Tired of spoilers on online? What you need is a ‘No More Spoilers on Twitter’ app! Gone are the days of watching a TV show on the channel it airs at the time it. Most American homes now have some form of “time shifting” solution when it comes to TV, from the good old VCR to digital video recorders like TiVo to watching the shows online, either a couple days later via Hulu or a couple of months (or years) later in season-long viewing binges on Netflix.
A diehard fan of a show will watch it as soon as possible—when it airs—and many of those fans like to share their thoughts online, while it airs. So if you’re not going to get around to watching Mad Men the night it first airs, you’d better not go anywhere near Twitter. Mad Men fans will discuss plot points, twists, and, to use the parlance of the Internet, “spoil it.”
Boston teenager Jennie Lamere loves to use Twitter to connect with her friends and follow celebrities, but she hated how she would often inadvertently find out the results of her favorite show before she watched—the reality program Dance Moms. So for a student-computer-programming contest, she designed a Twitter application called Twivo. The program works like this: You install it and tell it what shows you don’t want to know anything about. Twivo then blocks all references to the show on your Twitter feed—the text is blacked out—no more spoilers on Twitter. Lamere won the contest; the app may be available to the general public in just a couple of months…hopefully before Breaking Bad starts up again.
The “crowd-funding” website Kickstarter can be used for a lot of things. For example, Rob Thomas, creator of the cancelled TV show Veronica Mars, raised enough money this spring (more than $3.5 million) to make a follow-up movie.
Or it could be used to fund expensive, elaborate pranks. Last January, comedian Kurt Braunohler (best known as the host of IFC’s Bunk) put up a plea on Kickstarter to raise $4,000. Goal: to“hire a man in a plane to write stupid things with clouds in the sky.” In other words, to skywrite jokes.
Braunohler successfully raised $6,820—way more than his $4,000 target. And earlier this month he hired a skywriter, who wrote this amusing message in the skies over Los Angeles: HOW DO I LAND?
Recently, actor Will Smith told the British newspaper The Sun that his 14-year-old son Jaden, star of movies like The Karate Kid and the upcoming Will Smith movie After Earth, was looking into joining the ranks of other celebrity emancipated minors. It’s usually used to declare minors legal adults to either help teenagers escape abusive homes, protect financial assets or, as we’re guessing is the case with Smith, be able to work long hours on movie sets without violating child labor laws. The elder Smith seems cool with this. After all, he’s a guy who used to win Grammys for complaining about his parents.
Last week in New York, the big 5 broadcast networks (and some of the cable networks) held their annual “upfronts.” What is that? NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the CW unveil their new fall TV shows and introduce the new schedule they’ll be airing, all so advertisers can decide whether or not they want to buy commercial space.
There look to be some surefire hits on the way—ABC’s spinoff of The Avengers called Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and NBC’s The Michael J. Fox show both got a positive response. But you’ll be seeing those soon enough—what about the rest? Here are some of the more “out there” shows that were up for a spot on the fall schedule. Most of these didn’t make it…but some did!
Hello, faithful readers! As spring turns to summer, it is time once again for the BRI to gear up for our popular Father’s Day Sale. We have a great selection of new and classic releases to choose from. Here’s what you need to know:
The Sale*: From May 20th to June 16th, 2013, everything in our online store is 30% off! Plus, get FREE standard shipping for orders of $35 or more! (Enter code FD13Ship when checking out to apply free shipping.)
Backstory: New York-based gossip website Gawker says it was approached by someone trying to sell a video of Toronto mayor Rob Ford apparently smoking crack cocaine in a glass pipe. Gawker editor John Cook says he’s seen the video (two reporters from the Toronto Starsay they have, too) – but the person who has it wants money for it. A LOT of money.
Gawker has published a photo they say is a screengrab from the video:
That’s all crazy enough on it’s own – but here’s where it goes into overdrive: Cook has started an IndieGoGo fundraiser he’s titled “Rob Ford Crackstarter” (a takeoff of fundraising site KickStarter), saying:
This tiny film doesn’t feature any big stars like Brad Pitt, or even any littler stars—because there literally wasn’t enough room for them. Instead, A Boy and His Atomstars, amazingly, just a few microscopic particles. Guinness World Records has declared the stop-motion-animated short film “the world’s smallest movie.” The 90-second film consists of a “boy” bouncing an atom-sized ball while dancing and jumping around. There’s not much of a plot but given the methods involved, it’s pretty incredible.
IBM scientists created the film with a “scanning tunneling microscope” that manipulated a few dozen carbon atoms placed atop a copper surface. First they had to chill the microscope to just above absolute zero (-450° F) because at a higher temp, the “excitable” atoms would have ignored their stage directions.
On May 19th, The Simpsons will conclude its 24th season with its 530th episode—an adventure set in Iceland. Since its debut in 1989, the show has amassed lots of records, including “Longest-Running American Primetime, Scripted Television Series” and “Most Guest Stars Featured in a Television Series.”
Needless to say, The Simpsons has also netted its creators millions, a good chunk of which has come from lucrative commercial tie-in and product endorsements. Over the years, the characters have appeared in TV ads around the world for everything from candy to cars. Here are a few examples of when the Simpsons sell out.
Name the bestselling solo male musician of all time. Elvis Presley? Bing Crosby? Elton John? Nope. It’s country superstar Garth Brooks, who has sold more than 128 million albums in the U.S., which is especially remarkable because unlike those other guys, he didn’t have a recording career that lasted decades. His first record came out in 1989 and his last one in 2001. Why’d he retire? He wanted to try new things, particularly starring in and making movies.
Brooks is one of the most popular musicians of all time, and if a new lawsuit filed by a former business partner is to be believed, one of the prickliest. Former business partner Lisa Sanderson is taking Brooks to court because his bad behavior and pattern of bridge-burning resulted in a number of movie projects that never saw the light of day, and thus prevented Sanderson from earning a great deal of money.
Here are some of the movies Sanderson alleges she and Brooks worked on that never made it to the big screen:
Boston teenager Jennie Lamere loves to use Twitter to connect with her friends and follow celebrities, but she hated how she would often inadvertently find out the results of her favorite show before she watched—the reality program Dance Moms. So for a student-computer-programming contest, she designed a Twitter application called Twivo. The program works like this: You install it and tell it what shows you don’t want to know anything about. Twivo then blocks all references to the show on your Twitter feed—the text is blacked out—no more spoilers on Twitter. Lamere won the contest; the app may be available to the general public in just a couple of months…hopefully before Breaking Bad starts up again.
