STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

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McLaren Honors F1 Legend Ayrton Senna With 3 One-Off $1.4M XP Supercars

In 2018, McLaren decided to honor the prolific F1 driver, Ayrton Senna, with a limited, 500-model run of supercars. They were lauded as the most track-focused road faring examples that the manufacturer had ever produced, and before hitting the production line, the vehicles had sold out entirely, leaving collectors who were late to inquire without a means of recourse. Now, the company has announced the Senna XP Exclusive Edition, a trio of platforms honoring the driver’s greatest victories.

The Senna XP supercar is a testament to the life of the late F1 pilot, honoring his most decisive races and podium finishes by dressing each car in a livery that demarcates the hosting countries’ colors of the corresponding Grand Prix. The first, a black, gray, and red Master of Monaco edition, celebrates Senna’s six wins at the circuit — five of which were consecutive victories. The next, a blue, red and black Lap of the Gods edition, recalls Senna’s 5th-to-1st victory at Donington Park in the UK during the 1993 season. And the final edition — a green, yellow, and black platform dubbed Home Victory — recognizes Ayrton’s home country of Brazil and his first home win in 1991. If you’re interested in acquiring one of your own, you should head to O’Gara Coach and McLaren Beverly Hills’ website, where the trio is available exclusively for $1,435,328 each.

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Huawei Sound X

Huawei have teamed up with Devialet (creators of the iconic Phantom Reactor Speaker) for the gorgeous looking Sound X smart speaker. The Huawei Sound X has a 60W Dewar dual-subwoofer design and is built for 360-degree sound (as loud as 93dB), although it can also be stereo paired. It also features six 1.5-inch full range speakers, virtual 5.1 home theater sound effects, one-touch control, HiLink smart home control, supports Hi-Res audio, supports smartphone and voice control, and smartly adjusts the sound output to suit the environment that it is placed in.

 

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CASA DRAGONES JOVEN TEQUILA

Toast to the holidays with the gift of handcrafted quality and authentic Mexican craftsmanship. Casa Dragones Joven is a small batch, master blend of 100% Blue Agave silver and extra-aged tequila, rested in new American oak barrels for five years. The process results in a complex, smooth sipper that is perfect to pair with your next meal. The tequila arrives in a hand-engraved crystal decanter housed within a beautiful blue gift box. $285

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This Isn't How I Wanted Street Trucks To Come Back

Source: Jalopnik

Think there are too many kinds of milk these days? Relate to the protagonists of Bon Jovi ballads with no sense of irony? Saddle up steel cowboy, and climb into this bitchin’ pickup truck with 770 HP and an interior to match your ill-fitting pleather jacket.

I love a hot street truck as much as the next Coors Light-crushing American–in fact, pour one on the pavement for the deceased SVT Lightning–but the Shelby F-150 Super Snake Sport here looks like a goofy Need For Speed: Underground reject. But if you were wondering how many nostrils is too many nostrils, I think, maybe, this many.

Somebody liked this idea enough to authorise 250 to be built, so, behold the fury of a 770-horsepower version of the Shelby Super Snake (now with optional four-wheel drive!) Hard tonneau covers I could go either way on, and I think we can appreciate the fact that this one is “different,” but the duckbill spoiler is wack and so is the wheel:brake size ratio. (That said, Shelby’s claiming a 0 to 100 to 0 mph time of 8.3 seconds).

This truck would be perfect for making loud and dangerous parking lot exits. Which, in fairness, is kind of what all street trucks are optimised for. It’s not how I’d spend $US93,385 ($136,521) but if you don’t mind slumming it with no supercharger and a paltry 395 HP, the base naturally aspirated ’Snake starts at $US86,085 ($125,849).

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The Latest Top Gun 2: Maverick Trailer Has A Wild Super Spy Jet At Least

The trailer for Top Gun 2: Maverick is out, and it looks like it ticks all the boxes that modern cinema appears to be looking for when it comes to new movie releases: we’re just gonna phone it in and re-make all the old, iconic movies that everyone loves because it guarantees people will see it, and we’re gonna totally take away all the coolest parts of the original film that made people love it in the first place.

The biggest redeeming factor is that it looks like we’ll get to see Tom Cruise flying what looks to be a hypersonic spy jet—near the end you can spot Maverick in a suit that looks very much like that of an SR-71 pilot.

You can see the full film when it hits theatres on June 26, 2020.

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Steven Moffat's Dracula Trailer Teases A 'Bi-Homicidal' Villain

The latest trailer has arrived for BBC and Netflix’s Dracula, a three-part miniseries from former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat and his Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss.

This new telling of the classic tale doesn’t debut until January 1, but a cloud of bats is already hanging over this adaptation, as Moffat thought it was necessary to deny one of the queerest characters in classic horror in a recent interview. But first, the trailer:

Dracula stars Claes Bang as the titular vampire lord, tracing his origins in Eastern Europe all the way through his battles with Van Helsing and at least one of his descendants. A key figure in his story and life is Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan), a solicitor who’s sent to his home in Romania.

Dracula is obsessed with Harker in the original 1897 story from Bram Stoker and his significance is apparently expanded upon in this adaptation—including, according to news outlets, an implied sex scene between the characters. This led The Times to ask Moffat to address Dracula’s bisexuality. Moffat’s response was...umm. It sucked? Sorry, not sorry.

“He’s bi-homicidal, it’s not the same thing,” Moffat said. “He’s killing them, not dating them.”

Moffat added that another reason Dracula isn’t bisexual is because we don’t see the character have sex with anyone of any gender. Of course, that implies that you have to have sex to be bisexual, which could not be further from the truth. Sexual orientation doesn’t have a litmus test (besides, I have doubts he’d say Dracula isn’t sexually attracted to women for the same reason). Dracula is considered by many to be an LGBTQ figure, one of the earliest in horror. Saying he’s “bi-homicidal,” not bisexual, is a regressive statement that ignores Dracula as a character—and Stoker as a storyteller.

Much of Stoker’s life has been lost to history, but researchers have uncovered information that supports claims he was sexually attracted to men (alongside his marriage to a woman, Florence Balcombe). This includes an examination of his decades-long relationship with Oscar Wilde, which went above and beyond an infamous love triangle with Balcombe. Stoker started writing Dracula one month after Wilde was put on trial for sodomy, giving a context that some literary critics have used to draw parallels between Wilde and Stoker’s relationship and that of Dracula and Harker’s, and suggested that Dracula was Stoker’s way of processing what was happening to Wilde...and what he feared could happen to him.

Dracula doesn’t have to be seen having sex with men for him to be interpreted as a bisexual character. The character is, at his core, a sexual figure, and there’s no reason not to embrace his sexuality—especially if your own show is teasing it onscreen. Otherwise, it’s just queerbaiting. Furthermore, coining a term as stupid as “bi-homicidal” to avoid addressing one of the core tenets of this iconic creature’s un-life story feels like a poor decision on Moffat’s part. It reminds me of the many times Moffat came up with excuses for not having a female Doctor on Doctor Who, something that only happened as he was exiting the show.

Alas, it doesn’t help that the trailer looks boring, filled with bad music choices better served with something like Blade 3. Dracula debuts its first episode on BBC January 1, 2020, with the other two episodes airing on the subsequent days. The three episodes will then be released on Netflix over the following weekend.

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We Know The Name Of The Next Xbox And It's Series-ous

Microsoft’s next-generation gaming console is called Xbox Series X, the company announced during an onstage unveiling at this year’s Game Awards Thursday. It’s slated for a holiday 2020 release, unsurprisingly corresponding with competitor Sony’s release date for its Playstation 5.

The console—previously known by its codename, Project Scarlett—looks more like a PC tower than something you’d find in a living room entertainment system. Given its name contains three “X”s, I don’t see why Microsoft didn’t plaster “XXX” across the front, but, no, the company opted to keep things sleek and black and very, very blocky-looking. Apropos of its cheesy slogan, “Power Your Dreams,” the Xbox Series X’s new trailer is set to a backtrack of writer Alan Watts’ “The Dream of Life” speech.

During the presentation, Microsoft’s Xbox chief Phil Spencer confirmed the Xbox Series X works in either a vertical or horizontal orientation—so no need to buy a new TV stand just yet—and he promised it will “deliver four times the processing power of Xbox One X in the most quiet and efficient way.”

Spencer held off on confirming any specific specs or price point for the Xbox Series X, though he did hint in a recent GameSpot interview that this new console has “over eight times the GPU power of the Xbox One, and two times what an Xbox One X is.” This echoes previous reports that Project Scarlett aims to deliver 12 teraflops of computing power. Per these reports, Xbox Series X will feature an eight-core CPU with clockspeeds of around 3.5GHz and 13GB of RAM reserved for games. It will also support ray tracing and be backward compatible with current Xbox One games and Microsoft’s library of older backward compatible Xbox games.

The word “series” in its name also seems to suggest there won’t be just one, adding credence to previous rumours about Microsoft releasing two versions of its next-gen console. While these rumours remain unconfirmed, in that same GameSpot interview Spencer explained the name was deliberately chosen in part to allow for possible future models.

“Obviously in the Series X, it gives us freedom to do other things with that name so that we can create descriptors when we need to,” he told GameSpot.

So Microsoft’s free to tackle all the non-X letters in the alphabet with beefier or trimmed-down iterations of its new console. Or, instead, just keep adding to the name to make it longer and longer until we get some abomination like Xbox Series X Version X One X Two X Red X Blue X.

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Dirty Dozen Movie Remake Recruits Suicide Squad Director David Ayer

Warner Bros. is developing a remake of the 1967 WWII classic The Dirty Dozen, with Suicide Squad filmmaker David Ayer attached to direct.

Warner Bros. has set David Ayer to direct a remake of The Dirty Dozen. Easily one of the most famous WWII thrillers of all time (even among those who've never actually seen it), Robert Aldrich's Dirty Dozen hit theaters in 1967. An adaptation of E.M Nathanson's novel, the movie follows a group of hard-edged Army prisoners (played by actors like Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, and Jim Brown) as they're trained to carry out a top-secret mission ahead of the Normandy invasion. Assuming they make it throw the "job" alive (a big if), the survivors will be offered pardons for their crimes.

The Dirty Dozen was inspired by a real-life group in WWII (known as the Filthy Thirteen), but it's gone on to inspire all manner of fictional films (WWII-related or not) since its release. And while Quentin Tarantino's Oscar-winning WWII movie Inglourious Basterds is one of the best-known recent examples, The Dirty Dozen's influence has also been evident in films like 2016's DCEU release, Suicide Squad (which has a similar premise, but with comic book supervillains). It's only fitting, then, that the director of the latter has been charged with overseeing The Dirty Dozen remake.

Deadline is reporting WB has recruited Ayer to write and direct The Dirty Dozen remake, with Simon Kinberg's Genre banner producing. The film is described as being a contemporary re-imagining that features an appropriately multi-ethnic cast and bears a resemblance to Ayer's scripts for The Fast and the Furious and Training Day, as far as tone and style goes.The studio hopes to get the movie into production in 2020, once Ayer is done rewriting the earlier script draft by Marcos Ramirez (Daredevil, The Defenders).

Suicide Squad isn't the only film Ayer's directed that owes a debt to the original The Dirty Dozen. The filmmaker's 2014 movie Fury is a similarly gritty WWII action-drama about a tank commander and his grizzled crew as they make their way through Germany towards the tail-end of the war. It's possible Ayer wouldn't have been as interested in the project if it had been a straightforward remake, seeing as he's already cut his teeth on a thriller about antiheroes set during the second World War. By making it a contemporary story, however, The Dirty Dozen retelling will allow Ayer to combine his interests in narratives about unscrupulous types going to war and modern-day, multi-ethnic groups and cultures.

As much as Ayer's films tend to overlap with one another in terms of themes and their topics, quality is another matter. His directorial efforts tend to oscillate from critically-derided pop genre movies (some of which strikes a chord with audience, like Suicide Squad and Bright) to well-received, but lesser-seen, action-dramas like Fury and End of Watch. It's anyone's guess, then, where The Dirty Dozen will land on that spectrum, especially since it's angling to update a classic WWII story in terms of both setting and context. Still, he's very much in his wheelhouse with this project, so there's a solid chance Ayer will knock The Dirty Dozen remake out of the park.

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MR. BLACK SINGLE ORIGIN COFFEE LIQUEUR

The newest release, and the first in two years, from Mr. Black's Single Origin line of coffee liqueurs is finally ready. The coffee comes from Finca Villa Betulla in Colombia and was grown by a family with over six decades of experience growing coffee beans. The 100% Caturra Arabica was selected for its fine balance of sweet fruit notes and natural ferment flavors and is processed using the "honey" method: which is named due to how sticky the coffee gets during processing. The liqueur itself is 25% ABV and is best served over ice or in a cocktail.

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MOMBACHO DIPLOMATICO RUM CIGAR

Rolled in what was once a colonial mansion in Granada, Nicaragua this cigar is made to compliment a glass of fine rum.

While the smoke bears the name and logo of Diplomático Rum, it's not infused and has no rum flavoring added to the tobacco blend. Instead, the cigar uses an Ecuadoran Habano wrapper and is loaded with Nicaraguan leaf from Jalapa, Condega and Estelí — a blend created specifically to compliment the Venezuelan spirit.

The new cigar is available in three sizes: Toro, at 6 inches by 52 ring gauge; Robusto, 5 by 50; and Petit Corona, 4 by 44.

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Auction Block: 1968 Lamborghini Espada Rat Rod By Danton Art Kustoms

As a producer of some of the most exclusive, exorbitant, and intricately-designed cars on the planet, the prospect of chopping up a 1960s Lamborghini and transforming it into a rat-rod-style creation is beyond sacrilegious to most motorsport enthusiast. This, however, didn’t deter France’s Danton Art Kustoms from joining forces with Italy’s CHD Edition to churn out what’s arguably the most exotic rat-rod ever built.

Produced for only a decade starting in ’68, the Espada was penned by legendary automotive designer Marcello Gandini — the same creative force behind the Ferrari 308 GT4, Alfa Romeo Montreal and Carabo Concept, and Lamborghini Miura and Countach. Built to celebrate the 50th anniversary since the Espada’s release, this custom Lambo utilizes the donor’s original chassis and 325hp 3.9L 60-degree V12 engine. Adorning the frame is custom, riveted bodywork that blends into the stock upper half of the car, while out in front there’s a bespoke three-section windshield and front-end assembly. The design also boasts a set of modern Reventon side scoops and a fully-bespoke rivet-laden interior including one-off seats and dash. Now sitting on a set of custom-made G67 RUMI rims from Toronto’s Govad Forged Wheels, this one-off supercar boasts an ultra-wide 8.2’ stance. Completed in 2018, this Espada is slated to go under the hammer at Mecum’s upcoming Kissimmee sale where it’s expected to fetch over $200,000.

 

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Luminox Celebrates 20+ Years With The Navy SEALs Via A Gold-Accented Diver

In 1993 the Navy SEAL’s Assistant RDT&E Officer was tasked with finding a new timepiece for the ultra-elite fighting force, ultimately leading to a collaborative relationship with American watch outfit, Luminox that would birth the now-iconic Luminox Navy SEAL Watch. For more than 20 years this tactical timepiece has stood as a staple amongst Luminox’s lineup, though the company has now unveiled the latest addition to its ANU (Authorized For Navy Use) series with the limited edition Navy SEAL 3501 Gold Set.

Built around a 45mm case composed of Luminox’s proprietary carbon material, CARBONOX, this limited edition, all-black watch is juxtaposed by various gold accents which are a nod to the rank stripes and buttons on dress uniforms, as well as the Frogmen’s famous SEAL Trident — which is also emblazoned in gold on the watch’s stainless steel case back. Water-resistant to 200 meters, the Navy SEAL 3501 features a uni-directional rotating bezel complete with a gold circle encompassing its tempered scratch-resistant mineral crystal cover and a gold screw-down crown. Sold in a special hard-case, this limited edition Luminox is offered with two straps: a black polyurethane item; and a NATO strap with stainless steel buckle and matching gold hardware. Priced at $545, the Luminox Navy SEAL 3501 Gold Set is limited to only 1,618 pieces worldwide.

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YouTuber Gets Behind The Wheel For The First Aston Martin Valkyrie Onboard

The Aston Martin Valkyrie still hasn’t made its way into production quite yet, but the marque knows how to get people interested: onboards. To prove your car is the best, you have to show it kicking arse out on the track. And that’s just what we have for you today.

Aston gave Youtuber Mr JWW exclusive access to the Valkyrie. While this particular model isn’t one of the 150 units being sold, it’s still a prototype designed to final production spec. And it’s awesome.

If you’re just here for the onboard laps at Silverstone, that doesn’t start until the 14:23 mark. But there’s tons of other cool stuff before that regarding the design and build process of a multi-million dollar hypercar. Aston Martin had to spend a good bit of time, for instance, figuring out how to mount the licence plate without the exhaust melting it, which is part of what makes this 6.5-litre V12 car so damn cool.

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Christopher Nolan Invents Time Travel To Fix A Saab 9-5 In The First Trailer For Tenet

The Dark Knight is the movie that elevated Christopher Nolan to a household name, but it was Inception that proved to everyone the guy knew how to do complicated espionage thrillers that mess with time. And his next movie, Tenet, looks like it’s going all in on those themes.

The basic plot for Tenet has been kept under tight wraps for a long time now, but it has to do with espionage, evolution, and time manipulation. It also ironically stars the new Batman, Robert Pattinson, along with a stacked cast featuring John David Washington, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, and Michael Caine, of course.

So why are we talking about this? Because it’s an action movie featuring time manipulation, and the trailer teases a car chase that involves a Saab 9-5 flipping over, and then as the other characters continue moving forward in time, the Saab suddenly violates every law of physics and itself reverses in time before their very eyes.

What the fuck is that about!? What is going on? I don’t know, but it looks cool and I’m excited to see it when it releases on July 17. Supposedly, there’s an exclusive preview scene of Tenet before IMAX screenings of Star Wars: Rise Of Skywalker.

 

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How To Turn Around Now, Right Now, I Said Now Dammit

Have you ever got on the road only to realise you’ve forgotten something crucial back at home? Do you have some kiddos in the rear who just don’t know when to stop kicking the back of your goddamn seat? Or are you just plain tired of making five-point turns? Then mastering the forward 180, courtesy of Wyatt Knox at Team O’Neil Rally School, may just be perfect for you!

A forward 180 is exactly what it sounds like: a 180-degree spin that immediately changes the direction of your car in the fastest way possible without ever having to put it in reverse. It’s efficient, effective, and downright cool. And this very handy explainer tells you exactly how to pull it off:

You’ll get a very in-depth discussion by watching the video, along with the visuals you need to figure out how to make this work in your own car. But here’s a quick summary from the video’s description box:

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The simplest way to do a forward 180 with a car is to use the handbrake, and the first step is always to slow down to an appropriate speed for the surface (30mph on pavement, less on gravel or snow). With that accomplished: crowd the right side of the road, clutch in, pull the handbrake, and turn left. The vehicle should start to rotate and as it does, shift your eyes to the side window so that you can see the road ahead (which was very recently behind). Once you have roughly 90 degrees of rotation, release the handbrake, select 1st gear, release the clutch and drive away. In an automatic, the manoeuvre is the same except you can simply stay in Drive or shift the automatic if you choose to.

It sounds a lot easier than it actually is, so if you’re going to go out and experiment with this, make sure you’re somewhere where you’re not going to go crashing into any buildings or cars. Good luck and godspeed, my friends.

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Watch NASA's Mars 2020 Rover Roll For The Very First Time

Like parents witnessing their baby’s first precious steps, engineers with NASA’s Mars 2020 mission have driven their fancy new rover for the very first time, in an important test of the space agency’s next Martian explorer.

The yet-to-be-named rover inched forward for the very first time on Tuesday, according to a NASA press release. The test happened inside the Spacecraft Assembly Facility clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It’s called the clean room because, as you may have guessed, it’s a very, very clean room.

During the test, which lasted for over 10 hours, NASA engineers noticed no problems, and the six-wheeled rover successfully performed all the required tasks. Tests of its newfangled autonomous navigation system went well, according to NASA, and the vehicle functioned the way it was supposed to under its own weight—its Earth weight, that is. Once on Mars this 1,050-kilogram machine will be considerably lighter, as the gravity on Mars is 38 per cent of what it is on Earth.

A thing of beauty: The Mars 2020 rover during testing.

The test went so well that the “next time the Mars 2020 rover drives, it will be rolling over Martian soil,” according to NASA. The Mars 2020 mission is on target for its scheduled launch in July 2020. The rover will land in Mars’s Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021.

“A rover needs to rove, and Mars 2020 did that [on Tuesday],” said John McNamee, the project manager for Mars 2020, in the NASA press release. “We can’t wait to put some red Martian dirt under its wheels.”

For its inaugural drive, the rover moved 1 metre at a time, allowing the engineers to assess its locomotive and steering abilities. The rover also drove over small ramps to simulate the uneven terrain it’s bound to encounter on Mars.

The Mars 2020 engineers were also able to collect data from the vehicle’s Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX)—an onboard instrument that uses radar waves to scan the ground immediately below. Once on Mars, RIMFAX will penetrate the ground to depths exceeding 10 metres, depending on the materials underneath.

This rover will be more independent than any of its predecessors. It’s equipped with advanced auto-navigation software, which will be driven by a dedicated onboard computer fed by data collected from the vehicle’s high-resolution, wide-field colour cameras.

NASA is expecting the rover to travel an average of 200 metres per day. By contrast, the current distance record for a single day on Mars is 214 metres, which was set by the Curiosity rover. The Mars 2020 rover’s wheels are designed for added durability; after seven years on Mars, Curiosity’s wheels are visibly tattered.

Once on Mars, the rover will explore a former lake bed, where it will search for signs of prior life on Mars. It’ll also study the planet’s climate and geology and collect and deposit surface samples for a future mission to collect. And excitingly, the rover will have a partner: the Mars Helicopter Scout. So get excited—this is going to be another very cool mission to the Red Planet.

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How Two Online Sleuths Helped Track Down a Hollywood-Obsessed Internet Killer

The Netflix docuseries “Don’t F**k With Cats” explores the online hunt for Luka Magnotta, a fame-chaser who posted videos online of him killing cats before moving on to a human.

The internet offers people endless ways to mask, modify and change their identity, even as actual digital privacy proves elusive, if not outright unattainable. That paradox is at the heart of Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer, writer/director Mark Lewis’ shocking, haunting and altogether absorbing three-part documentary about a man who shared homemade snuff films—of animals, and then a human—on the web, and the online sleuths who made it their mission to bring him to justice.

Even in an increasingly crowded true-crime field, Netflix’s latest (available now) is a stunner, especially for those not familiar with its subject.

Its story begins with Deanna Thompson, a Las Vegas casino data analyst obsessed with the internet (she went by the alias Baudi Moovan, fashioned after the Beastie Boys song) who in 2010 was directed by fellow Facebook users to a video titled “1 boy 2 kittens.” In it, a young man in a hoodie murders two tiny cats by putting them in a vacuum-sealed bag. Having never seen it in full before sitting for Lewis’ cameras (we, thankfully, are spared the most gruesome bits), Deanna breaks down in tears witnessing this atrocity, which soon begat an online outcry and the creation of a group (“Find the Kitten Vacuumer…for Great Justice”) dedicated to tracking down the perpetrator.

“1 boy 2 kittens” violated what Deanna dubs the internet’s “Rule Zero”—namely, don’t fuck with cats—and the Facebook group put her in touch with John Green, a Los Angeles member similarly outraged by the clip. The two immediately began hunting for clues that might identify the creator of the video, and the fact that the uploader’s user profile had also “liked” a Catch Me If You Can trailer suggested the animal killer was looking for a cat-and-mouse game (no pun intended). Deanna and John were happy to oblige, using their shrewd analysis of the video, and the power of the internet, to dig up info on his whereabouts. A second post only further escalated matters, replete with attention being mistakenly drawn to a Namibia-based suspect who—following a storm of online harassment—took his own life.

Just when things seemed to hit a wall, group members received a message from a fake sockpuppet account claiming the culprit they sought was Luka Magnotta. An initial Google search brought back hundreds upon hundreds of hits, since Luka was a twentysomething aspiring actor/model who had made myriad photomontages of himself jet-setting around the world. He was also the focus of countless fan sites—all of them seemingly created, and commented on, by Luka himself. Deanna and John set about painstakingly scrutinizing every facet of Luka’s online presence, which also included a 2007 interview with a Canadian newspaper in which he said he was being ruined by rumors about his romantic involvement with serial killer Karla Homolka.

Using Google Maps and GPS data embedded in a photo, Deanna and John pinpointed the location of Luka’s Toronto apartment complex. After cops failed to find Luka there, another video arrived—this time of the same monster feeding a kitten to a python while wearing a Santa hat (which resembled a cap worn in a related account’s profile pic). It was now clear that the fiend was relishing toying with Deanna and John. Worse, breadcrumbs left by the individual implied that he had a fondness for real and fictional serial killers—and that he intended to take a human life next.

That Luka did, luring Chinese engineering student Lin Jun to his Montreal apartment, stabbing him repeatedly on camera, and then uploading the video to the internet for all his pursuers to see. Throughout, he made no effort to hide from CCTV cameras; in fact he figuratively flipped off those who would eventually watch the footage by, for example, wearing Lin Jun’s yellow shirt in the aftermath of the slaying—as well as by making sure his video ended with a shot that irrefutably identified his victim. More diabolical still, he left Lin Jun’s dismembered body where it would be found (along with various other damning pieces of evidence), and sent the dead man’s hand and foot to, respectively, Montreal’s liberal and conservative party headquarters. National notoriety was his aim, and with this heinous crime, he finally had everyone’s attention, leading to voracious news coverage and a manhunt on both Canadian and, later, French soil.

Don't F**k With Cats hums with suspenseful urgency, its non-fiction frame drenched in close-ups of social media posts that impart a sense of the digital world’s consuming grip on personal and national consciousnesses. Writer/director Lewis understands that his story is not only a breakneck real-life thriller but also a portrait of the internet’s ubiquitous role in our daily lives. Though it opts not to elaborate on Deanna’s closing suggestion that she and John—and, by extension, all of us viewers—are complicit in stoking lunatics’ lethally narcissistic impulses, the documentary does elucidate how the online realm allows us to live out our darkest fantasies, and shape and define ourselves, including as armchair Sherlock Holmeses. The tale that emerges is akin to a modern variation of the Zodiac case, with Facebook and YouTube the means by which a maniac taunts official and amateur investigators—except that in this instance, the vehicle for the villain’s notoriety turns out to also be the agent of his undoing.

If that makes Don’t F**k With Cats sound like a Hollywood thriller, that’s not accidental. The further it plunges down this virtual rabbit hole, the more Lewis’ series proves that Luka’s true hunger wasn’t for blood but, rather, for fame—and of a distinctly cinematic sort. Just as he was often photographed to look like Humphrey Bogart and Marlene Dietrich, so too did his murderous behavior deliberately echo elements of Zodiac, Seven, American Psycho and, most jaw-dropping of all, Basic Instinct. It’s a saga about life imitating art in ways that are so insane—replete with Luka spending a year and a half establishing an alibi rooted in a movie fiction—it’s amazing its own story isn’t make-believe.

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Elijah Wood Has Deadly Daddy Issues in First ‘Come to Daddy’ Trailer

Saban Films has debuted the first trailer for Come to Daddy — the insane new genre-bending thriller that’s been delighting festival audiences all year. Eljah Wood stars as Norval, a seemingly soft and easily scared man-boy who sets out to reconnect with his long-estranged father at his remote cabin and discovers they just don’t like each other very much at all. He discovers a lot more too, but this movie’s twists and turns are its greatest pleasures (well, that and the pitch-black streak of absurdist humor) so try to go into this one knowing as little as possible.

With that in mind, the first trailer for the film does a pretty good job keeping the lid on things, all things considered, while translating the bananas tone and comedy of the film — not to mention the sometimes shocking moments of violence, nudity, and all that pulpy good stuff. The movie’s a hoot and a half, so if the trailer works for you, be sure to put it on your 2020 watchlist.

Come to Daddy also stars Martin Donovan, Michael Smiley, Madeleine Sami, and Simon Chin. Check out our exclusive poster debut below and for more on the film, head over to my full Fantastia Fest review. The film arrives in select theaters nationwide, VOD, and Digital on February 7, 2020.

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‘The Woman in the Window’ Trailer Tests Amy Adams’ Sanity

20th Century Fox has released the first trailer for Joe Wright’s new thriller The Woman in the Window. Based on the best-selling novel, the story follows an agoraphobic woman (Amy Adams) who believes she’s witnessed a murder, but everyone around her questions her sanity.

On the surface, I’m kind of excited for this one, but The Woman in the Window has gone through a lot of production problems and delays, and this trailer makes the story look kind of derivative. It seems like a knock-off of Rear Window mixed with A Simple Favor, but nowhere near as fun as those two movies. Wright’s an interesting director (even his misfires, like Pan, are kind of fascinating) and he’s working with a stellar cast, but I’m not entirely sure this one is going to come together. Even Tracy Letts, who co-stars and wrote the script, said of the experience, “It kind of sucked.” Let’s hope that the movie turned out better than Letts’ time working on it.

The film opens May 15, 2020 and also stars Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie, Wyatt Russell, Brian Tyree Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Julianne Moore.

[MIKA27]

The Key to Tequila’s Continued Success Is Sustainability

In less than 20 years, tequila has gone from the bottom shelf to the top shelf but the key to its future success lies in sustainability.

When I first started writing about cocktails and spirits, each year I had one shot at selling a tequila article. And then, of course, it had to be framed around Cinco de Mayo—a holiday that Mexicans don’t actually celebrate.

It wasn’t that people didn’t drink tequila in the United States, it was just usually the cheap stuff—mixto an alcohol made from a blend of agave and sugar.

Tequila was then most often combined with electric-green Margarita mix that was blended into a frozen slurry. Or you’d get a shot. But, since the flavor of the tequila available at the time wasn’t particularly relished, you’d lick a generous line of salt on the back of your hand, take the shot and bite a lime wedge of dubious origins. You’d generally wash it all down with a cheap beer and grimace the whole time. And it was very hard to convince people in those days that tequila wasn’t “cactus juice” and should never come with a worm in the bottom of the bottle.

Fast forward twenty years and tequila is now a luxury spirit. The top shelf is overflowing with bottlings made from 100-percent blue agave, while in many liquor stores there is no bottom shelf for tequila. Even if you wanted mixto, you’d have to look pretty hard for it and possibly visit several stores. It’s now common for bartenders and drinkers to debate the different tequila distilling techniques, including whether using a giant volcanic rock tahona wheel to crush the agave matters.

The tequila category overall is currently bigger than if you added up the sales of Scotch and Irish whiskies in America. In fact in 2018, for the first time, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, sales of so-called super premium tequila (i.e. pricey) surpassed sales of value tequila (i.e. very cheap).

While the Margarita remains super popular, it’s not the frozen variety that you now usually see but the classic version, which calls for agave syrup or orange liqueur, and fresh lime juice. Drinkers have also branched out to enjoying the traditional Paloma and even things like a tequila Old-Fashioned. (I also think the Batanga, a mix of cola, tequila, lime juice and salt, has a chance of being the next global best-seller.)

But with all this success comes some hard decisions and responsibility, since making tequila requires a lot of resources and energy. In 2016, the industry’s regulatory organization, the Consejo Regulador del Tequila (CRT), announced a sustainability initiative. This has become an ever more important issue as drinkers around the globe buy increasingly more tequila each year and seemingly every square inch of dirt in the region is now planted with agave. 

For the last three years, the CRT has been working on reducing its members’ carbon footprint and is projecting that emissions will be down 10 percent next year from usage levels in 2014. And will be down another 15 percent by 2030. They’re also hoping to decrease the use of fossil fuels and electricity. 

One way to achieve these goals is for brands to install systems that turn what’s left in the stills after distillation (the vinasses), into biogas (methane), which is then used to power the boilers and stills. This is an expensive process to install but ultimately pays for itself, since the distillery is producing some of its own power from what was formerly waste. Both Jose Cuervo and Herradura have already built these systems and a number of other brands are also considering them.

Becoming sustainable means not just looking at the production of tequila but also how the waste generated is handled and one of the biggest byproducts produced are the tons of spent agave fiber. Traditionally, the mountains of shredded agave are treated and turned into fertilizer for local farmers. Obviously, as the tequila industry expands the amount of byproduct produced grows as well and processing the spent agave has become a huge and an incredibly important task in itself. 

While the farms can certainly use the compost to help grow the next generation of agave plants, Jose Cuervo, which is the largest tequila distiller, is trying to find new ways to use the material in hopes of reducing the use of plastic. The agave fibers are very strong and, as it turns out, very versatile. The brand, in conjunction with a number of partners, has come up with a range of ingenious and inventive products—biodegradable drinking straws, surfboards, building bricks and car parts. 

Another component of the CRT’s initiative is reducing the amount of water used in production. The organization’s goal was to lower levels by 5 percent by 2020 and by 10 percent by 2030. What will help decrease water usage is that a number of companies, including Patron and Jose Cuervo, have built systems to treat waste water. The water that is reclaimed is then used for a number of tasks around the distillery, including cleaning and watering of plants. 

The tequila boom shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, over the next five years, according to IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, the category will expand in the U.S. by a compound annual growth rate of 5.4 percent and is projected to sell an impressive 23.8 million cases in 2023. 

Twenty years ago, when I started writing about tequila, this kind of prominence for the category would have seen inconceivable and a focus on sustainability will ensure that I’ll hopefully be writing about the spirit in 20 years. 

[MIKA27]

Here's What Happened To The Soviet Ground Effect Sea Monsters

Back in the 1960s, Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev claimed there was a secret project going on deep in the country. It had a ship—this half-plane, half-boat contraption—that was capable of breaking the land speed records of the era while carrying an unprecedented amount of cargo. These projects were called Ekranoplans, and here’s why this technology just never caught on.

In short, this thing was a massive, terrifying beast of a machine. But it never actually entered production. Mustard on YouTube lets us know what happened next:

Ekranoplans as a general idea weren’t originally intended for military use, but in the Soviet Union, the best way to gain funding was to demonstrate a new technology’s use in battle. Aside from being able to potentially carry nuclear missiles, Ekranoplans had other benefits. Because they don’t actually touch the water, it’s not detectable by active sonar and they don’t set off naval mines, but they didn’t fly high enough to be detected by radar at the time. It was the perfect middle group for covert transportation.

But Ekranoplans weren’t perfect. Their problems could likely have been solved with some more tinkering, but by that point, Khrushchev had been replaced by Leonid Brezhnev, and Brezhnev wasn’t as interested in risky, bold projects. Ekranoplans were one of them.

As resources dwindled and project leaders grew more frustrated, Ekranoplan plans were abandoned. It just didn’t make sense to keep building these things. Only a few Ekranoplans were ever built, some of which were used in the military. In fact, you can still find one today on Google Maps in Kaspiysk, a city on the Caspian Sea in Russia. When the government decided to quit using Ekranoplan technology in 1991, it simply parked one in a harbour and left it:

But the promise of the technology is still there. The larger the Ekranoplan, the better it became, with improved handling and expanded capabilities. There’s too many billionaires in this world. Rather than build dumb rockets, why not an Ekranoplan?

Just as frivolous, but way more fun.

[Ken Gargett]

37 minutes ago, MIKA27 said:

The Key to Tequila’s Continued Success Is Sustainability

In less than 20 years, tequila has gone from the bottom shelf to the top shelf but the key to its future success lies in sustainability.

When I first started writing about cocktails and spirits, each year I had one shot at selling a tequila article. And then, of course, it had to be framed around Cinco de Mayo—a holiday that Mexicans don’t actually celebrate.

It wasn’t that people didn’t drink tequila in the United States, it was just usually the cheap stuff—mixto an alcohol made from a blend of agave and sugar.

Tequila was then most often combined with electric-green Margarita mix that was blended into a frozen slurry. Or you’d get a shot. But, since the flavor of the tequila available at the time wasn’t particularly relished, you’d lick a generous line of salt on the back of your hand, take the shot and bite a lime wedge of dubious origins. You’d generally wash it all down with a cheap beer and grimace the whole time. And it was very hard to convince people in those days that tequila wasn’t “cactus juice” and should never come with a worm in the bottom of the bottle.

Fast forward twenty years and tequila is now a luxury spirit. The top shelf is overflowing with bottlings made from 100-percent blue agave, while in many liquor stores there is no bottom shelf for tequila. Even if you wanted mixto, you’d have to look pretty hard for it and possibly visit several stores. It’s now common for bartenders and drinkers to debate the different tequila distilling techniques, including whether using a giant volcanic rock tahona wheel to crush the agave matters.

The tequila category overall is currently bigger than if you added up the sales of Scotch and Irish whiskies in America. In fact in 2018, for the first time, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, sales of so-called super premium tequila (i.e. pricey) surpassed sales of value tequila (i.e. very cheap).

While the Margarita remains super popular, it’s not the frozen variety that you now usually see but the classic version, which calls for agave syrup or orange liqueur, and fresh lime juice. Drinkers have also branched out to enjoying the traditional Paloma and even things like a tequila Old-Fashioned. (I also think the Batanga, a mix of cola, tequila, lime juice and salt, has a chance of being the next global best-seller.)

But with all this success comes some hard decisions and responsibility, since making tequila requires a lot of resources and energy. In 2016, the industry’s regulatory organization, the Consejo Regulador del Tequila (CRT), announced a sustainability initiative. This has become an ever more important issue as drinkers around the globe buy increasingly more tequila each year and seemingly every square inch of dirt in the region is now planted with agave. 

For the last three years, the CRT has been working on reducing its members’ carbon footprint and is projecting that emissions will be down 10 percent next year from usage levels in 2014. And will be down another 15 percent by 2030. They’re also hoping to decrease the use of fossil fuels and electricity. 

One way to achieve these goals is for brands to install systems that turn what’s left in the stills after distillation (the vinasses), into biogas (methane), which is then used to power the boilers and stills. This is an expensive process to install but ultimately pays for itself, since the distillery is producing some of its own power from what was formerly waste. Both Jose Cuervo and Herradura have already built these systems and a number of other brands are also considering them.

Becoming sustainable means not just looking at the production of tequila but also how the waste generated is handled and one of the biggest byproducts produced are the tons of spent agave fiber. Traditionally, the mountains of shredded agave are treated and turned into fertilizer for local farmers. Obviously, as the tequila industry expands the amount of byproduct produced grows as well and processing the spent agave has become a huge and an incredibly important task in itself. 

While the farms can certainly use the compost to help grow the next generation of agave plants, Jose Cuervo, which is the largest tequila distiller, is trying to find new ways to use the material in hopes of reducing the use of plastic. The agave fibers are very strong and, as it turns out, very versatile. The brand, in conjunction with a number of partners, has come up with a range of ingenious and inventive products—biodegradable drinking straws, surfboards, building bricks and car parts. 

Another component of the CRT’s initiative is reducing the amount of water used in production. The organization’s goal was to lower levels by 5 percent by 2020 and by 10 percent by 2030. What will help decrease water usage is that a number of companies, including Patron and Jose Cuervo, have built systems to treat waste water. The water that is reclaimed is then used for a number of tasks around the distillery, including cleaning and watering of plants. 

The tequila boom shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, over the next five years, according to IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, the category will expand in the U.S. by a compound annual growth rate of 5.4 percent and is projected to sell an impressive 23.8 million cases in 2023. 

Twenty years ago, when I started writing about tequila, this kind of prominence for the category would have seen inconceivable and a focus on sustainability will ensure that I’ll hopefully be writing about the spirit in 20 years. 

thanks for posting this. 

[MIKA27]

FULL DOCUMENTARY: CHUCK YEAGER ON AIR COMBAT

Chuck Yeager is a man who needs no introduction, he was a fighter pilot who flew P-51 Mustangs in the Second World War but it’s his career after the war that made him a household name. After hostilities ceased in WW2 Yeager became a USAF test pilot, flying many types of aircraft, the most historically significant of which was the experimental rocket-powered plane called the Bell X-1.

Yeager was the first person to break the speed of sound, flying at Mach 1 at 45,000 feet. This feat won him both the Collier and Mackay trophies in 1948. In the years that followed he broke a number of other aircraft speed and altitude records.

Although this would have been more than enough to cement his place in history, Yeager later commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany, then in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. He was promoted to Brigadier General, and had a career that spanned over 70 years. He’s now 96 years old and still going strong, he even had his own Twitter account where he posts regularly and answers people’s questions, and he has his own website where you can order personalised/autographed memorabilia from him.

This 30 minute long film features Chuck Yeager discussing air combat through World War 2, as well as Korea and Vietnam. The footage came on a VHS tape with the “Deluxe Edition” of Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat Flight Simulation Game in 1991.

If you’d like to read more about Chuck Yeager you can click here, or you can click here to visit his website.

[MIKA27]

Bisimoto’s 635HP K3V Restomod Is The World’s First Electric Porsche 935

The electric revolution has spread like a contagion throughout the automotive world, and with more and more iconic platforms making the transition, it’s no surprise to hear that the world’s first full-fledged EV Porsche 935 has finally broken cover. Thank’s to creator Bisi Ezerioha’s history in aftermarket racing and tuning, the industry has been enlightened with a beautiful marriage of form and function.

The Bisimoto Porsche 935 K3V Restomod project doesn’t sell itself short when it comes to handsome external attributes, calling upon a set of eight-piece, color-matched wheels from Brixton Forged, crescent LED DRL lighting, and an all-original Kremer 935 K3 body kit to do its bidding. But below Andy Blackmore Designs’ 1980s-inspired, Slate Gray and pink Gozzy Racing livery, it’s the Porsche’s 635-horsepower three-phase electric motor that steals the show, utilizing 12 LG Chem cells and a 32-kWh capacity to keep the ultralight, 2,681-pound vehicle moving from one street corner to the next.

[MIKA27]

Embrace The Style of ‘Scarface’ With These Handsome Tony Montana Shades

While a handful of history’s most notorious gangsters are known for their unique outlooks on life or the various ways they’ve achieved success, there’s no denying that their criminality neigh extended into the realm of personal style. In fact, even fictional characters like Scarface’s Tony Montana are lauded for their high-end fashion sense. So if you’ve ever wanted to mimic the drug lord’s tailor-made ensemble, you’ll finally be able to, thanks to the Jacques Marie Mage ‘Montana’ Aviator Glasses.

Much like the glasses worn by Tony in the Miami-based film, this retro, 1980s-inspired eye accessory pulls intelligible inspiration from the era’s most prominent designs, introducing a large, rounded silhouette, arched bridge, and sterling silver hardware. Each classic frame is made from high-quality acetate and comes complete with a custom hairline engraved wire core and signature arrowhead front pin, working alongside Mage’s domed 3D metal cameo logo and tension-secured custom hinge to bring the iconic silhouette into modernity. At its front, you’ll find a set of handsome 4-base green CR39 lenses boasting a protective, anti-reflective treatment to keep you looking as classy as the Florida-based warmonger. The Montana is available now via Jacques’ website for $575.