Latest news with #CaptainPhillips
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Movie Industry's First Summer Blockbuster Turns 50
The summer of 1975 was a terrifying one if you were trying to enjoy a beach vacation — and it's all Stephen Spielberg's fault. The movie Jaws is turning 50 this year, and there are huge celebrations ahead, according to Variety. The film will air on NBC on June 20 with a three-hour special, including "a new, special introduction." At the ballpark, baseball fans will also see "custom scoreboard content, exclusive fan giveaways, and more" at home games for the San Francisco Giants, New York Yankees, and Philadelphia Phillies between June 20 and 22. If that's not enough, Peacock subscribers will have the opportunity to view shark-themed content from June 15 to July 14. Movies like Piranha, 47 Meters Down, Night Swim, and Captain Phillips were curated for the special collection. Of course, there will be plenty of merchandise available to consumers including a 50th anniversary edition of Jaws on 4K, Blu-ray, and digital beginning June 17 with a Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Story documentary included. Fans can also expect toys, T-shirts, and collectibles out at retail. Jaws is considered the movie industry's first summer blockbuster and stayed at the top of the box office for most of the summer of 1975, per NBC. It held the record for the "highest-grossing movie of all time" for two years until Star Wars took the top position. It was a troubled shoot due to the difficulties of filming in the open waters and the budget quickly skyrocketed. Producer David Brown explained in the 2004 book, Movie Moguls Speak: Interviews with Top Film Producers, that the initial budget "was $4 million and the picture wound up costing $9 million." The mechanical shark also kept breaking down, but Spielberg and stars Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw meticulously planned out the characters to give it a realistic feel, per Mental Floss. In the end, the technical problems led to a career-defining film for Spielberg. 'I had no choice but to figure out how to tell the story without the shark,' Spielberg told CBS News in 2015. 'So, I just went back to Alfred Hitchcock: 'What would Hitchcock do in a situation like this?' ... It's what we don't see which is truly frightening.'The Movie Industry's First Summer Blockbuster Turns 50 first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 12, 2025
Irish Independent
02-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
Cavan five-bed makes the most of its setting with outdoor seating, high ceilings and waterside views in nearly every room
Asking price: €429,000 Agent: Mark Lawlor Auctioneers, (049) 9524444 When Michelle Lynch's son Matthew was a little boy, she used to tell him stories about pirates. This was partly because of her job, and partly because the house in which they lived in Belturbet, Co Cavan, overlooked a lake known locally as Smugglers Lake. 'It was called Smugglers Lake because we're only three miles from the border. Back in the 1950s, rumour had it there was a lot of traffic on the lake, but that obviously doesn't happen anymore,' says Lynch. A former barrister, who later served as vice president of the World Trade Centre in New York, Lynch, from Cootehill in Cavan, lived in the US for 10 years before moving to Delgany in Co Wicklow and setting up a business enforcing EU and international export controls – which on occasion involved real life pirates. 'My son didn't fully understand the work I did,' she explains. 'But you might be familiar with the movie Captain Phillips, the true story of the US captain who was kidnapped by Somali pirates. After that incident, I was approached by a US shipping company to help them acquire a licence for night vision goggles so they could see a pirate boarding the ship. I had my son watch the movie, and told him I worked at keeping the pirates off the ship.' The fact that Corraback Lake sits across from their five-bedroom home, and that she has a collection of antique swords, also fed into the fantasy. 'I wove stories about Smugglers Lake and I used to use my antique 18th-century cavalier swords as props. It's a small collection I picked up over the years, and they're very impressive for little boys.' Matthew is now grown up and she has long since left the job, but Lynch still lives in the 2,250 sq ft detached home she bought in 2006. She was attracted to the peaceful setting of Belturbet. 'I was able to do very intensive work for international companies and travel from here,' she explains. The house, one of 10 in a quiet private development, was in good condition when she and seven-year-old Matthew first moved in. She did, however, knock down a couple of walls – including the one between the kitchen and the old formal dining room. 'It was lovely but lonely, and we never used it,' she says. ADVERTISEMENT Two years ago, Lynch had a new kitchen installed, and put a lot of thought into the design. The breakfast bar, which she calls the 'Prosecco bar' is at a height where you can't see the dishes in the kitchen sink. There's a marble fireplace in the dining room, and a carved wooden mirror she bought at a shop in Monaghan. The porcelain tiles underfoot were designed for a restaurant. 'I first saw them in a magazine and tracked them down. They're incredibly resilient because they're restaurant standard.' She was pleased with the overall result. 'Opening up the dining room gave a new lease of life to the room, and it's the perfect place for entertaining now,' she says. Double doors lead to the sitting room, which has particularly high ceilings and is heated by a stove. The hall has marquetry designs in the wooden floor, which was there when she moved in, and the stairs are hand-carved. In the master bedroom, which has a dressing room off it, she did away with a wall and created a raised area. 'The idea was that I could lie in bed with a cup of tea and look out the window at the lake.' With views of Corraback Lake to the front and the Woodford River and canals at the back, every room in the house, save for the utility room and one of the bathrooms, has a view of the water. Lynch added patios surrounding the house. During the day, the sun moves around the house and sets at the back, so it hits different parts of the house at different times. The garden needed a lot of work when they first moved in, but over the years, she and Matthew – who is now a landscape gardener – have developed it, adding specimen plants, perennials and trees. 'I remember bringing a spruce tree back in an old convertible car I was driving at the time. It's now nearly 30ft-high and it's stunning when it's lit up at Christmas,' she recalls. These days, she enjoys a quieter pace of life and now works in a fundraising role for The Sanctuary meditation centre on Stanhope Street in Dublin. 'The role suits me as I'm interested in wellness and meditation, and it ties in with the life I live here surrounded by nature. 'Here, you can be gazing at the stars or the moonbeams at night, and watching the water by day. You feel at one with nature in a setting like this. "In fact, you're biggest stress when you first arrive is learning how to do the right wave to your neighbours as you drive by. That's important as people here are friendly,' she laughs. The house is well located for accessing amenities. You can walk to Belturbet town which is 3km away. Cavan town, Derrylinn and Enniskillen are all a short drive. 'In Cavan town you've got a theatre, the town hall and cocktail bars, and Belturbet has some fabulous restaurants. We're also just a seven-minute drive from the border, so you can buy Prosecco and beer at half price!' Lynch is selling the house now as Matthew and his girlfriend Andrea have just had a baby boy, Theo, who is now 13 months old, and she's moving to a house beside them in Fermanagh. But she's 'heartbroken' to be leaving Corraback. 'Moving won't be easy, but I'm looking forward to sharing all those pirate stories with my beautiful little grandson,' she smiles. 'And you can't put a price on that.' Number 3 has an asking price of €429,000 with Mark Lawlor Auctioneers.
Forbes
27-03-2025
- Business
- Forbes
If AI Ran The Government, What We Could Do Differently
Government agencies all act like silos and little fiefdoms, never talking to each other and hoarding their data. There are a lot of moving parts in Washington DC right now, and no matter which side of the political fence you're on, we all can agree on one thing: There's going to be a lot of changes to how our government functions in the future. According to Elon Musk, the person enacting many of these changes, AI is going to play a pretty big role. But how? We may not know all the details yet, but I happen to know a thing or two about AI. So with that in mind, let's play a little thought experiment. If I were using AI to run the government, how would I do it differently? The US government is huge, there's no doubt about that. Some aspects of the system control our everyday lives, and others operate seamlessly in the background that we never hear about. However, all you have to do to show inefficiencies in the government is ask a friend about their last visit to the DMV. Their answer is always going to either start or end with a frustrated sigh. Part of the problem with government agencies is they all act like silos and little fiefdoms, never talking to each other and hoarding their data. And if they do, sometimes it's catty and petty, and things don't get done. Could we cut out that garbage? Absolutely. Let's have some Connected Conversations™. What's that? It's when we cut out the middlemen and women who stand in our way and get right to the source. AI can help us do that — whether it's with meat-space people or just data. I tried to do this 15 years ago, working as a contractor for NOAA. We wanted to connect fish data, marine transportation data, and temperature data, and we didn't even have AI at the time. We were trying to find correlations between the three, and getting that information was a nightmare—like going to the DMV every day. Connected Conversations™ change that. We can marry the data and see what comes up. We can talk to the people we need to talk to through the right channels without worrying about what department they work in. It would be so much faster and more efficient, and isn't that the point? Of course, security is a big issue, too. We've got to keep this information tight so it doesn't leak. Nobody can see the temperature of the water in the Pacific Ocean at this longitude and latitude. Think of the children! This means locking down the data, and that absolutely has to be built into these systems. In fact, it makes it run better. Pump the data in and keep it anonymized. We know it's legit because it comes from the US Government, and we can use that information to make determinations. Say we needed all that NOAA data, but it also would help to have some non-classified info from the CIA or NSA about pirates like you saw in Captain Phillips. Could that play a role? We could know if we had the information. Should AI play a role in public policy? I certainly see a world where that happens. If we have the data and access to it, the AI can do a lot of powerful things. It's just a matter of how we use it and how things are executed. I've got more thoughts on this, including why we need anonymized data and a permissioned ecosystem. Speaking of, I also talk a lot about that whole process in my new book, The AI Ecosystems Revolution. It's available for preorder on Amazon right now and comes out April 29, 2025. I'm so excited for you to get a chance to read it.
See - Sada Elbalad
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- See - Sada Elbalad
Ben Affleck to Replace Matt Damon in Netflix's "Animals," Gillian Anderson Joins Cast
Yara Sameh Ben Affleck is set to star in his upcoming Netflix thriller 'Animals,' which he's also directing. His longtime friend and collaborator Matt Damon was originally slated to lead the movie but had to depart due to scheduling conflicts with Christopher Nolan's upcoming epic 'The Odyssey.' 'Animals' aims to begin production in Los Angeles this April, while 'The Odyssey' is expected to shoot in various global locations later in February. Billy Ray, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of 'Captain Phillips,' 'The Hunger Games' and AMC Theatres' iconic Nicole Kidman ad, is penning the screenplay with Connor McIntyre. The crime thriller reportedly follows a mayoral candidate whose child is kidnapped. Though Damon won't appear in 'Animals,' he's remaining on the project as a producer with Affleck through their company Artists Equity, along with executive Dani Bernfeld. Additional producers are Brad Weston and Collin Creighton of MakeReady, who developed the project in partnership with Fifth Season. Artists Equity's Michael Joe, Kevin Halloran, and Lucy Damon will serve as executive producers. Affleck is the Oscar-winning filmmaker of the political thriller 'Argo,' crime drama 'The Town' and the sports comedy 'Air,' all of which he's pulled off double duty as an actor and director. Anderson, best known for starring in 'The X-Files' as FBI agent Dana Scully, has recently worked with Netflix on 'The Crown,' in which she portrayed Margaret Thatcher and 'Sex Education.' Additional casting for 'Animals' will be announced in the coming weeks, though it's probably safe to assume that Damon's 'Odyssey' co-stars won't be on the call sheet, either.
