Blogbook
What we’re watching: Michael B Jordan’s Just Mercy, a true story civil rights film about a lawyer defending a black man unjustly accused of murder. Via the Guardian:
“You don’t know what you’re into down here in Alabama,” he warns. “Here you’re guilty from the moment you’re born.”
That phrase could stand as a catchphrase for the ingrained racial injustice that Bryan Stevenson, the rookie lawyer played in the film by Michael B Jordan, has devoted his adult life to fighting.
From his first meeting with McMillian in 1988 to his star billing today as one of America’s most incisive commentators on race and inequity – and now as a fully fledged Hollywood icon – Stevenson has never taken his eyes off the prize.
His epic six-year struggle to prove McMillian an innocent man provides the narrative arc of Just Mercy. It is based on the 2014 memoir of the same name in which Stevenson, 60, relates how he came to find himself representing some of the most godforsaken prisoners in the country.
Magic Hour is Droga5’s new campaign for Harley Davidson, an artistic, surreal ad that tries to capture the feeling of riding on a Harley.
Ravenclaw students are facing the biggest threat to Hogwarts since You-Know-Who: Racism.
Posted by The Feed SBS on Tuesday, 11 February 2020
Not even Hogwarts is exempt from Coronavirus, racism in general, or Sinophobia, as this hilarious skit from SBS’ The Feed shows.
Sea of Shadows is a National Geographic documentary featuring Sea Shepherd’s fight to save the highly endangered vaquitas. Via National Geographic:
A looming disaster in one of the most spectacular environments on Earth sparks a rescue mission unlike any other in SEA OF SHADOWS, a riveting new documentary with the intensity of a Hollywood thriller from National Geographic Documentary Films and winner of the Sundance audience award. When Mexican drug cartels and Chinese traffickers join forces to poach the rare totoaba fish in the Sea of Cortez, their deadly methods threaten to destroy virtually all marine life in the region, including the most elusive and endangered whale species on Earth, the vaquita porpoise.
SEA OF SHADOWS follows a team of dedicated scientists, high-tech conservationists, investigative journalists and courageous undercover agents as well as the Mexican Navy as they put their lives on the line to save the last remaining vaquitas and bring the vicious international crime syndicate to justice.
Chasing the Thunder is Sea Shepherd’s latest upcoming film, about the longest chase in modern maritime history, of the chase of an illegal poacher. This story was last seen as a great long-form article in the New York Times, which we recommend reading if you haven’t:
Industrial-scale violators of fishing bans and protected areas are a main reason more than half of the world’s major fishing grounds have been depleted and by some estimates over 90 percent of the ocean’s large fish like marlin, tuna and swordfish have vanished. Interpol had issued a Purple Notice on the Thunder (the equivalent of adding it to a Most Wanted List, a status reserved for only four other ships in the world), but no government had been willing to dedicate the personnel and millions of dollars needed to go after it.
So Sea Shepherd did instead, stalking the fugitive 202-foot steel-sided ship from a desolate patch of ocean at the bottom of the Earth, deep in Antarctic waters, to any ports it neared, where its crews could alert the authorities. “The poachers thrive by staying in the shadows,” Peter Hammarstedt, captain of the Barker, said while trying to level his ship through battering waves. “Our plan was to put a spotlight on them that they couldn’t escape.”
Google’s Loretta ad for the Superbowl is an incredibly moving, tear-jerker of an ad about an elderly man trying to remember his wife. According to Google’s chief marketing officer, it’s based on a true story:
Ten years ago Google aired its first-ever commercial, during the 2010 Super Bowl. We’ve run several more Super Bowl ads in the years since. And on Sunday, viewers of this year’s game will see “Loretta,” which tells the story of a man who uses the Google Assistant to keep the memory of his love alive.
The ad reflects our goal to build products that help people in their daily lives, in both big and small ways. Sometimes that’s finding a location, sometimes it’s playing a favorite movie, and sometimes it’s using the Google Assistant to remember meaningful details.
“Loretta” has a few other things in common with our “Parisian Love” commercial from 10 years ago. Both are simple love stories told through the lens of our products. Both were inspired by real people—in fact, the voice you hear throughout “Loretta” is the grandfather of a Googler, whose story we drew from to create the ad. At 85, to an audience of millions, he’ll be making his film debut. We couldn’t be happier for him.
McDonalds’ Superbowl ad this year was Famous Orders by Wieden+Kennedy, inspired by a Kim Kardashian interview about chicken nuggets. It’s a simple, beautifully executed ad which shows that you don’t have to be super flash to have a great ad (though of course we can’t be sure how much McDs paid the celebrities mentioned in the ad for their orders). We’re a little worried about Keith Urban.
Rick and Morty were in a Superbowl ad for Pringles? Wha? It’s a hilarious, very self-referential ad… much like the cartoon itself, and yes, there’s going to be an actual physical Pringle collaboration. Via CNN:
It’s a pickle — or, rather, a pickle-inspired chip.
For the third year in a row, Pringles is going all-in for its Super Bowl ad, and this time the crunch connoisseurs are giving a strange nod to the Adult Swim show “Rick and Morty” with a “Pickle Rick” chip and animated commercial.
Who is Pickle Rick, you may ask? He’s the vegetable reincarnation of “Rick and Morty”‘s wacky scientist Rick Sanchez, who turns himself into a talking pickle to avoid going to family therapy in Episode 3 of Season 3.
To honor the show’s intensely enthusiastic fan base, Adult Swim will create a “humorous, mind-bending animated spot” to air during the second quarter of the big game, says Pringles parent company, Kellogg.
And starting in early February, you’ll be able to pick up Pickle Rick chips in grocery stores nationwide.
Until then, the taste profile of the special-edition chip will remain a mystery, and we are left puzzling over what, exactly, Pickle Rick tastes like.
The Porsche Superbowl 2020 ad looks like a trailer for a Fast and the Furious film… in a good way. Silly ending, but a fun watch that introduces its new electric car in a cool way. Watching the start of the ad, we were all “There’s no way you can steal a Porsche like that, it’d be too loud!” Curious about the cars involved? Motortrend has you covered:
Porsche’s first Super Bowl commercial in more than two decades is an epic ode to the brand’s past, present, and future. With its opening scene taking place within the halls of the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, the ad is chock full of great Porsches—including one unreleased model that was included as an Easter egg.
Yet, the 60-second spot, which previews a longer, 151-second online ad, ultimately puts the spotlight on 10 specific Porsches, each of which represents an important moment in the brand’s history. Read through to find out what makes these vehicles so special to the German automaker.