assistance Act

The creation of counterinsurgency forces such as the Navy Seals and Green Berets.

Voting Rights Act, which ended poll taxes, literacy tests, and other voter qualification tests (weaked by conservatives)

The Brady Bill (5-day wait on handgun purchases for background checks)

Lobbying Disclosure Act

"Motor-Voter" Act

Civil Rights Act of 1968

Job Corps

Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965

Teacher Corps

Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966

National Trails System Act of 1968

U.S. Postal Service

Modern Civilization

BIDEN WINS:

• Inflation Reduction Act

• CHIPS & Science Act

• PACT Act for veterans

• First major gun safety legislation in decades

• Took out the leader of al Qaeda

• Historic job growth (+12.8 million)

• Historically low unemployment

• Expanded the NATO alliance

• American Rescue Plan led to fastest jobs recovery in history

• Confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

• Rallied our allies in support of Ukraine

•Once-in-a-generation infrastructure investments

• Student loan forgiveness

• Rural broadband investment

In not a republican. I lean right on one issue. The second amendment. Why's that hard for leftists to comprehend

[influencermagazineuk]

Actress Sarah Jessica Parker was announced as a judge for the prestigious Booker Prize 2025. A global icon best known for her role in Sex and the City, she has been selected to join one of the most distinguished panels of judges in the literary industry, who will decide who wins this most prestigious literary award honoring the best fiction written in the English language and first published in the UK or Ireland. The Booker Prize, with its cash award of £50,000, will be judged by an eclectic and accomplished group. Among them will be authors Ayobami Adebayo and Kiley Reid, who have both made a mark on the literary world, broadcaster and literary critic Chris Power, and the Irish novelist Roddy Doyle, who himself won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. This is a first in the history books, as the panel will boast three Booker-winning authors, altering the traditional makeup of judges for this award. Sean Reynolds from Liverpool, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons As a regular in the literary arena, no one knows Sarah Jessica Parker better than when she reads. But apart from her acting accolades — four Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards — her literary pursuits are also impressive. The actress has maintained a strong presence in the publishing world through her literary imprint, SJP Lit, which she has run for several years in collaboration with publisher Hogarth. In addition, Parker has been very supportive of the literary community in different ways. She has been an honorary chair for the American Library Association's online platform, Central Book Club. She is also a board member of United for Libraries, a charitable organization that advocates for libraries and library services across the United States. It seems Parker loves books more than what her job may describe. She is actually an enthusiastic reader who has always found a place in her heart for contemporary fiction-a passion acknowledged by Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation. "For months now," said Wood, "Parker has been enthusiastically backing modern literature and indeed giving me book recommendations.". Wood added that Parker's commitment to contemporary fiction and her vast reading experience make her an exciting addition to the judging panel. Roddy Doyle will also lead the 2025 panel. Doyle, who gained fame with his Booker-winning novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, expressed his eagerness for the role in a statement. With over four decades of experience in the literary world, Doyle is looking forward to immersing himself in the best novels of the year. "For more than 40 years, I’ve been writing novels, or editing novels, or thinking about the next novel," Doyle said. "For longer still – since my mother taught me how to read – I've filled hours of every day with novels, reading them, re-reading them, just gazing at them. To have licence to do little else but read the year's best novels, to find the familiar in the unfamiliar, to examine the remarkable, unique things that great writers can do with the shared language, English – I can't wait." He further said that though he has never been part of a book club before, he is excited to be part of a group that will surely be full of lively discussions about literature. Given such a diverse and knowledgeable panel, it is no wonder that expectations for the 2025 Booker Prize are high. The longlist for the 2025 Booker Prize will be announced in July, followed by a shortlist of six books in September. This year's winner, British author Samantha Harvey, won the prize for her novel Orbital, a story about astronauts observing Earth from space. This marked a significant milestone as she became the first woman to win the award since 2019. As the literary world waits with bated breath for next year's prize, Sarah Jessica Parker's involvement has added a new layer of excitement and intrigue to the proceedings. An actress who has long demonstrated her love for literature, she is sure to bring a fresh perspective to the selection process. With such a distinguished panel of judges and a promising list of contenders, the 2025 Booker Prize is bound to be one of the most riveting in recent history. Read the full article

[ladygoofball]

What does independence mean when you’re battling mental illness?

A report from the trenches, courtesy of avoiding Memorial Day PTSD flashbacks and getting enraged over how many marketing emails I get asking me to buy something between paychecks

Is routine and discipline all that matters or are those just the foundations of a better life? How do we provide a better example for the future generations when things change so rapidly that even being able to write and tell stories is getting to be a lost skill in the face of long COVID?

I read a few articles detailing how puzzles and mazes in Montessori schools provide a better learning experience for developing minds [this is a placeholder to link back to those articles as I think they are worth exploring more if you're interested in the topic], and I think a lot of people who were raised in a pre 2001/ 9/11 era of public schools in the united states have a rigid understanding of what learning looks like as a parent and as an individual adult.

The idea that simplifying a learning experience to cater to a specific outcome is deeply shamed out of the “Millenial” code of conduct with learning because of how many times we were told that “nobody deserves a trophy for just showing up!” I believe my generation (even more so if they are White like I am) is deeply afraid of repeating their parents mistakes, so much so that the future generations are so hyper aware of The Wrongs being committed in this world that they don’t know how to look for the inherent good in their fellow man. And because American culture is so deeply in its own ass about most things, we don’t know how to look into the global community without feeling defensive about what is familiar (i.e. critiques on certain pieces of media Harry Potter franchise meet intensive backlash instead of approaching the topic in good faith) and with the increase in how quickly people can recall certain pieces of data the harassment campaigns can turn very dark very quickly.

This is not to say that it is not deeply important to continuously check our own sources of information and be open to diversifying our own internal libraries to bring in new and fresh ideas on what we can hope for in our futures. This is to just note that the way that our online cultures interact with “arguments” often escalate to silencing voices that can be swayed in one direction or another. The art of saying “You know, I haven’t personally investigated this matter but I’m curious on what your thoughts are and why you feel this way” without bringing a whole metric ass-ton of ego to the conversation is lost because of how our elders demonstrated debating and arguments across generations when we were growing up.

How our generation approaches “respect” and how previous generations expect “respect” to be demonstrated are at fundamental odds with each other.

I can only speak personally on this particular point, as someone who was raised in a conservative republican household and who has committed to unlearning all of these values that do not promote a healthy community in my own life. Whenever I try to consume more conservative media, I am immediately hit with how much of an echo chamber and talking around the same point kinds of rhetoric dominate the majority of the “debate across the aisle” that is being pantomimed. I will usually engage with this media when I visit my grandmother who is in the final years of her life, she keeps Fox News blasting at all hours of the day and I can confidently say (as someone who has studied how media influences culture and has worked on multiple broadcast journalism sets in my collegiate studies) that this design for news cycles only furthers the divide across the aisle.

Is it a requirement to reach across the aisle whenever you engage with people in your own community? Not at all! But it is a skill worth developing and introducing to younger generations so they don’t feel so burdened with Finding the Truth.

The world is a cruel place, there are so many injustices that we can now receive live feeds from the ground before organizations can silence or filter the message to serve a certain narrative. It is exhausting to be a creator nowadays, the research I have been conducting on the current media landscape has only left me feeling incredibly deflated at the state of how interactivity and engagement and successful marketing are measured since the rise of streaming services and privatization of audience metrics depending on the platform you utilize.

In early television history, Nielsen ratings offered a comprehensive look into the ways that we consume media but in the streaming age these metrics are guarded under lock and key (PR spins generally focus on trying to make this seem like a good thing but honestly, not having residuals and metrics affects everybody in the chain of production). The only way to scrape by in the media landscape is to work inhumane hours and confine yourself to strict schedules that only work to churn new talents into the industry and burn older generations into other ones. This was the case when I graduated college in 2017, and it has only gotten demonstrably worse. Even with all the protests and negotiations, I doubt that there has been real changes to the ways that we can observe and define what a successful streaming exclusive production looks like.

I had personally given up on trying to get back into media, and I pivoted over to the tech industry as a writer for instructional articles on how software works for the every day client. I didn’t even think about writing in a narrative format again until I started playing video games with a partner who loved to engage in the stories critically with me while we played together.

I can’t get into a large open world shooting oriented game (i.e. Call of Duty, Fortnight) without losing interest, but a narrative driven story where the world around the player character grows and changes with them is my chosen format for gaming. This format has allowed me to explore the archetypes that people portray in their own personal affairs, and differentiate what a public persona is vs. a private persona which is a key skill to develop as a functional adult in an increasingly internationally conscious digital landscape.

Of course, simulating conversations with limited scripted characters is not a replacement for real social interaction but it does help ease my anxiety of the unknowns that lie underneath any public appearance. I could not imagine the added anxiety of not knowing how “successful” your own work was and only seeing sponsored critiques that brush over the key components of your performance that you would hope that a journalist would highlight and make as a part of a larger discussion but thanks to the Streaming Services and the metrics behind viewership being hidden from the general public, this is how any creative professional is forced to measure their own success.

Instead of having hard data and metrics to back up our assertions in our writings, we have conversion rates based on follower counts and engagement metrics and case studies that are all much more subjective than it was in years past. No single person can manage all of these different components by themselves, it’s why the most sound piece of advice I have received this year is to make sure to take in the nature preserves that my city has been working to protect and keep recorded data tracking migration and growth patterns of plant life.

Maybe that's just the romantic druid in me longing to just unplug and find peace in a cacophony that proves that there is always Order within Chaos if you know where to look.

I also know that there are people who are bored and can’t find anything else to do who need words. Good. Stay starved. It shows that you're still alive and willing to learn.

I have a community to transfer out of, which is not going to be easy and I am planning on spending less time behind screens in general. Going quiet until I'm settled back in a better place or at least have a job again so I don't sit here worrying about income and finances.

This has been an exhausting couple of months, but at least I’m seeing new pop up books in the algorithms which are genuinely delightful inventions. Maybe admitting that will actually influence some positive changes for once, but I doubt that it will last long before another "well actually" ruins the mood.

[post-it-free]

US Presidential Appointments

Obviously a chance to not have a majority of monsters on the Supreme Court is reason enough, but: I encourage people to consider both a) how important it would be to just have a competent, (even if they are moderate) person in some of these positions, and b) how badly it could harm people to have someone actively malicious in these roles. I have tried to arrange these in a way that makes sense to me, but different departments sometimes have weird crossover. If you don't know about some of these, wikipedia can give a decent summation of "what does the Energy Secretary even DO?"

A (non-exhaustive) list of positions that are appointed by the US President. Some also require confirmation by the Senate, but some don't.

Director of Office on Violence Against Women; Director of the Women’s Bureau

All members of the National Council on Disability

All members of National Board for Education Sciences; director of the National Institute of Museum & Library Services, National Science Foundation, and National Institute for Literacy Advisory boards; Librarian of the Library of Congress

Administrator, Inspector General, and CFO of NASA; Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Secretary of Education; Secretary of Housing & Urban Development; Secretary of State

Administrator of Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Admin; Director of National Institutes of Health, Secretary of Department of Health & Human Services (oversees FDA, CDC, NIH, Indian Health Services, Administration for Children and Families, Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services)

Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, Director of the Census, Director of Social Security Administration

Department of the Interior (incl. Directors of the National Park service, Land Management, Surface Mining Reclamation/Enforcement)

Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, 5 Members of the Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board

Secretary of Transportation (incl. Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Admin, Federal Railroad Admin, FAA), Secretary of Department of Energy, 7 Members of Amtrak reform board

Federal Communications Commission (FCC - remember net neutrality?), 9 Directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Secretary of Labor (5 members + General Counsel of National Labor Relations board), Chair of National Endowment for the Arts, 5 Commissioners + General Counsel of EEOC)

Director of Indian Health Service, Commissioner of the Office of Navajo & Hopi Indian Relocation, Commissioner for Administration for Native Americans, All members of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of American Indian & Alaska Native Culture & Arts Development

Director of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Commissioners of Consumer Product Safety Commission, Director of Securities and Exchange Commission

[thephotopitmagazine]

SHINEDOWN RELEASE THE LIBRARY SESSIONS INSPIRED BY CROSSOVER HIT SINGLE "A SYMPTOM OF BEING HUMAN"

Releases The Library Sessions Inspired By Crossover Hit Single “A Symptom Of Being Human” Special Giving Tuesday Broadcast Benefiting American Foundation for Suicide Prevention PRESS HERE To Watch Somewhere In The Stratosphere 2011 Live Album Limited-Edition 4LP Vinyl Set Out December 8th (Photo Credit: Sanjay Parikh) Multi-platinum, chart-topping band Shinedown has released The Library…

[blazehedgehog]

As an Internet veteran and draw-person, I really need to ask: what anime influenced you and many online artists circa 2000s? There's a specific style from those early 2000s webcomics and fanart I'm looking for and trying to replicate, and your old art fit in that "style", in my opinion. Thank you!

It’s hard to narrow it down, but it’s also not that hard to narrow it down. Anime was a much, much smaller industry back then. The “boom” was just beginning thanks to efforts by the Scifi Channel and Cartoon Network to bring anime to television in timeslots that people would actually watch.

So here’s your crash course in casual anime history, I guess, from someone who definitely isn’t like... obsessed with anime. Or isn’t anymore, but was back then.

For me, it all kind of started with, like... Dragon Ball, and this was a show that struggled to gain any traction at first. Where I lived, it aired at 5am on Sunday mornings. If you knew a kid that watched Dragon Ball, there was a solidarity there like, “Yup, you get it.”

Then DiC got the license to Sailor Moon and started airing it in the weekday morning slot I would typically describe as “right before you catch the bus.” You’d wake up around 6am, maybe 6:15, and watch whatever was on at 6:30 while you ate breakfast. As the credits were rolling, you’d head out to catch the school bus. Sailor Moon was what I remember doing that with the most. That combined with Dragon Ball formed my foundational interest in anime.

Around this time (1995, 1996) you were starting to see anime start to seep in to the mainstream elsewhere. There was a commercial I remember for, like, an anthology of anime classics like Akira...

And, y’know, when you’re like, 14 or 15 and you see a commercial like this -- cartoons! With blood! And nudity! It’s like, holy crap. Most of the classics we know today (Akira, Ghost in the Shell) were only really available via mail order like this back then.

More shows started getting localized for TV, too, like Ronin Warriors was one a lot of my friends got in to. It was considered “The Manly Sailor Moon.” And then there was, of course, Samurai Pizza Cats. Eventually Saban stopped dubbing Dragon Ball altogether and moved straight over to Dragon Ball Z, and that gained enough popularity that I think it eventually shook it out of its Sunday Morning time slot to somewhere a little more visible by general audiences.

Coming in to 1997 and 1998, anime was really starting to gain some momentum. The Scifi Channel had begin doing their “Saturday Anime” show, which aired at 3am every Friday Night/Saturday Morning. They probably figured it was one of the only ways they could get away with showing violent cartoons.

For me, this was where I got my first “real” taste of anime. They had a stable of about 5 or 10 movies and OVAs they’d run. Venus Wars, Vampire Hunter D, Project A-KO, Robot Carnival, Tenchi Muyo In Love (my favorite), Project L.I.L.Y. Cat, Beautiful Dreamer, Galaxy Express 999, Fatal Fury The Motion Picture, Record of Lodoss War, Dominion Tank Police, Roujin-Z, Demon City Shinjiku, Gall Force...

That felt like the bandaid got ripped off. Suddenly we were all buzzing about anime. Hey, have you heard about this movie called Ninja Scroll? There’s hardcore sex in it! No American movie, live action or not, could ever match the body horror of Akira! Hey, does anyone remember Robotech from the 80′s? That was actually anime, too! Wow!

Cartoon Network was smart enough to take notice and snatched up the rights to air Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z at reasonable, non-morning hours, and they dug out Voltron and put together a simple block of anime. I don’t even think it necessarily had a name, it was just an hour or maybe 90 minutes of anime a day, and it exploded. Right place, right time. So Cartoon Network expanded.

They added more classic anime, and some shows that were similar in tone, and called it Toonami. Robotech, Ronin Warriors, The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest, Reboot, Thundercats...

And this became the place to watch anime. Which is when we enter the era you’re asking about, the early 2000′s. This is where it starts to feel like a little too much to cover, because it came hot, heavy, and fast. There was a thirst for anime that was hard to quench because production companies were small and choosy about what they’d dub, but at the same time, a sort of gold rush was starting.

When I think of peak, classic-era Toonami, the stuff that really influenced me artistically, it was shows like Outlaw Star, Ruroni Kenshi, and Gundam Wing. I’m sure I’d also have friends speak highly of Big-O, G-Gundam, and Yu Yu Hakusho, three shows I never really got in to.

Eventually, Cartoon Network (and Williams Street, then called Ghost Planet Industries) began to realize that there was a growing library of anime they couldn’t show in the afternoon because it was too intense for the kids. There was also an undoubtedly vocal contingent of anime fans who were frustrated when their favorite shows had to be edited for broadcast. This gave birth to Toonami: The Midnight Run, the precursor to what would eventually become Adult Swim. The Midnight Run became home to uncut (or simply less-cut) episodes of afternoon shows that restored blood, alcoholic references, and the few cases of more extreme violence.

Midnight Run started getting exclusive shows, too. When I think about what Midnight Run (and later Adult Swim) was known for, it was shows like Cowboy Bebop, FLCL, and again, though it wasn’t really something I saw a ton of, Paranoia Agent.

Other networks did try to cash in on the anime craze. I think Tech TV/G4 tried to get in on things with Serial Experiments Lain and a few other shows, but to be honest, it never hit as hard as Toonami did. Then there was obviously the work of guys like 4KIDS, with the Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon shows on Saturday Morning, but those felt noticeably different in vibe and in tone (something that only got more pronounced when Kids WB started a Saturday Morning Toonami block that was even more aggressively sanitized than what could be shown on Cartoon Network).

Beyond broadcast TV, the stuff I remember being popular among my circle of friends were things like Tenchi Universe, Ranma 1/2, Slayers, Saber Marionette, and.... like, Di Gi Charat and Chobits? This was probably right around the era of Azumanga Daioh, too.

Unfortunately, much past 2003 or 2004 is where I started falling off of anime. The feeling of it being “new” and “special” was starting to wear off, and there was enough coming out that the standard of quality was beginning to drop. Whereas small studios like ADV and Manga Corps. could only afford to bring out the best of the best, we were starting to get junk like Duel Masters, Rozen Maiden and Tenchi Muyo GXP.

I remember friends speaking highly of shows like Bleach (heh), .hack, Full Metal Panic, Midori Days, Tenjo Tenge, Yakitate Japan, Eureka Seven, and Air Gear, but I can’t tell you anything about them, personally.

Either way, I’m sure I’ve given you more than enough to chew on.

[blackwoolncrown]

This article is a must read, and so I have posted it here. Douglas Rushkoff is a fantastic human, please follow him on twitter here. Check out his books and Ted talks, he also has interviews on Youtube.

Anyway this article is just...incredibly revealing. America is really just one big PsyOp. His comments on civilization are A+++:

“Until quite recently, films like 1954’s Abstract in Concrete were banned for American viewers. Although produced with U.S. tax dollars, this cinematic interpretation of the lights of Times Square was meant for European consumption only. Like the rest of the art and culture exported by the United States Information Agency, Abstract in Concrete was part of a propaganda effort to make our country look more free, open, and tolerant than many of us preceived or even wanted it to be. In the mid-1940’s, when conservative members Congress got wind of the progressive image of America we were projecting abroad, they almost cut the USIA’s funding, potentially reducing America’s global influence.

Well, America today is in no danger of projecting too free, open, or tolerant a picture of itself to the world. But I’m starting to wonder if maybe the nationalist, xenophobic, inward-turned America on display to the world these days might just be the real us — the real U.S. Maybe the propaganda we created to make ourselves look like the leading proponents of global collaboration and harmony was just that: propaganda.

~Once the USSR and the U.S. divided Europe into East and West and the Cold War began, America went on a propaganda effort to present itself as more enlightened and free than the communists.~

Since the great World Wars, America has had a vested interest in fostering a certain global order. President Woodrow Wilson, who had run for president on a peace platform, ended up bringing America into World War I. When it was done, he established something called The League of Nations, which was meant to keep the peace. Thanks to an isolationist Congress, however, the United States never actually joined the League of Nations. That should have been a big hint that America’s interest in global cooperation was fleeting, at best.

During World War II, Roosevelt took his shot at global harmony with his “Declaration by United Nations,” which eventually gave birth to the UN, dedicated to international peace and basic human rights around the world. To most Americans, however, the United Nations represented little more than a way of preventing the sort of war that would again require American intervention. Yes, it was in New York, and yes, it was conceived and spearheaded by Americans but this didn’t mean that America really thought of itself as part of a great international community. The UN was really just a way for us to avoid having to go “over there” again.

This was surprising to me. I grew up in the 1970s, at the height of America’s cultural outreach to Europe and the world. I remember how great Russian artists and ballet dancers would come to New York, and how American artists and writers would go to Europe. There were exchange students in my high school from Italy, France, and Germany. The outside world — the international society of musicians, writers, thinkers that America was fostering— seemed more artistic, cultural, and tolerant than what I knew here, at home. It seemed like the future.

~~~

This was by design, and part of a propaganda effort that began in the 1940's. Once the USSR and the U.S. divided Europe into East and West and the Cold War began, America went on a propaganda effort to present itself as more enlightened and free than the communists. The State Department, the CIA, and the United States Information Agency, as well as an assortment of foundations from Rockefeller’s to Fulbright’s, all dedicated themselves to painting a positive picture of America abroad. This was big money; by the late 1950’s the USIA alone spent over $2 billion of public money a year on newsreels, radio broadcasts, journalism, and international appearances and exhibitions. This included everything from Paris Review articles to Dizzy Gillespie concerts.

The problem was that the image of America that these agencies projected to the world wasn’t the image many Americans had of their country. Information agencies were busy trying to make us look like an open and free society, as sophisticated and cosmopolitan as any European one. So, abstract art exhibits and films, book collections with modernist novels, intellectuals, people of color, modern dancers, and all sorts of avant-garde culture was sent for consumption abroad.

Conservative Americans, as well as the senators who represented them, saw this stuff as gay, communist, Jewish, urban, effete, and an altogether terrible misrepresentation of who we were and what we stood for. Why, they asked, should we be spending upwards of two billion dollars exporting decadent, self-indulgent art and culture to the world?

~~~

So Congress — convinced that there was still a national security advantage, or at least a business justification, in maintaining American global outreach — passed a compromise called the Smith-Mundt Act in 1948. The law made it illegal for the USIA to release any of its propaganda within the United States. Ostensibly, this was to protect Americans from the potentially manipulative propaganda it was spreading abroad. Information is a form of PSYOPS (psychological operations), after all, and we are not going to use such weapons on our own people.

But the real reason for the Smith-Mundt act was to prevent Americans from seeing themselves represented in ways that they didn’t agree with. The books in the traveling library were titles that many Americans thought would be better burned than celebrated. And the overall ethos of the program — to promote America’s internationalism and free society — were in direct contradiction to the values that many Americans held. The Smith-Mundt act created a wall between the image of America we exported to the world, and the one we maintained about ourselves.

By the time the Internet emerged, this division became impossible to keep up. YouTube, the Internet Archive, and Facebook bring everything to everyone. So in 2012, Smith-Mundt was repealed. Concerned netizens saw a conspiracy. Did this mean the government would now be free to use its psychological warfare on U.S. citizens? Perhaps. But the real intent was to relieve the government’s communications agencies from trying to hide their messaging from Americans in an age when hiding such programming is impossible.

~~~

But now that Americans are becoming more aware of America’s internationalist activities and sentiments, many are horrified and calling for retreat. This is the province of George Soros, the Rothschilds, and the Zionist conspiracy — not the good old U.S. of A. I wonder: was the Smith-Mundt Act hiding an internationalist and open-minded America from the few Americans who weren’t ready for it? Or was it simply hiding the nationalist and backwards-thinking America from the world? For all our efforts at telling Europe otherwise, maybe we are not really the modern society we self-styled proponents of public diplomacy like to think we are.

The measure of a civilization’s advancement is its capacity to insulate its people from the cruelty of nature. Right now, Americans don’t seem to be dedicated to that principle. Civilizations build public roads, baths, aqueducts, and later transportation, healthcare, and education into the fabric of society, as givens. Instead of seeing the poor as deserving of discomfort, civilizations see all human beings as deserving of essential human dignity. The more a civilization can spread these basic human rights and freedoms through the world, the more advanced the civilization.

However, this particular understanding of modernity and enlightenment is not universal. Instead of breaking down boundaries and building an international society, America’s current stated goal is to reject globalism, build walls, and treat other nations as business competitors. The America we were once hiding behind billion-dollar international culture campaigns is now the America we are broadcasting to the world. Instead of compensating for our American-made missiles with progressive art and media, now we are justifying their sale and use with America-first rhetoric.

America’s best hope for cross-border connection, identification, and intimacy is its people. This means you and me, sharing our beliefs, aspirations, culture, and compassion with as much of the world as possible. Just as conservatives fought against the export of an America they didn’t agree with is, it’s the progressives’ turn to speak on behalf of the connected and collaborative world we still hope for — even if we aren’t fit to be its leader, anymore.

(emphasis mine)

[djkerr]

Christine Baranski with fellow honorees for the 2024 Giants of Broadcasting & Electronic Arts Awards, presented by The Library of American Broadcasting Foundation (LABF) to distinguished industry leaders for lifetime achievements.

Gotham Hall, NYC | November 12, 2024

📷 talkers.com | radioink.com

Christine, Mike McVay, Patsy Smullen, Al Roker, Wendy McMahon, Stephen A. Smith, Steve Jones

📷 @mikemcvay via Twitter/X

Christine is wearing Etro with Fred Leighton jewels and styled by Cristina Ehrlich.

📷@cristinaehrlich via IG stories

[rabbitcruiser]

Fauna and Flora, Chicago (No. 3)

In 2014, Chicago attracted 50.17 million domestic leisure travelers, 11.09 million domestic business travelers and 1.308 million overseas visitors. These visitors contributed more than US$13.7 billion to Chicago's economy. Upscale shopping along the Magnificent Mile and State Street, thousands of restaurants, as well as Chicago's eminent architecture, continue to draw tourists. The city is the United States' third-largest convention destination. A 2017 study by Walk Score ranked Chicago the sixth-most walkable of fifty largest cities in the United States. Most conventions are held at McCormick Place, just south of Soldier Field. The historic Chicago Cultural Center (1897), originally serving as the Chicago Public Library, now houses the city's Visitor Information Center, galleries and exhibit halls. The ceiling of its Preston Bradley Hall includes a 38-foot (12 m) Tiffany glass dome. Grant Park holds Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain (1927), and the Art Institute of Chicago. The park also hosts the annual Taste of Chicago festival. In Millennium Park, the reflective Cloud Gate public sculpture by artist Anish Kapoor is the centerpiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park. Also, an outdoor restaurant transforms into an ice rink in the winter season. Two tall glass sculptures make up the Crown Fountain. The fountain's two towers display visual effects from LED images of Chicagoans' faces, along with water spouting from their lips. Frank Gehry's detailed, stainless steel band shell, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, hosts the classical Grant Park Music Festival concert series. Behind the pavilion's stage is the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, an indoor venue for mid-sized performing arts companies, including the Chicago Opera Theater and Music of the Baroque.

Navy Pier, located just east of Streeterville, is 3,000 ft (910 m) long and houses retail stores, restaurants, museums, exhibition halls and auditoriums. In the summer of 2016, Navy Pier constructed a DW60 Ferris wheel. Dutch Wheels, a world renowned company that manufactures ferris wheels, was selected to design the new wheel. It features 42 navy blue gondolas that can hold up to eight adults and two kids. It also has entertainment systems inside the gondolas as well as a climate controlled environment. The DW60 stands at approximately 196 ft (60 m), which is 46 ft taller than the previous wheel. The new DW60 is the first in the United States and is the sixth tallest in the U.S. Chicago was the first city in the world to ever erect a ferris wheel.

On June 4, 1998, the city officially opened the Museum Campus, a 10-acre (4.0 ha) lakefront park, surrounding three of the city's main museums, each of which is of national importance: the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. The Museum Campus joins the southern section of Grant Park, which includes the renowned Art Institute of Chicago. Buckingham Fountain anchors the downtown park along the lakefront. The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological artifacts. Other museums and galleries in Chicago include the Chicago History Museum, the Driehaus Museum, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Polish Museum of America, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the Pritzker Military Library, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the Museum of Science and Industry.

With an estimated completion date of 2020, the Barack Obama Presidential Center will be housed at the University of Chicago in Hyde Park and include both the Obama presidential library and offices of the Obama Foundation.

The Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a popular destination for tourists. The Willis Tower has an observation deck open to tourists year round with high up views overlooking Chicago and Lake Michigan. The observation deck includes an enclosed glass balcony that extends 10 feet out on the side of the building. Tourists are able to look straight down.

In 2013, Chicago was chosen as one of the "Top Ten Cities in the United States" to visit for its restaurants, skyscrapers, museums, and waterfront, by the readers of Condé Nast Traveler.

Source: Wikipedia

[aion-rsa]

Best Martial Arts Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

https://ift.tt/3iGgPxj

Search ‘Martial Arts Movies’ on Amazon Prime and you’ll get over a thousand results ranging from the classics to the campy, to the critically acclaimed. It’s an overwhelming library for the uninitiated and the mother lode for stalwart fans of the genre. There are so many gems buried in Amazon Prime that digging out the favorites is dirty challenging work but extremely rewarding.

When it comes to martial arts, Amazon Prime has a killer Kung Fu collection. The ‘80s were the ‘Golden Era’ of Kung Fu films when Hong Kong film studios cranked out films faster than any grindhouse ever. Many Hong Kong filmmakers put out up to half a dozen films a year, and most have hundreds of credits on IMDb. This glut of Kung Fu films spread to every Chinatown ghetto theater on the planet. And like with horror, American networks broadcasted late night Kung Fu Theater shows because there was so much cheap content available.

Consequently, Amazon Prime’s Kung Fu film selection leans heavily that way, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t include some non-Chinese favorites too. Martial Arts movies cross over to all other genres and nations. There are comedies, romances, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and art house films. From countless cheesy low-budget exploitations, many so funky that they’re totally awesome, to the brilliant ground-breaking works that are staggeringly sensational, here’s some classic jewels and hidden treasures currently included with Amazon Prime membership.

Fist of Fury (1972)

Despite his fame, Bruce Lee only lived to see three of his martial arts movies premiere because Enter the Dragon and Game of Death were released posthumously. His impersonators are innumerable, so many that Bruceploitation is its own genre.

But Fist of Fury is the real Bruce in all his nunchuck spinning glory. It’s loosely based on the history of the Chin Woo Athletic Association, which remains one of the largest international martial arts organizations to this day. When Bruce shattered the ‘No Dogs and Chinese Allowed’ sign with a soaring flying kick, it became a battle cry for the racially oppressed worldwide, firmly cementing Bruce as the world’s first Asian global superstar.

Come Drink with Me (1966)

Long before Charlize Theron went Atomic Blonde, Cheng Pei Pei blazed a path as Golden Swallow, the mysterious invincible swordswoman, and all female action heroines are in her wake. Fiercely independent and savagely lethal, Cheng delivers several sophisticated long-take fight scenes, the hallmark of real Kung Fu skill, with the poise and precision built upon her foundation in ballet. Cheng is remembered in Hollywood as Jade Fox from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and played the matchmaker in Disney’s live-action Mulan. Note that Amazon Prime also has the sequel, Golden Swallow, but it’s not nearly as good.

Once Upon a Time in China (1991)

This tour de force from director Tsui Hark and Jet Li launched a six-film franchise and a TV series. Jet plays Wong Fei-hung, a real-life folk hero and Kung Fu master who has been depicted in well over a hundred films and TV shows. Set during the late 19th century, the film examines themes of Western colonization and Chinese cults, and while blatantly nationalistic, it captures Jet in his martial prime and contains some of his finest fights.

Read more

Movies

Wira Review: Meet the Next Martial Arts Movie Star

By Gene Ching

Games

The Forgotten Bruce Lee Video Game From the ’80s

By Craig Lines

Amazon Prime also has Once Upon a Time in China II, which is an excellent sequel, however the third installment (not on Amazon Prime) falls apart, allegedly due to disputes between Jet and Hark.

Ashes of Time Redux (2008)

This was internationally acclaimed director Wong Kar-wai’s first stab at the martial arts genre. It’s sumptuously artsy and laboriously dystopic, not one to see for the action but the art. Based on a classic wuxia (wuxia is Chinese for martial arts genre books and film) titled The Eagle Shooting Heroes, Wong simultaneously filmed a parody titled after the book with the same cast. Wong did the Redux after the original print was lost, salvaging what was left, reediting and re-scoring it. 

(Prime US only)

The Assassin (2015)

Director Hou Hsiao-hsien won Best Director at Cannes for this magnificent epic, which was also submitted as Taiwan’s Foreign Language entry at the Academy Awards. Starring the ever-glamorous Shu Qi, who made an early Hollywood crossover attempt with The Transporter, The Assassin is based on another wuxia tale that’s parallel to The Manchurian Candidate but instead of Korean brainwashing, it’s 9th century Chinese sorcery.

Read more

Movies

Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

By Alec Bojalad and 2 others

Movies

Ninjas All The Way Down: The Mysterious World of Godfrey Ho

By Craig Lines

The exquisite filmmaking makes this spectacular–panoramic landscapes, lavish costumes, intricately detailed sets, all gorgeous. Every shot is a stunning composition of light and shadow, and the camera lingers on each frame with ponderous and quiet respect, the kind that film students will gush over for years.

(Prime Video in the US, rent only in the UK)

Fearless Hyena (1979)

When people cite Rush Hour to reference Jackie Chan, it just goes to show they don’t know Jackie at all. Long before Jackie crossed over to Hollywood, he made dozens of films that truly captured his astounding Kung Fu skills, unrestricted by U.S. insurance liability. His late ‘70s period was particularly ripe because he was in peak physical shape and first creating his unique acrobatic comedies. Remember that chopstick dumpling training scene between Po and Shifu in Kung Fu Panda? In Fearless Hyena, Jackie and his shifu (James Tien) do it in live-action, no wires, no CGI, and the choreography is absolutely mind-blowing.

Wheels on Meals (1984)

Jackie Chan earned his Kung Fu prowess from being trained from childhood in traditional Chinese Opera. Many of his classmates also became stars in martial arts film. This is one of two collaborations between him and his two martial brothers, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao (the other is Dragons Forever).

Read more

Movies

Jackie Chan’s Project A Movies Are Spectacular

By Craig Lines

Movies

Jackie Chan’s Hard Road to Hollywood

By Craig Lines

A modern comedy shot in Barcelona, the chemistry between Jackie, Sammo and Yuen is magical as they bring the fastest three-person sparring scenes ever captured. On top of that, Jackie faces off against real-life kickboxing champion Benny ‘The Jet’ Urquidez in what is considered by many as the greatest fight scene ever filmed. 

(US only)

Knockabout (1979)

Knockabout is Yuen Biao’s first lead role after dozens of supporting roles. His acrobatic skills are unparalleled, stronger than Jackie’s because his body frame is built like a gymnast. Sammo Hung’s girth has typecast him as villains and buffoons. Nevertheless, he’s a leading director and choreographer and serves as both in this film, on top of playing a comic beggar who trains Yuen in jump rope monkey Kung Fu (that’s right–jump rop –you have to see it to understand).

Read more

Movies

10 of the Weirdest Kung Fu Movies Ever

By Craig Lines

TV

Cobra Kai and the Legacy of The Karate Kid

By Gene Ching

It’s a slow build past some goofy comic hijinks, because Yuen’s skills improve over the course of the film. In a fight against Hoi Sang Lee, Yuen pummels so many goose-egg bruises into his noggin that he looks like the coronavirus. But once the training begins through to the final fight, Yuen and Sammo show why they are legends in the industry. 

(US only)

Dirty Ho (1979)

When this film came out, the title wasn’t as funny as it is now. But it still works in a way because this is one of the best Kung Fu slapstick comedies. Starring some of top talent from Shaw Brother studios, including Gordon Liu, Wang Yue, and Lo Lieh, it’s full of the stylish long-take choreography and blazing stunts using real fire long before CGI.

Read more

Movies

King Boxer: The Enduring Legacy of a Martial Arts Classic

By Craig Lines

Movies

The Man From Hong Kong: A Genuinely Dangerous Action Movie

By Craig Lines

It’s a classic tale of hidden master, a punk student, and notorious villains, including hilarious absurdities like sex change tea, and wheelchair and crutch fighting. The discreet Kung Fu challenge while sampling rare wines out of crazy cups is ludicrous fun; the sort that only master fight choreographer Lau Kar-leung can deliver.

The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter (1984)

Here is another classic from Gordon Liu and Lau Kar-leung, but serious and somber. Alexander Fu Sheng, a prominent leading man, died in a tragic car crash during production, making this his final film. His character suffers PTSD after losing his family in a horrific opening ambush, but his storyline dangles unfinished.

Read more

Movies

A Beginner’s Guide to Chinese Black Magic Movies

By Craig Lines

Culture

Ip Man: The Man, The Myth, The Movies

By Craig Lines

The film was rewritten to focus Gordon and Lau, as well as the always brilliant Kara Hui. The cast goes all out to honor their fallen comrade’s legacy, showcasing some of the finest weapon choreography ever shot. Based on the legend of the Yang family generals, the untimely death tugs hard on the heartstrings for anyone in the know. 

Return to the 36th Chamber (1980)

Just one more Gordon Liu and Lau Kar-leung project, this is the sequel to The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which is also amazing and available on Amazon Prime. However, Return to the 36th Chamber has such an odd concept for a sequel that warrants special attention.

Read more

Movies

The 36th Chamber Trilogy‏ – Essential Kung Fu Movie Viewing

By Craig Lines

Liu plays a swindler impersonating the Shaolin monk San Te, the character he played in the first film. When his clan is oppressed by the Manchus gang, Liu sneaks into Shaolin, only to be deceptively trained by the real San Te, then returns for vengeance. His clan are cloth dyers, which makes for colorful pools for villains to plunge.

Liu’s uproarious rooftop Kung Fu and his battle with Wang Lung-Wei’s bench-fighter gang are outstanding. Kara Hui has the best retort after Gordon tries to play off his lack of Kung Fu, claiming it’s only for “universal peace,” and not revenge. She claps back “Huh! That’s a stupid Kung Fu.”

The Lady is the Boss (1983)

Kara Hui (aka Kara Wai) is one of the greatest Kung Fu divas of all, yet she’s only known by true devotees of the genre. If you’ve never heard of her, here is one of her finest comedy vehicles. Set in modern-day Hong Kong, Hui plays an American master returning to save her father’s Kung Fu school after his passing. Lau Kar-leung is the eldest student in charge (also the choreographer) and he resists her attempts to modernize.

Long take fights are staged in a topless club, a disco, and finally, a gymnastic gym replete with rings, parallel bars, and a beam, perfect for the choreographic shenanigans only Lau can bring. Gordon Liu appears with hair, which feels wrong because he built his reputation on playing bald monks. 

Crippled Avengers (1978)

From director Chang Cheh, the “Godfather of Kung Fu Films,” Crippled Avengers stars four members of the Venoms crew, from Chang’s classic The Five Venoms (also available on Amazon Prime).

Read more

Movies

The Five Deadly Venoms: An Essential Martial Arts Movie

By Craig Lines

It was repackaged as The Return of the Five Venoms (and also Mortal Combat), however it is its own standalone masterpiece and has nothing to do with the original beyond the cast.

Lu Feng (Centipede from the Venoms crew) gets his arms chopped off and replaced by iron arms (a plot device that RZA echoed The Man with the Iron Fists). Lu and his father, played by the rough and tumble Chan Kuan Tai, cripple the heroes, who must then walk the road of vengeance while handicapped. The portrayal of the disabilities is dated (arm tied behind the back for the amputee, eyes closed for the blinded) but the choreography is ingenious. 

Five Elements Ninjas (1982)

Another echo of The Five Venoms from the sanguineous Chang Cheh, Five Elements Ninjas showcases the director’s unique eye for fantasy. It’s an orgy of weird fantasy weapons and ultraviolence, bloody fight scene after bloody fight scene, a cult film of truly epic proportions. As the title says, the ninjas are based on the five elements.

The gold ninjas don gold lame suits and switchblade shield hats. The wood ninjas look like rejected apple trees in The Wizard of Oz. If you turn this film into a drinking game where you take a shot whenever blood is spilled, you won’t make it past the first half hour. 

The Web of Death (1976)

What is the ultimate Kung Fu WMD? It’s a tarantula that roars like an elephant and shoots acidic webs, sparks, and death rays, and it decimates the wuxia world. The Web of Death has everything a cult film requires: crazy weapons, cross dressing, romance, complex set-pieces, halls of traps, including acid pits, spiked poles and dragon-headed sparkler cannons, silly superheroes and villains in costumes that would make MCU heroes blush. Filled with jaw dropping WTF moments, it’s a real treat for anyone into cheesy over-the-top Kung Fu cinema.

The Bride with White Hair (1993)

Based on a wuxia novel, The Bride with White Hair is a surreal plunge into the Kung Fu subgenre of Fant-Asia which blossomed in the ‘90s. It’s a doomed romance between rival cult members set in a world of swords and sorcery that stars Brigette Lin in the spurned titular role and the dreamy heartthrob Leslie Cheung.

What makes this stand out was the visionary direction of Ronny Yu. His pre-CGI special effects hold up surprisingly well. Lin’s characterization of the bride was so compelling that it spawned an homage in The Forbidden Kingdom and a remake in The White Haired Witch. The Bride with White Hair II is also available on Amazon Prime which reunites Lin and Cheung, but without Yu’s direction it’s not nearly as special. 

(US only)

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010)

Fant-Asia has been revitalized with the advent of CGI. Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame marked a triumphant return to form for director Tsui Hark. Armed with quixotic special effects, Hark casts Andy Lau as the legendary detective Di Renjie, who is like a Tang Dynasty Sherlock Holmes. Wuxia films are akin to comic book movies, filled with glaringly overdone heroes and villains, super saturated color schemes, and a lot of flying about.

It’s high fantasy wirework in front of CG backgrounds with physics-defying fight choreography by Sammo Hung (Kung Fu physics are not subject to the laws of gravity). Most of all, it takes unexpected turns like the old Fant-Asia story arcs have always done. 

(US only)

Tai Chi Zero (2012)

Director Stephen Fung took Fant-Asia another step into an emergent subgenre of Shanghai Steampunk (Legend of Korra is another example). It’s an action comedy about the legendary forefather of Tai Chi, Yang Luchan, in what was meant to be the launch of a trilogy. However, it was filmed back-to-back with the second installment, Tai Chi Hero (not free on Amazon Prime), which was released only a month later and that proximity depleted their box office returns.

Nevertheless, Tai Chi Zero was an Official Selection at several notable international film festivals because it was so stylish and funny. Both films end on cliffhangers in anticipation of the next chapter, but Tai Chi Hero loses the momentum of its predecessor, except for the final cliffhanging tease. There’s been no further development on the final chapter Tai Chi Summit since Tai Chi Hero flopped. 

(US only)

JCVD (2012)

Jean-Claude Van Damme opens this French film with a remarkable long take fight, showing he still had it on the brink of turning 50, but it’s not really a martial arts film. He plays a self-deprecating caricature of himself, although not as comedic as his lampooning self-portrayal in the Amazon Original Series Jean-Claude Van Johnson.

There’s some top-notch cinematography including more complex long takes, remarkable displays of technical skill, and directorial timing. But it’s all about Van Damme’s confession scene when he breaks the fourth wall and discusses his filmmaking process in that weird recursive, artsy French film way. It’s a long-take monologue, and Van Damme nails it emotionally with a heartfelt confession that’s not so much amazing acting as it is brutally honest. He lays it out, bares his soul, and surprisingly, it’s a sympathetic soul. It’s a truly captivating scene, a dramatic triumph that no one ever saw coming, completely redefining Van Damme as an actor. 

(US only)

The Man from Nowhere (2010)

This was Korea’s highest grossing film that year. It’s a gritty and brutally bloody tale of a pawnshop owner, played by Won Bin, who unwittingly receives a camera bag filled with stolen heroin, attracting the attention of the drug ring gangsters.

However, he’s a retired special agent with fierce combat skills, tossed into a ghetto tale with exotic dancers, organ harvesting, an innocent child who needs protection, and gang wars. Won Bin won many dramatic accolades with the five films he made, including Taegukgi and Mother. This was his final one to date and he sells the ultraviolence with remarkable panache. 

(Prime Video in the US, rent only in UK)

Kundo: Age of the Rampant (2014)

This is another outstanding Korean martial arts film, set in the Joseon period. It echoes Robin Hood, complete with a fighting monk like Friar Tuck, a Maid Marian type, only she’s a keen archer, and a Little John character wielding a shot-put ball on a rope for brutal ultra violence. Ha Jung-woo stars as the lead, a butcher who wields butcher knives, which just adds to the bloodiness. The fight choreography is fun and sanguineous, and the characters were well fleshed out, even the villain. Like a lot of Korean cinema, it takes some surprising turns in the details, little scenes that feel fresh in their presentation. And the panoramic shots are visually epic. 

(US only)

Redeemer (2015)

Marko Zaror brings an exotic Chilean actioner full of fight choreography that’s merciless, witty, and precise. Zaror is cut and yoked like a beast. He can catch great flying kicks air, roll well for nods to MMA, and handle complex continuous fights. Redeemer includes several long take scenes with the camera aggressively circling around battle, showcasing a masterful command of action and cinematography.

Set in Chile’s cool seascapes and weather worn graffiti-covered ghettos, Redeemer has a strong Catholic theme, lots of crucifixes and pondering about divine justice, which totally works as atmosphere for this fascinating fight flick. 

The Octagon (1980)

Before Chuck Norris became an invincible meme, he churned out a handful of Hollywood martial arts feature films. His third effort, The Octagon, co-starring Lee Van Cleef, is one of his best. It’s a ninja tale, pitting Chuck against noted masters like Richard Norton, Tadashi Yamashita, and his brother Aaron Norris, fighting his way into a ninja terrorist camp where the central ring is “the Octagon.” It was this film that inspired Jason Cusson to design the trademarked Octagon used in the Ultimate Fighting Championships. 

Ninja III: The Domination (1984)

In the ‘80s, there was a proliferation of cheesy Ninja films and Sho Kosugi dominated the trend. This is one of those movies that is so horrible, it’s awesome. And it’s Sho’s masterpiece. Lucinda Dickey was a Solid Gold Dancer, who starred in the breakdancing films Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, which bookended Ninja III. While she wasn’t a martial artist in real life, she has the moves, adding to the huge stable of martial actors who started as dancers (even Bruce Lee was a cha cha champion).

It’s incredibly dated with references to video games, aerobics, and the most gawdawful soundtrack ever. The choreography is horrible; Sho overacts whenever it comes to selling a punch; it’s all about Lucinda who tries–really tries–to act her way through a ridiculously dumb story about being possessed by a ninja. But the final sword fight has a ninja zombie and it’s the funniest example of what we had to endure during the ‘80s ninja craze. 

(US only)

Shaolin Dolemite (1999)

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There was Oscar buzz about Eddie Murphy’s depiction of Rudy Ray Moore in the biopic Dolemite Is My Name, but if you haven’t seen a Dolemite film, you really don’t know. Moore played Dolemite half a dozen times, but ironically in this film, he plays Monk Ru-Dee instead, and this is the only one with any real martial arts in it.

Moore took the cuttings from a 1986 Taiwanese film titled Ninja: The Final Duel, and spliced himself in to create his own story, and it’s just so cray. Beyond Moore, there are bizarre characters like the drunken Sam the Spliff, the topless Ninja Ho, and the coonskin cap wearing Davy Crockett. The story barely makes a lick of sense, but who cares? It’s mother-effin Dolemite.

The post Best Martial Arts Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[broadcastarchive-umd]

Veteran radio broadcaster David Gleason built a nine-million-page archive to set the record straight on what he sees as the medium’s oft-distorted history. The Library of American Broadcasters Foundation is honoring him for the effort. [More]

[kathleeneusebio]

Iconic Personalities🌟- Featured & Helped by Different Types of Media

          Hello everyone! It’s Kathleen Heleina M. Eusebio, a student from National University Fairview. In our Media and Information Literacy class, we are tasked to have a research about three iconic or famous personalities in the field of accounting, business, and management who have been featured in print, broadcast, and new media. For this blog, I will first make a short introduction about these three iconic or famous personalities in the field of accounting, business, and management, so that we’ll get to know them first before proceeding to the questions that we are asked to answer in this blog.

          In the field of accounting, I found Luca Pacioli, the father of accounting. “His 1494 publication of Everything about Arithmetic, Geometry, and Proportions book and double-entry accounting book are considered as two of his greatest contributions in accounting. He also introduced the use of journals and ledgers in accounting systems and said that the accountant must not sleep until the debits are equaled to credits. The ledgers he introduced were based on assets receivables and inventories, liabilities, capital, expenditure and income accounts. His contributions are still use in modern accounting.”  (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/luca-pacioli-father-accounting-tusharkumar-rathod)

          In the field of business, I found Bill Gates, who is hailed as one of the richest men in the world based on Forbes. “Entrepreneur and businessman Bill Gates and his business partner Paul Allen founded and built the world's largest software business, Microsoft, through technological innovation, keen business strategy and aggressive business tactics. In the process, Gates became one of the richest men in the world.” (https://www.biography.com/business-figure/bill-gates)

          In the field of management, I found Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company. In our Organization and Management Class, Henry ford is said to be one of the contributors of Scientific Management Theory. He was also the first one to install the assembly line. “Henry Ford and other manufacturers fueled the American economy by improving productivity. They also raised standards of living by creating more high-paying jobs. It is important to highlight the fact that Ford employed a concept that revolved around mass production of inexpensive goods and high wages for workers ." (https://www.biography.com/business-figure/bill-gates)               

          The father of accounting, Luca Pacioli, was featured in new media. In order for me to compare and contrast the way Luca Pacioli was featured in new media to other types of media, I search for the biography of Luca Pacioli and I also look for two different websites which are LinkedIn written by Tushar Rathod, a trustworthy accountant with four years of experience in finance and accounts, and Wikipedia. The founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, was featured in print media, the Time magazine, but he also had his own magazine, the Ford Times magazine which has variety of topics that also includes the article "Assimilation through Education". The co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates, was featured in broadcast media, he has a three-part Netflix docuseries titled Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates.  

            After searching for these iconic personalities in the field of Accounting, Business, & Management, and find out what type of media they are featured, I finally have ideas on how am I going to compare and contrast how they are featured in each media type. When I search for Luca Pacioli, I found LinkedIn and Wikipedia, there are differences because in Wikipedia, it is said that the book that was published that made him recognized as the father of accounting is all about double-entry bookkeeping, while in LinkedIn, it is said that it is all about double-entry accounting. It has different information that we don’t even know what is reliable or not, so I check the author’s credentials and chose to believe in LinkedIn because the author’s credentials are there, he is a trustworthy accountant with four years of experience in finance and accounts,  while in Wikipedia anyone can revise it. That’s how Luca Pacioli differs from other types of media when he was featured in new media considering that in print media and broadcast media, in order for a work to be published or showed, they have a lot of process and credible sources should be there, while in new media anyone can share their work and information without putting any credentials and credible sources. In terms of being reliable and accurate, new media has the least reliability and accuracy.  When I search for Henry Ford, I saw that he became the cover of Time Magazine, the information is limited because you need to buy the magazine to get all the information that is written on it. I search again for a magazine where Henry Ford was featured and there I saw Ford Times magazine but again, there is limited information, the only thing that is written there is the summary of what does the magazine contain. I still look for other print media where Henry Ford was featured, and I saw a newspaper article about how he introduced the assembly line. I think that’s how Henry Ford differs from other types of media when he was featured in print media, you need to pay first before getting all the information unless it’s given for free, while in new and broadcast media, there are only selected sites where you need to pay. In print media, you have the hard copy or the physical object where the information is written or printed so you can keep it, while in new and broadcast media, you can only see the information through a screen or hear it in a radio. When I search for Bill Gates, I saw that he has a docuseries in Netflix that shows the basics of Gates’ life: his childhood, education, Microsoft stewardship, marriage to his wife Melinda, and the charitable foundation they co-manage. I realize here that when it comes to entertainment, broadcast media is better than other types of media because people will be more interested and pleased when they see moving pictures. People will further understand the life of Bill Gates because they can see the emotions of the characters in docuseries, unlike in print media and new media, we have different interpretations of words and sentences.

          Although Luca Pacioli was featured in New Media, he showed his knowledge and skills by the use of print media. In 1494, he published his own books about double-entry accounting system and Everything about Arithmetic, Geometry, and Proportions. His publication of a book that described the double-entry accounting made him recognize as the father of accounting. Because of his use of print media, the systems that he wrote in his book are still use in modern accounting. A lot of accountants are still using journals and ledgers, but were improve because of the technology that we have in our generation, the use of digital technologies, also called as new media. In a docuseries of Netflix titled Inside Bill’s Brain, it shows how Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen used new media to build their own company, Microsoft, that makes computer software. In 1978, their sales topped more than $1 million because of their use of new media. Microsoft Corporation said that technology is a powerful force for good and are working to foster a sustainable future where everyone has access to the benefits and opportunities created by technology.  Although he didn’t own the Microsoft Corporation anymore, Bill Gates and his wife have Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where they bring computers and digital information to the communities they serve, so that they can provide technical training and support for library staffs in low-income communities and they are also excited to help libraries ensure that children and adults from all walks of life will have access to the wealth of information and understanding that computers and digital information make possible. In June 1915, the first Ford Time magazine was released. It has monthly publication where you can see commercial product, meant to promote Ford automotive products, the overarching theme was to get out and see our country by car. It helped Henry Ford to advertise his  automotive products through his magazine, the magazine also includes the article "Assimilation through Education" that explains why Ford saw it necessary for employees to learn English. Aside from Ford Times magazine and Time magazine, Henry Ford was also featured in a newspaper. By the use of newspaper or print media, one of the greatest innovations of Henry Ford had been featured, the assembly line. It has shaped the industrial world so strongly that businesses that did not adopt the practice soon became extinct, and it was one of the key factors that helped integrate the automobile into American society.

          No matter what type of media we have, we should be a media and information literate. We are responsible in sharing and getting information. We must know if the information that we share or get is reliable and accurate. As a responsible producer and consumer of information, we should be skillful in showing and making informed judgement.

References: 

 (Henry Ford’s Contributions)

https://www.versiondaily.com/contributions-henry-ford/

(Life of Bill Gates)

https://www.biography.com/business-figure/bill-gates

(Bill Gates in Netflix)

https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/18/20872239/inside-bills-brain-decoding-bill-gates-movie-review-netflix-microsoft-documentary-series

(Henry Ford featured in Time Magazine)

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989769,00.html

http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19350114,00.html

(Ford Times)

https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/361325#slide=gs-198076

(Life of Luca Pacioli in Wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luca_Pacioli

(Life of Luca Pacioli by Tushar Rathod)

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/luca-pacioli-father-accounting-tusharkumar-rathod

(Why is Luca Pacioli the father of accounting?)

https://study.com/academy/answer/why-is-luca-pacioli-the-father-of-accounting.html

(What does Ford Times magazine contain?)

https://charleyharperprints.com/articles/ford-times-retrospective/ 

(Microsoft Founded)

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/microsoft-founded

(Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Press-Releases/1997/06/Bill-and-Melinda-Gates-Establish-Library-Foundation

(Approach of Microsoft)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/about

(Henry Ford in Newspaper)

https://www.thehenryford.org/