-
The Punisher
Unlike those other superheroes, he's a vigilante that has no qualms with killing. Marvel's Punisher is getting his own TV series after his guest appearance in Daredevil. Jon Bernthal reprises his role in the MCU spinoff, coming to Netflix in 2017.
The 80s References of Stranger Things
Stranger Things feels more 80s than some of the film and TV that came out of the 80s — and that's the point. Show creators the Duff brothers created a mashup of 80s shows in a mock trailer to pitch the film, and have described it as a combination of the works of Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, and Stephen King. Screen Prism looks at the references and how they came together in the show.
Lore
From hit podcast to TV, Lore is coming to Amazon. For the last two years, Aaron Mahnke has been telling real scary stories over an iTunes campfire. Now, six of these tales are being brought to life on the screen. Lore premieres October 13, 2017.
Curb Your Enthusiasm / Season 9
It's nice to see that after a six-year hiatus nothing has changed. Larry is still just as socially unaware as ever and we couldn't be happier about it. See him get back to his old, neurotic ways when Curb Your Enthusiasm returns to HBO for a long-awaited ninth season October 1, 2017.
Game of Thrones Season 7 VFX Breakdown
It's time again for the best part of any season of Game of Thrones — a look behind the scenes at how the visual effects are created. From burning caravans, undead dragons, undead armies, and collapsing ice walls, there were a lot of great sequences to break down, and effects house El Ranchito has them all in this reel.
Mr. Robot / Season 3
Something is coming to the USA, says the creepy, oddly poetic voiceover in the trailer for the third season of Mr. Robot. What exactly that is is anyone's guess, but a few flashes of a new character, the return of an old one, and plenty of fsociety masks mean that the fallout will continue. Mr. Robot returns October 11, 2017.
-
Purple Mattress
Memory foam is so last century. Take your sleep to the next level with the comfiest mattress science has to offer. Designed by an actual rocket scientist, Purple's Hyper-Elastic Polymer Smart Comfort Grid is engineered to relax under pressure and stay supportively firm everywhere else. Simply put, Purple is the yin and yang of sleep — the perfect balance of soft and firm. Add the cool factor from the natural airflow — so you don't sleep too hot or too cold — and you've got the perfect mattress for every body. Your mattress is a big decision, so sleep on it. Try Purple risk-free for 100 Nights.
Presented by Purple Mattress.
RXBar
Protein bars usually contain as much sugar as a doughnut and have an ingredient list that requires a doctorate to pronounce. RXBARs are different. With no more than eight ingredients, each bar contains only real, whole foods and delivers 12g of quality protein without any added sugar. At the core of every bar is a mixture of egg whites, fruits, and nuts — which they print right on the front of the package — and each of their 12 flavors are gluten-, soy-, and dairy-free. Our favorites are Chocolate Sea Salt, Blueberry, and Peanut Butter, but we recommend starting with the best seller pack, which comes with six of their top selling flavors. Keep a few of these in your gym bag, office drawer, and kitchen pantry for when you need a snack and resist the urge to scarf a candy bar.
Presented by RXBAR.
-
Stranger Things: Level Up
Stranger Things as a video game? You know you'd play that. Netflix gives their hit series an 8-bit makeover in the style of a classic RPG, complete with inventory management and experience points.
The Handmaid's Tale and Super Shallow Focus
No longer a cliche of indie filmmaking, the super shallow focus has made its way into big budget film. In a more technical examination, the Nerdwriter looks at the use of super shallow focus in the Amazon's The Handmaid's Tale. Using massive apertures and close-ups, director Reed Morano set the tone of the show as being from the inner perspective of main character Offred.
Hungry Hearts with Action Bronson
He's a chef, a rapper, and now Action Bronson is going to add match maker to his repertoire. The modern day renaissance man will play cupid for complete strangers by setting them up on first dates. Instead of dinner and a movie, think more like sausage truck and a graveyard, with Bronson providing commentary along the way. The series will take place over eight episodes and will air exclusively on Snapchat.
Gunpowder
Everyone knows Guy Fawkes — but it was Rober Catesby who was the mastermind behind the Gunpowder Plot to kill King James. Kit Harrington plays the would-be assassin in Gunpowder, coming soon to BBC One.
Game Revealed
Last night, season seven of Game of Thrones came to an end. Luckily for us, the show lives on in this seven-part miniseries. Starting with the season premiere, the special will break down the making of every episode — from creating the White Walkers to picking those stunning locations — using interviews from the cast and crew and behind-the-scenes footage. New episodes will be available every Monday.
Wormwood
LSD. Mind control. A man's death. All under the oversight of the CIA in it's bizarre experiments during the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Under the guise of Cold War necessity, the secretive government agency had full reign to perform experiments without ethics or oversight. Wormwood stars Peter Sarsgaard and comes to Netflix December 15, 2017.
The Deuce
Taking queues from Ewan McGregor and Tom Hardy, James Franco plays twin brothers with mob ties for a new HBO series. From the creators of The Wire, The Deuce goes back to Times Square in the 70s when drugs, HIV, and porn were on the rise. Also starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, the series is set to premiere on September 10, 2017.
Black Mirror / Season 4
Prepare yourself. Six new stories of dystopian technology run amok, psychological horror, and dysfunctional society is coming with season four of Black Mirror. Black Mirror returns to Netflix this fall.
-
Punkt MP 01 Phone
No apps. No camera. No nonsense. Designed by Jasper Morrison for Switzerland-based Punkt, the MP 01 Phone is meant to put the spotlight back where it belongs: on calls and messages. The 2-inch LCD display — protected by Gorilla Glass — is ideal for dealing with SMS messages, and the built-in noise cancellation ensures that your conversations sound great. It does have Bluetooth, since hands-free setups are handy, but without the need for a bevy of other radios, battery life is fantastic (it only needs charging every few weeks, instead of every few hours), and the soft-touch finish and angled back plate make it a pleasure to hold. Not to mention, we could all use the occasional social-media detox. In Punkt's own words, this is offline as the new luxury.
Height: 4.58" / Width: 2" / Thickness: 0.6" / Weight: 3.1oz
Requires a low-cost 2G GSM plan.
Anicorn Series 000 Automatic Watch
Compliment your collection of Submariner's and Speedmaster's with something truly unique. The Series 000 from the independent, Hong-Kong based watchmaker Anicorn is housed in a 42mm stainless case with a sapphire crystal face and replaces traditional hand movements with concentric circles to tell the hour, minute, and seconds. It'd be easy to power the Series 000 with a battery, but Anicorn instead opted to pair this modern watch with a traditional automatic movement from Japan. A custom, Swiss-designed typeface ensures the watch is up to the standards of even the most design-obsessed. Each piece arrives with a blacked-out, unique serial number card and detailed instructions on how to tell the time using the circular markers. But you won't need that, right?
-
Behind The Frozen Lake Battle
Spoilers ahead. I think we can all agree that last night's Game of Thrones was what medieval zombie dreams are made of. All of our favorited characters, in the middle of a frozen lake, surrounded by hoards of White Walkers. While most of the landscapes were completely real, unfortunately, the zombie polar bear was not. In the latest behind-the-scenes featurette, show runners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss how all of the action was created for season seven's Beyond the Wall.
Electric Dreams
Philip K. Dick is a sci-fi writer. Some of his work has even been adapted into films. Do Blade Runner, Total Recall, or Minority Report ring a bell? Now, some of his stories have been reworked into an analog series. Consisting of ten standalone episodes, the Bryan Cranston production will cover everything from alien dads to humanoid pigs and a cast that includes Steve Buscemi, Anna Paquin, Terrence Howard, Janelle Monáe, and Cranston himself. An official release date has not been revealed, but streaming will be available Australian-based company Stan and Amazon Prime.
The Defenders
Marvel takes four heroes from four shows — Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and Iron Fist — and brings them all together in what might be peak Marvel. And what evil force would take this many superheros to be stopped? Sigourney Weaver, of course. The Defenders premieres on Netflix August 18, 2017.
Recreating the Loot Train Attack
There are a lot of references to other battle scenes in the epic dragon attack in Game of Thrones. From American westerns to Mongol invasions, napalm in Vietnam and the Spartans in 300, the writers drew from a lot of sources to create the scene. Nerdwriter digs up some of those references to recreate the loot train attack with shots from other films.
Game of Thrones Loot Train Attack
Spoiler warning. After years of waiting for these three dragons to grow up and their mom to find a place to finally use them in anger, HBO unleashed the nuclear option in "Spoils of War", the fourth episode of season seven. Dragon mom Daenerys met the Lannister army column escorting the haul from the sack of Highgarden — and all that was left was ashes. Cast and crew of Game of Thrones describe what it was like creating one of the biggest battles yet in a show full of them.
Room 104
Set in a typical American motel, the anthology series plays like a fly on the wall as 12 sets of occupants check in to room 104. With a revolving door of characters, you never know if you're going to get a drama, a comedy, or horror — but you can always guarantee it's going to get weird. Directed by Mark and Jay Duplass, the series has already premiered on HBO, with new episodes airing every Friday.
-
Narcos / Season 3
The King is dead. While Pablo Escobar's name might be scratched off the DEA's list, another cartel will rise to fill the void. Season three of Narcos follows the ascension of the Cali cartel and the effort to take them down. Narcos returns September 1, 2017 to Netflix.
Scoring TV's Weirdest Cartoon
Writing music for an alien bondage dream sequences might sound strange to you, but for Ryan Elder, it's just another day at the office. The composer scores the Cartoon Network series Rick and Morty, and if you've ever seen one of the episodes you know things get a little weird. Having never actually been to an alien band annihilation or an intergalactic race riot, Elder has to get creative to meet the demands of creator Dan Harmon's quirky imagination.
Mindhunter
For his second Netflix series, David Fincher is bringing the Mark Olshaker and John E. Douglas book Mind Hunter: Inside FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit to the small screen. The story takes place in 1979 and follows two FBI agents, played by Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany, as they get inside the minds of imprisoned serial killers to try to solve ongoing cases. From the looks of the trailer and Fincher's stacked resume, the series has real True Detective potential — season one, obviously. Available for streaming October 13, 2017.
Comrade Detective
Cheap explosions. Leather jackets. Cold War propaganda. Comrade Detective is everything you love about an 80s buddy cop drama — except it's completely in Romanian. In this new Amazon series, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Nick Offerman have re-dubbed the show into a six-episode comedy where detectives Gregor Anghel and Joseph Baciu solve murders and exploit capitalists plots at the same time. The Prime exclusive will be ready for streaming August 4, 2017.
Game of Thrones: Battling the Silence
Spoilers ahead. Taking over a continent is never easy, especially when it's the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Yara Greyjoy found that out when she was ambushed by her uncle in a massive naval battle in episode two season seven of Game of Thrones. HBO takes you behind the scenes to show what it takes to turn a parking lot into a huge fight between sailing ships.
The Orville
Imagine The Office — in space. Assigned to a middling exploration vessel, Captain Ed Mercer assembles a middling crew, with the exception of his first officer who happens to be his ex-wife. Along with the thrill of new planets and life forms, the joy of being trapped in a tin-can at the speed of light and learning how to get along is the most rewarding discovery. Created by and starring Seth MacFarlane, The Orville premieres fall 2017.
Westworld / Season 2
There's some cleaning up to be done at Westworld yet — and whether humans or robots do the cleaning is anyone's guess. The trailer for season two of HBO's Westworld leaves the plot suitably murky, but there are a certain black-hatted villain and a familiar player piano who will definitely be making appearances. Westworld to airwaves in 2018.
Stranger Things / Season 2
Probably the best thing to come out of Comic Con is our first look at season two of Stranger Things. It appears that Eleven and the whole gang is back (minus Barb of course) and judging from the Ghostbusters costumes, there will be no shortage of glorious 80s sci-fi references. Catch back up with the residents of Hawkins, Indianan and how they're dealing with the aftermath of the Upside Down when the series returns for streaming October 27, 2017.
