❌

Reading view

Did Tom Petty Really Capture a Photo of Jim Morrison’s Ghost? Here’s the True Story.

In 1997, Trailers From Hell co-founder Elizabeth Stanley snapped a picture of rock critic Brett Meisner at Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris. What Meisner claimed he didn’t notice until five years later was that the ghostly figure of a man who looks an awful lot like Morrison can be seen standing behind him in the photo. Check it out for yourself right here:

The story spread like crazy on the internet, with many, of course, debating whether or not it was a ghost or some kind of fake. Meisner eventually agreed to have both the picture and the negative sent for extensive analysis. According to the 2009 book Ghosts Caught on Film 2: Photographs of the Unexplained, researchers who studied the photo back then determined that it hadn’t been faked.

However, they were apparently unable to establish what caused the illusion of a ghost in the background—if it is, in fact, an illusion.

The Creepy 1997 Photograph That Allegedly Shows Jim Morrison’s Ghost

For starters, the folks who examined the picture ruled out the possibility that a trick of the light was responsible for the apparition. They also said that image manipulation—the most plausible explanation—appeared “unlikely.” In conclusion, the book called the image  “unexplainable.” But that didn’t end up being the final word on the subject.

In 2010, members of the Miami Paranormal Research Society declared that the photograph had been fabricated using the Pepper’s ghost illusion technique—a process that involves projecting an image off of a sheet of glass. The proof of this, they explained, is that you can see breaks in the arms of the “ghost” if you look close enough. The so-called phantom person, whoever they are, clearly follows the contours of the doorway they were allegedly projected onto as well. If the technique was indeed utilized here, the negative would show no signs of alteration. 

As for the rumor that Tom Petty had taken the picture in question, the team in Miami found no evidence of that. Stanley publicly acknowledged that she was responsible for it in 2014, but didn’t mention anything about it being a hoax.

The post Did Tom Petty Really Capture a Photo of Jim Morrison’s Ghost? Here’s the True Story. appeared first on vice.

  •  

The Unbelievable True Story of How Actual Human Corpses Ended up on the Set of ‘Apocalypse Now’

Apocalypse Now was an extremely troubled production that nearly cost both Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Sheen their lives, but it also came close to featuring a few people who were already deceased. According to the film’s co-producer, Gray Frederickson, rumors that human corpses would be used in the movie were going around early on, and he initially dismissed them as being “ludicrous.” Then a prop guy said something one morning that made it clear this wasn’t just some tall tale.

After Sheen’s wife complained that there were dead rats on the temple set, production designer Dean Tavoularis told Frederickson that they were being kept there for “real atmosphere.” That’s when the aforementioned prop guy chimed in, saying, “Wait till he hears about the dead bodies.” Frederickson was then taken to the prop store, conveniently located behind the tent where everybody ate dinner. Inside, he was shown a row of cadavers laid out on the floor.

The Time Police Found a Room Full of Human Corpses on the Set of ‘Apocalypse Now’

The source of the corpses was a man who supplied bodies to medical schools to use for autopsies. However, it was later discovered that he was a graverobber. “The police showed up on our set and took all of our passports,” Frederickson recalled during a 2009 interview with The Independent. “They didn’t know we hadn’t killed these people because the bodies were unidentified,” he continued. “I was pretty damn worried for a few days, but they got to the truth and put the guy in jail.”

Eventually, a large truck full of soldiers showed up and the bodies were thrown inside. “Where do we take these?” one of the men asked. Frederickson suggested a cemetery, but that was off the table because nobody was willing to pay for their burial. “Oh, don’t worry, we’ll dump them somewhere,” Frederickson was informed, just before they drove away. In the end, he never did find out what became of the mystery cadavers, but thankfully they didn’t wind up in the movie.

The post The Unbelievable True Story of How Actual Human Corpses Ended up on the Set of ‘Apocalypse Now’ appeared first on vice.

💾

During the notoriously troubled production, filmmakers discovered that real human bodies had been supplied by a grave robber.
  •  

James Cameron Almost Died in the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster. Here’s How He Avoided It.

Before he decided to only make movies with the word “Avatar” in the title, James Cameron was planning to shoot a documentary in space. The filmmaker initially approached the Russians, who agreed to let him visit the Mir space station, but he eventually set his sights on the ISS instead. As Cameron explained to NASA administrator Daniel Goldin, who was overseeing the assembly of the ISS at the time, he saw Mars as the future, and getting there would require a lengthy flight. For that reason, Cameron wanted to observe what it was like for people who were already living in space.

Goldin considered Cameron’s proposal, but ultimately felt it would be too difficult to pull off. Alternatively, Goldwin offered Cameron the opportunity to take a shuttle flight. That way, he’d at least get to see space for himself and view the Earth from above. After thinking it over, Cameron declined to go on the flight, sticking to his guns about traveling to space on his own terms, even if it never came to be.

How James Cameron Narrowly Avoided One of NASA’s Deadliest Disasters

Cameron’s rejection made Goldin realize how determined the director was to make the project happen, and he finally gave him the green light to venture to the ISS. Cameron then flew to Houston to train for his trip, and started mapping out the logistics of the shoot. “And they were going to fly me,” Cameron told GQ in 2022, “and then Columbia was lost.” For context, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated while reentering the Earth’s atmosphere in 2003, killing all seven people on board.

The eerie part of all this is the Columbia flight was actually the one Cameron had turned down. “I f—king saved my own life by choosing the higher path!” Cameron recalled. When asked if he had any regrets about not going to space, Cameron said, “Zero,” adding, “The stuff I did instead was equally cool. Yeah, it would’ve been great and I think if I had really, really put my mind to it, I could have remanifested that a few years later with a better camera system and a better plan.”

The post James Cameron Almost Died in the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster. Here’s How He Avoided It. appeared first on vice.

  •  

This Is the Only Horror Movie to Ever Win Best Picture at the Academy Awards

Horror movies have never gotten much love at the Academy Awards. And even when they do get some attention, it’s rarely in the Best Picture category. To date, only nine films in the genre have been nominated for the highly coveted award: The Exorcist, Jaws, The Silence of the Lambs, The Sixth Sense, Black Swan, Get Out, The Substance, the 2025 version of Frankenstein, and Sinners. To make matters worse, just one of those actually went home with the Oscar.

The lone winner in question was The Silence of the Lambs, which pulled off another extremely rare feat at the 1992 Academy Awards: it swept the so-called “Big Five” categories. For the record, that includes Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay. That evening, the Jodie Foster-Anthony Hopkins classic became the third film in history to accomplish that. It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest had done so previously (in 1935 and 1976, respectively).

The Oscars Have Snubbed Horror for Decades, but One Movie Broke the Curse

But while the members of the Motion Picture Academy have shown a significant lack of interest in horror over the years, it isn’t the most snubbed genre there is, believe it or not. For instance, no animated or comic book film has ever won Best Picture, though three movies of each kind have received nods. And as far as disaster films go, Titanic remains the single, solitary Best Picture winner. That’s more than we can say for documentaries, which haven’t even been given the opportunity to walk away with the sought-after trophy.

Why Oscars are so elusive for certain genres is unclear. Circling back around to scary movies, it seems like a huge oversight that films like Psycho and The Shining weren’t major winners—in fact, The Shining was nominated for a whopping zero Academy Awards. At the end of the day, very few horror movies have won Oscars since the ceremony began in 1929—some of the more notable examples being Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, and Alien. However, this past year Frankenstein, Sinners, and Weapons were all surprisingly victorious, so maybe things are finally starting to change.

The post This Is the Only Horror Movie to Ever Win Best Picture at the Academy Awards appeared first on vice.

💾

Despite decades of iconic horror films, only one has taken home Hollywood's biggest prize. Can you guess which one it is?
  •  

A Man Died While Watching ‘The Conjuring 2,’ and Then His Body Mysteriously Disappeared

On June 7, 2016, James Wan’s first sequel to 2013’s The Conjuring, fittingly titled The Conjuring 2, had its world premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. 10 days later, two Indian men attending an evening screening of the film in Tiruvannamalai became the subject of a creepy mystery that doesn’t appear to have ever been solved. According to a report from The Times of India, one of the men complained of chest pain during the movie’s climax and fainted.

The 65-year-old was then rushed to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. For whatever reason, the hospital staff asked the man’s friend to bring his body to a medical college on the outskirts of town for postmortem, instead of transporting him themselves. And that’s where things get even eerier. You see, as it turns out, the corpse never arrived at its destination, and we still don’t know why.

The Bizarre True Story of a Man Who Died Watching ‘The Conjuring 2’ and Then Vanished

Evidently, both the living man and his deceased friend’s body disappeared after leaving the hospital. Police were said to have been inquiring with the different hotels in the area to try and figure out who the dead guy was. However, they don’t seem to have had any success identifying either of the two men.

The New York Post noted that the friend was seen hurriedly bringing the body to an auto-rickshaw that the pair had apparently been staying in. No additional information has come to light since. Naturally, this has led to some speculation as to whether or not the story was real, but it’s worth pointing out that it was covered by several reputable news sources at the time.

The post A Man Died While Watching ‘The Conjuring 2,’ and Then His Body Mysteriously Disappeared appeared first on vice.

💾

In 2016, a moviegoer in India reportedly died after experiencing chest pain during the horror sequel. Then his body mysteriously disappeared.
  •  

Scott Walker’s The Drift will get under your skin

The cover of Scott Walker’s The Drift with simple text on an abstract dark red and black background.

In my mind, Spooky Season music comes in two distinct flavors. There are the fun, occasionally goofy songs like "The Monster Mash" and John Carpenter's "Halloween Theme." Then there is the genuinely terrifying: Throbbing Gristle, The Body, or Scott Walker's The Drift.

This 2006 album from the singer-songwriter is truly upsetting. On it, Walker explores death, disease, and tragedy. But not just from some abstract perspective. There are visceral descriptions of the hanging of Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci. He sings about 9/11, his stillborn twin brother, and the Srebrenica genocide. Lyrically, it's about as dark as an album …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  

Was There Really a Penis Hiding in the Background of ‘The Golden Girls’?

The social media account Stay Golden TV, nobly dedicated to The Golden Girls, dutifully drew our attention to a pressing issue: What on earth was hanging on the wall in the home of America’s four most beloved senior citizens (Dorothy Zbornak, Rose Nylund, Blanche Devereaux, and Sophia Petrillo)? The account posted still frames showing what appears to be a male appendage sculpture conspicuously hanging in the background.

Stay Golden TV found the once-popular relic in question for sale, and therefore we were able to see other listings for ourselves. The item is, in fact, a copper lobster mold / wall hanging. Such objects have been manufactured internationally by different makers. Upon getting a better look at the relief, the claws become clear to see. However, even so, these molds unquestionably resemble phalli.

As Stay Golden TV pointed out, until high-definition remasters were available for streaming, it was difficult to discern anything but the curious piece of decor’s silhouette.

Fans Spotted What Looks Like a Penis on the Set of ‘The Golden Girls,’ but There’s a Catch

One user seems to have hit the nail on the head, “Definitely falls under the category ‘They Knew What They Were Doing.'” The wall hanging indeed represents a perfect example of attention to detail in set design.

Another netizen joked, “It’s a LOBSTER. Blanche probably had her own personal penis one though.” After all, our girls were no strangers to naughty antics.

Yet another observer astutely remarked, “Archie Bunker had the same lobster in his kitchen.” He is, in fact, correct.

This seems like the perfect time to inform all those grateful to the girls for being friends that Dan Watt’s Bea Arthur: The Documentary – “I’ve Done Everything Except Porn” was released this month. Catch a screening if you can.

The post Was There Really a Penis Hiding in the Background of ‘The Golden Girls’? appeared first on vice.

  •  

5 Tragic Deaths That Convinced People the ‘Poltergeist’ Movies Were Cursed

The Poltergeist series has long been rumored to be cursed, reportedly due to the fact that real human skeletons were used in a scene from the original film. Since then, five actors who were involved with the franchise have died, some under circumstances that sound straight out of a horror movie. Take Dominique Dunne, who played Dana Freeling in the first entry, for example. Five months after Poltergeist premiered in 1982, Dunne was strangled by her ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, outside of her West Hollywood home; she never regained consciousness. 

Then there’s Julian Beck, best known to Poltergeist II fans for portraying Reverend Henry Kane. Beck died from cancer eight months before the 1986 sequel hit theaters. His co-star, Will Sampson—a real-life shaman hired to play one in the movie—followed suit in 1987, a result of post-operative kidney failure (he’d just undergone a heart and lung transplant). Sampson also apparently felt the need to perform an exorcism on the set of the film at one point.

Why People Believe the ‘Poltergeist’ Movies Are Cursed

Heather O’Rourke (Carol Anne in the original trilogy), like Beck, didn’t live to see the release of her final entry in the series: 1988’s Poltergeist III. O’Rourke began exhibiting flu-like symptoms in January of that year and went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. She later died from septic shock caused by congenital stenosis of the lower intestine, which doctors at the time called “distinctly unusual” because she lacked prior symptoms. O’Rourke was only 12 years old.

Lastly, we have Lou Perryman, a character actor who had a small role as Pugsley the construction worker in Poltergeist. On April 1, 2009, Perryman was murdered in his home by a man he’d met a little while earlier. Seth Christopher Tatum, who’d recently stopped taking his prescribed medication, had attacked his mother’s ex-boyfriend and fled to Perryman’s neighborhood. Shortly after striking up a conversation with Perryman, Tatum entered Perryman’s house and repeatedly struck him with an axe.

However, one person who isn’t buying the whole curse angle is Robbie Freeling himself, Oliver Robins. In 2022, Robins told Yahoo Entertainment, “I do believe in the paranormal to some degree, but I don’t think there’s a curse because those deaths can be explained.” He went on to say, “You had these tragedies happen, but they were going to happen whether [the actors] were in the movie or not. Like with Heather, she had a medical condition for which she wasn’t treated. So I don’t think they are interconnected.”

The post 5 Tragic Deaths That Convinced People the ‘Poltergeist’ Movies Were Cursed appeared first on VICE.

💾

Five actors connected to the horror franchise died under tragic circumstances, fueling decades of speculation.
  •  

The Real-Life Exorcism That Inspired ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ Is More Terrifying Than the Movie

2005’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose was inspired by the story of Anneliese Michel, a young German girl who was believed to have been possessed by demons. As a teenager in the late 1960s, Michel started having convulsive seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy. Before long, she was suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts. Eventually, Michel began experiencing hallucinations and hearing voices that would tell her she was damned.

In the midst of her alleged possession, Michel would display bizarre behavior, such as ripping off her clothes, barking like a dog, eating spiders, biting the head off of a dead bird, and licking her own urine from the floor. After turning to the Catholic Church, fathers Arnold Renz and Ernst Alt performed 67 rites of exorcism on Michel over the course of about 10 months, with some lasting as long as four hours. More than 40 audio recordings were made during that time, in which Michel could be heard growling in the voices of Satan, Judas, Cain, Nero, Adolf Hitler, and a priest named Valentin Fleischmann:

The Bizarre True Story Behind ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’

By the spring of 1976, Michel was refusing to eat and subsequently dropped down to just 68 pounds. However, at her own request, doctors were never consulted, and she continued to slowly deteriorate. Michel died on July 1 from what her autopsy deemed “malnutrition and dehydration.” She was 23 years old.

Michel’s parents, Anna and Josef, were put on trial for murder alongside the two priests. They were all found guilty of negligent homicide for letting her starve herself and were each sentenced to six months in jail. Following the release of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Michel’s mother told The Daily Telegraph that she didn’t regret her actions. “Anneliese was a kind, loving, sweet and obedient girl. But when she was possessed, it was something unnatural, something that you can’t explain,” she insisted.

The post The Real-Life Exorcism That Inspired ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ Is More Terrifying Than the Movie appeared first on VICE.

  •  

Why Stephen King’s Son Thinks a Famous Murder Victim Is Hiding in ‘Jaws’

In July 1974, while Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was still being filmed in Martha’s Vineyard, the decaying remains of a young woman were discovered in the nearby Race Point Dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts. The mystery victim was almost decapitated and both of her hands had been removed—presumably to prevent anyone from identifying her. Tucked beneath her head were a blue bandana and a pair of Wrangler jeans. For close to 50 years, the girl was known only as the “Lady of the Dunes.”

Despite having been exhumed several times between 1980 and 2013, police were unable to determine who they’d found that day in Provincetown. This led to numerous theories regarding the woman’s killer, with some even suggesting that mobster “Whitey” Bulger was responsible. The decades-old cold case ended up back in the news around 2018, when an earlier blog post from Stephen King’s son, fellow author Joe Hill, resurfaced. In it, Hill pointed out that a female extra in Jaws was wearing the same outfit found underneath the Lady of the Dunes.

Did Steven Spielberg Accidentally Film a Murder Victim in ‘Jaws’? The Mystery Explained.

At about 54 minutes and 2 seconds into the film, the woman in question briefly pops up during a crowd sequence sporting a blue bandana and jeans. This young lady, according to Hill, bears a “striking resemblance” to a composite sketch of the unidentified murder victim. Though Hill acknowledged that there were several problems with his theory, like the fact that the woman in the scene doesn’t appear to be wearing Wrangler jeans, he still ran the observation past an FBI friend of his. “Odder ideas have cracked colder cases,” he was told.

We may never know for sure if the Lady of the Dunes was in Jaws, but in 2022, the FBI finally identified her as Ruth Marie Terry of Tennessee (born September 8, 1936). The following year, the case was officially closed and Terry’s husband, Guy Muldavin, who died in 2002, was named as her killer. “I’m sort of fascinated by the idea that, for decades afterwards, every time Jaws came on TV, he saw his dead wife turning her head to stare out of the screen at him,” said Hill while speaking with Inside Edition, “There’s something sort of chilling in that notion.”

The post Why Stephen King’s Son Thinks a Famous Murder Victim Is Hiding in ‘Jaws’ appeared first on VICE.

💾

In 2015, author Joe Hill pointed out that an extra in the film was wearing the same outfit found near the remains of the 'Lady of the Dunes.'
  •  

32 Years Ago, Burt Reynolds Got Into a Real On-Air Fight With a Nickelodeon Host on ‘The Tonight Show’

On October 17, 1994, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno welcomed Burt Reynolds and the host of Nickelodeon’s Double Dare, Marc Summers. Reynolds was going through a divorce with Loni Anderson at the time, and was reportedly unhappy that Leno had made light of the situation. For whatever reason, when Summers was brought on toward the end of the episode, Reynolds decided to take his frustration out on him, of all people. Though the pair’s exchanges were amusing enough at first, things quickly escalated when Summers refused to back down from Reynolds’s taunts.

Summers started off by revealing that, despite all the messy stunts featured on Double Dare, he was actually a neatness fanatic. He then described a segment he’d previously put together for the show, telling Leno and Reynolds, “We once filled a container with 4,000 pounds of baked beans and made kids dive into it, which was great.” But before he could finish his sentence, Reynolds sarcastically replied, “Gee, I wish I’d seen that.” Apparently, in Summers’s mind, the gloves were off at that point.

Burt Reynolds Once Got Into a Bizarre On-Air Fight With ‘Double Dare’ Host Marc Summers

After Reynolds asked Summers who told him he was a neatness freak, Summers replied, “My wife tells me that often,” adding, “I’m still married, as a matter of fact.” Reynolds then proceeded to pour the water from his coffee mug into Summers’s lap. Summers attempted to retaliate with his own drink, but Reynolds just smacked the mug out of his hand, soaking Summers even further. “You’re not a neatness freak anymore,” Reynolds quipped.

Some other uncomfortable moments followed, and Summers eventually got his revenge by dousing Reynolds with water when he wasn’t expecting it. This all culminated in the staff bringing out pies for the two to settle their score with. However, Reynolds had the upper hand there, too, and hit Summers so hard with a pie that he nearly knocked him off of his feet. According to Summers, the legendary incident wasn’t staged, and ultimately resulted in Leno tying David Letterman in the ratings for the first time.

You can check out the full segment for yourself below.

The post 32 Years Ago, Burt Reynolds Got Into a Real On-Air Fight With a Nickelodeon Host on ‘The Tonight Show’ appeared first on VICE.

💾

Things quickly went left when Marc Summers made a joke about Reynolds's divorce, resulting in a water battle and a very aggressive pie fight.
  •  

The Wild Conspiracy Theory That Stanley Kubrick Helped Fake the Moon Landing, Explained

On July 20, 1969, millions of TV viewers tuned in to watch man walk on the Moon for the first time as part of the Apollo 11 mission. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Neil Armstrong famously said after the live feed from the lunar surface was patched in to CBS News:

However, not everybody believed that what they saw on-screen that day was authentic. In less than a decade, conspiracy theories about the Moon landing being faked started to gain traction. It probably didn’t help matters that CBS had utilized visual simulations and scale models leading up to the broadcast’s big moment:

Did Stanley Kubrick Leave Clues About Faking the Moon Landing in ‘The Shining’?

At some point, Stanley Kubrick, who’d filmed 2001: A Space Odyssey prior to the Moon landing, became the top choice for skeptics to accuse of perpetrating the alleged hoax. 2001, they claim, is proof that the technology was available to fake such an event in the 1960s. And, of course, the true filming location has been narrowed down to Area 51. People have even suggested that The Shining was Kubrick’s way of confessing, because Danny Torrance can be seen wearing an Apollo 11 sweater and the letters on the “Room No. 237” keychain can be rearranged to spell “Moon room.”

This is all despite an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary. To begin with, Kubrick had a well-documented fear of flying and opted to film his movies overseas following the release of 2001. It also would’ve been a technical impossibility for him to pull off a scam of this magnitude back then.

The Apollo 11 cameras shot at 10 frames per second, whereas a typical 35mm film is shot at 12 frames per second and would’ve required six and a half reels to capture the 143 minutes of footage that exists from that day—none of which shows any signs of having been edited together from different reels. As for the idea that the astronauts were shot in slow motion to simulate the Moon’s low gravity, that would entail filming at a higher frame rate. But in those days, magnetic disk recorders were only capable of storing 30 seconds of slow-motion video. 

Still not convinced? What if we told you that probes from the U.S., India, and Japan have since taken photos of the Moon that show tracks left behind by the astronauts? And then there’s the fact that 400,000 people were involved with the Apollo 11 mission. Don’t you think one of them would’ve slipped up or written a tell-all by now if there was any truth to this theory? We rest our case.

The post The Wild Conspiracy Theory That Stanley Kubrick Helped Fake the Moon Landing, Explained appeared first on VICE.

💾

Kubrick has become the top choice for skeptics to accuse of perpetrating the alleged hoax, and many think 'The Shining' was his confession.
  •  

George Orwell Was Once Shot Through the Throat by a Sniper and Somehow Survived

Before his 1945 novella Animal Farm made him famous, George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. The 1984 author’s stint didn’t last long, however, as he was seriously injured near Huesca after just 10 days on the front lines. At 5 a.m. on the morning of May 20, 1937, Orwell was struck by a sniper’s bullet mid-sentence while speaking with some other soldiers. “This was always a dangerous time, because we had the dawn at our backs, and if you stuck your head above the parapet it was clearly outlined against the sky,” he explained in his memoir Homage to Catalonia.

In that moment, Orwell recalled feeling as though he’d been at the center of an explosion. “There seemed to be a loud bang and a blinding flash of light all round me, and I felt a tremendous shock—no pain, only a violent shock, such as you get from an electrical terminal,” he wrote of the incident. While Orwell was conscious of being hurt and knew he’d gotten hit somewhere in the front of his body, it was only when he managed to faintly squeak out an inquiry that he found out how bad things were. “As they lifted me up a lot of blood poured out of my mouth, and I heard a Spaniard behind me say that the bullet had gone clean through my neck,” the novelist revealed.

Before Writing ‘1984,’ George Orwell Nearly Died FROM a Sniper ATTACK

Harry Milton, who assisted Orwell following the attack, attributed the shooting to Orwell’s height—he was 6’2”—and his reckless habit of poking his head out in view of enemy soldiers. “I heard the crisp sound of a high-velocity shot and Orwell [toppled] over. He landed on his back,” Milton remembered. From there, Milton administered first aid as Orwell waited to be transported to a local hospital. It wouldn’t be until eight or nine days later that his wound was finally examined by a doctor.

What the doctor discovered was that the 7mm copper-plated bullet had passed through Orwell’s neck between the trachea and the carotid artery, paralyzing one of his vocal chords in the process. He was then “cheerfully” informed that he’d never get his voice back. That didn’t end up being the case, though, as Orwell reported that he could speak almost normally again by the end of that July. “No one I met at this time—doctors, nurses, practicantes, or fellow-patients—failed to assure me that a man who is hit through the neck and survives is the luckiest creature alive,” he recounted.

The post George Orwell Was Once Shot Through the Throat by a Sniper and Somehow Survived appeared first on VICE.

  •  

Blue Planet III is keeping the rough edges in the age of AI

A humpback whale breaching with the NYC skyline in the background.

BBC's Blue Planet III is looking to prove its authenticity by leaving in the less-than-perfect shots. Previous incarnations of the nature series were defined by their gorgeous, crystal-clear footage that seemed almost too good to be real. But one dead giveaway of AI is when things look too polished and seamless. To counter that, Blue Planet III goes warts and all.

Executive Producer Elizabeth White told The Guardian in the past, "the amount of plankton and things" floating in the water would have caused them to cut a shot. Or "we might have framed out a boat or a buoy or gone: 'Oh, actually … the water conditions are not really good enough …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  

Fielded is obsessed with scammers and unhinged Japanese cyberpunk

Lindsay Powell, who releases records under the name Fielded, has spent most of her career subverting expectations and genre conventions. According to their Bandcamp page, Fielded started as an experimental noise project before growing into something closer to R&B. But from moment one, her take on the genre was restless, relentlessly playing with what R&B even means.

Her first album, Ninety-Thirty-Thirty, includes songs heavily indebted to '80s synth-pop and features multiple saxophone solos. Boy Angel is a quirky electronic exploration with huge saw-wave synths, jittery percussion, and sky-high vocal stacks. While 2020's Demisexual Lovelace …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  

Lee Chang Dong ponders the ethics of the camera

a man and a woman at a table outside in the dark

Lee Chang Dong's seventh feature film, Possible Love, is inspired by true events from 2009, when a Korean conglomerate fired a third of its staff - 2,600 employees - after which many died by suicide. Possible Love is the latest in a long line of Lee movies that engage with themes of class or labor or religion or compressed modernity, that uniquely Korean affliction, without feeling didactic.

A different kind of movie would have captured the heat of that labor struggle. Possible Love picks up with the characters in the aftermath, a murkier time that defies easy understanding. The film opens with an epigraph: "Thou shall not covet." What foll …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  

Laika has spent 20 years building up to Wildwood

A still image from the film Wildwood.

Across several decades in Hollywood, Caleb Deschanel has seen a lot. He served as cinematographer on films like The Passion of the Christ and The Patriot, worked on sequences in The Godfather and Titanic, and directed a few episodes of Twin Peaks. Even still, nothing could quite prepare him for his first stop-motion project: working as the cinematographer on Wildwood, the latest release from Coraline studio Laika. While he knew that stop-motion was a long and involved process, he was still surprised by just how much work went into these movies. "When I started I thought it was one thing, and then I quickly found out that it was another thing …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  

Xbox’s first chief operating officer is out after just a few months

Vector collage of the Xbox logo.

Xbox's first chief operating officer (COO) is leaving after the new role was created just a few months ago. Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft today, according to an internal Xbox memo seen by The Verge. Chiang has been at Microsoft for 21 years, serving as the head of Minecraft before being promoted to Xbox chief operating officer in July.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced Chiang's departure in a surprisingly short memo today. "Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft today. I'm grateful for her years of service and wish her well," said Sharma. As Chiang is departing today, her immediate responsibilities are being split up between other Xbox leaders …

Read the full story at The Verge.

  •  
❌