This year, we decided to shake things up a little bit, and organize our annual gift guide by category—after all, it’s pretty easy to identify people by a love of entertaining, art, or, well, if you’re like everyone at goop, their deep and abiding affection for jewelry. We also went straight to the source for our kid picks, who arguably out-sophisticated us. We tried to keep as much as possible at the $100 mark, though there are some splurges on here for your nearest and dearest. Plus, a girl can always dream. These are the instructions for building the LEGO Castle Troll Warship that was released in 2008.INSTRUCT.7048 IN 29 1/2 [3.98 Mb]INSTRUCT.7048 NA 39 1/2 [2.38 Mb]INSTRUCT.7048 IN 29 2/2 [4.88 Mb]INSTRUCT.7048 NA 39 2/2 [4.92 Mb]Man of Steel Final Cut Score: 75% Disliking Superman is a treasonous crime. Screw Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America – even my Super Friends fave, Green Lantern – "The Man of Steel" is our great nation's number one superhero with a bullet.
Taking umbrage with that declarative statement is akin to arguing the merits of breathable air. So here we are with the latest big screen incarnation of the American icon, Man of Steel, some seven years after Bryan Singer's middling attempt to revive the franchise that got its Christopher Reeve-commencement way back when a peanut farmer from Georgia was planted in the Oval Office. With a price tag rumored to be in the $250M range, Warner Bros. wasn't messing around when it came to doing things right — doing things with a hellacious bang. Hiring Zack Snyder – the man of 300 fame – to helm the project cemented the guarantee that this Superman wasn't going to lack edge, this Superman wasn't going to be cartoonish — this Superman was going to be a bad ass. And to that end Snyder succeeded, Man of Steel is as now – as real – as Superman has ever been — hokey he's not. Beginning with his opening scene of Krypton coming apart at the seams, Snyder sets a tone that very much mirrors how J.J. Abrams rebooted Star Trek, dropping us dead center in the mythology, a birth rising from the ashes of annihilation.
Superman's biological father, Jor-El (Russell Crowe as strong as we've seen of late), shipping his son to Earth via spacecraft before General Zod (Michael Shannon sporting a très stylish Caesar cut) and his cronies can nab the tot. Snyder's shows wonderful artistic instincts in the Earth-bound scenes that follow, choosing to unveil Kal-El's conversion to humanity in flashbacks rather than continuous with the kid's arrival on terra firma. We first meet him in modern day, the member of a fishing boat's crew, sneaking off to save a bunch of oil rig workers from incineration — his super powers cloaked from the world due to fears of being found out to be a super freak. Henry Cavill possesses the physical presence for the role with his sculpted-from-stone physique, though his emotional range is similarly statuesque — troubled eyebrows do not an actor make. In the efforts of condensation, IMDB's somewhat oversimplified summary: "A young itinerant worker is forced to confront his secret extraterrestrial heritage when Earth is invaded by members of his race" isn't a bad bridge to where this review ultimately rests, Zod's mightily-protracted invasion of our fair planet.
From its Sears, IHOP and 7-Eleven-smashing origins in Kansas to its skyscraper-shattering finale in Metropolis, Superman's brawl with Zod is interminable, an ungodly overload of CGI that amounts to a special effects bludgeoning. Michael Bay's downtown LA tilt between Optimus Prime and Megatron looks positively tame by comparison. "Restraint" is a foreign word to Snyder. It's truly a shame because the pieces were in place for something infinitely more memorable than this. Something infinitely more emotionally resonating than this. Something infinitely less overblown than this. And one note for the inevitable sequel, someone tell Cavill he's playing Superman, not Bizarro. Free Shipping on $25+ Texas Products through 3/7/17* Use Code: TEXFEST Shop Now (*up to $25 discount on shipping fees).Everybody loves a good fake picture. Of course, picture hoaxes were popular long before the internet. Not actual fairies, no matter what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thought.
But the internet’s taken them to a whole new level. Pictures about shocking and frightening events get shared a lot. The infamous World Trade Centre “Tourist Guy” was actually a Hungarian man who edited a picture he’d taken years before as a joke for friends. And massive animals always go down well. That is not, and never was, the world’s biggest dog. You can Photoshop pictures to make the world seem more dramatic. The oil rig is fine, guys. Or to make a political point. In the original photo, Mitt Romney and his supporters were able to spell his name right. Or just because it looks cool. Not an island in Ireland - a German castle stuck on top of a Thai rock formation. Or possibly you wish to defame koalas. Wet koalas are pretty angry, but not that angry. Your Photoshopping doesn’t even need to be that good. People will still buy it. Not a picture of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami - an altered picture of the Chilean coastline.
And the picture doesn’t have to be especially plausible. Those aren’t the hands of God, emerging in the aftermath of a hurricane. They’re the hands of Goatse. The golden rule: if somewhere has become flooded, you must add sharks. Sharks did not invade New Jersey’s streets post-Hurricane Sandy. If you can’t be bothered Photoshopping something yourself, just take a picture from a TV show. This is not a picture from the crash of Air France flight 447 in 2009. It’s a picture from Lost.A film that even used this as a promotional image. The Statue of Liberty right now - | Anonymous@YourAnonNewsThe Statue of Liberty right now - | The Day After Tomorrow, not Hurricane Sandy. In fact, you can normally just find a picture of anything vaguely similar and misattribute it. Hurricane Sandy approaching New York. — Eamonn Fitzmaurice (@efitz6) Eamonn Fitzmaurice@efitz6Hurricane Sandy approaching New York./ Via Also not Sandy - just a thunderstorm from the year before.
These pictures always make good fake hurricanes. They get wheeled out pretty much any time there’s a big one. They’re actually supercell thunderstorms, which look a lot more interesting than real hurricanes. If there’s a tear-jerking story that can go alongside the picture, so much the better. A Boy Who Chained His Bike To A Tree In 1914 To Fight In A War And Never Returned. — Historical Pictures™ (@Historicalpix) Historical Picturesâ„¢@HistoricalpixA Boy Who Chained His Bike To A Tree In 1914 To Fight In A War And Never Returned./ Via The bike is real, but was abandoned in the 1950s - the story of its owner going off to war is fictional. Or an inspiring message always goes down well. This is how #India looks like from outer space on Diwali Night. Happy Diwali to entire world. — Mind Blowing Facts (@TheMindBlowing) Mind Blowing Facts@TheMindBlowingThis is how #India looks like from outer space on Diwali Night. Really a false-colour composite of images taken over the course of a decade, showing how the distribution of light in India changed over time.