Christopher Lantz

Could Patton Oswalt’s multi-verse vision for the next Star Wars film actually become a reality? Redditor Criticalbuzz made this colorful mock-up poster in homage to Oswalt’s The Gauntlet of Infinity.

In this video tutorial, photographer Rob Turney demonstrates how to make refractographs—beautiful photos of refracted light. Refractography requires no digital trickery and no lens—just a camera, light source, and an object that refracts light (marble, wine glass, and so on). For more examples of refractography, check out Turney’s gallery and the Refractography Flickr group.

via PetaPixel

photos by Rob Turney

The sixth annual Quidditch World Cup took place on April 13th-14th in Kissimee, Florida. Quidditch, based on the fictional sport played atop broomsticks from the Harry Potter book series by J.K. Rowling, was first created in 2005 at Middlebury College in Vermont. Since, the once-fictional sport has evolved into an intercollegiate and international sport governed by the International Quidditch Assoaciation (IQA), and thousands gather every year to participate in and watch the World Cup. Quidditch has its own official rule book, and players still ride broomsticks and play with a quaffle, snitch, and multiple bludgers. The University of Texas at Austin Quidditch team were the champions of the 2013 World Cup.

via The Atlantic

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(via HijiNKS ENSUE – A Geek Comic - Make It So / As You Wish)

You are more beautiful than you think.

As part of Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign, the company conducted a social experiment demonstrating that, although only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful, they are more beautiful than they think. In the experiment, women describe themselves to an FBI trained sketch artist who then draws their self-critical portrait. Strangers are asked to describe the same woman to the sketch artist, who then shows the women the marked difference between how they perceive themselves and how others see them.

images via Dove Real Beauty Sketches

via Coudal

A rotating light source causes a bizarre visual effect on a woman’s face in this short video by Madrid-based director Nacho Guzmán. The video is a teaser for Guzmán’s upcoming music video for the song “Sparkles and Wine” by French electronic duo Opale.

via Xatakafoto, PetaPixel

via http://thisisnthappiness.com/post/11939719266/jonathan-jacques-belletete

Though Fergie‘s contribution to the The Great Gatsby soundtrack insists that “a little party never killed nobody,” anyone who’s read the book will know that’s not exactly how things turn out for Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his pals. But until the consequences come, you can bet they’ll take her suggestion to “dance until we drop.”

While the earlier trailers have played up the tragedy of Gatsby’s tale, the latest one mostly emphasizes the hardcore partying. That means fast cars, fancy boats, sparkling diamonds, glitter by the bucketful, and all the booze one could possibly want. Watch the video after the jump.

As The Playlist puts it, it’s basically “Jazz Age Spring Breakers.” The comparison isn’t totally absurd. Both films deal with the tragedy of the American Dream, though Gatsby prefers to show off his wealth with beautiful shirt instead of with shorts in every color.

In typical form, Luhrmann isn’t setting all those lavish parties to the jazz music of the era. (Or at least, not just to period-appropriate music.) Instead, he’s filled out the soundtrack with more modern tunes from Fergie, Beyonce, Lana del Rey, Florence + the Machine, The XX, Gotye, and Jay-Z. The choice is bound to inspire some grumbling, but I’m hoping it’ll bring a fresh perspective to the old tale.

The Great Gatsby hits May 10. Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Debicki, Joel Edgerton, and Isla Fisher also star.

“The Great Gatsby” follows Fitzgerald-like, would-be writer Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz and bootleg kings. Chasing his own American Dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy (Carey Mulligan) and her philandering, blue-blooded husband, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super rich, their illusions, loves and deceits. As Nick bears witness, within and without the world he inhabits, he pens a tale of impossible love, incorruptible dreams and high-octane tragedy, and holds a mirror to our own modern times and struggles.

• ‘The Great Gatsby’ International Trailer: “Is All This Made Entirely From Your Own Imagination?”
• ‘The Great Gatsby’ Trailer: Leonardo DiCaprio Is the Ultimate Self-Made Man
• ‘The Great Gatsby’ Gets Six Character Posters and Two TV Spots
• ‘The Great Gatsby’ Trailer: Jay Gatsby Narrates His History as An American Icon
• ‘The Great Gatsby’ Trailer – Baz Lurhmann and Leonardo DiCaprio Tackle the Ultimate American Tale
• Gemma Ward and Callan McAuliffe Cast in ‘The Great Gatsby’

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Voices of Learning with Sarah Silverman is a new series on web comedy channel JASH where Sarah Silverman shares enlightening tidbits of wisdom. In episode one, one thing she shares is, “Look, I don’t know everything but I do know that penises shouldn’t taste medicine-y.”

On an episode of Speakeasy by Made Man, host and comedian Paul F. Tompkins assists actress Alison Brie as she attempts to imitate popular internet memes and create unsexy animated GIFs.

The ‘Mad Men‘ and ‘Community‘ star successfully takes on Grumpy Cat, Overly Attached Girlfriend, Ermahgerd and Unflattering Beyoncé. Her Hadouken pose doesn’t end quite as successfully as it starts, however. Alison also stems the tide of sexy GIFs by creating some of her own. Does she succeed, or only add fuel to the fire?

via Gawker

photo via The Illuminator

Following explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, the NYC Light Brigade and The Illuminator projected supportive images like “Brooklyn loves Boston,” “Peace and Love,” and “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that,” on the side of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Peter Jay Sharp building.

photo via Lucky Tran

photo via StopMotionsolo

via Gothamist

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via http://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/9/11321364229

For BB pals Gil and Steph, here's a fan-made video for alt-country group Lambchop's wonderful folky, loungy cover of "This Corrosion," the epic 1987 triumph of goth bombast by The Sisters of Mercy. And if it makes you yearn for some Sisters, check out the original video below.

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In an excellent NYT story, Sarah Lyall reports on "lights-out London" -- the phenomenon whereby ultra-wealthy foreigners (often from corrupt plutocracies like Kazakhstan and Russia) are buying up whole neighbourhoods in London, driving up house-prices beyond the reach of locals, and then treating their houses as holiday homes. They stay for a couple weeks once or twice a year, leaving whole neighbourhoods vacant and shuttered through most of the year, which kills the local businesses and turns central London into something of a ghost town.

“Some of the richest people in the world are buying property here as an investment,” [Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour opposition in Westminster Council] said. “They may live here for a fortnight in the summer, but for the rest of the year they’re contributing nothing to the local economy. The specter of new buildings where there are no lights on is a real problem...”

Meanwhile, prices are rising beyond expectation. For single-family housing in the prime areas of London, British buyers spend an average of $2.25 million, Ms. Barnes said, while foreign buyers spend an average of $3.75 million, which increases to $7.5 million if they are from Russia or the Middle East...

The most visible, and also the most notorious, of the new developments is One Hyde Park, a $1.7 billion apartment building of stratospheric opulence on a prime corner in Knightsbridge, near Harvey Nichols, the park and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which functions as a 24-hour concierge service for residents. Apartments there have been purchased mostly by foreign buyers who hide their identities behind murky offshore companies registered to tax havens like the Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands.

It is rare to see anyone coming to or going from the complex, and British newspapers have been trying since it opened two years ago to discover who lives there. Vanity Fair reported recently that as far as it could discern after a long trawl through records, the owners seem to include a cast of characters who might have come from a poker game in a James Bond movie: a Russian property magnate, a Nigerian telecommunications tycoon, the richest man in Ukraine, a Kazakh copper billionaire, someone who may or may not be a Kazkh singer and the head of finance for the emirate of Sharjah.

A Slice of London So Exclusive Even the Owners Are Visitors [NYT/Sarah Lyall]

(via Beyond the Beyond)

Ever wonder what Darth Vader’s most famous quote from The Empire Strikes Back sounds like in other languages?

via http://shelbot.tumblr.com/page/4

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Lol by: Unknown (via Tumblr)

Ordinary commuters are transformed into celebrities, cartoon characters, and animals with the help of a strategically positioned newspaper in these hilarious photos by an anonymous London commuter. According to the Daily Mail, the mystery photographer takes the photos to entertain coworkers. For more photos, see this gallery at Shortlist Magazine.

via gallery at Shortlist Magazine, New York Daily News, Phoblographer, PetaPixel

photos via Rex USA

Zach Prewitt, creator of this supercut of movie temper tantrums, has created a new supercut of characters with their backs to the camera looking out at something amazing. Science fiction and fantasy movies and television shows seem to make particularly frequent use of this type of shot, though the supercut includes plenty of films outside those two genres.

via Annapurna Pictures, io9