The Underground — Issue #132
Everything you need to know about in this weekly series: A blooper reel from the film IT that may calm you down from that evil clown, Steven Spielberg takes us on a tour of the Universal lot with stories of his films, the future of the universe with black holes, and questioning whether we live in a simulation like The Matrix.
At Social Underground we go beyond the mainstream stuff and see what’s underneath the surface. What should we get into, listen to, read, eat or watch? If there is something in our culture that needs attention that’s our job: Show you the underground things that you need to know about: Books, music, television, movies, comedians, art, and whatever else we can find to get you into something you never knew about. That’s The Underground.
1. IT bloopers you should probably watcher after the movie to calm you down. I went into the movie IT thinking it was going to yet another low budget horror film that idiots will see in droves. It’s common thinking now since every successful movie is either a franchise film or a low budget horror film about some rundown house a family buys.
Gladly, IT was fantastic as well as scary. What jump scares it had were more than just jump scares. There’s a scene with a projector that almost made me walk out of the theater because the visual was something out of my childhood nightmares.
Now we have a blooper reel from the film that will relieve some of the tension from the film to make you smile. The reel may not erase your hatred of clowns, but it will remind you that this was just a film. Check out the bloopers from IT below.
2. Steven Spielberg shows off the incredible worlds he created on the Universal lot. Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Amistad, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, Munich, Lincoln… do I need to go on? Steven Spielberg has created more iconic movies that almost any director. Movies that stand the test of time no matter how old they get. Seriously, go back and watch Jurassic Park. It looks like it was just made. The CGI looks better than some of the crap that’s out there today.
In the video below, one lucky reporter gets to drive around the Universal lot with Spielberg as he shows of iconic locations while telling stories of his history in filmmaking. Not only is this incredibly interesting, to be that reporter listening to the master showing off his work is beyond a dream come true for any fan.
I implore you to watch the entire video below. It really takes you into the mindset it takes to make some of the best films of all time.
3. Citizens at the End of Time: Black Hole Farming. Thinking about a few years into the future in our current climate feels daunting. Our politics, recent abundance of natural disasters, and unwillingness to unite as a species has me questioning our future. That being said, the entire universe doesn’t give a damn about the Earth. We’re a piece of dust in a seemingly infinite void filled with some other dust.
Big things in that void are black holes. Black holes suck anything into them, and when it’s inside, who knows what happens. There are theories, some more probable than others, but we still won’t know unless we can inspect one a little closer.
Premise: We jump trillions of years into the future to examine the concept of civilizations living in a dark, post-stellar Universe, where we encounter some surprising possibilities about just how abundant and robust life might be in a seemingly dark and dead Universe.
I have to warn you that the language in this documentary is chock full of hard to understand stuff that many would fall asleep to in class while in college. I find it fascinating because all of it reminds me just how small and insignificant we are.
4. Is Reality Real? The Simulation Argument. One of the biggest things to come out of the release of the film The Matrix was the question of “are we living in a simulated reality?” It sounded silly at the time considering it was a great film about kung-fu and cool phones, but as time went on, scientists started questioning the possibility of it.
We play gigantic video games where characters are A.I. in a world that we created. Essentially, they live in a simulated reality. How do we know that we don’t live in one? Just because we think we live in our own special reality doesn’t mean there isn’t some kids from the 5th dimension controlling everything. Maybe throwing in some hurricanes to see how the characters react to the simulation that it created.
I’m a little out of my league when trying to explain the specifics, so I’ll let this video drop some knowledge on you.
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com