The Marvel movie Deadpool opens February 12. You might not know all that much about the character if you haven’t been reading comics. He’s not exactly a superhero as we understand the term, although he does have powers.
Deadpool's basic character arc revolves around the question of whether he will ultimately become a hero or remain an anti-hero mired in senseless violence. From the beginning, he openly longs for redemption but feels he can't earn it because he's done too many bad things in his life, that he's fated to be a "monster." But the number of bad things Deadpool has done generally pale in comparison to the bad things that have been done to him.
Oh, and apparently he doesn't look all that good under his mask. An article at The Daily Dot explains that and the character’s comic book background, to get us all up to speed for the movie.
Wouldn’t you love to go see Dr. Lamar, who heals boo-boos with nom-noms? This billboard in Milwaukee grabbed a lot of attention. The website on the billboard is actually for the company that rents out billboards. They just proved how effective nonsense advertising can be! -via reddit
By saving bananas and training pigs, these historical innovators improved their lives, made millions, and prevented nuclear catastrophe.
(Image credit: Byron Eggenschwiler)
1. Look for treasure where others see trash.
In 1895, Samuel Zemurray arrived in Mobile, Alabama, and discovered a fresh business opportunity ready for the picking: He noticed that ripe bananas coming off ships were tossed after arriving at the port because they couldn’t be delivered to markets fast enough. Rather than let the freckled bananas rot, Zemurray, who had $150 to spare, bought them cheaply and sold them along the rail lines. Within three years, the practice made him a whopping $100,000—the equivalent of $2.8 million today. He became one of the richest men in the South and would later go on to lead United Fruit Company, the biggest such business in the world.
2. Carry one stone at a time.
An 18th-century courier, Simeon Ellerton had the odd habit of picking up big stones he found on his route and balancing them on his head. Each day, Ellerton wore the stones back home until, finally, he had a pile big enough to build a stone cottage. When Ellerton finished building his rocky home, he continued carrying stones atop his noggin—he felt naked without them. Whenever anybody asked why he balanced rocks on his skull, he answered, “’Tis to keep on my hat!”
The 1980 movie Airplane! was a parody of the disaster films so popular at that time. Written and directed by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, it placed a whole slew of dramatic actors into a generic plot and had them deliver non-stop one liners, puns, and sight gags through the entire movie -all in deadpan seriousness. It became an infinitely-quotable classic. Vulture, delving deeper into their 100 jokes timeline, sat down with Abrahams and the two Zuckers to talk about how the movie came about, including the line, “Don’t call me Shirley.”
Jerry Zucker: The origin of that joke is similar to the origin of a lot of jokes in the movie: While we were writing, we used to watch a lot of old, serious movies that had a lot of this overly dramatic dialogue. We’d say, “Wait, wait, wait. Stop the tape,” and we’d go back and we’d put in our punch line or our gag in the background. That was one of those lines where someone actually did say, “Surely you can’t be serious.” David Zucker: The other person might have even said, “I am serious.” But we added the “Don’t call me Shirley.”
Jimmy Kimmel staged a reunion of he medical drama ER last night on his show. George Clooney was there, but could Kimmel get anyone else to show up? Yes, but it wasn’t who you’d expect.
What’s remarkable about this skit is its total insanity. The script would have been funny if they’d stuck to it, but they didn’t, and that was even better. -via Tastefully Offensive
It seems that the city that wins the Super Bowl sees a spike in births exactly nine months later. Isn't that sweet. The NFL collected a whole bunch of those babies together to sing a song to promote the 50th Super Bowl. They are dressed in the colors of their winning team.
They are singing about their own origins to the tune of the 1994 song “Kiss from a Rose” by Seal, who joins in to sing along. They do a really good job, except for the class of 2014, who are still a little too young to learn the lyrics. -via Viral Viral Videos
We thought the Pitch Drop experiments took a long time, but a botany experiment at Michigan State University started in 1879, and is scheduled to continue until the year 2100! Dr. William James Beal wanted to find out how long weed seeds can lay dormant and still germinate. So he buried 20 bottles of seeds in a secret location. Each bottle contains 50 seeds each of 23 different plant species. The original idea was to dig up a bottle every five years and plant the seeds to see how many would germinate. But along the way, the time between each bottle was extended -twice- so now a bottle is dug up only every 20 years. Dr. Frank Telewski and Dr. Jan Zeevaart last dug one up in 2000.
Fifteen bottles in, the clear winner is Verbascum blattaria, or moth mullein, a splay-flowered weed common throughout the United States. Verbascum has popped up consistently in every bottle, and “of the 50 seeds of that particular plant, 23 of them germinated” in 2000, says Telewski, a “phenomenal” result. Distant second place goes to Malva rotundifolia, a round-leafed mallow nicknamed “cheeses” after its wedgelike seeds. Only one of those seeds sprouted in 2000.
Dr. Telewski was a graduate student when the 1980 bottle was retrieved. He is now looking forward to being there in 2020 for the next one. Read the story of the continuing seed experiment at Atlas Obscura.
Those little balls of fried corn fluff covered in orange powder are so addictive, you’ll never know what hit you until it’s too late. Then you’ll need an intervention from those who love you, and if you've truly hit rock bottom, you might be ready for a serious stint in rehab. And although you may recover, you’ll never be the same. This is the latest from Jim Benton at Tumblr. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Coffee is the nectar of life. Or at least, the nectar of the morning. And it’s not too bad after dinner, either. You already drink it; now learn some facts about your coffee. Like how people used to eat the beans instead of drinking an infusion. Yuck. Nick Greene (see the extra “e,” no relation to John Green) guest hosts the mental_floss List Show.
After a trip to the grocery store, Jun (previously at Neatorama) cooks an omelet with chicken and rice while Haku watches respectfully from the top of the refrigerator. I wish my knives were that sharp, maybe I'd try that trick of rendering the chicken skin instead of using pre-skinned chicken as a shortcut. No way would my cats behave so well when chicken is on the menu.
It was hard to decide whether this should go into the Neatolicious sub-blog or the Lifestyles of the Cute and Cuddly sub-blog. While I got into the video because of the cat, I ended up hungry, so it goes with the recipes. -via reddit
Psychopaths just. Don’t. Care. They operate outside the entire moral and social structure we’ve built for civilization, while they understand that structure well enough to exploit it for their own ends. You never want to get involved with this type of person in real life, but in movies? There they can be a lot of fun, since you’re not personally affected. Except for the nightmares they bring. Or if they remind you of someone you know. But most of the time, we can enjoy watching someone so clever and amoral that they illustrate the ultimate villain, one that you can’t reason with or outmaneuver. Like Max Cady in Cape Fear.
Max Cady somehow believes that the “she was asking for it” defense is appropriate to counter accusations of rape. I’ve seen like 2.5 episodes of Law & Order, and even I know that just ain’t the case. In Scorsese’s Cape Fear, Robert DeNiro portrays the psychopathic rapist, a job he did so well that it earned him a Best Actor nomination. Cady’s determination and willingness to brutally abuse and rape women much weaker than himself earn him a spot on this list of memorable movie psychos. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
DeNiro was terrifying in the role, but Robert Mitchum in the 1962 version deserves a shoutout because he induced chills with just a look. The character is one of 13 movie psychopaths ranked at TVOM (with videos). Just reading about them will remind you of how you felt when you first met them.
Zookeepers in many places hold drills to practice catching an escaped animal, but zoos in Japan have elevated such drills to public relations events, with a zookeeper wearing an animal costume playing the escapee. The Tama Zoo had a drill featuring a zebra in 2013, but the last time the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo held a drill using a zebra was in 2008, so it was time to do it again. In this year’s drill, one zookeeper had a "heart attack," while another was "injured" by the zebra.
“The zebra is an animal that easily panics,” said Yumi Tamura, 27, who dressed as the zebra but usually cares for gorillas and monkeys.
“I myself felt panicky when acting it out,” she told reporters.
Bill Wurtz compressed the history of Japan into nine minutes. Those nine minutes fly by as momentous changes happen. He saves time by dispensing with things like names and dates, because you wouldn’t remember them anyway. By the time you’re through, you’ll remember just enough to want more. Contains a small amount of NSFW language.
Wurtz simplifies huge events into humorous, rapid-fire exchanges, but there are a couple of times when the narrative just screeches to a halt, because the subject at hand calls for just that. And it works. This is an overall masterpiece. -via reddit
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
When you say "best" concerning movies, or any other art form, you get into the area of aesthetics. And as we all know, aesthetics are pretty much entirely subjective.
We can all agree that two plus four equals six or that the Golden Gate bridge is in San Francisco or that most dogs have four legs- we agree, of course, because these are all clearly observable and provable "facts.” But if a guy claims that, say, Porky's 3 is a better film than Citizen Kane or that Bananarama are a better group than the Beatles, all we can really do is shrug our shoulders in justifiable frustration.
That said, I maintain that Elvis Presley's second film Loving You is his finest film (and if not, it's my favorite Elvis film- it always has been).
Elvis reported for work on Loving You January 21, 1957, having recently turned 22. Previous titles considered were Lonesome Cowboy, Something for the Girls, and Running Wild (the title Ed Sullivan used to plug the film on Elvis' last guest appearance on his show).
Elvis had been disappointed in the results of his film debut Love Me Tender, which he had filmed a few months earlier. After having been loaned out for Love Me Tender, Loving You was to be Elvis' first film for Paramount, his longtime future studio home.
Its supporting cast was very good, if not stellar, including the beautiful Lizabeth Scott, Wendell Cory, Paul Smith, James Gleason, and future cloistered nun Dolores Hart, in her film debut as Elvis' love interest.
Loving You was to be a semi-autobiographical study of Elvis, who plays Deke Rivers, a delivery boy who gets discovered by a semi-unscrupulous manager (Scott) and becomes a popular singing sensation. Sound familiar?
