Katharine Trendacosta

The Best Undercover Spy Is: The Manchurian Candidate‘s Mrs. Iselin

If you’ve seen a brainwashed secret agent in fiction recently, it probably owes a lot to The Manchurian Candidate, the Academy Award-winning 1962 film based on the novel by Richard Condon. As great as the film is, the greatest character in it is Angela Lansbury as Eleanor Iselin. For those of us who grew up…

Spider-Man Still Doesn’t Need To Be Another White Guy

With the announcement that Spider-Man will be in Civil War and other Marvel movies, we’re once again in the middle of recasting Spider-man — and once again we don’t think it should be another white guy. We couldn’t possibly say it better than Marc Bernardin said it back in 2010. Let’s give Donald Glover, or…

First Official Footage From Spectre Has James Bond Fighting In the Alps

The 24th James Bond film’s first official behind-the-scenes footage has just been tweeted by the official account. And it looks like we’ll be getting the giant snow chase scene that is required of any Bond film that visits the Alps. There are cars on fire, gondolas, a modern building that looks like some sort of…

Gorgeous BAFTA Posters Hide Plot Twists In the Shadows

For its awards held over the weekend, the BAFTAs commissioned posters for each of the best film nominees. In each one, designed by artist Malika Favre, character and plot development is hidden in the shadows. Above is part of the Birdman poster from the “Big Reveal” campaign. The full one is below. Here are Birdman,…

New Cinderella Trailer Showcases The Villains’ Hidden Political Agendas

So far, the live-action Cinderella trailers have focused on showing how Disney’s taking their animation, infusing it with glamour and swagger (in the form of Cate Blanchett, naturally), and bringing it to life. But now, we see what’s being added to the plot to make it stand out. The biggest change hinted at in this…

Here’s How Constantine Brings Its Supernatural Horrors to Life

These days, any TV show or movie that wants to create horrors not of this world are going to rely pretty heavily on visual effects and CGI to defy the usual laws of physics. In these two videos, you can see how the ones from Constantine’s episode two and episode four were built. In the…

Who Is the Best Spy in Fantasy Fiction?

As is traditional for io9 nights here during spy week, we’re following upthe essay on my pick for the best spy fiction within a category with a chance for you to have your say. Use the poll below or simply battle away in the comments — you’re giving all of us a bunch of new…

The Best Fantasy Spy Is: All of Drasnia From The Belgariad

Fictional spies aren’t restricted to stories in more modern times, filled with gadgets and acronyms. There are also spies in traditional sword and sorcery fantasy. Of all those creations, the best one is the entire country of Drasnia in David Eddings’ The Balgariadand its sequels, prequels, and side works. David Eddings’ books are designed to…

Australia Banned A TV Episode Because It Said Spiders Weren’t Scary

Some kid’s show messages are universal: stranger danger, just say no, don’t climb into a tumble dryer, etc. Others are more specific to location. Enter Peppa Pig and the controversial-in-Australia message that “spiders are not to be feared.” Peppa Pig is a children’s show from the UK. As so many shows are, it’s been exported…

The Best Spy Comedy Is: Get Smart

It’sspy week here at io9, and every night we’ll be highlighting a particularly stellar example of spy fiction. Tonight: parody and humor. And the king of it all, Get Smart. (Don’t worry, you’ll get the chance to tell me how wrong I am.) There are a lot of spy comedies out there. In movies, there’s…

California’s submitted a plan to the EPA to bring it into compliance with federal safe drinking standards, after 2,5oo instances where the state authorized oil and gas operations in protected water aquifers. 140 of 2,553 injection wells were actively injecting oil-field fluids into “good water quality” aquifers. [New York Times]

In This Short, The Ghost Only Appears When You Hold Your Breath

This short focuses on two men who visit a location with woman who can only be seen when they hold their breaths. For an under-five minute movie, there’s a lot going on here that’s plenty eerie. [via Vimeo Staff Picks]

Poll: What’s The Best Spy Comedy of All Time? 

I’ve made my case for what I think is the best spy comedy of all time, but my opinion isn’t the only one that matters. So now we open it up to a vote: What do you think is the best spy comedy? Answer the poll and either find your answer validated or scream at…

Researchers in London Are Using Lego Bricks On Its Bug Specimens

Insects are fragile, and scientists researching them have to be very careful with their specimens. Unfortunately, the devices out there are expensive and size-specific. So a group of entomologists have turned to that most customizable of materials to serve their needs: Legos. Image credit: Figure 1, Dupont et al. “IMp: The customizable LEGO® Pinned Insect…

StudioCanal’s already in talks with producer David Heyman to make a sequel to Paddington. As the first film was essentially just the origin story and it received positively — despite a rough start and the replacement of its star’s voice — there’s a lot of room for a sequel. [Variety]

The Difference Between Where Tourists and Locals Take Photographs

Eric Fischer has made a project of sifting through geotagged information in order to produce beautiful maps of things like tweets. He’s taken that one step further, sorting through the information to compare the places in cities where tourists (in red) and locals (in blue) take photos. Cropped map of London by Eric Fischer/flickr/CC-By-SA 2.0…

Watch The Complete Behind-the-Scenes Game of Thrones Special

Although it just aired on the channel earlier today, HBO has put all of Game of Thrones Season 5: A Day in the Life up on the show’s Youtube channel. It’s a single day of filming for the show, spanning Croatia, Northern Ireland, and Spain. Spoilers, in the form of speculation, below. While we see…

Finally, Science Has Solved The Eternal Question of “Where’s Waldo?”

Searching for Waldo (or Wally, to give him his original name) is frustrating to the point of insanity. So when a doctoral student unexpectedly found himself snowed in last weekend, he decided to compute the most efficient way to look for the elusive red-and-white man. Randy Olson, a grad student at Michigan State University’s High-Performance…

Today’s Pop Culture Moments Get A They Live Makeover

Hal Hefner has taken a page from John Carpenter’s book to create a series called “Consume,” which marries modern pop culture images and the iconic look from The Live. See the ones he’s completed so far in his tweet below.

The Conscience and Curse Ridden Return of Stolen Petrified Forest Rocks

In Bad Luck, Hot Rocks: Conscience Letters and Photographs from the Petrified Forest, Ryan Thompson and Phil Orr document everything in the national park’s “conscience pile” — the name park employees give the mound of rocks that have been returned by guilty thieves. While some people just felt bad, others became convinced they’d been cursed…