Link Dump

Just clearing the baffles before embarking on this year’s Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon with some interesting links from the internets:

• 90 Branzinos Later: The Story Behind The Amazing Spider-Man’s Awkward Dinner – The amount of work that goes into a single shot of a bad movie is still pretty amazing (and far more impressive than most criticism of said bad movies, including mine).
  

  Consider the branzino. The Spider-Man scene originally called for Peter to be unnerved by the fish’s eye staring back up at him — something that’s not possible with the real-life dish, where the eyes melt in the oven. White found himself having to painstakingly remove one eye from each raw fish, then place it back in a roasted socket. The scene also needed one of Gwen’s little brothers to expertly debone the fish for Peter, a task that had to be as easy as possible for the child actor. White took a pair of scissors and made a few tiny, imperceptible cuts that allowed the kid to pull the bone out as if he were a Michelin-starred chef. He did this for every fish, for every take, alongside cooking the entrees for everyone else’s plate, as well. Sadly, neither moment made the final cut.

  To repeat, it’s not even in the film. Crazy. See also: The Problem Solving of Filmmaking (linked in the previous Link Dump)

• The Day the World Didn’t End – You may have heard of the story about the Soviet officer who got a missile launch warning but basically saved the world by not acting on it; this is a more detailed account of that story, with context usually missing from the story.
• How To Make the Perfect Burger – Pretty much the platonic ideal of a How To Basic video. Perfect amount of innocuous content before it gets… weird. Wait for it. (I hope you like pickles.)
• The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge – An almost absurd story:
  

  Over the next four years, the law professor would be drawn into a “campaign of fraud, extortion, and false accusations,” as one of his lawyers would later say in legal proceedings. At one point, Hay’s family would be left suddenly homeless. At another, owing to what his lawyer has described as the “weaponiz[ation] of the university’s Title IX machinery against Hay,” he would find himself indefinitely suspended from his job. He would accrue over $300,000 in legal bills with no end to the litigation in sight. “Maria-Pia and Mischa want money,” Hay told me last summer, “but only for the sake of squeezing it out of people — it’s the exertion of power.”

• Very specific ways I eat snacks – Relatable.
• Yoba Skywalker Starwars goes to infinity and beyond | Monster Factory – You wouldn’t think that two dorks making a custom character in Star Trek online would be great, but then, you’d be wrong.
• Steamed Hams But It’s Directed By Quentin Tarantino – Goes on longer than you’d expect; gotta respect the committment to the bit.
• Quentin Tarantino’s Best Scene Has Almost No Words and Just Nine Shots – Speaking of Tarantino, this deep dive into the opening shots of Jackie Brown is very good.

And that’s all for now, stay tuned for some silent horror as the Six Weeks of Halloween kicks off next week!