It seems like decorative and creative cookies pop up every Halloween. Usually, these goodies are filled with things like frosting, chocolate chips, candy corn and other food items that make Halloween-themed crunchy treats which taste great. Unfortunately, the vast majority of cookies are made with white flour, white sugar, milk and other items which are definitely not whole food-compliant.
What is a Halloween and cookie lover to do?
You just have to know how to make your own cookies that both celebrate Halloween and help you stick to your healthy whole food diet. The following cookie ideas and recipes will keep you on your whole food path, they taste great, and don’t take long to prepare.
Pumpkin Cookies with Almond Flour:
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups almond flour
1 cup pumpkin purée (cooked pumpkin with a little water)
2 eggs
2 tablespoons coconut oil
4 tablespoons date sugar or puréed dates
A dash of sea salt
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F, then mix the salt and almond flour in a medium-sized
Add eggs, pumpkin purée, date sugar or puréed dates while stirring, and mix well.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and on it place round, cookie-sized portions of your batter.
Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, let cool and enjoy.
Portobello Cap Cookies
Portobello caps are extremely nutritious. Covered with a light coating of coconut or extra-virgin olive oil and baked, they make excellent Halloween cookie alternatives.
Ingredients
Your whole favorite food pastes, purées, and spreads.
A dozen medium Portobello mushrooms, 2 1/2 to 3 inches across
Coconut oil or extra-virgin olive oil
Raw, unfiltered honey, maple syrup and/or puréed dates
Directions
Remove the stems from your mushrooms and lightly coat caps with oil.
Place caps gill side up, and spread on a thin layer of your favorite whole food nut butter or some other spread or purée. You can stay in the Halloween theme and use mashed or blended pumpkin.
Use black olives, seeds and nuts, and other whole food items to decorate your Portobello cookies.
Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 10 to 20 minutes, until crispy.
Make Your Favorite Cookie Recipes with Almond or Coconut Flour Instead:
Almond and coconut flour should be substituted on a 1-to-1 measurement basis with white flour in your cookie recipes. Instead of refined sugar, use date sugar, or puréed dates, raw honey or maple syrup. Use coconut oil or extra-virgin olive oil to replace non-paleo oils in your cookie recipes. Experiment. With a little practice, you will be able to make the above substitutions in all of your favorite Halloween cookie recipes, and turn out a delicious product that is also healthy and whole food-compatible.
With the right ingredients and a bit of imagination, you can make whole food cookies that taste great and show the spirit of Halloween.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, might be an activist with plenty of bite, but he nearly became a diplomat and is proving to be of the worst houseguests for Ecuador. He’s been living in Ecuador’s embassy located in London for six years to escape extradition to Sweden in 2012, and his poor cat caring skills is causing him to overstay his welcome.
Rather than do what a proper courteous houseguest would do and take care of his cat, Assange has decided to sue the Ecuadorian government for violating his “fundamental rights and freedoms.”
WikiLeaks has announced founder Julian Assange is to launch legal action against the government of Ecuador accusing it of violating his "fundamental rights and freedoms"
This makes it more understanding of why they were hoping to oust him from the embassy and over to Russia. Maybe they can get PeTA to take on the case and do some of their famous demonstrations for Assange.
Newly released Ecuadorean government documents have laid bare an unorthodox attempt to extricate the WikiLeaks founder from his embassy hideaway in London by naming him as a political counselor to the country’s embassy in Moscow.
But the 47-year-old Australian’s new career in international affairs was nipped in the bud when British authorities vetoed his diplomatic status, effectively blocking him from taking up the post in Russia.
The files were made public late Tuesday by Ecuadorean opposition lawmaker Paola Vintimilla, who opposes her government’s decision to grant Assange nationality. They largely corroborate a recent Guardian newspaper report that Ecuador attempted the elaborate maneuver to get Assange to Moscow just before Christmas last year.
Russian diplomats called the Guardian’s story “fake news,” but the government files show Assange briefly was made “political counselor” to the Ecuadorean Embassy in Moscow and eligible for a monthly salary pegged at $2,000.
Ecuador also applied for a diplomatic ID card, the documents show, but the plan appears to have fallen apart with the British veto.
A letter dated December 21, 2017 from Britain’s Foreign Office said U.K. officials “do not consider Mr. Julian Assange to be an acceptable member of the mission.”
An eight-page memo to Vintimilla summing up the episode noted that Assange’s position as counselor was scrapped a few days later.
WikiLeaks did not return messages. The British Foreign Office and the Russian Embassy in London declined to comment.
Assange’s relationship with Russian authorities has been the subject of intense scrutiny following the 2016 U.S. election, when Russian spies are alleged to have handed WikiLeaks leaked emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign in a bid to help elect her rival, Donald Trump.
Assange has denied receiving the files from the Russian government or backing the Trump campaign, despite a growing body of evidence suggesting he received material directly from Russia’s military intelligence agency and coordinated media strategy with Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
Last month, media outlets published internal WikiLeaks files showing Assange tried to move to Russia as early as 2010.
Slots may be the most popular games in online casinos, but for many players, their inner workings remain a mystery. Many still believe that a slot game that has not paid big for a while would be due for the jackpot. This is just one of the many myths surrounding online slots, and for superstitious players, the truth about them is just as elusive as a slot-winning strategy.
There is no strategy or method you can employ that would guarantee hitting the jackpot in these games. The reason for this is very simple – slots are based on chance, and their outcome is purely random. No skill or prior knowledge would help you win more, while payouts themselves are determined by mathematical probabilities. This all may sound too complicated, but it is not – understanding the odds and how slots pay would help you find the best slots on the Internet.
Random Outcomes and RNG
In the past, slot machines had mechanisms responsible for fixing symbols in particular positions on the reels. They could be easily tampered with and the outcomes predicted after careful observation, which compromised the fairness of the games. Today, this is not possible thanks to the introduction of a special computer program called Random Number Generator or RNG. It is used not only in online slots but in all virtual, computer-based games where a random result is needed.
The RNG is a complex algorithm that determines the exact position of every symbol on the reels in each spin. It generates hundreds of numbers per second and an initial value, called seed value, is used to pick one of those numbers. Each number is attached to a symbol and a position on the reel, and as soon as you hit the Spin button, the outcome is already determined. It is indeed as random as possible and cannot be predicted or fixed – unless, of course, you know the seed number.
Par Sheet
Slots Odds and PAR Sheets
Different slot games have a different number of stops, and some symbols have a better chance of coming up than others. These patterns are pre-programmed by game developers – some symbols may be programmed to come up every 5 spins, whereas special symbols such as Wilds, Scatters, or bonus-triggering symbols may come up every 25 spins. All this is described in detail in the so-called PAR (probably from Probability Accounting Reports) sheets, which are typically confidential and kept a secret by casinos and software developers.
Therefore, the actual odds of online slots remain unknown to the players. In comparison, the odds in roulette, for example, are fixed and can be easily calculated and card players always know the number of cards that are in play. Here, players have no way of knowing the probability of landing each winning combination, which makes slots somewhat mysterious to the inexperienced player. Still, every reputable online casino has its RNG independently tested so fair play can be guaranteed.
Online Slots Payouts
As we already know, online slots may be random and fair but, at the same time, they also lack transparency. Whereas the odds are rarely shared publicly, the payout percentages of most games are published by software providers and online casinos. The average payout, also known as expected return, shows how much each slot game would pay out over time.
Here, time should be understood as an indefinite number of spins, so the payout is, in fact, a theoretical percentage that would never be achieved in real life – it might, but after you play millions of spins. It is usually listed as RTP, which stands for Return to Player. With payouts ranging from 92% to 98%, online slots typically, have higher RTP than their physical counterparts in brick-and-mortar casinos (which could offer payouts as low as 80%-85%).
To visualize this, imagine you make multiple bets on an online slot, and after an hour, the total amount you have wagered is $100. Theoretically, if the slot has an RTP of 95%, $95 of your bet would be lost to the casino, while your winnings would be only $5. In reality, you may win another $100 during that hour, but you may lose it all, too.
Donald Trump has always proclaimed that he has all the answers, and only he can solve all the problems in America. Tuesday, he went even further to mention that his Uncle Joe was a scientist, but he never talked about climate change with him. Trump just felt we should know that it seems before launching into his “natural instinct for science.” But what he said about hurricanes, clean air and climate doesn’t quite get the science right.
More than a dozen scientists, economists, and climate negotiators pointed out where his comments didn’t fit with the reality of human-caused climate change, hurricanes and air pollution.
Here’s a closer look at his statement from Tuesday:
CLIMATE CHANGE
TRUMP, when asked about a dire United Nations report this month on climate change that said dangerous warming has already happened and that with each degree, the many harms to Earth will get even more treacherous: “No, no. Some say that and some say differently, I mean you have scientists on both sides of it.”
THE FACTS: He’s wrong to suggest the scientific community is substantially split. Scientists from around the world wrote the recent report, and it was unanimously accepted by government representatives around the world, including in the United States, said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, a lead author of the report.
The Trump administration last year also released the National Climate Assessment, which painted a similar picture.
University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, a lead author of that national report, emailed that “there is no debate AT ALL going on about this within the scientific community.”
“Trump might as well be saying that there are scientists on ‘both sides of the gravity debate,’” Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann said in an email. “Dangerous climate change impacts are already apparent. Of course, there are uncertainties. There always are. There are uncertainties in the science of gravity (we have never measured a graviton, the fundamental unit of gravity). That doesn’t make it safe to jump off a cliff.”
HURRICANES
TRUMP: “We had worse hurricanes in 1890, we had worse, a worse hurricane 50 years ago. We’ve gone through a period, actually, fairly recently where we have very few. I live in Florida to a large extent and spend a lot of time in Florida, and we had a period of time where we went years without having any major problem. And then you have a problem and it goes in cycles.”
THE FACTS: Trump gets some of this right. While Hurricane Michael was the strongest storm to hit Florida’s Panhandle, there have been two other storms to hit the United States with a lower central pressure, which is a key measure of hurricane strength. One was Camille in 1969, which is about 50 years ago.
The president talked about a period where “we have very few.” That depends on what he’s talking about and when.
If he is talking about major hurricanes with winds exceeding 110 mph hitting the United States, the nation had a respite when no such big storm hit from Oct. 24, 2005, to Aug. 25, 2017 — the longest on record. But in the past two years, three major hurricanes have hit the U.S. mainland — Michael, Harvey, and Irma. And Maria hit Puerto Rico, which is part of the U.S.
But looking at just major hurricanes that hit the United States is not the right way to gauge their activity. That’s because the U.S. coastline is such a small fraction of the overall Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico, where hurricanes brew and at times hit other countries, scientists said. Looking at just those hurricanes “is like using how much it rained in your region on a given week as a measure of how much it rained across the entire country,” said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.
A study in 2017 of how many major hurricanes formed found that the past 30 years had 90 major hurricanes, an average of three a year from 1988 to 2017. That’s 48 percent more than during the previous 30 years. Scientists use 30-year time periods to take natural cycles into account.
“Climate science isn’t saying human-caused climate change is affecting the number of storms, but rather the destructiveness of the storms once they form and make landfall,” said Jonathan Overpeck, dean of environmental science at the University of Michigan. “Warming is supercharging the strength of the storms, the storm surge, the rainfall intensity, and the flooding. This was all predicted and it’s happening, just like sea level rise, which also combines with the big storms to make their impacts more devastating.”
PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT
TRUMP: The U.S. “entered certain agreements with other countries, I actually think we’re doing it so they could have an economic advantage. …We would have been at a tremendous economic disadvantage if we entered into certain agreements.”
THE FACTS: Several experts said it didn’t put the United States at an economic disadvantage.
Robert Watson, a climate scientist who has headed international panels, called it “a totally ridiculous statement which is patently untrue. … No other country had a role in deciding the target of another country.”
“The U.S. entered the Paris agreement to make progress on dealing with a rapidly warming planet,” said Rafe Pomerance, a former U.S. government climate negotiator. “In fact due to U.S. diplomacy, developing countries were part of the agreement in order to level the playing field. The commitments in Paris are voluntary.”
CLEANEST AIR
TRUMP: “I want the cleanest air on the planet, and our air now is cleaner than it’s ever been.”
THE FACTS: He’s wrong about the air being the cleanest ever, according to his own administration. While the air generally has been getting cleaner since the 1970s, the downward trend in pollution has made a bit of a U-turn since Trump took office.
His Environmental Protection Agency released data that showed traditional air pollution — soot and smog — increased in 2017 and that the air is not the cleanest it has ever been.
The days with an unhealthy number of small pollution particles, often called soot and linked to heart and lung problems and deaths, jumped from 2016 to 2017 in 35 major metropolitan areas. In 2017, there were 179 unhealthy soot days, up 85 percent from 97 in 2016. Last year had the most unhealthy soot days since 2011.
The number of days with unhealthy smog levels was down from 2016, but higher than 2015, 2014 and 2013.
The number of days when the air quality index was unhealthy was 729 in 2017. It’s higher than a year because it counts each city’s unhealthy reading on a certain day as one and there are numerous cities involved. Last year’s level was the highest since 2012 and a 21 percent increase over the cleanest air in 2014.
For someone who has watched Supernatural for so long, who followed the tyranny of Dawn Ostroff and her dedicated attempts at cancelling the show, it feels surreal to realize this show has gone on for 13 years longer than she wanted and is still going strong. So, I will shamefully admit that I was not excited about this episode at all. We’ll get to that later, for now, let’s dish about an episode of television that defied the odds.
That’s right; I actually liked this episode of Supernatural.
I was wary of Michael!Dean because the previews were leaving a lot to be desired, but Jensen Ackles really sold this new role. Ackles has admitted to nerves, but the first scene we see has him not only embodying the kind of angelic presence the show has been lacking since season 5 (save for Jared Padalecki’s performances in season 9, which also harkened back to seasons 4 and 5) but also selling that he was a being that could easily speak Arabic. Nice job, white boy!
Not only did he do well with that, but he also held it down while delivering a gigantic exposition dump in the scene between Michael and Sister Jo/Anael. The dialogue was clunky, but he delivered a smooth performance. And while we’re talking about this scene, let’s also discuss the way Michael answers Anael regarding why Dean said yes to him.
Love.
The last time Michael wanted to walk around in Dean’s shoes, it didn’t go as Heaven planned. Dean’s answer was “no,” and he meant it. Saving the world was not motivation enough. This time, however, Dean didn’t hesitate to offer himself to Michael if it meant getting Sam back. He has watched Sam go through the hell of Lucifer being back after Castiel released him in season 11 and decided he was going to end this torture for Sam once and for all.
That’s the stuff I’m here for. I also loved the way Ackles chose to deliver that line because it felt believable coming from Michael, a being who is being fleshed out for us like a character who knows every being’s base wants and needs. Later we see him praise a vampire for having a pure, clean agenda and there is nothing purer than Sam and Dean Winchester doing whatever it takes for the other.
Before we go on to what else I liked about this episode, let’s dip into some issues I had:
First off, Andrew, sweetie, darling, please stop trying to make Mallory happen, no one knew who Marjory was when you killed her off (nearly killed her off? I legitimately don’t recall) in the season 13 finale, no one cares now that Melanie is back in season 14. What’s that you say? Her name is Maggie? I’m not sure that’s right, but whatever. I guess we’re supposed to care because Jack seems to like her, but given we’re still getting to know Jack, especially this newly depowered version of Jack, I can’t just care about her simply because he does. Really, that goes for anyone from the AU world.
Having them all living in the bunker is awkward and unrealistic, it feels like a forced attempt at pacifying everyone who has asked for the hunter world to be expanded. This is not what we meant, no one asked for a bizarre version of the Batcave meets Hogwarts meets S.H.I.E.L.D.
Related: I’m begging you Andrew Dabb, please don’t forget that AU!Bobby isn’t Uncle Bobby. Please don’t forget that this is not the man that looked after Sam and Dean (whether as kids or adults) and try to make the inevitable transition to them all declaring each other family as organic as possible.
Another character I just can’t enjoy is Mary. For one, her continued existence is a mockery of the show itself, but aside from that, she was initially so unlikable, so untrustworthy, that I can’t help but distrust her now. Samantha Smith does her best, but the writing from season 12 to now makes the attempts at making her a caring mom ring hollow.
I do like the guy who kept calling Sam “chief” and “sir,” he felt like a real hunter, but… I couldn’t tell you his name if we had a $1,000 bet on it.
Shall we now address the elephant in the room? Castiel, Castiel, Castiel, seriously, what are you able to do or not do? Remember in season 4 when you could see demons easily because their true faces were the faces you saw? Ten years later you just sat in a bar full of demons without seeing them. You threatened to decimate Kip, and there was a time you could have, now you didn’t even get a good shot in on one demon before you were swiftly beaten down. I remember scenes where you face slammed demons to death and forced demons back down the throats of their hosts. Now you are, consistently, bait. It’s a very meta moment for you and Kip to acknowledge that. It would be better if they just went whole hog and made Castiel an antagonist, that would allow the writers to give the character back the dignity he once had.
Speaking of Kip, like Michael reminding us how angels should be, Kip reminds us of how demons were as well. The writing for Kip was reminiscent of Meg, Ruby, and Crowley circa seasons 5 through 9. A demon who was arrogant, cold, snide, and mocking. A demon who knew to defer to a Winchester. Even the simpering he did when first encountering Sam was laced with the threat of “but make no mistake, I will twist your head off.” I’ve missed that.
Now, can we talk about Sam Winchester in this episode? Man, I did not expect to be so enraptured by every scene he was in because my expectations were so low, but from the moment we got to see him driving the Impala while listening to AC/DC to the moment he growled out that there will be no new king of hell, Jared Padalecki knocked every emotion out of the park. Frustration, exhaustion, realism, fear, and anger mixed with determination, tactical intelligence, and his strength of character.
While I don’t think the explanation for Nick’s existence makes any sense at all (I don’t care that an archangel blade kills the angel, it’s still a deep stab wound in the chest cavity, human “vessels” don’t shake that off), I will always enjoy the way Jared Padalecki and Mark Pellegrino play off of each other. Both always take it so far beyond the dialogue, especially Padalecki who makes sure to portray the trauma that lives in Sam Winchester. The minute flinches and the way he holds his breath until he’s away from Nick speak volumes. In one episode we see Sam’s wariness and vulnerability, and then we see him order demons to stand down with such ferocity that they smoked out in fear.
Which now leaves us all wondering, did Sam just unknowingly take up Hell’s throne? On the one hand I don’t have faith that was the intention, on the other hand, it does seem like Andrew Dabb is determined to mine everything he can from the first five seasons of the show whether revisiting it is a win, lose, or draw in the end.
One wants to believe in Chekhov’s gun; is Sam now the defacto King of Hell? Is Nick surviving an archangel blade ganking the key to figuring out how to defeat Michael without losing Dean? Is there something to Castiel telling Jack that his grace may replenish itself? Who knows, but I hope so. At this point, I’ll take the MacGuffins over the red herrings.
Now back to why I had such low expectations for this episode. Often times with Supernatural, the marketing is so much better than an episode, take the promotion for season 10, we were all geared up for “Year of the Deanmon” (except, y’know, no one in fandom was calling Demon!Dean “Deanmon”) when in reality it was three barely passable episodes of Dean the Frat Douche.
So, I’ll be the first to admit that seeing season 14 being marketed as “Michael, Michael, Micheal and also, hey there are so many new characters for you to get to know and Sam? Um… sure he’s… around, we think… which one is he again?” left a lot to be desired for people who tune in for the very mission statement of the show “Sam and Dean against, well, everything and everyone else ever.” The Summer and early Fall were filled with a large chunk of fans scratching their heads wondering why the co-lead of the show was pushed to the background by CW/WB marketing, why the brother’s relationship was being erased so thoroughly by the publicists.
I can’t really say “well, now we know,” because to be candid, I still don’t get why it was promoted this way, what I can say is I’m just glad the episode didn’t pan out as feared. I’m glad Michael lived up to the regal coldness we expected, I’m glad Sam was shown less as a babysitter and more as a competent and strong general in Dean’s absence. I’ll be the first to say that since Andrew Dabb and his former co-writer, Daniel Loflin, went their separate ways Dabb has been a more miss than hit writer in my opinion, even more so as a showrunner, but “Stranger in a Strange Land” was a solid episode.
Notice how I didn’t say it was a solid season premiere?
The thing about this Supernatural episode is while it was entertaining and well acted, it simply didn’t feel like a premiere; it felt like either a midseason finale or a penultimate episode, because despite the performance high points the plot itself was nothing more than “Castiel messed up, now a Winchester has to rescue him, later he’ll apologize and once again a Winchester will tell him he did nothing wrong,” and that’s just not premiere material.
Hopefully, we’ll see a foot hit the gas in the next Supernatural episode instead of another side character distracting Sam from getting Dean back. Because, well, I want my Winchester brothers back.
Not many expected the director of “La La Land” to deliver a moving narrative of NASA’s glory days as seen through the eyes of Neil Armstrong played brilliantly by Ryan Gosling in “First Man.” There isn’t the expected saga of space cowboys saddling up; instead, we see the personal, emotional, and intellectual rigor that created the Apollo 11 triumph.
Making a movie about Neil Armstrong may not necessarily be on par with, say, successfully landing on the moon but the pressure involved isn’t a giant leap from that either.
There are astronauts who were there, for one, in Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin, in addition to all the people who were on the ground at NASA ready jump on any inaccuracies.
There’s the near-mythic weight that that achievement of being the first man to walk on the moon holds. For film fans, there’s the “2001: A Space Odyssey” factor. And then there’s the fact that Armstrong, who died in 2012 at age 82, while a stickler for facts, didn’t like to talk much about himself — even to his own family.
But it was a challenge director Damien Chazelle (“La La Land”) and screenwriter Josh Singer (“Spotlight”) were willing to take on. Chazelle envisioned a documentary-style approach to telling Armstrong’s story in “First Man,” now playing nationwide, with Ryan Gosling in the lead role. He wanted to strip away the glossy romanticism from early space travel and make it about the real men, with real families, and the very real danger of this dream to go to the moon.
“If ’2001′ is the grand movie-movie treatment of space and the greatest possible version of that, you’re never going to beat that,” Chazelle said. ”(We thought), could we do the documentary version of that? Could we do the gritty, camera on the shoulder, 16 mm, cinema verite version of space and make it feel like D.A. Pennebaker had crawled into the capsule with the astronauts?”
To achieve this goal, production designer Nathan Crowley (“Dunkirk”) and his team built full-scale replicas of capsules from Gemini and Apollo missions, the X-15 aircraft and the multi-axis trainer — practical sets so Chazelle could put his star, camera and the audience right in the claustrophobic action and shake them all a little while space imagery played outside the windows on LED screens.
“Contrary to what you might think it was fun,” Gosling said with a chuckle.
Beyond the physical challenges of the role, Gosling had to also embody the man, without much to work with.
“Even though it was hard to learn personal things about him, I respected it every step of the way. He was the most famous person on the planet and somehow managed to keep the focus on the missions themselves, on the hundreds of thousands of people who helped make it possible,” Gosling said.
“I don’t think it was just to be evasive, I feel as though he had this incredible ability to see everything within its larger context. He could see one giant leap in a small step.”
They weren’t flying blind, either. They had James Hansen’s official biography, “First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong” to work from, but there was a lot of sifting that needed to be done to find the story.
“The good news with Jim is the book got everything right. The bad news is it’s a little encyclopedic,” Singer laughed. “It’s not the easiest read.”
So Singer set out trying to distill and dramatize (but still accurately depict) a seven-year period, starting with the death of Neil and Janet Armstrong’s 2-year-old daughter Karen, and ending with the moon landing. Singer realized that tragedy surrounded Armstrong. He’d lose a number of friends and colleagues in a short period of time, from plane crashes to the Apollo 1 fire, and have a few near-death experiences himself, including the less-remembered Gemini 8 mission.
“We’re trying to puncture a narrative that’s been around NASA for a long time that said this was easy or this was superhero business,” Singer said. “No, this was an ordinary American guy and his ordinary American wife trying to make it through this incredible challenging moment.”
A key factor was getting the support of Armstrong’s sons, Rick Armstrong and Mark Armstrong, who were always available to Singer and Gosling and anyone else who had any questions, about them, their mom (who is played by British actress Claire Foy) and their dad.
“One of the biggest challenges of the film was knowing they were going to see it in the end and they weren’t going to see a film about historical figures, they would see their parents and themselves,” Gosling said. “It was also an invaluable asset to have them there. I can’t really imagine doing it without them.”
Rick and Mark Armstrong were relieved that the filmmakers cared about accuracy (technical and emotional), and helped provide crucial details for one of the film’s most heartbreaking scenes, when Neil Armstrong tells his young sons that there is a chance that he might not survive. But they’re most excited about audiences getting to see something else — their dad’s humor.
“He was a pretty funny guy and I was really glad that that came through,” said Rick Armstrong. “He had a very dry wit.”
As Gemini and Apollo trainer Frank Hughes described it to Singer, “if you weren’t paying attention, you’d miss it.”
One of the funnier scenes wasn’t even initially in the film. It was Gosling who stumbled on the fact that Armstrong was a fan of musicals and even wrote one in college. He asked Singer why that element wasn’t in the script. After 10 minutes of writing, it was.
“I felt like it helped add color to a person who was very, very layered and complicated and fascinating and was too humble to share that,” Gosling said.
There was also an army of astronauts ready to fact-check along the way. In Singer’s first draft, he made up “all sorts” of stuff in the lunar landing.
″(Astronaut) Dave Scott got really angry,” Singer recalled. “As Rick Armstrong likes to say, ‘You mess with canonical history at your peril.’”
So, he went back to the drawing board and the 1,000-some pages of transcript and took another pass. For Singer, Chazelle, Gosling and the hundreds of people involved in the production, accuracy was their first mission.
Bigger is better again as smartphones are growing larger with each new generation and Google’s Pixel 3 is following the trend. The company’s new Pixel phones mirror an industry trend toward lusher, bigger screens and add twists on the camera for better pictures.
The third generation of Pixel phones unveiled Tuesday at an event in New York features screens that span from one edge to another. It’s the first time Google has embraced the format, which Samsung has had for a few years and Apple adopted last year.
But Google is undercutting Apple on price. The Pixel 3 will be available Oct. 18 starting at $799 — $200 below the least expensive iPhone XS. A larger version, the Pixel 3 XL, costs $100 more.
Google is also hiring photographer Annie Leibovitz to take pictures with the new Pixel in an effort to persuade consumers that its camera is superior.
The camera, for instance, promises better low-light and close-up shots by using artificial-intelligence software to combine multiple shots taken in succession. It will also warn you if someone blinked or if the shot is otherwise poor. The camera automatically takes about three seconds of shots, at a lower resolution, and will recommend an alternative.
The Pixel joins LG’s V40 in sporting a second front lens to fit more people into selfies. But it lacks a zoom lens on either side, something available on some iPhones and Samsung phones. Instead, Google uses software to mimic that effect.
Beyond the camera, Google is using artificial intelligence to help screen calls. Just tap on a button for Google’s voice assistant to ask the caller about the purpose of the call. You see a transcript of the response on the screen. You can choose to pick up or ignore the call. Callers are warned that they are talking to a robot and that a transcript would be made.
Although the Pixels have barely made a dent in the market since their debut two years ago, Google uses them to highlight what it considers to be the best features of its Android operating system. A previously announced feature in which software will call businesses to make appointments and restaurant reservations for you will debut on the Pixel first, for instance — initially in New York, Atlanta, Phoenix, Arizona, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
IDC analyst Ramon Llamas said the Pixel 3 doesn’t break new ground on hardware, but “software is a different story. It’s mostly about convenience here.”
As usual, the Pixel phones focus heavily on Google’s search engine, maps, digital assistant and YouTube video service.
Google has sold an estimated 7 million Pixels over the past two years, almost imperceptible next to the 3.6 billion phones shipped during that time, according to IDC. Apple alone sold 388 million iPhones during the same period.
Tuesday’s announcements come a day after Google disclosed a flaw that could have exposed personal information of up to 500,000 users of its Plus social network. Google declined to address that further Tuesday, though executives emphasized privacy and security throughout the event in New York.
For instance, the camera’s features for better shots will take advantage of software on the device itself, so that nothing gets sent to Google’s servers — unless you enable a backup feature with Google Photos. The Pixel 3 will have a new chip, called Titan, to store keys to the most sensitive information, including those needed to unlock the phone and descramble stored data. Many other phones already have similar hardware for security.
Google also rolled out Home Hub, which couples a small display screen with an internet-connected speaker. That’s similar to Amazon’s Echo Show and a new Facebook device called Portal. In another apparent nod to privacy concerns, Google didn’t put a camera on its Home Hub like Amazon and Facebook did with their respective devices to enable video calls.
Again, Google is attacking its rivals on price. The Home Hub will sell for $149 when it comes to stores Oct. 22. The new version Echo Show starts at $229, while the least expensive Facebook Portal sells for $199.
There’s also an upcoming tablet featuring Google’s home-grown Chrome OS system. It will run Android apps, but offer functionality that’s closer to a desktop. The Pixel Slate starts at $599; a keyboard costs $199 more and a stylus another $99.
Google Plus finally laid to rest
Google is shutting down its long-shunned Plus social network for consumers, following its disclosure of a flaw discovered in March that could have exposed some personal information of up to 500,000 people.
The announcement came in a Monday blog post, which marked Google’s first public description of the privacy bug.
Google deliberately avoided disclosing the problem at the time, in part to avoid drawing regulatory scrutiny and damaging its reputation, according to a Wall Street Journal story that cited anonymous individuals and documents.
The Mountain View, California, company declined to comment on the Journal’s report, and didn’t fully explain in its blog post why it held off on revealing the bug until Monday.
The Google Plus flaw could have allowed up to 438 external apps to scoop up user names, email addresses, occupations, genders, and ages without authorization. The company didn’t find any evidence that any of the personal information affected by the Plus breach was misused.
The timeline laid out by Google indicates the company discovered the privacy lapse around the same time that Facebook was under fire for a leak in its far more popular social network. Facebooks’ breakdown exposed the personal information of as many as 87 million of its users to Cambridge Analytica, a data mining firm affiliated with President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Congress summoned CEO Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to be grilled about his company’s privacy issues in April.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently declined to an invitation to travel to Washington to testify before the Senate about foreign governments’ manipulation of online services to sway U.S. political elections. His absence incensed some lawmakers, who left an empty chair for Google alongside the Twitter and Facebook executives who appeared before the Senate committee in September.
“With this breach announcement, the empty seat bearing Google’s name just became a lot hotter,” said Mike Chapple, an associate professor of information technology, analytics and operations at the University of Notre Dame.
Pichai went to Washington to mend political fences with lawmakers in late September and agreed to participate in a White House roundtable on technology that President Trump intends to attend. He also will appear in House hearings after the midterm elections in November.
Google has a strong incentive to position itself as a trustworthy guardian of personal information because, like Facebook, its financial success hinges on its success to learn about the interests, habits and location of its users in order to sell targeted ads.
The desire to peer into people’s lives is one of the reasons that Google launched Plus in 2011. It was supposed to be a challenger to Facebook’s social network, which now has more than 2 billion users. But Plus flopped and quickly turned into a digital ghost town, prompting Google to start de-emphasizing it several years ago.
But the company kept it open long enough to cause an embarrassing privacy gaffe that could give Congress an excuse to enact tighter controls on data collection.
“Every data mishap strengthens the bipartisan case for Congress to take action on data protection,” said Jonathan Mayer, an assistant professor at Princeton University who formerly worked in the Federal Communications Commission’s enforcement bureau.
Europe began to impose tougher online privacy regulations in May. Those rules also include disclosure requirements for data breaches. Those rules don’t apply to the Plus problem because Google discovered it before they took effect.
Google+ isn’t the first social network to fail. There were Friendster and MySpace, but they burned out in an earlier era, before the all-consuming social media age we live in now. Friendster shut down in 2015 after a brief pivot into gaming. MySpace is technically still around, though it’s positioned itself as a music site. Vine, the Twitter-owned network for 6-second video loops, announced its closure in 2016. The move was widely lamented, and most of its users migrated to Instagram and YouTube.
This is different. Google+ was originally meant to be an alternative to the behemoth that is Facebook. It failed spectacularly, but it’s a major social network by arguably one of the most powerful companies on the planet. This is a social network announcing its death at a time when we’re so entrenched in social media it may be suffocating us. About 77 percent of the US population has a social media profile, according to Statista. We’ve relied on the mechanisms of social media so heavily; it’s brought us disinformation, division, election interference, and data misuse.
Tom Hardy and Lady Gaga kept Ryan Gosling’s “First Man” from crowding their “Venom” and “A Star Is Born” out of their first and second box office spots. This is their second week remaining in those slots
The Neil Armstrong film “First Man” settled for a third-place landing at the North American box office in its opening weekend in theaters. The Ryan Gosling-starrer and a host of newcomers, like the family-friendly “Goosebumps” sequel and the neo-noir mystery “Bad Times at the El Royale,” couldn’t unseat last week’s top two films, “Venom” and “A Star Is Born,” which again took first and second place.
As the month of October careens toward a box office record, the crowded marketplace can be a blessing or a curse for some films in their first weekends, although the hope is that they will play for weeks to come.
Such is the idea for Universal Pictures’ “First Man,” which took flight over the weekend with everything to its advantage — prestige, good reviews (88 percent on Rotten Tomatoes), a movie star (Gosling) and an Oscar-winning director (Damien Chazelle).
Studios estimated Sunday that “First Man” earned $16.5 million in ticket sales from 3,640 North American theaters and $25 million worldwide. That was on par with expectations, but not exactly an eye-popping number for a space epic that cost nearly $60 million to produce.
For Universal Pictures’ president of domestic distribution Jim Orr, the box office intake for a film like “First Man,” which primarily appeals to older audiences not inclined to rush out to a movie theater on the first weekend, is going to be “a marathon not a sprint.”
“What we know is for these types of adult, fall films for discerning audiences, it’s not about the opening weekend,” Orr said. “We’re very comfortable that it’s going to have a long life at the domestic box office.”
Universal’s “First Man,” the director Damien Chazelle’s first movie since “La La Land,” took in a soft $16.5 million domestically during its opening weekend. Critics mostly loved this film, which features an ensemble of well-known actors and has been positioned as an Oscar contender, but the masses were less impressed.
Universal Pictures had hoped “First Man,” which cost about $60 million to make and tens of millions more to market, would mirror the performance of “Argo,” the 2013 Oscar winner for best picture. “Argo” arrived to $19.5 million in opening-weekend ticket sales ($21.4 million after adjusting for inflation), earned an A-plus CinemaScore and went on to generate an adjusted $254 million worldwide.
Audiences for the PG-13 rated “First Man” were primarily older (52 percent over 35), male (56 percent) and Caucasian (67 percent) and gave the film a B+ CinemaScore.
“I never expected ‘First Man’ to have an opening weekend trajectory that was off the charts,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for box office tracker comScore. “This is a film that has a lot of awards season buzz. It will attract a lot of older viewers and it’s going to keep rolling along and getting more and more accolades. ‘First Man’ will be standing many weeks down the road.”
The comic book film “Venom,” meanwhile, continues to belie poor reviews in its second weekend in theaters. Sony Pictures estimated the film added $35.7 million in ticket sales, down 56 percent from its first weekend, to repeat at No. 1. The film has earned $142.8 million to date from North American theaters.
On the other end of the critical spectrum, Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born” continued to ride a wave of goodwill and awards buzz into its second weekend adding $28 million. With total domestic grosses at $94.2 million, the Warner Bros. pic starring Cooper and Lady Gaga will sail past $100 million in no time.
Fourth place went to “Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween” which took in $16.2 million (down from the first film’s $23.6 million launch in 2015) while “Bad Times At The El Royale” debuted in seventh place with only $7.2 million.
The well-reviewed young adult film “The Hate U Give,” meanwhile, performed well in its expansion. The drama about a police shooting of a black teenager managed to crack the top 10 playing in only 248 locations, placing ninth with $1.8 million. It expands wide next weekend. And Amazon Studios’ Timothee Chalamet and Steve Carell addiction drama “Beautiful Boy” opened on four screens to $221,437.
With so many new films at the multiplex, from big budget blockbusters to awards friendly dramas, audiences are helping propel October to record box office earnings. It also means some movies are getting lost in the shuffle.
“There is a relentless onslaught of hits that keep on coming from every genre,” Dergarabedian said. “People are a little overwhelmed right now. There’s a bevy of riches at the marketplace, and some films are going to struggle on opening weekend.”
“Bad Times at the El Royale,” was a flop for 20th Century Fox. The writer and director Drew Goddard’s neo-noir thriller cost about $30 million to make, not including marketing. It brought in around $7.2 million domestically during its opening weekend, earning it seventh place overall — not a comfortable position for its all-star cast, which includes Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson and Jon Hamm.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
Full disclosure: I saw the Supernatural season premiere episode for the first time two weeks ago at the Entertainment Weekly sneak peek screening in New York City. But somehow I was still entirely caught up in the excitement of Thursday as premiere day – there’s something energizing about an entire fandom all over the world all online and watching in some way, shape or form and all bouncing from anticipation! At the EW event, I got to watch the episode with Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, and Danneel Ackles, which was an amazing experience. None of them had seen the episode either, so I got to see them react at the same time as I was reacting – and at times got to see them react to the fans in the room reacting to them. It’s French Mistake levels of meta!
That experience colored my rewatch, and only made it better. There were things that didn’t 100% work for me in the episode, what those were largely overshadowed by the things that very much did. I’ve been waiting two weeks to be able to talk about the episode, so here goes!
The recap reminds us that last season saw Dean Winchester expressing a rare optimism about being able to actually rid the world of bad stuff – a tiny bit of hope that maybe they really could create a better world. That idea gets an entirely different spin in Season 14, beginning with the premiere. Meanwhile, recap music is blasting as we review all the incredible things that happened last season.
Me as the recap of the Road So Far plays: MY SHOW IS SO EFFING BADASS!!!
Supernatural is also creative; the opening music bleeds into a song on the Impala’s radio, and a bearded stern-faced Sam Winchester turns it off. Nice touch, and it immediately lets us know that Sam Winchester is not in fact okay. So does Jared’s face – the actor doesn’t need any dialogue to show us just how upset and how driven Sam Winchester is right now. (Make no mistake, I’d LOVE for him to have more dialogue that also shows us that though!)
Just the fact that Sam is alone driving the Impala was incredibly painful to see – I miss Dean Winchester like a missing limb.
We jump from Jared to Jensen, but not to Dean from Sam. Instead it’s Michael, interrupting a holy man’s prayers. This is the scene we saw at Comic-Con many months ago, so it’s a familiar one, but no less chilling for its familiarity. Ackles invests Michael with so much quiet, understated menace, it gives you goosebumps. He’s soft-spoken, the cadence of his speech slower than Dean’s, more deliberate. He pronounces every consonant because he’s in no hurry; he’s an all-powerful being, so he has all the time in the world. All those conscious choices make Michael an entirely new character even as he’s played by one of the lead actors we know and love.
When I talked to Jensen about this scene at Comic-Con, he said he keenly aware of the responsibility of getting the Arabic dialogue exactly right, and that even though they had a coach for him, he struggled mightily to get it down – and was still worried. Seems like he mastered it eventually, though – as Ruth Connell quipped on twitter, what doesn’t he do perfectly!?
Michael’s question for all the beings he encounters in this world is the same: What do you want?
He seems to loathe lying or hypocrisy and is well aware when someone is kidding themselves or trying to BS an Archangel. And if that’s the case? Apparently, that being is not worth saving. Ouch.
As for what Michael wants? He eerily echoes Dean Winchester’s desire last season: A better world.
Pretty sure this is not what Dean Winchester had in mind, however. [And no, it is never far from my mind that Dean is IN THERE witnessing the violence and helpless to stop it and that must be the worst kind of torture for him.]
Sam, meanwhile, returns to the bunker, where a bunch of AU hunters have settled in and are carrying on as hunters do. I’m not sure why they’ve decided to incorporate AU resident Maggie into this new season, but she serves as a reality check and a bit of comic relief in this episode. Pulling a giant claw out of another hunter’s back, she states the obvious: “So so gross.”
Mary is depicted as both a badass hunter and as invested in being a mother to Sam in this episode, the latter a role that hasn’t always come through well for me.
When Sam comes back, her relief that he’s okay is evident, her hug genuine and warm. I’ve struggled with the character of Mary a lot since she’s been back, but Samantha Smith did a good job of letting those more maternal qualities come through in this episode. I felt relieved for Sam, because god knows with his brother gone, he sure as hell needs his mother, even as a grown ass man. (And oh my, is he ever a grown ass man in this episode!)
Let’s take a brief shallow detour and talk about Sam’s facial hair, dubbed the “grief beard.” I don’t even usually like beards, but even I have to say that scruffy determined badass Sam Winchester is SO working for me! Jensen told the story of how Jared got to have a beard at Comic-Con, and he told it again at the EW screening.
Jared: Sam’s got more important things on his mind than shaving.
Jensen: Are you not gonna give me credit?
Jared: Okay, Jensen called and was like hey I tried to have a beard this season and they wouldn’t let me – you should try too, the whole grief thing…
Jensen: And then he was like oh, oh yeah! I should totally do that!
Great idea, boys – the fandom thanks you.
Jared once again shows us so much of Sam’s emotional state with only a little dialogue to work with in this scene. Mary hugs him and asks how it went, and he replies with resignation “It was a bust.” You can see the toll this is taking on him, three weeks of following any and every lead to try to find Dean and nothing working out.
Mary tries to reassure him.
Mary: We’re gonna find him. Something will break, it has to.
But Sam is clearly skating close to falling into despair and can’t hear her optimism.
Sam: Yeah, you keep saying that.
Oh Sam, my heart breaks for you. Mary tries to get him to rest, which is that mothering I liked seeing. Of course, Sam insists he’s good – neither Mary nor anyone watching the episode believes him.
This whole scene was very interesting, because it provided a lot of information in a not-at-all-clunky way. (I have to thank writer Andrew Dabb for that). The biggest takeaway from this scene is just how much of a leadership role Sam has settled into. Another hunter greets him with a “Hey, Chief” and it seems like their normal. Sam gives orders, and the other hunters say “yes sir.”
And can I just say that bearded Sam and his broad broad shoulders giving orders and commanding respect and being empathic at the same time is just about the hottest thing ever??? He is clearly a good leader, with everything that entails. I almost felt proud of him, Sammy all grown up and taking charge and doing it so well. Dean would be proud. And that thought right there? Made me want to reach for the tissues. Dean would be proud – and Dean is not there.
I’m suddenly missing him like crazy. This feeling will continue throughout the episode.
Another dynamic that’s playing out in the bunker is Jack trying to come to terms with being human and without powers. Bobby spars with him in the bunker’s gym (where I suddenly picture lots of Winchester workouts…) and is very much the wise father figure that non-AU Bobby always was. I know this isn’t “our” Bobby, but it feels good to have his presence back on my show and I’m so pleased to have Jim Beaver back too. Alex Calvert continues to do a bang-up job of portraying Jack’s emotional struggle to come to terms with being more or less human; he’s so damn earnest, you can’t help but root for him.
So what is Castiel up to while everyone else is at the bunker? He’s meeting with a demon, which is never a good idea. The demon’s name is Kip, and he seems as surprised as I am that Cas asked to meet with him. Cas, for his part, is 1000% done from the moment Kip opens his mouth. He’s a snarky, oddly flirty, Crowley-wannabe and Cas has no time for his blah blah blah blah. His attempt to goad Cas with insinuations about the nature of his and Dean’s relationship meets with more of Castiel’s 1000% done face.
Kip: You lost a Winchester? I thought you and Dean were joined at the….everything…
That was Castiel’s reaction. As far as fandom’s reactions, that was met with either glee or groans depending on what side of the fence you’re on.
This scene confused me, because while I understand Cas being desperate to find Dean and thus willing to make some bad decisions in trying to do so, I have no clue why he didn’t know that the entire restaurant was populated by demons. Angels can see demons’ true form, right? So why did he not know he was walking into a trap? (I mean, one could ask why he didn’t know anyway, because when would a demon NOT set it up as a trap??) But Castiel seems very confident that he can take out this demon.
Sure enough, in a surprise to no one but Cas, the horde of demons attack poor Castiel and beat him to a pulp. Ouch.
And here another odd thing happened. One of the big reveals in this episode was that Mark Pellegrino is still on the show, back not as Lucifer (maybe) but as his vessel, Nick. That reveal happened in a great scene that builds up the tension with Sam walking into a dark room and seeing a figure from the back, and then Pellegrino slowly turning to reveal it’s him. When we saw that scene in the EW screening, there were loud gasps and groans from the entire audience – that was one of the times that Jared burst into guffaws of laughter when he heard our reaction.
But during the live broadcast, at this point in the show (before that reveal had occurred), the CW played a commercial for the new Halloween film. It starts out with Sam Winchesters talking to – Mark Pellegrino! And it’s clearly a new scene, so it effectively spoils the reveal and confuses the hell out of everyone watching. Of course, those of us who had already seen the episode knew it was a scene coming up that hadn’t aired yet – which made it a terrible idea to place that advertisement right there.
I mean, funny ad – Sam asks “You still don’t remember? What about Michael?” and that launches into Halloween’s version of Michael. But why there????
Anyway…
Back to the show, and Michael confronts Sister Jo. This scene is interesting for a few reasons. One, because it gives us some insight into what Michael is doing and it crosses the angels off his list as possible allies.
Two, we see an angel’s “true form.” Jo knows who he is and can see his true form, which was quite beautiful and nicely done VFX. However, isn’t it canon that angels’ and archangels’ true forms are a lot more fearsome than what Jo sees? Something with two heads and less humanoid or as big as the Chrysler building??
Anyway, Jo also knows that Dean must have said yes.
Jo: Why would he say yes to you?
Michael knows Dean, so he knows the answer.
Michael: Love.
Jo scoffs, saying “how Hallmark,” but he’s telling the truth. Winchesters would pretty much do anything to save each other, because that’s what love’s about, and that’s one of my favorite things about this show.
Michael also knows what Dean knows about Jo, so he doesn’t believe her when she tries to be flippant with her answer to what she wants. He knows it’s not Dior or Chanel or “pretty things” (does it give anyone else shivers when Michael pronounces every single consonant so deliberately?? Just me?) No, it’s love and family and feeling like she belongs.
I thought that was interesting too, because for the few angels that we’ve gotten to know, that is indeed what they want. It’s very important to Castiel, what he wants more than anything. It’s why he values his relationship with the Winchesters so much, because he doesn’t belong anywhere else and has lost his whole family – they are his family now. It’s equally important to Jack, who is struggling with where he belongs and who loves him and where he fits. Jo is the same, apparently.
Michael, of course, sees that longing as a weakness and seems to decide that angels aren’t worth his time, apparently judging all of them by Jo.
And three, this scene was interesting because it was Jensen and Danneel Ackles, real-life husband and wife, facing off. Ackles has chemistry with lots of people, and he certainly has it with his own wife, which made the fact that Michael’s caress of Jo’s face came off as creepy instead of tender pretty impressive. Both Dean and Jensen disappear when Ackles is Michael, passing the real test of even when he’s acting opposite his own wife! Danneel also can pull this off, conveying nothing but the fear that Jo buries underneath bravado.
Back at the bunker, Sam gets to be the dad as well as the leader when he goes to check on Jack. One of the things I love about Sam Winchester – and have always loved about him – is his capacity for empathy. He shows that here, telling Jack that he knows how hard it must be for him now, with no powers.
Sam: I believe in you, Jack.
They aren’t hollow words either. When it comes time to fight, Sam lets Jack participate, knowing he needs it.
Sam and Jack’s heart-to-heart is interrupted by Mary, who tells Sam ominously, “He’s awake.”
As soon as Mary said “I can’t even look at him,” I knew it had to be Lucifer – well, I was close. That great scene unfolds, Sam steeling himself in the hallway, then swallowing and turning on the light and entering the room where the shadowy figure sits facing away from him.
When he turns, and it is indeed Mark Pellegrino. Sam’s “Hi Nick” explains what has happened perfectly.
This scene is a masterpiece of acting by Jared once again, showing us in subtle shifts of expression and posture just how uncomfortable Sam is around Nick and how hard he’s trying to get past it. Being face to face with the face of the person who traumatized you is the very definition of re-experiencing and triggering PTSD, but Sam shoulders on. He dabs the peroxide on Nick’s healing wound (perhaps not entirely feeling bad at his hiss of pain) and as Nick is looking down, Sam stares hard at him, the horror that’s still there showing on his face only when he knows that Nick won’t see it. That’s a brilliant piece of acting! He doesn’t really relax until he leaves the room, letting out a sigh of relief as he closes the door.
Mark Pellegrino did a good job of making Nick seem very different from Lucifer (the challenge of a lot of people on this show!) and yet I don’t trust this not to be Lucifer anyway. Somehow. I was also a bit “Huh?” about the archangel blades only kill the archangel inside new bit of canon. Since when? So is Gabriel’s vessel still alive out there somewhere? Hmm.
Here Castiel’s and Sam’s storylines for this episode intersect, as Kip calls Sam and tells him gleefully “I’m the boy who’s got your angel.”
Me: OMG Sam Winchester and the terrible horrible no good very bad day…
Sam once again shows his empathic but no-nonsense leadership style, allowing Jack to come on the rescue mission – and nobody questions Sam’s leadership for a second.
Meanwhile, I really felt for Cas. Even beaten up and tied to a chair, he is so done with Kip, who taunts him by saying all he’s good for is being bait. We learn that Michael has apparently also been to demons to ask what they want, which is what sent Kip on his quest to fill the power gap left in Hell by Crowley’s death.
On the way to the fight, we get a little talk between Bobby and Jack, and another between Mary and Sam. This little quiet scene with Mary and Sam in the Impala was one of my favorite moments of the episode. Once again, so much is conveyed with only a little bit of dialogue. Mary continues to try to tell Sam that “it will be fine” and Sam finally lashes out.
Sam: Stop saying that, please! You don’t know that! Dean’s gone, and we have no idea where he is or if he’s still alive. Michael could have burned him out…or worse.
Oh, Sam. He finally gives voice to his worst nightmare, what he must be tormented with every second of every day and night. Sam really is on the verge of giving up hope, and that’s heartbreaking.
Mary’s coping strategies are different, and for once we get to hear her articulate her thoughts and explain her coping mechanisms – I’m so grateful for that!
Mary: I know. I know he’s out there, scared and alone…
Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Mary: I know he might never come back. Never think I don’t know that. But I can’t – I have to think about the good, Sam, or I’ll drown in the bad. And for Dean’s sake, I – we – can’t do that.
In her own way, by sharing how she’s coping and why, Mary helps shore up Sam’s hope and determination. I loved this quiet little scene with its important revelations, and Samantha and Jared nailed it.
The fight scene in this episode was undeniably epic. Everything about it, from Sam handing Mary the knife and going in alone like the badass brave man he is, to the verbal confrontation with Kip, to the very physical one that followed. Epic.
Kip seems to vacillate wildly between appreciating (or perhaps lusting after) Sam and wanting to tear his heart out and possibly eat him. Like, literally. I can certainly understand the first impulse.
Kip: The great Sam Winchester! I’ve heard so much about you. A damn legend. The shoulders, the hair… mm mm mm, you’re my Beyonce!
I might not have put it that way, but I do get where you’re coming from, Kip.
Sam is as 100% done with Kip in no time flat as Castiel was. He never even looks very scared, just checks on Cas.
Cas: I’m more embarrassed than hurt.
Me: Poor Cas.
Kip monologues a while, all bluster and tales of being a killer alongside Genghis Khan and eating babies, and finishes with reminding Sam that Crowley’s dead and Asmodeus is Kentucky fried (nice nod to fandom’s nickname for the character) so therefore Hell is without a King. Oh, and he calls Sam a barbarian, which….mmm.
Sam: (without a hint of a flinch) You’re no Crowley.
Entire fandom: Nobody is Crowley but Crowley!
Kip: I’m not afraid of you – but they are. So take the deal.
Sam: No.
When I saw that scene the first time, in a room full of fans and Jared and Jensen, I think I screamed because GODDAMN SAM FUCKING WINCHESTER!
Then the epic fight itself happened, with demons running sideways up walls, slow-motion shootings, and knife tosses, badass Mary, Maggie coming through to “stab ‘em with the pointy end,” and Jack trying his damnedest to stop Bobby from being pummeled to death. Rob Hayter (who choreographs the fight scenes), you are amazing.
The choreography of that fight was so complex and played out so beautifully, right down to Sam pinned and taking a beating. You can feel every punch, because Jared lets you see the impact of each blow – it reminded me of “Red Meat,” when again Padalecki’s acting made me feel everything so acutely and painfully.
Then, when all seems lost, Sam grabs hold of that determination to save the day, and with one last burst of adrenaline, he grabs the knife and stabs Kip with the demon blade.
At the EW screening, Jensen broke into applause for Jared’s performance – and rightly so!
Sam, bloody but 100% in control, staggers to his feet and addresses the demons.
Sam: Enough! There will be no new king of Hell. Not today. Not ever. If anyone wants the job, you can come through me, understand?
Demons: All smoke out
Sam: That’s what I thought.
More applause – ALL the applause, because holy hell, Sam Fucking Winchester! And Jared, you effing killed it. Owned that part and that scene 10000%.
We return to the bunker in the aftermath, Sam holding a cold beer to his temple presumably where he got knocked on the head. Cas comes in, still as bloody and beaten up as he has been all episode. In fact, he hasn’t even bothered to wipe the blood from his chin where it trickled down! I’ll get to that, but I like this, another quiet scene that carried a lot of meaning.
Cas: Are you all right?
Sam: Been better. You?
Cas apologizes for trying to make a deal with the demon, but Sam stops him.
Sam: No, I don’t blame you. If it might find Dean, I’d work with – I’d do anything.
It’s a small scene, but I like that they’re honest with each other. They are both on the same team, possibly more than ever before, because all that matters is saving Dean. I like that neither tries to bullshit the other, that both are able to show a little vulnerability.
For an episode with so many action sequences, there was a surprising amount of emotionally rich scenes too – thank you for that, Andrew Dabb. It’s what keeps me watching.
Side note: In the Q & A that followed the EW screening, Jensen Ackles commented hilariously on this scene, and on Sam holding the cold beer to his head.
Jensen: When you’re there with the thing on your eye, that may be my favorite part. Cas sits down and he’s just like hammered and there’s nothing on your face! And meanwhile, you’re like ahhhhh. You’ve got someone sitting across form you who looks like he just went through a meat grinder…
Jared: (mock protesting) He’s an angel!
Jensen: Can I take a guess about what happened? They asked you in makeup, you want some bruising, a cut here? And you say no. Misha hasn’t figured that out yet!
They both laughed – and it’s true, Sam’s face looks fine while Castiel looks like he’s been through hell. Another quibble while we’re discussing this – why can’t Cas heal himself?? Why does he seem to have no powers at all?? It’s been hours and he’s not healed at all, and he isn’t able to heal Bobby or Jack or anyone else either? Why??? He literally had to sit there tied to a chair while this epic fight waged all around him, unable to even free himself. I don’t get it – is this canon fail or am I missing something?
After that quiet little scene with Cas and Sam, Mary and Bobby begin their flirtation in the afterglow of the fight success.
Cas also pays a visit to Jack, who is regarding himself in the mirror and looking like he’s overcome with self-loathing.
Cas: You did well.
Jack: All I did was get punched in the face!
Cas: Well, to be fair, we all got punched in the face.
I laughed out loud at Misha’s priceless delivery there, though Jack did not.
Cas, of all people, can understand how difficult it is to suddenly not have powers, so he empathizes with Jack and encourages him not to give up. Once again, the theme of not knowing where you belong and not feeling useful comes up, as Jack says that he’s useless, can’t do anything, doesn’t have anything.
Cas: Oh Jack, that’s just not true. You’ve got me. You’ve got all of us. You have your family.
Much like Sister Jo, that seems to be the thing the angels want more than anything.
We end with Michael, who has finally found the creatures who won’t try to bullshit him when he asks them what they want.
Michael: You know exactly what you want. You don’t pretend to want to help people or save the world. You just want to eat.
A bound vampire (a very pretty one at that) bares his fangs in agreement.
At the EW event, Jensen talked about the significance of Michael’s plan – he’s essentially going to try to create a ‘super army,’ so all the lore that the Winchesters have amassed on how to fight monsters, even what’s in their dad’s journal, will be useless.
Uh oh.
I kinda like the sound of that though, because my favorite episodes are often the Monster of the Week type, which hearkens back to the show’s early days. Having more of those monsters and fiercer ones will be a new challenge, and one I think could be more interesting than angel or demon conflict, which we’ve had a lot of.
The other thing that was intriguing about this episode was Sam’s proclamation that there would be no new king of hell, and that anyone who tried would have to come through him. After the early seasons and the prophecy that Sam might, in fact, be the “boy king of hell,” there was a glorious amount of fanfiction that explored what that would be like. Canon just slid a little closer to that, and while I doubt they’ll keep sliding, it was extra exciting to see Sam take that stance and scare the crap out of those demons, a dangerous smile through the blood on his teeth. Shivers, I tell you.
I told Jensen that I missed Dean like I’d lost a limb, and that meant that he is doing an unbelievable job of being a completely different character. Dean is nowhere on my screen, and I’m grieving him, right along with all the characters trying to find him. I wonder where we’re heading from here. A Sam versus Michael showdown perhaps? I had some quibbles about this episode and still have some lingering confusion, but if that’s what we have to look forward to – I am SO on board! Bring it, Season 14!
Here we go again with Facebook accounts getting hacked. This time it’s another 29 million users that have been affected.
Facebook says hackers accessed a wide swath of information — ranging from emails and phone numbers to more personal details like sites visited and places checked into — from millions of accounts as part of a security breach the company disclosed two weeks ago.
Twenty-nine million accounts had some form of information stolen. Originally Facebook said 50 million accounts were affected, but that it didn’t know if they had been misused. You can check Facebook’s Help Center, and a notice at the bottom will let you know if your account was affected.
The news comes at a jittery time ahead of the midterm elections when Facebook is fighting off misuse of its site on a number of fronts. The company said Friday there’s no evidence this is related to the midterms.
On Friday Facebook said hackers accessed names, email addresses or phone numbers from these accounts. For 14 million of them, hackers got even more data, such as hometown, birthdate, the last 10 places they checked into or the 15 most recent searches.
An additional 1 million accounts were affected, but hackers didn’t get any information from them.
Facebook isn’t giving a breakdown of where these users are, but says the breach was “fairly broad.” It plans to send messages to people whose accounts were hacked.
Facebook said third-party apps that use a Facebook login and Facebook apps like WhatsApp and Instagram were unaffected by the breach.
Facebook said the FBI is investigating, but asked the company not to discuss who may be behind the attack. The company said it hasn’t ruled out the possibility of smaller-scale attacks that used the same vulnerability.
Facebook has said the attackers gained the ability to “seize control” of those user accounts by stealing digital keys the company uses to keep users logged in. They could do so by exploiting three distinct bugs in Facebook’s code.
The hackers began with a set of accounts they controlled, then used an automated process to access the digital keys for accounts that were “friends” with the accounts they had already compromised. That expanded to “friends of friends,” extending their access to about 400,000 accounts, and went on from there to reach 30 million accounts. There is no evidence that the hackers made any posts or took any other activity using the hacked accounts.
The company said it has fixed the bugs and logged out affected users to reset those digital keys.
At the time, CEO Mark Zuckerberg — whose own account was compromised — said attackers would have had the ability to view private messages or post on someone’s account, but there’s no sign that they did.
Facebook Vice President Guy Rosen said in a call with reporters on Friday the company hasn’t ruled out the possibility of smaller-scale efforts to exploit the same vulnerability that the hackers used before it was disabled.
The company has a website its 2 billion global users can use to check if their accounts have been accessed, and if so, exactly what information was stolen. It will also provide guidance on how to spot and deal with suspicious emails or texts. Facebook will also send messages directly to those people affected by the hack.
Patrick Moorhead, founder of Moor Insights & Strategy, said the breach appeared similar to identity theft breaches that have occurred at companies including Yahoo and Target in 2013.
“Those personal details could be very easily be used for identity theft to sign up for credit cards, get a loan, get your banking password, etc.,” he said. “Facebook should provide all those customers free credit monitoring to make sure the damage is minimized.”
Thomas Rid, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University, also said the evidence, particularly the size of the breach, seems to point to a criminal motive rather than a sophisticated state operation, which usually targets fewer people.
“This doesn’t sound very targeted at all,” he said. “Usually when you’re looking at a sophisticated government operation, then a couple of thousand people hacked is a lot, but they usually know who they’re going after.”
FACEBOOK PURGES OVER 800 SPAM ACCOUNTS
Facebook said it has purged more than 800 U.S. pages and accounts for spamming users with politically-tinged garbage links and clickbait just weeks ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.
The banned accounts and Facebook sites exhibited “coordinated inauthentic behavior” such as working together to make the pages appear more popular than they actually are. This, Facebook said, was designed to mislead users about who they are and what they’re doing.
The social network said these accounts spread “sensational political content” designed to drive people to ad-laden websites outside of Facebook. In the past, such spammers have often focused on celebrity gossip, weight loss remedies, and fake iPhones.
Pages Facebook removed fell on both sides on the political spectrum, Facebook said, although it declined to say if there were more on the right or the left. The removed pages included the conservative “Nation in Distress” and the left-wing “Snowflakes,” among others with names such as “Reasonable People Unite,” ″The Resistance” and “Right Wing News.”
Facebook said it doesn’t look at the content of the posts and photos that the accounts are spreading, but rather, the “behavior” of the pages — such as whether they are using fake accounts or sending spam — when deciding whether to remove them.
The turn toward politics suggests that spammers are learning from the Russian playbook on how to get people riled up and clicking. Facebook has been working to weed out misinformation and election meddling since it acknowledged that Russian agents abused its service in 2016.
But while those actors seemed intent on disrupting elections, Facebook says its latest purge was about accounts trying to make money.
It’s no secret that Donald Trump wants to stop any legislation created by former president Barack Obama, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) aka Obamacare has been the biggest target. Even though most Americans now realize what good it has done for them or someone close to them, Trump is continuing to take it down at any cost. Even Kanye West couldn’t keep us distracted with his Oval office performance Thursday to notice the upcoming health care issues looming for many Americans.
An awkward hug between Kanye West and Donald Trump for a very bizarre moment in history.
While Obamacare was far from perfect, it could have been sustained easily, but the Trump Administration has continually hammered away at it, making it more unstable solely to make a point of saying ‘see, I told you it would fail.’ Anything will fail if you push it to, but he’s now got more Americans fighting to keep the ACA alive.
His latest big step into the debate over the future of America’s health care system was with an op-ed column in USA Today that presented a bleak vision of what would happen under plans backed by many Democrats to institute government insurance for everyone.
Trump on Wednesday cast the idea as a dangerous scheme by “radical socialists” as he played up potential pitfalls of a government-paid system without citing any of the benefits, such as the disappearance of most medical bills.
TRUMP: “The Democrats’ plan means that after a life of hard work and sacrifice, seniors would no longer be able to depend on the benefits they were promised. By eliminating Medicare as a program for seniors, and outlawing the ability of Americans to enroll in private and employer-based plans, the Democratic plan would inevitably lead to the massive rationing of health care. Doctors and hospitals would be put out of business. Seniors would lose access to their favorite doctors. There would be long wait lines for appointments and procedures. Previously covered care would effectively be denied.”
THE FACTS: Some experts indeed foresee at least a possibility of such negative consequences, even if Trump’s account is overdrawn. He omits the intended upside, though, just as proponents of a government-run system gloss over factors such as the steep cost to taxpayers.
America’s health care system is currently a hybrid, with employers, federal, state, and local governments, and individuals sharing the cost. Under “Medicare for All,” the federal government would take the reins. Seniors are being promised more health care from the government, not less.
The plan by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, includes benefits not now covered by Medicare such as dental, vision, and hearing aids. A House bill would also cover long-term care.
The idea is also known as “single-payer,” because the government would pay nearly all the bills and set rates for hospitals and doctors — and for all patients, not just the elderly.
“Medicare for All” would also eliminate or reduce costs now directly paid by seniors themselves.
Retirees would no longer have to fork over premiums for supplemental private insurance to cover gaps in Medicare. There would be no deductibles. Copayments for most care would be eliminated. The same benefits would accrue to privately insured people.
With almost no out-of-pocket costs, people would probably seek more health care services. There lies a potential problem.
Single-payer would also dial back what hospitals and doctors now get paid for their privately insured patients, to a level based on Medicare rates. Medicare generally pays less than private insurance. The combination of greater demand for services and new limits on reimbursement would put a squeeze on the health care system.
But would it “inevitably lead” to “massive rationing” as described by Trump?
Academic experts critical of single-payer have been much more guarded.
“It is impossible to say precisely how much the confluence of these factors would reduce individuals’ timely access to health care services, but some such access problems almost certainly must arise,” wrote Charles Blahous of the libertarian Mercatus Center in a recent analysis that pointed out cost problems with Sanders’ plan.
Other experts and Sanders himself say that would not happen because single-payer would take costs out of the system by eliminating insurers as the middlemen and using government’s clout to bring down drug prices.
“Our current dysfunctional health care system is designed to make huge profits for insurance companies and drug companies, rather than provide quality care for every man, woman and child,” Sanders said Wednesday in response to Trump.
It’s early in the debate, and so far Americans seem willing to entertain the idea of a government health care plan.
A survey in the spring by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation found that 59 percent of Americans would support getting coverage from a single government plan, with 38 percent opposed.
Age made no difference in support for “Medicare for All.” Party affiliation was a factor, with Republicans opposed, Democrats strongly in favor and independents generally in favor.
Pollsters say that support for single-payer is notoriously soft, and people can quickly change their minds once they start hearing about potential downsides.
That might be why Democrats are also pitching another version of “Medicare for All.” This one would create a government-run plan that anyone in the country could join by buying into it, with taxpayer subsidies available. Private insurance and the current Medicare program would continue.
The president’s op-ed column flubbed some facts and omitted some key context:
—Trump put the cost of “Medicare for All” at $32.6 trillion over 10 years, calling it an “astonishing” figure. He actually underestimated the expected cost. He cited the added cost to the federal government of taking over private insurance, as estimated by Blahous. The total cost of the new system would be even higher.
—Trump said Democrats have already “harmed seniors by slashing Medicare” to pay for President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. He neglected to mention that when Republicans later won control of Congress, they kept in their own budgets the Obama Medicare cuts that they had campaigned against.
In a rare move at the box office, two very different films for different audiences became instant blockbusters over the weekend creating film history.
In a weekend of perfect counterprogramming for Hollywood, the comic-book movie “Venom” shrugged off bad reviews to shatter the October box-office record with an $80 million debut, while Bradley Cooper’s “A Star Is Born” soared to $41.3 million.
With $174.5 million in tickets sold at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore, it was easily the best October weekend ever thanks to two very different films that both outperformed expectations.
“Venom” came in a critically panned, much-doubted foray by Sony Pictures to kick-start a Marvel expansion away from “Spider-Man.” Warner Bros.′ “A Star Is Born” remake rode a wave of hype, Oscar buzz, and acclaim for Cooper’s directorial debut and Lady Gaga’s first leading performance.
One was a very iffy proposition; the other a sure thing. Both worked big time.
“We knew we had a hit,” said Warner Bros. distribution chief Jeffrey Goldstein of “A Star Is Born.” ″We also knew that every time people saw the movie, they felt it, they cried, they loved it. People just like the movie.”
That was more in question for director Ruben Fleischer’s “Venom,” starring Tom Hardy as the antihero who first appeared in 2007′s “Spider-Man 3.” The film earned a dismal 32 percent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In “Venom,” many expected another studio misfire with “cinematic universe” ambitions.
Yet audiences flocked to “Venom” in record numbers, giving it a B-plus CinemaScore. The previous best October opening was 2013′s “Gravity” with $55.7 million (not adjusted for inflation). Adrian Smith, president of domestic distribution for Sony, said that even though the studio was confident, “I did not see $80 million coming.”
There is still no evidence of superhero fatigue setting in yet.
The most telling number that explained the film’s success, Smith said, was the 89 percent “fresh” audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. “Venom,” which cost about $100 million to make (relatively modest for a superhero film), grossed a total of $205.2 million globally.
Steven O’Dell, Sony’s president of international distribution, said the studio wanted to carve out a new approach for the comic-book adaptation with the PG-13-rated “Venom.”
“This is not a Marvel style; it’s not DC,” O’Dell said. “Tonally, it’s its own unique direction.”
While “Venom” attracted a younger, majority male audience, crowds for “A Star is Born” were more female, at 66 percent, and older, at 68 percent over 35.
Sony urgently needed “Venom” to succeed. The studio, suffering from a dearth of franchises, has identified lesser-known comic book characters as one possible solution. “Venom” was the first such effort — a proof of concept for a larger “tent pole” movie strategy. As part of a deal with Marvel, Sony controls film rights to characters in the Spider-Man family; Venom is one of the web slinger’s greatest foes. (Spider-Man is not in “Venom.”)
One question is how the horror-tinged “Venom” will perform in the weeks ahead. Can it attract repeat viewing? Expand its audience beyond comic book fans? Reviews do not bode well. On the other hand, the masses appeared to disagree with critics: Ticket buyers gave “Venom” a B-plus grade in CinemaScore exit polls, and out of 16,000 Rotten Tomatoes users who voted on the movie, 89 percent said they liked it.
“In our older audience, we had people who hadn’t been to a movie in years,” Goldstein said.
“The box office prospers and expands when there are diverse options,” said Phil Contrino, director of media and research for the National Association of Theater Owners. On Oct. 19, Hollywood is expected to serve up another smash: Analysts say that “Halloween,” with Jamie Lee Curtis returning in a lead role, will arrive to at least $60 million in opening-weekend ticket sales.
Warner Bros., which premiered “A Star Is Born” last month at the Venice Film Festival, previewed the film in special advance screenings in the days ahead of opening, adding an additional $1.3 million in ticket sales. The fifth version of the oft-remade tale, which cost about $40 million to make, had been in development at Warner Bros. for decades, with earlier versions to potentially star Whitney Houston or Beyonce.
With “A Star Is Born” expected to play a large role in awards season, Goldstein said the film is sure to run through Christmas. The movie’s soundtrack also reached No. 1 on iTunes this week.
This version of “A Star Is Born” — the fourth, including the 1937 original — drew power from an audience that Hollywood often ignores: older women. Warner said that 68 percent of ticket buyers were over the age of 35 and 42 percent were over 50. About 66 percent of the total audience was female. The film, which is expected to figure heavily in the coming Academy Awards race, received an A grade in CinemaScore polls.
To generate interest in “A Star Is Born,” Warner marketers relied heavily on Live Nation and its Ticketmaster division. Marketing partners also included iHeartRadio. On Sunday, the “Star Is Born” soundtrack was No. 1 on the iTunes album chart and had the top three songs on the singles chart.
The two films dominated the marketplace, though in limited release, Fox 2000′s “The Hate U Give” opened with $500,000 on 36 screens. That gave George Tillman Jr.‘s adaptation of Angie Thomas’ best-selling young adult novel, starring Amandla Stenberg, a modest $14,000 per-screen average. The film is set to expand nationwide in the next two weeks.
Aubrey Wells, who wrote “The Hate U Give” adaptation, died Friday at age 58 after a five-year battle with cancer.
“Venom” and “A Star Is Born” helped push the year-to-date box office further above last year, now up 9.2 percent.
“The industry is absolutely on fire right now,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. “We just finished the second-best September ever. If we keep this up, there’s no question we’re going to get a record.”
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday also are included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born – Tom Hardy, Venom
“Venom,” $80 million ($125.2 million international).
“A Star Is Born,” $41.3 million ($14 million international).
“Smallfoot,” $14.9 million ($11.7 million international).
“Night School,” $12.3 million ($3.4 million international).
“The House With a Clock in Its Walls,” $7.3 million.
“A Simple Favor,” $3.4 million ($4.1 million international).
“The Nun,” $2.6 million ($7.2 million international).
“Hell Fest,” $2.1 million.
“Crazy Rich Asians,” $2.1 million ($1.6 million international).
“MET Opera: Aida,” $1.2 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada), according to comScore:
