Val Kilmer Gone
Val Kilmer, Star of ‘Batman Forever,’ ‘Tombstone,’ Dies at 65
Val Kilmer, who played Bruce Wayne in “Batman Forever,” channeled Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone‘s “The Doors” and starred as a tubercular Doc Holliday in “Tombstone,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles. His daughter Mercedes told The New York Times the cause was pneumonia. He was 65. He had been battling throat cancer for several years.
Kilmer’s reps did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.
The baby-faced blonde actor had a solid run as a leading man with a volatile reputation in the ’80s and ’90s, starring in “Top Gun,” “Real Genius,” “Willow,” “Heat,” and “The Saint.” He returned briefly to screens in 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick” although he could no longer speak due to his cancer.
Bay Rocks
Michael Bay Is Still a Blast (And So Is His “Illegal” New Parkour Movie)
The action icon on his thrilling new documentary ‘We Are Storror,’ the dismal state of Hollywood (“no one can greenlight anything anymore”), that Michael Bay TikTok meme and how Ben Affleck managed to nail the ending of ‘Armageddon.’
Michael Bay is in Miami, which seems right. He also doesn’t exactly love strictly scheduled interviews, and instead just calls when he’s ready to chat, which also seems right. Today, the director of tentpole blockbusters like The Rock and the Transformers franchise is calling to talk about his new parkour documentary, We Are Storror, which is debuting at the 2025 South by Southwest Film Festival this weekend.
Interviewing Bay feels like watching one of his summer tentpole hits. He’s energetic, upbeat and full of boyish humor (and plenty of f-bombs). He’s now 60, but thankfully still sounds like how you expect Michael Bay to sound — like a guy who is still ready to blow some shit up (“Oh, you live in Austin?” he asks, “I burned down a house there once!”).
Fuck Rock
from Authors Equity
You can’t hand-deliver books to Rock Center.
And other lessons from our first year.
Hi, all.
A year ago today, I was part of a tiny sleep-deprived band setting out on the streets of midtown Manhattan to test a theory. The theory was simply this: after chasing scale for most of our corporate careers, we thought we could get further faster by running the other way.
Instead of getting big, we’d go deep. Deep into a small list of books with a small list of authors. Instead of leaning on organizational heft, we’d see how far organizational agility would get us.
We met with a host of literary agencies all around town and basically said: trust us, we can do this, really. It’s a miracle anyone said yes — but enough of them did that it let us take our first steps, make our first books, sell our first books, achieve our first bestsellers.
We’ve added a few colleagues, but we can still all fit on a zoom screen and around the table in our one-room office. Still small by any normal definition of company size. But when you add the authors who’ve embraced us and the partners of all kinds who’ve helped us, we feel big indeed.
Invisible X-37B
Top secret US spaceship returns to Earth after 434 days on mysterious mission… and is met by hazmat-clad ground crew
The spaceship performed a never-before-seen “invisible” manoeuvre
by Lydia Doye
The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-7 landed at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California where it was met by hazmat-clad ground crew.
The spaceship began its return to Earth after successfully completing its “test and experimentation objectives”.
The X-37B completed a never-before-seen aerobraking manoeuvre to change its orbit.
Aerobraking involves making several passes into the Earth’s atmosphere which causes drag to rapidly change the craft’s orbit.
In doing so, the spaceship expends minimal fuel, making it temporarily invisible to other nations who could be tracking it.
Greatest Goal Ever
Hackman Gone
from The Atlantic
There Was Never a Movie Star Like Gene Hackman
Story by David Sims
In 1956, an aspiring young actor named Gene Hackman joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California, struggling to find a way into a field he’d been fascinated with since childhood. Hackman, who was born in 1930, had already served five years in the Marine Corps, then bounced around New York, Florida, Illinois, and other places without much luck. His good friend at Pasadena was another ambitious performer, Dustin Hoffman; together, they were voted “least likely to succeed” by their peers before washing out and moving back to New York to try scratching out a living. Even at the age of 26, Hackman’s hardscrabble features meant he looked like the furthest thing from a marquee idol—he seemed destined to be a bit player at best.
But over the next 50-odd years, Hackman would become the greatest, coolest, earthiest star of what’s now known as New Hollywood: an everyman who defined a generation of moviemaking better than anyone else.
[ click to continue reading at The Atlantic n
Addicto-Weed
Is Weed More Addictive Than We’ve Been Led to Believe?
Turns out cannabis dependence is real — and recovery doesn’t follow the usual script
As a millennial, I’ve seen the reputation of potheads elevate from burnouts buying incense and Grateful Dead shirts at the mall to successful adults who don’t drink but enjoy unwinding and having a good time. The legalized cannabis era has even cultivated a surprising conversational common ground. That family member you’re hoping doesn’t bring up politics at dinner? They’d love to talk gummies instead.
At the same time, ever since I was a teenager (buying incense at the mall), I’ve heard the same refrain over and over again: weed is not addictive. To be honest, that never felt entirely true. I mean, just because my high school friends could make gravity bongs did not make them experts on this topic. Admittedly, we had no clue what we were talking about. As for the weed-smoking community outside my circle of friends, there are over 360,000 users in the subreddit r/leaves, an online group for people trying to quit or seeking support in their recovery, who would beg to differ with the assessment that cannabis is not addictive.
Saunders’ Release
A Treasure Trove of Old Master Works Could Fetch $120 Million or More This May
The auction of fifty-six works once owned by Thomas A. Saunders III and his wife Jordan is expected to break the record set by the $76 million Fisch Davidson collection sale in 2023.
In May, Sotheby’s will present a dedicated auction featuring one of the most significant Old Masters collections to come to market in recent years. Assembled by Thomas Saunders III and his wife, Jordan Saunders, the collection is expected to achieve between $80 million and $120 million. Comprising fifty-six works, Elegance & Wonder: Masterpieces from the Collection of Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III is expected to break the record for any Old Masters sale at auction, surpassing the $76 million benchmark set by the Fisch Davidson collection in 2023.
“The Saunders were extremely dedicated, determined collectors. They collected Old Masters in earnest and were solely focused on buying what they loved, with a real eye for beauty and a focus on quality,” Wachter told Observer. “They assembled a one-of-a-kind collection spanning still life, landscapes, portraits and more. Helping to assemble their collection is a true bright spot in my career, and it was an honor for me to help guide them through their collecting journey.”
The Blue Ghost
Sunrise on the moon! Private Blue Ghost lander captures amazing shot after historic lunar touchdown (photo)
By Andrew Jones
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander has captured a gorgeous shot of sunrise on the moon as it begins its workday on the lunar surface.
Blue Ghost aced its lunar landing attempt on Sunday (March 2), setting down close to Mons Latreille, a solitary lunar peak in the vast basin Mare Crisium (“Sea of Crises”) in the northeastern region of the moon’s near side.
And the spacecraft is already getting to work, starting up its science payloads and capturing amazing images of its surroundings and the distant Earth from the lunar surface.
The Great Nike Robbery
Inside the Mojave Desert train heists targeting Nike sneakers
by Alex Wigglesworth
The thieves stealthily board eastbound freight trains, hiding out until they reach lonely stretches of the Mojave Desert or high plains far from towns. They slash an air brake hose, causing the mile-long line of railcars to screech to an emergency stop.
Then, they go shopping.
That’s the modus operandi described by investigators in a string of at least 10 heists targeting BNSF trains in California and Arizona since last March. All but one resulted in the theft of Nike sneakers, their combined value approaching $2 million, according to investigators.
Tom & Iggy Smoke Cigarettes
AI Crocs
Crocs just found the perfect use case for AI
AI Jibbitz are here. Dream big.
There are plenty of questionable examples of companies shoehorning useless artificial intelligence features into their products (Meta’s AI-powered profiles say hello!), but finally, Crocs has found one that actually makes sense. The casual footwear brand has partnered with ABLO, an AI fashion design platform, to let people use AI to design their own Jibbitz charms.
Crocs are already all about customization, a strategy that’s helped Crocs, Inc. grow its revenue 4% over last year. Jibbitz charms, which can be plugged into the holes on the shoes’ upper and heel strap, add an extra layer of personalization, and AI takes that to the next level.
“We have Jibbitz for everyone—from teachers to gamers to healthcare workers—and we are now giving our fans the option to design one-of-a-kind charms using ABLO’s AI technology, taking customization to the next level,” Crocs brand president Anne Mehlman tells Fast Company.
There is another sky.
How This Artist Is Using Ancient Ice and Stardust to Create Neo-Metaphysical Art
Katie Paterson is currently the subject of a solo show with James Cohan in New York.
For her first substantial presentation in New York in almost a decade, Scottish artist Katie Paterson has endeavored to create a space where the cosmos and Earth merge.
On view through February 22, 2025, at James Cohan Gallery’s 52 Walker Street, Paterson’s exhibition, “There is another sky,” includes a range of pieces that reflect her expanded approach to art-making, featuring unusual materials that are hard to come by and informed by investigative research and collaborations with scientists, geologists, perfumers, and craftspeople. In one work, a lacquer infused with the ashes of over 10,000 tree species took years to source and develop. Another piece includes stardust. Evergreen (2022) is the first-ever image archive of extinct flowering plants that Paterson created in collaboration with a botanical illustrator and scientists.
Not yet.
Have humans passed peak brain power?
Data across countries and ages reveal a growing struggle to concentrate, and declining verbal and numerical reasoning
What is intelligence? This may sound like a straightforward question with a straightforward answer — the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a capacity to understand” — but that definition itself raises an increasingly relevant question in the modern world. What happens if the extent to which we can practically apply that capacity is diminishing? Evidence is mounting that something exactly like this has been happening to the human intellect over the past decade or so.
Nobody would argue that the fundamental biology of the human brain has changed in that far-too-short time span. However, across a range of tests, the average person’s ability to reason and solve novel problems appears to have peaked in the early 2010s and has been declining ever since.
When the latest round of analysis from PISA, the OECD’s international benchmarking test for performance by 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics and science tests, was released, the focus understandably fell on the role of the Covid pandemic in disrupting education. But this masked a longer-term and broader deterioration.
They really shouldn’t cinch that rope so tight around the bull’s balls and whatnot.
Dream Receivers
Why some people remember their dreams (and others don’t)
Reviewed by Sophia Naughton
Study shows that daydreamers are more likely to have stronger recall of their overnight adventures
LUCCA, Italy — What were you dreaming about last night? For roughly one in four people, that question draws a blank. For others, the answer comes easily, complete with vivid details about flying through clouds or showing up unprepared for an exam. This stark contrast in dream recall ability has baffled researchers for decades, but a new study reveals there’s more to remembering dreams than pure chance.
From March 2020 to March 2024, scientists from multiple Italian research institutions conducted a sweeping investigation to uncover what determines dream recall. Published in Communications Psychology, their research surpassed typical dream studies by combining detailed sleep monitoring, cognitive testing, and brain activity measurements. The study involved 217 healthy adults between ages 18 and 70, who did far more than simply keep dream journals; they underwent brain tests, wore sleep-tracking wristbands, and some even had their brain activity monitored throughout the night.
Soul, Man
Scientists capture end-of-life brain activity that could prove humans have souls
A mysterious burst of energy that happens in the brain as we die could be the soul leaving the body, according to an expert.
Dr Stuart Hameroff, anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona, recently discussed a study that captured the brain activity of clinically dead patients.
He explained how researchers placed small sensors on the brains of seven chronically ill patients minutes before they were taken off life support, allowing them to capture activity after each patient’s blood pressure and heart dropped to zero.
JAMES FREY on the 10
AI© v.1
How This A.I. Image Became the First to Snag Copyright Protection
The U.S. Copyright Office ruled generally last month that work created from A.I. text prompts could not be copyrighted.
Invoke, a generative artificial intelligence platform, has been granted the first copyright protections for an A.I. image since new guidelines were handed down by the U.S. Copyright Office last month that generally ruled art created with text prompts cannot be copyrighted.
The Copyright Office had made its ruling in the context of existing laws that provide limited protections for such work. But they noted a range of human-A.I. collaboration can exist, indicating there is a threshold where an A.I. artwork could be considered human-made. The agency determined that such a threshold would come down to a case-by-case basis.
Led by founder and chief executive Kent Keirsey, Invoke has been trying to find that thin line to offer a product that would help artists create works that may be eligible for copyright protection. He called it “massive” that the copyright protections were granted for the customers of his product who need to be able to copyright their works.
[ click to continue reading at artnet ]
Coming Soon!
This Is Where Asteroid 2024 YR4 Could Strike
There is a 2 percent chance that seven years from now, “the city destroyer” will hit Earth with the force of an 8-megaton nuclear weapon. Here are its possible impact points.
ASTEROID 2024 YR4, measuring approximately 40 to 100 meters wide, will pass very close to Earth in December 2032—and might even strike the planet. Because of its size, speed, and the possibility of it making impact, the internet has given it the nickname of “the city destroyer.”
Major space agencies, such as the European Space Agency, estimate there’s about a 2 percent chance that 2024 YR4 will hit Earth, though this risk figure will be updated as scientists learn more about the asteroid’s path. Although it’s far more likely the asteroid will miss Earth, sites that could be affected by a collision have already been identified.
James Frey and Fiona Eltz @ Teodor Doré in Chelsea
Birthday stories, stories of exile, and more stories in the form of dreams
Pianist Teodor Doré and his ensemble presented a chamber concert at the Chelsea loft of fellow pianist (and friend), Jonathan DePeri.
The concert was inspired by themes of exile, displacement, and longing for homeland. The Crimean-born Doré is now an exile, as are his accompanists: soprano Anastasiya Roytman from Ukraine, violinist Taisiya Losmakovafrom Belarus, and Grammy-nominated cellist Sergey Antonov, who is from Russia.
It was standing-room-only for the audience of more than 80 guests who filled the double height music room and balcony where Doré performed Sergei Rachmaninoff, as well as his own compositions; a highlight of the evening, his new orchestration of Suite in D Minor, made with the approval and encouragement of Rachmaninoff’s great-granddaughter, Alexandra Conus Rachmaninoff.
Plutocracy Redux
The Rise of the Selfish Plutocrats
Instead of pursuing philanthropy, many now seek to evade social responsibility.
By Brian Klaas
In the early 1500s, an unknown wealthy patron is said to have commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to produce the Salvator Mundi, a striking ecclesiastical masterpiece in which Jesus is shown blessing humanity with his right hand while holding an orb representing the Earth in his left. The patron’s identity has been lost to history, and whether da Vinci actually painted it is still debated among scholars, but such commissions were common during the medieval and Renaissance periods: Medici-like benefactors, uncomfortable with the potential sinfulness of their extravagant wealth, sought to offset their guilt and enhance their prestige by sponsoring magnificent works of art and architecture for the public to enjoy.
Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi changed hands countless times through the ensuing centuries. Mistaken as a comparatively commonplace artwork, it was owned by a 17th-century heir to the Scottish crown who was later beheaded, passed to the illegitimate son of an 18th-century duke, and then languished in obscurity for more than a century. An unknown buyer acquired the painting at auction for £45, or about $1,300 today, and it ended up in Houston. The painting later passed to Basil Clovis Hendry Sr., who ran a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, sheet-metal company. Then, in 2005, on suspicion that there was more to the painting than met the untrained eye, an art consortium bought the painting for just over $1,000. Years of restoration, cleaning, research, and speculation yielded a shocking announcement: The painting was Da Vinci’s lost Salvator Mundi.
AI Auction v.1
Christie’s Is Holding the First Ever Dedicated A.I. Art Sale at a Major Auction House
How you feel about that might just depend on how much human intervention you think is required to make A.I. generated art legitimate.
I felt a vague sense of disquietude when I received word from Christie’s that it would be hosting the first-ever artificial intelligence-dedicated sale at a major house. Just a little moment of unease. Frankly, it’s hard to shush those quiet biases that make a person want to categorize all art into “real art” and “other,” as if I have somehow earned the right to make that distinction. But unpacking my kneejerk reaction to the Augmented Intelligence auction, which will be open for bidding from February 20 through March 5, didn’t take long. I am a person who makes things, and the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies in creative spheres feels like an existential threat when you’re someone who has roped material survival to artistic impulses.
I’m also a realist. Artificial intelligence can write and draw and, tethered to a robotic arm, it can paint, and it can make data so beautiful we put it in museums, but there’s always a human being behind the curtain pulling the strings, whether by writing code or dreaming up ideas or otherwise telling A.I. what to do. (For the record, it can also chase glitches, sus out breast cancers better than human doctors and, just maybe, break your porn habit.) I also futz around with artificial intelligence on the regular because I’m not as afraid of A.I. stealing my job as I am of someone who’s really good at using A.I. stealing it.
Monster Spied
Telescopes spy a monster radio jet streaming from a bright and early object in the universe
The jet of radio waves is the biggest ever detected so early in the history of the universe, astronomers reported Thursday.
By MARCIA DUNN | Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Telescopes around the world have spotted a monster radio jet streaming from a quasar dating back to the first 1 billion years of the universe.
At double the width of our Milky Way galaxy, this jet of radio waves is the biggest ever detected so early in the history of the universe, astronomers reported Thursday.
Radio jets like this are not uncommon in our cosmic neighborhood. But they’ve been elusive in the distant early universe — until now — because of the obscuring cosmic microwave background left over from the Big Bang.
“It’s only because this object is so extreme that we can observe it from Earth, even though it’s really far away,” lead author Anniek Gloudemans of the National Science Foundation’s NoirLab said in a statement.
Gina Gershon Audibles NEXT TO HEAVEN
Michel Gondry’s ‘Maya’
Michel Gondry’s ‘Maya, Give Me A Title’ Getting North American Premiere At New York International Children’s Film Festival
Michel Gondry‘s latest film Maya, Give Me A Title, is set to have its North American premiere at the upcoming New York International Children’s Film Festival (Feb 28 – March 16).
The French-language film will have its international premiere at the upcoming Berlin Film Festival. Indie Sales is selling. Gondry’s regular producer Georges Bermann of Partizan Films is producing. A U.S. buyer has yet to be set but The Jokers released in France.
The Lumiere-nominated film is a stop-motion animation charting the long-distance relationship between Gondry and his daughter Maya. The two live in different countries, and on each of their nightly calls Gondry asks his daughter “Maya, give me a title.” Whatever her answer is, he creates a short animated story in which Maya is always the hero.
Everywhere a Fight Club
Fight Club’s Chuck Palahniuk: ‘Today, cults are the big thing. Secretive cults’
The novelist on transgressive literature, the ‘exhausting’ appeal of Elon Musk – and why Netflix would never accept his shocking TV pitch
by Duncan White
“There are probably a billion cults going on right now that we have no clue about.” Chuck Palahniuk is meditating on the American moment. At 62, and the author of 25 books of fiction, he has made a career diving into the murky waters of the national ID and dredging back to the surface its most transgressive desires.
From his 1996 debut, Fight Club, through to his latest, Shock Induction, Palahniuk’s propulsive novels have explored the dark recesses of the culture, his finger on a deeper pulse. And in this particularly disorienting moment, he sees some alarming precedents.
“I don’t think any historical moment is unique. I think about a similar period at the end of the Sixties, when hippie ideals and forms of protest no longer worked, people started to take more and more radical action, like the Hearst kidnapping, the Aldo Moro murder, and the Sharon Tate murders. Suddenly rich people had to have bodyguards. You had all sort of similar acts of radical action, because organised action was no longer working.
“And that’s what I thought of the other day when the Luigi Mangione shooting happened. And the two New Year’s Day attacks, in New Orleans and Las Vegas.”
JAMES FREY: Next To Heaven
James Frey’s Next to Heaven Is Made for White Lotus and Big Little Lies Fans — See the Cover! (Exclusive)
The ‘A Million Little Pieces’ author is back with a satirical look at the “beautiful, wealthy and unsatisfied”
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James Frey is known for pushing boundaries and his latest novel promises to be no different.
Billed as “a satirical thrill ride through the dark heart of privilege,” Next to Heaven is the perfect propulsive read for fans of shows like White Lotus and Big Little Lies, the publisher teases. The novel is set to be released on June 17, 2025 — and PEOPLE has the exclusive first look at the juicy cover!
With this new novel, Frey is ready to sink his teeth into the dark and frivolous.
“The world is so serious and dreadful these days, I wanted to write a fun, sexy, thrilling book that peels back the veneer of ‘perfect’ lives and exposes what money and desire can do to people,” Frey tells PEOPLE in an exclusive excerpt. “I hope readers laugh and generally have a great time watching it all unravel.”
A Light From Under
Eerie Light Haunts a Southern Town. It May Come From Under the Earth.
by NYT
Summerville, a town northwest of Charleston, S.C., has its share of ghost stories. One yarn that has stuck around for decades is the tale of the Summerville Light.
In the dead of night, along a dirt road in the nearby pine forest following abandoned railroad tracks, people have observed mysterious lights, bobbing up and down, pulsing with a pale blue, green or orange hue.
Along the tracks, the story goes, a woman waited for her husband, a railroad worker, to return. But he died, losing his head in an accident. Ever devoted, the widow searched for his remains. She continued — even after her own death: The flicker of her lantern was all that remained.
It’s a goose-bumpy explanation of the Summerville Light. The remote road in the story even became known to locals as Light Road, a spot where specter seekers reported glowing orbs and unusual noises in the 1960s.
AI Screenwriter v.1
Paul Schrader, writer of ‘Taxi Driver,’ admits AI is better at generating film ideas than people
by Ilana Gordon
After enjoying a five-decades-long career as a film critic, director, and screenwriter, Paul Schrader has come to the conclusion that AI is better at writing movies than humans.
For a certain subset of the population, Schrader is most recognizable as the pen behind Martin Scorsese projects like Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). For a younger demographic, he is best known for directing the erotic thriller The Canyons (2013), written by Bret Easton Ellis and starring Lindsay Lohan and James Deen (of adult film fame).
On Jan. 17, 2025, Schrader took to Facebook to announce “I’M STUNNED.” He elaborated: “I just asked chatgpt for “an idea for Paul Schrader film.” Then Paul Thomas Anderson. Then Quentin Tarantino. Then Harmony Korine. Then Ingmar Bergman. Then Rossellini. Lang. Scorsese. Murnau. Capra. Ford. Speilberg. Lynch. Every idea chatgpt came up with (in a few seconds) was good. And original. And fleshed out.”
Schrader ended his post by asking why “writers sit around for months searching for a good idea when AI can provide one in seconds?” and he got quite the response to his query. Concerns were raised about AI having hacked his Facebook page, but mostly people agreed that ChatGPT primarily functions as a new type of search engine, aggregating already existing content and concepts.