I got excited when ‘Picard’ came out, although, admittedly, I have yet seen a single episode. I wanted to re-watch all of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes before I committed.
 
At the time, I didn't realize how big of a task it was and I am still making my way through the seventh season but it has given me time to reflect on how television shows have changed throughout the years.
 
Surprisingly, unlike a lot of other sci-fi shows, The Next Generation actually holds up 26 years later. However, the special effects are not amazing, for a television show in the late 80s and early 90s and with a minimal budget, they hold up surprisingly well, although they have been touched up. The sets are also surprisingly detailed and elaborate.
 
As one might expect for a show that relies heavily on made-up science, there is a significant amount of separation from realism and logic jumps that the viewer has to overcome, but for any Trekkie this is par of the course. It is my summation that Star Trek: The Next Generation is still one of the best television shows ever produced. The show touches on deep issues such as what it means to be human, the importance of a collective history, and how science and technology impact the way that we relate to the world around us.
 
What a modern audience will find most challenging to accept in this Netflix-binge era is the episodic storytelling; for example, a main character might die in one episode and barely get a mentioned in the next. This is, of course, dictated by the rules of television at the time.

We all knew that robots would one day replace most of our jobs, especially the more menial positions such as cashiers, baristas, and probably even taxi drivers – but we thought that acting in films was, at least, far off. Not so.

Currently, there is a $70 million science fiction film in the works called “b” that stars Erica – only Erica is an android. She is something out of an Isaac Asimov novel, a special kind of movie star who is immune to SARS and COVID, and pretty much any virus that is blown in her direction. She doesn’t take lunch breaks. Doesn’t need to rest and isn’t part of a union.

The only question is… can she act?

It remains to be seen, but it appears Hollywood is determined to find out.
The film is about a scientist who has come up with a program to perfect human DNA, eliminating some genetic diseases, but when it glitches and becomes dangerous the scientist must help Erica, the robot he created, escape the lab.
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The producers, Sam Khoze and Anoush Sadegh, along with professors Hiroshi Ishiguro and Kohei Ogawa, of the University of Osaka and Telecommunication Research Institute, who built Erica, took on the task of training Erica to act, using Method Acting, popularized by Marlon Brando.
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A tough task for even the most experienced acting coach. For starters, Erica has no life experiences. Her creators had to simulate her motions and emotions by controlling the speed of her movements, the pitch of her voice and coaching character development and body language.

10. Friends

When people think of the 90s, Friends is usually the television show that comes to mind. (About every major 90s actor played a guest role.) The series follows the lives of six friends in their 20s and 30s as they go about their lives in Manhattan, somehow affording rent despite their mediocre jobs. The show premiered on NBC in 1994 and spanned ten highly successful seasons and defined a generation.
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9.  Star Trek the Next Generation
 
While Captain Kirk and Spock started the Star Trek franchise, it was Jean-Luc Picard and William Riker who cemented The Next Generation as great television. Very few shows have such an interesting array of characters, from Data, the android who wants to be more human, to Wolf, the Klingon security officer to even supporting characters like Q, a god-like character.

The show explores many social issues that are still much at the forefront today such as race, gender identity, and what it means to be human.
 
 
8. Simpsons

The Simpsons has been making people laugh for decades, and it’s astounding that it’s on its 31st season. No one could have predicted this show would have lasted for more than 639 episodes, but this dysfunctional family has definitely earned its place on this list. It paved the way for popular shows like South Park, Family Guy, and Futurama.
 

7 Dexter

Dexter is about a serial killer who lives a double life as a forensic technician for the Miami police department. The catch is he only kills other serial killers. Not only does the show wrestle with good and evil, morality and social acceptance. The showcase successfully blended suspense, action, and intriguing characters. Each season Dexter struggles to become a better person, to live a normal life and fit into society – sentiments we can all share.
 
 
6. Seinfeld

The Show About Nothing is great because no other show takes the strange, the weird, and the funny and wrap it all together into one show. It takes everyday subjects and strikes at the heart of them, exposing the truth. No other show combines so many great comedians in one great show and no other show has so many catchphrases that are still in modern lexicon. 

There are very few authors who have sold more books than James Patterson – titans like Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare come to mind. He is certainly the worlds best-selling living author.

He has sold more than 350 million books to date and holds the Guinness World Record for most 1# New York Times bestselling titles with 67 and earns around $100 million a year. And he shows no sign of slowing down.

Of all the hardcover fiction sold in North America, Patterson accounts for an astonishing one out of every 26. Altogether, he has produced more than 130 novels. If you flip to the “books by” section in his latest novels, it actually takes up three full pages.

But despite this, Patterson has not had much success translating his books into films.

To compare, there have been 53 Agatha Christie films including Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, Ten Little Indians, and Murder Most Foul, just to name a few.

We look at Stephen King who has had 30 bestselling books – less than half of Patterson – yet there is no doubt that King’s film adaptions reign supreme. The latest IT is the highest-grossing horror film of all time. Misery’s Kathy Bates won an award for Best Actress. The Shawshank Redemption was nominated for 7 Oscars including Best Picture. The Shining, directed by  Stanley Kubrick while was famously snubbed by the Oscars is considered a classic.

Turning to Patterson, his most highly acclaimed and successful adaptations are Kiss the Girls and Along Came A Spider. Morgan Freeman stars in both these films as Alex Cross. Not too long ago, Paramount Studios tried to revive the Cross series with Tyler Perry, but it performed terribly with Perry earning a Razzie award.

Patterson’s other films haven’t fared much better – 10 in total – and expect for the two Morgan Freeman films, are mostly forgettable.

CBS produced Zoo, based upon on another Patterson book of the same name but was cancelled only after three seasons. 

Netflix has been putting out some great documentaries recently and among them is The Last Dance, a 10-part documentary series that explores Michael Jordan’s career, focusing on his last season with the Chicago Bulls.

The documentary series is about the Chicago Bulls during the Air Jordan era, and Jordan’s competitive spirit. Unfortunately, it glosses over one of the more defining moments in Michael Jordan’s career – moments that took Jordan from mere superstar athlete to a man that defined the sport. One of those moments was the release of the 1996 film Space Jam.

The unlikely pairing of Bugs Bunny with Michael Jordan ended up becoming a huge hit. However, the film may not have come to fruition if it wasn’t for the duos' appearance in a Super Bowl commercial.

In 1992, Nike aired an ad for Michael Jordan’s line of Air Jordan sneakers during that year’s Super Bowl that paired Jordan with the most popular creature in the Looney Tunes franchise.

The ad was the brainchild of advertising legend and lifelong cartoon fan Jim Riswold. It proved to be incredibly successful, and inspiring a 1993 follow-up in which Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan re-team to retrieve a load of stolen Air Jordans from Martin Martian. However, it was Jordan’s agent David Falk who had the idea to go the extra mile and take this partnership to Hollywood.
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In the film, Michael Jordan finds himself becoming the player-coach of Bugs Bunny and team of cartoon characters after they challenge evil space minions to a basketball game to save themselves from interplanetary enslavement.
Little do they know that their adversaries have stolen the talent of the NBA’s best such as Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing proving to be a challenge even for one of the best players ever to touch a basketball.
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Little do they know that their adversaries have stolen the talent of the NBA’s best such as Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing proving to be a challenge even for one of the best players ever to touch a basketball.

Everybody loves a great death scene in a film. Whether it's a hero who dies tragically at the end of the story, or a villain who had it coming, death scenes are memorable. (Just think about all those countless teenagers who died in horror films.)

There are obviously so many memorable deaths, it's hard to pick but we've managed to come up with what we believe are the top 5 death scenes of all time. These are scenes that have become a part of our group lexicon.
 
Psycho
The infamous Psycho shower scene single-handedly gave Alfred Hitchcock the highest-grossing film of his career and created a precedent that Game of Thrones would use time and time again by killing off main characters.

In hindsight , it's easy to forget how much of a risk Hitchcock took in creating the scene in the first place. Janet Leigh was an American icon who at that time had already worked with a number of greats including Orson Welles, Errol Flynn and Gary Cooper. Killing her off in such a shocking and brutal way might not have gone well with a lot of audiences at the time.

For years, the scene has been one of the finest examples of what's possible in cinema when editing, shot selection, and a healthy dose of suspense all coalesce together in perfect unity to best serve the story being told.
 
 
Bonnie & Clyde
Happily hiding out at the home of an accomplice, the most famous lovers-turned-criminal duo played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway don't know that they would be killed when the authorities laid a trap for them. They stop to help a man switch a spare tire and were ambushed by unseen cops. The pair share one last look of love before they're positively riddled with machine-gun fire.
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It's grisly unsentimental, and a fitting conclusion to the picture that reinvented the crime film and one of the greatest love stories of all time. 

It’s been almost ten years since the Social Network, directed by David Fincher, was released and many people have been calling for a sequel.
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To say a lot has happened with Facebook in the last ten years would be an understatement. Love Facebook or hate Facebook, it has become a dominating force in our lives and society. It has suffered more then a few scandals including the Russian meddling during the last U.S election ad of course the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

It seems that many of the people who brought the film to life including Aaron Sorkin, the writer, Scott Rudin, the producer, and Jesse Eisenberg, who played Mark Zuckerberg are eager to continue the story.

Since the film, Sorkin created The Newsroom, starring Jeff Daniels, a series that charts the events at an idealistic news station, so he'd probably have a blast chronicling Facebook's uneasy ties with the press. Director David Fincher has meanwhile been churning out shows for Netflix, most recently Mindhunter.

Though another Facebook movie is far from confirmed – Sorkin has yet to write a script –f it seems the pieces are falling into place nicely. The big unknown, it seems, is David Fincher himself and whether he wishes to do a sequel.
The Social Network was a critical and commercial smash that raked in over $224 million worldwide and snagged three Oscars, including a Best Adapted Screenplay. 

Have you ever wondered why there is so much public mourning for celebrity deaths?  Perhaps you’ve wondered what the fuss is about. The recent deaths of Jerry Stiller, Fred Willard and Ken Osmand have caused massive outpouring of grief, even though we have likely never met them or knew them.

Many people still remember where they were when they learned that Princess Diana, Carrie Fisher, Heath Ledger, or Robin Williams died. Some can recount years, if not decades, later what they were doing. This is especially astonishing when most of us couldn’t remember what we did last weekend, let alone a year ago.

Why do these people hold meaning and, just as importantly, why do we feel so sad when they pass away? Is it just some pathetic illusion that we were closer to these celebrities than we actually were? Or does it mean that our lives are so empty and meaningless that we have to feel close to these celebrities in order to bring a sense of purpose to our lives?

While it may seem that way for some, it’s not the case at all.

Here are some reasons why we feel so connected famous people and why we feel so sad when they are gone.

Collective Mourning Connects Us To A Larger Community.  

Collective mourning over a celebrity such as posting on Facebook, attending a candlelight vigil, or talking about it with some friends is relatively common. Communicating about whatever made that celebrity famous – whether it was songs, films, or a sports match – allows us to relive those moments and share them with others because our cultural tastes often reflect our values and worldviews.
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Collective mourning reminds us that we’re part of a particular generation, whether Baby Boomers, Gen X, or Millennials, and helps us to celebrate the cultural touchstones that define our particular age. For example, Baby Boomers might react more to Elvis Presley’s or David Bowie’s death than they would Kurt Cobain. 

​Tom Cruise might be the first celebrity to shoot an action movie in space, aboard the International Space Station.
Recently, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that the organization will be collaborating with Cruise on a movie. There are rumours that Elon Musk’s Space X will also be involved.

While all parties aren’t saying much, what we do know is that it’s not a sequel to the Mission Impossible franchise (although that would be cool) and no studio has stepped up to the plate to back this film – yet.

While discussions are likely in their early stages, the budget will blow anything previously filmed out of this world (yes, I went there.) Previously The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides holds the title for most expensive film ever made at $379 million.
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If you add up the space travel and Cruise’s usual fee, plus all the special effects, it will probably end up costing somewhere in the billions. For example, one seat alone on SpaceX costs around $52 million.

​The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled the Academy Awards to allow films released only on streaming platforms to be eligible for Oscar nominations, as social distancing measures have caused the closure of movie theatres across the world and disrupted to the traditional film selection process.
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The Academy’s move is the latest sign of the upheaval caused by the pandemic, which has caused highly anticipated blockbusters to be delayed, high profile film festivals to be cancelled, and theatre closures.

The change in rules will only apply to next year’s Oscars and while the Academy plans to make the 93rd Oscars an acceptation, what with the growing campaigning from companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple have, it might prove tough to revert back. These companies have recently gained industry muscle over the last couple of years and once they have gained traction, they are not likely to give it up easily in a notoriously staunch town.

Before the pandemic, the Academy Awards required a film be shown in a theater in Los Angeles County of at least seven consecutive days, during which period screenings must occur at least three times daily.

To meet these requirements, Netflixs had to hire out a theatre for Martin Scorsese latest streaming-only film, The Irishman, in order to make it eligible for Oscar nominations.  

To make it easier for distributors to meet theatrical exhibition requirements when theatres reopen, the Academy also will expand the number of qualifying theaters beyond Los Angeles County to include venues in additional US metropolitan areas including New York, the Bay Area, Chicago, Miami, and Atlanta.