Ali moiz

Oscar-nominated Ray of Pure Joy and Light Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is one of the best superhero movies of all time. It’s a movie so visually stunning, that we just couldn’t wait to get our hands on its accompanying art book to learn just how one of the most inventive animated features of recent memory came to be—and it’s packed with cool little details about the making of the film. Advertisement 1) The production team had a very cute (but grim) name for Earth-1610's Peter Parker. The practically perfect Spider-Man we and Miles meet early on in Spider-Verse—voiced by Chris Pine, in a major boost to his rankings among the Hollywood Chrises—exists in the movie to...well, die. Given that his limited role is defined by the fact he needs to fall in battle in front of a young, recently powered-up Miles led to the team behind the film giving this version of Spidey a rather grim nickname: RIPeter. Get it? Advertisement 2) Mahershala … [Read more...] about 8 of the Coolest Details We Learned From

Online dating apps, pornography, advertising, and the continued existence of the human race all testify to a healthy, ongoing interest in sex among human beings, despite the fact that millennials appear to be having less of it. Until the day pills or radiation extinguish the last embers of human horniness, sex will likely continue to shape and govern society in all kinds of ways. It’s worth wondering, though, what a world without a sex drive might look like. How would it affect the way we interact with one another? What would it mean for the environment? And with the species potentially at risk of extinction, would it be ethical for governments to intervene in some way? To address these questions in this week’s Giz Asks, we reached out to a number of sociologists, population scientists and bioethicists with a range of opinions, who among other things pointed out that “sex” and “sex drive” haven’t always historically had a lot to do with one … [Read more...] about What Would Happen If Everyone in the World Lost Their Sex Drive?

Film is a trickster’s medium, an illusion of an illusion. Though it purports to capture objective fact—as if holding it for ransom—there are few things as subjective as a frame. “It is said that the camera cannot lie,” wrote James Baldwin in The Devil Finds Work, “but rarely do we allow it to do anything else, since the camera sees what you point it at: the camera sees what you want it to see.” Gina Apostol’s novel Insurrecto is a tale of dual visions and dueling scripts, one written by an American filmmaker, Chiara Brasi, and the other by a Filipino writer and translator, Magsalin. Magsalin isn’t given a last name, and this reader suspects that her first is a fake one: magsalin, we are told, means to translate in Tagalog. She is what she does in the eyes of the white foreigner, what she does for her. Translation is a precarious occupation, a profession historically populated by people in slavery or servitude who, defeated by enemy … [Read more...] about The Fractured Politics of Naming

Last year was a great year for movies and it looks like 2018 is going to be the same. Let’s face it, though—we may want everything on this list to be good, Very bad. But who knows? Best to just drum up some optimism and take a look at all of the genre films coming to theaters in 2018 (that we know of). Note: All dates are subject to change. January Insidious: The Last Key The Insidious franchise is back and this time, Elise (Lin Shaye) will have to deal with the demons not just from the Further, but her past too. We’ve seen it and it’s very different from what you’re expecting—in a good way. (Jan. 5) Paddington 2 The first Paddington was a very solid, entertaining, and ultimately underrated piece of family entertainment. Warner Bros. purchased the rights to the sequel, which is a very good sign. (Jan. 12) Mary and the Witch’s Flower If you ever wondered, “What would a Harry Potter movie look like if it was made by Studio Ghibli?” … [Read more...] about io9’s Guide to All the Movies You Should Give a Damn About in 2018

The Middle East is roasting right now. Last week, an unprecedented ‘heat dome’ descended over a vast region from Dubai to Beirut, and there’s no sign of it breaking anytime soon. Last Friday in the Iranian city of Bandar Mahshahr, the air felt like 165º F (74ºC). As The Washington Post notes, this is the second highest heat index ever reported, period. (The actual air temperature, minus humidity, was closer to 115ºF, or 46ºC.) This week, temperatures in the southern Iraqi city of Basra are expected to hover around 123ºF, rising a bit on the weekend, The Guardian reports. In Lebanon, temperatures will stay in the 90s, but high humidity levels are making it feel much hotter. Advertisement The hellish temperatures are due to a meteorological phenomenon known as a ‘heat dome’ — a high pressure ridge that develops in the upper atmosphere, forcing the air below it to sink and compress. In many cities, the heat has has been made … [Read more...] about “Heat Dome” In the Middle East Creates Insanely High Temperatures

Last week, NBC and CNNMoney reports described a 24/7 “ISIS Help Desk,” staffed with devoted jihadis providing round-the-clock tech support for wannabe ISIS propagandists. The story was picked up and aggregated by news outlets. Their headlines are wholly inaccurate. While West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center did release a report that described ISIS’s decentralized, multi-platform recruit outreach forums as a metaphorical “help desk,” there is no evidence of an actual terrorist call center or hotline, and the CTC didn’t claim that there was. Yet that’s how it was reported. The story of how that happened illustrates just how much is at stake when the media reports on ISIS without proper translation or vetting–and how getting the story straight matters. Advertisement Screenshot of news outlets reblogging the “Jihadi Hotline” story I called CTC researcher Aaron F. Brantly to discuss the “help desk” … [Read more...] about There Is No 24/7 ISIS Help Desk