Cultrface – a blog dedicated to culture and how it enriches our lives.

A visual history of Senator Kelly's brief mutant life in X-Men

Senator Kelly's Death Scene | X-Men (2000) Movie Clip HD 4K

I loved X-Men as a kid but my opinion of it (and the subsequent movies) haven’t aged well since. They were… of their time, shall we say. But one thing that continues to intrigue me is the story arc of Senator Robert Kelly getting transformed by Magneto’s Conversion Machine and becoming a mutant. Kinda. He was imprisoned at the time and managed to escape, with his power being able to take the form of water. But his mutation was unstable, the X-Men tried to help him and he dissolved/melted/passed away in Storm’s arms. Even if he was anti-mutant, I did feel kinda sorry for him.

Jen Glennon, for Inverse, looked at how this arc was all put together from a visual effects perspective:

“This was just an idea I had. Nobody knew if it was going to work,” Fink says. “This is what you do in visual effects quite often — you make up things that you’re absolutely confident you’re going to work, but you really have no idea because nobody’s ever done it before. So you’re always kind of standing with your fingers crossed behind your back when the director shows up.”

Dissolving Kelly also gave Fink and the visual effects team on X-Men the opportunity to break new ground with photogrammetry, which uses high-resolution photographs to construct 3D environment models. Consistent lighting across all elements of this sequence made it far easier for the compositor to seamlessly blend digital and practical effects in post-production.

Paul Reubens (1952–2023)

Paul Reubens sadly passed away on Sunday 30th July at the age of 70 after a bout of cancer. He was best known for his iconic role as Pee-wee Herman as well as roles in Batman Returns (as Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin’s father), 30 Rock, The Blacklist, Pushing Daisies, and the voice of Bat-Mite in various DC Comics media.

Deleted scenes from The Fabulous Baker Boys

The Fabulous Baker Boys is my second favourite movie behind Batman Returns but despite having watched it a million times, I had no idea there were deleted scenes. Until today.

Unfortunately, I can’t embed the video of all three so you can watch them on YouTube.

  • The first deleted scene shows a different and extended version of the brothers deciding to go with Susie Diamond. Notably, Jack has more dialogue when convincing his brother to go with Susie over the other auditionees.
  • The second deleted scene shows the trio rehearsing ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ but Susie has trouble getting her voice heard over the brothers’ overpowering piano play.
  • The final deleted scene shows the trio enter the King’s Manor, where they would be performing on New Year’s Eve, to “get to know the hotel”. Susie has an idea involving a “dramatic” lights-on introduction.

What did Ancient Romans drink?

I’ve written about Ancient Romans and their eating habits with things like stuffed dates and a disdain for eating butter. But what did they drink? Let’s look at what the internet says!

  • Corinium Museum mentions a drink called “posca” (not to be confused with the pens), a beverage made from diluted vinegar and mainly drunk by soldiers and enslaved people. This was in comparison to the wines consumed copiously by the elite. It’s believed that Jesus was given this drink while he was on the cross.
  • Although the Romans thought of beer as a barbarian drink, that didn’t stop Roman Emperor Julian (361–363) from writing a poem “extolling the virtues of wine as a nectar while noting that beer smelled like a goat“. There was also evidence of brewing, found in places such as Germany.
  • While some of us indulge in mulled wine during the winter, some Romans indulged in a spiced warm water drink called calda (source)
  • There was also a honey wine called mulsum which was usually served as an aperitif (source)
  • You could also have a glass of apsinthium which was a bitter “wormwood-flavored forerunner of absinthe” which people were addicted to apparently.

Were there any significant cultural or religious rituals associated with drinking in ancient Rome?

You may have seen GIFs of Black African-Americans pouring liquor on the ground in honour of a dead friend or relative (known colloquially as “pouring one out“). This derives from an ancient ritual called a libation where people would pour drinks in the name of gods and that’s exactly what the Romans did with their wine. Festivals like the Bacchanalia and the Saturnalia also involved wine-fueled celebrations.

Daniel Lavery on 'How To Make Kathy Bates Happy If You Happen To Be In "Misery"'

Daniel was doing the Lord’s work when he put this list together:

You have the easiest job in the world ahead of you! This woman owns her own home, runs her own farm, and has the most incredible matched cardigan skirt sets that I’m positive are carded cashmere. And all she wants to do is bring you scrambled eggs in bed, tell you that you’re the greatest writer in the world, and never to be reminded of her occasional black bouts of memory-obliterating rage! You can do this!

I’ve yet to watch Misery but I’ve seen the final scenes which made me laugh and oddly soothed in parts. What do you mean that sounds sadistic? Kathy Bates deserved her Oscar.

Phil Edwards on why VHS won

A long time ago, I wrote about why Betamax lost. 2 months ago, Phil Edwards made a video on why VHS won which you can watch above. I also recommend that you read the video description as Phil has added a list of links to follow, examining the difference between VHS and Betamax which might explain further why VHS won out in the end.

VHS related: Farside: the Toronto bar turning into a VHS rental store and 5 retro videos from The VHS Vault

Trailer for They Cloned Tyrone

They Cloned Tyrone | Official Teaser | Netflix

When I saw John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx with the Blackest hairstyles imaginable in a sci-fi film about cloning and the government, I was immediately in. They Cloned Tyrone will be available to stream on Netflix on 21st July.

Related: Black Film Archive and Ashley Clark’s Afrofuturist film series on Criterion Channel

The Terror: a horror film starring Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson

Another case of falling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and finding something new and interesting. In this case, it was LOTR meme > Christopher Lee > Boris Karloff > The Terror, a 1963 horror film starring the British actor alongside Jack Nicholson. Besides the fact that it was one of Karloff’s last films and he starred with Jack Nicholson (which seems like an odd pairing on paper), it’s the part where Nicholson played a French Napoleonic officer. In an American accent. But who am I to split hairs, it’s a horror movie about a lost soldier who gets seduced by a shapeshifting devil.

Roger Corman (A Bucket of Blood, The Little Shop of Horrors, X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes) directed the movie but there were also uncredited scenes filmed by Francis Ford Coppola amongst others. While the film wasn’t well received (if you take Rotten Tomatoes seriously for that kind of thing), it is in the public domain which is nice. And Nicholson didn’t hate it:

I had a great time. Paid the rent. They don’t make movies like The Terror anymore.

via wikipedia

Even if The Los Angeles Times called it “spooky” with a “slow, lazy plot”. Sounds about right for a 60s horror, no?

Stream it below.

The Terror (1963) HD | Boris Karloff & Jack Nicholson | Horror, Thriller | Full Movie

Horror related: The Morning News’s “Secret Horror” movie list, Mental Floss’s top 25 horror comedies of all time, and Stalker: the fatal movie of Andrei Tarkovsky

Sheer yakh: a traditional Afghan dessert

Sheer yakh, ice cream on a plate covered with chopped pistachios
image credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh4mimZy-uI

Sheer yakh is an ice cream dessert from Afghanistan, traditionally made with milk, sugar, and various other flavourings such as vanilla, rose water and cardamom. While it appears similar to an Indian kulfi ice cream, the preparation is different.

Sheer yakh is usually topped with chopped nuts like pistachios, almonds and served in small bowls.

Recipes

5124.GreyKey: the story of José Carlos Grey-Molay, one of the only Black Holocaust survivors

José Carlos Grey-Molay, also known as Carlos Greykey, was a Black man from Spain who was one of the only Black Holocaust survivors. A documentary was made about his life, narrated by his daughter.

Inspired by a “nostalgia” for old family photo albums and described by its creators as a “small tribute to all the Spanish republicans who passed through the concentration camps”, Enric Ribes’ engrossing documentary 5124.GREYKEY uses retro techniques, recreated home movies and personal/archival photography to visualise a daughter’s memories of an enigmatic father. Parents are often mysterious creatures for their children, but for Muriel a series of small discoveries lead her to understand the troubled past of her father José Carlos and to finally understand why he always wore a shirt and trousers to the beach.

As one of the only Black men known to have been imprisoned at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, the life of José Carlos Grey-Molay has, for decades, been of interest to historians of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The historic archive contains two pictures of the young José Carlos dressed in formal-looking attire at the camp, as well as stories of a Black man from Barcelona – described as ‘not only handsome but also cultivated’ – who confused the prejudices of his Nazi captors, but little else was known about him.

via Aeon

(via Open Culture and Short of the Week)