Animator brings a musical scene that was cut from Frozen to visual life

One of the songs that was ultimately cut from Frozen is “Life’s Too Short,” a duet that Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel sing when Anna first arrives at Elsa’s ice castle. Fan animator Audrey Arini created an animatic that imagines how the scene might have played out onscreen. Arini (also known as Bambi Killer) studied…

What do these nighttime satellite photos reveal about civilization?

Looking at the Earth from orbit is fascinating, especially at night. That’s when you can measure the ways that human civilization covers the planet, and discover how national boundaries affect the electrical grid. North Koreaat night The only visible place is Pyongyang, the capital city. Its light emission is equivalent to the smaller town in…

Making The Hobbit 2‘s barrel escape was its own epic adventure

When Bilbo and the dwarves escaped Thranduil’s kingdom, they did so in empty wine barrels, rushing down the forest river, fighting wood elves and the rapids simultaneously. Their escape was a breeze compared to what director Peter Jackson and the actors went through to make the scene, as this Wired video reveals.

Evil conspiracies are all too ordinary, on True Detective

On True Detective, it’s interesting that the closer we get to knowing who is behind all the murders, the more we realize that the answers are mundane — and all the more horrible for being the opposite of supernatural. I’m not trying to claim that there is a big reveal here about the show not…

Hear All About the Amazing Cinematography of House of Cards

Been watching season two of House of Cards? The answer is yes. So you know how beautiful the cinematography is. In an interview with Go Creative, the Igor Martinovic, the show’s cinematographer tells how he crafted the show’s unique visual style. When watching House of Cards, you may be struck by the precisely composed shots,…

Does it always matter how a movie ends?

The ending of the movie has, by default, it’s last word. But, sometimes the scene is stolen by a wrap-up that comes before ending, a thematic ending that eclipses the actual ending. In response to some new thoughts from Zack Snyder on Watchmen’s polarizing ending, a discussion began about some of the movie’s better closing…

Can you tell the difference between poetry written by a human and poetry generated by a computer? Bot or Not is a Turing test for poetry; take the quiz to see if you can guess the provenance of each poem. It turns out that some of those bots aren’t half-bad poets. [via Nerdcore]

A Brilliant Cover to Celebrate 50 Years of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain

It’s 50 years since Lloyd Alexander published the first book in his amazing Prydain Chronicles series — and to celebrate, the first book is getting an utterly beautiful new cover. We’ve got the exclusive reveal of this lovely artwork, plus an exclusive essay by the book’s new editor, Noa Wheeler. The 50th anniversary edition of…

Cripes, this Who Framed Roger Rabbit Deleted scene is terrifying

Little known fact: There is a scene from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? where the private eye Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) comes running out with some sort of severed toon head wrapped around his face. It is absolutely terrifying. Thanks to Cinetropolis we will now never be able to un-see this horror. Valiant is carted off…

Which “guilty pleasure” do you feel absolutely zero guilt for liking?

You’re not supposed to hold your head up high when you admit to liking certain movies, TV shows or books. Certain things are “guilty pleasures,” because “everybody” knows they’re not really good or respectable. But screw guilt — which “guilty pleasure” do you proudly proclaim your love for? Please include a picture, clip, poster or…

​You are not ready for The Visitor, Italy’s most insane scifi movie

A young girl with telekinetic powers. A war between good and evil. The fight to give the girl a brother to mate with. And blond Jesus Christ. These are just a few of the elements that make Giulio Paradisi’s 1979 movie The Visitor the “Mount Everest of insane ’70s Italian movies,” coming out this week…

A vortex has opened up in Arizona

Anyone in Arizona will be mildly concerned to hear that a vortex in reality opened up, and it’s soon to suck your state into another dimension. Or, at least, that what this looks like. Actually, it’s a common meteorological phenomenon seen from an uncommon vantage point. This photo looks like a hole in reality is…

Does anybody read books the right way any more?

And I’m not talking about paper versus digital. I’m talking about curling up with a good book, for hours. Sitting in a hammock, or in a chair by the fire, just totally pulled into a book. Is the long, totally focused book-reading session a thing of the past — and does this mean we’re getting…

This trippy anti-capitalist cartoon was the USSR’s first animated film

It’s not surprising that the first animation to come out the newly formed Soviet Union was anti-capitalist propaganda, but 1924’s Soviet Toys has particularly unnerving imagery, which includes a disappearing woman, a man with cameras for eyes, and a capitalist whose stomach is treated as piñata by the proletariat. A handful of filmmakers began experimenting…

Networks Fined Millions For Airing Shitty Movie’s Fake Emergency Alert

The FCC is proposing a fine of nearly $2 million for cable channels that aired a trailer for Olympus Has Fallen, which uses the tones from the Emergency Alert System. You’re familiar with the Emergency Alert System tones; they’re the jarring bleeps that play when the system gets tested. You might not be familiar, though,…

Terminator: Genesis plot details raise a whole bunch of questions

We’ve known for sometime that the new Terminator flick, Terminator: Genesis, would be screwing with the original trilogy’s timeline a little. But we had no idea it was going to redo old scenes entirely. A bunch of alleged plot details has us wondering how they’ll pull this one off. Movie Holehas a few plot tidbits,…

Our first glimpse of ocean life at the bottom of an unexplored trench

Using a robotic lander, scientists have captured the first-ever footage of marine life at the bottom of the previously unexplored New Hebrides trench in the Pacific. At depths reaching 4.5 miles, the ecology was unlike anything the marine biologists had ever seen. The 30-day expedition was conducted by the University of Aberdeen’s Oceanlab and the…

Bill Nye’s debate was a financial “miracle” for the Creation Museum

There are always consequences when engaging with the enemy. And when Bill Nye “The Science Guy” agreed to debate evolution vs. creationism with Creation Museum founder Ken Ham last month, he was considered to have won the debate, but he also brought a financial windfall to the museum that Ham describes — of course —…

Playing Tetris for 3 minutes reduces cravings for food and alcohol

The next time you feel the urge to raid the fridge, you may want to consider grabbing a video game controller instead. As a new study shows, computer games like Tetris provide a visual distraction that can reduce cravings by as much as 24%. According to a theory called Elaborated Intrusion, our cravings are driven…

Watch Mr. Hublot, the animated short that just won an Oscar

Last night, the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film went to Mr. Hublot, which is now available online. Set in a mechanical world, Mr. Hublot follows a man with OCD who brings a robot puppy into his life. Laurent Witz wrote and directed the award-winning short, which manages to transport us fully to its…