Daily Archives: May 6, 2020

New Jersey Online Casinos Have Big Shoes To Fill With AC Casinos Closed; Can They Do It? – Play NJ

Posted: May 6, 2020 at 6:45 am

With the state of New Jersey under a stay-at-home order until further notice, Atlantic City casinos remain shuttered.

While this is a huge blow for the gambling industry, thankfully, New Jersey online casinos provide another revenue stream for the gaming companies.

AC casinos saw an instant impact on their bottom line. Before the closure, casinos enjoyed a 21-month streak of revenue growth.

During the first month of the lockdown, the casinos saw a 47% drop from March of last year. However, despite the decline, online gaming revenue saw an increase of over 65% from that period.

David Schwartz, a gambling historian with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told KRCR News that the deep declines were expected.

While there will be some revenue coming in from online sources, the cessation of live casino gaming caused numbers to sharply plummet, and they will take some time to increase, even after the shutdowns end.

The $64.8 million that was earned through online gaming during the first month of the quarantine is a nice buffer. The casinos certainly welcome the revenue during these trying times.

However, when we factor in the $124 million in total gambling revenue lost, it shows a bleaker outlook for the casinos.

The longer that the brick-and-mortar casinos remain closed, the harder it will be for the corporations that own them to reopen.

With that being said, the online casinos that bring more to the table in regards to customer acquisition will be better equipped to weather the storm.

Memorial Day weekend, which is the kickoff to summer and Atlantic Citys biggest money-making season, is about a month away. If the casinos have any chance of surviving, they need to reopen around this time in some fashion.

Of course, that means a plan that involves any and all social distancing and cleaning guidelines. Only relying on online casino revenue will become less and less feasible as months go by.

Two major employers in South Jersey, AtlantiCare and the Casino Association of New Jersey (CANJ), announced a battle plan last week.

CANJ President Steve Callender spoke to NJBIZ about the plan.

We want Atlantic City to be ready to open as soon as the government determines it is appropriate to do so.

That is why we are working with our regional health care provider to develop a comprehensive plan that ensures our properties are prepared and ready to reopen when the stay-at-home order is lifted.

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Swedish concerns, UKGC injection and Danish blocks: The week in numbers – Casino Beats

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Each week,CasinoBeatsbreaks down the numbers behind some of the industrys most interesting stories. The latest edition features a UKGC gambling related-harm injection, removal of adverts and the urging of Swedish proposals to be reversed.

9

TheUK Gambling Commissionis making 9m in funds from regulatory settlements available toGambleAwarein a bid to boost the resilience of gambling harm treatment services during COVID-19.

After receiving $27m in penalty packages since January of this year alone, the charity and its partners are to use the windfall to help ensure treatment and support services can continue to operate effectively and withstand additional pressures brought by the outbreak.

This follows research undertaken by the regulator that indicated an overall fall in gambling participation since lockdown commenced, however concern was raised over evidence of an increase in the use of certain gambling products such as online slots, poker, casino gaming and virtual sports.

Furthermore, it was also said that funds will help to address any increase in demand for such services, support the move of services to alternative models of delivery, such as online, as well as building resilience in the treatment and support system during the uncertainty.

28

TheEuropean Gaming and Betting Associationhas urged Swedish decision makers to withdraw proposals that would see further restrictions imposed on the countrys online gambling market.

Calling on the country not to exacerbate an already harmful unregulated gambling problem and jeopardise consumer protection even further, the comments follow the publication of a new study undertaken byCopenhagen Economics.

Published this week by Swedens online gambling trade associationBranschfreningen fr Onlinespel, it found that 22-28 per cent of online casino gambling and 15-20 per cent of sports betting is unregulated, higher than the previous official estimates.

Online gambling is a consumer-driven market and customers will shop-around for better value, bonuses and products and even look outside the regulated market to find these,Maarten Haijer, secretary general of the EGBA.

Significant numbers of Swedes already gamble in the unregulated market and the proposed restrictions to the regulated market will encourage more to do so. For these reasons, black-market companies will be the only people celebrating the restrictions.

7

Members of theBetting and Gaming Councilhave agreed to the voluntary removal of all gaming product advertising on TV and radio during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Despite a drop of ten per cent in advertising spend and the volume of TV sport and casino advertisements,BGCmembers have made the decision that all existing TV and radio advertising slots will be replaced by safe gambling messages, donated to charities or removed from broadcast where contracts permit.

Operators have until May 7 to implement the changes which will remain in force for six weeks and at a minimum until June 5 of this year. This voluntary change will apply 24 hours a day, seven days a week and will only be reviewed when lockdown restrictions are relaxed.

BGC chief executive Michael Dughercommented on the removal: From day one of this crisis we have sought to protect customers potentially at risk, including announcing stepping up safer gambling measures as part of our ten pledges for COVID-19 in March.

This latest move by the regulated industry further underlines our commitment to safer betting and gaming with many people cut off and feeling anxious.

16

The Danish Gambling AuthoritySpillemyndighedenhas been successful in taking action to block a further 16 websites from the market after bringing fresh action to the District Court.

Taking the total number of successful actions against illegal entities to 90 since 2012, this becomes the sixth time that the authority has gone to court to have illegal websites blocked that, without a licence, offer betting, online casino and skin betting to Danes.

The Spillemyndigheden stipulates that initially 17 entities were identified, however, one provider stopped the illegal provision before the case was conducted. Those blocked included seven online casinos as well as seven skin betting and two betting portals.

In a media release the regulator maintains that efforts to find and block sites that offer gambling illegally are an important part of its work to ensure a fair and legal gambling market in the country.

We work to protect players against illegal gambling, and we also need to ensure that the operators who are licensed to offer gambling in Denmark can run their businesses under orderly conditions. That is why it is very important for us to clamp down on gambling offered without a licence, stateddirector of the Danish Gambling Authority Morten Niels Jakobsen.

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‘Touched by God’ Ronaldinho is better than Messi – Cardetti – Goal.com

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The former Argentine forward played alongside the Brazilian at PSG and insists that his ability with the ball made him "different" to any other player

Martin Cardetti sayshe would choose former Paris Saint-Germain team-mate Ronaldinho over Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi.

Ronaldinho enjoyed a stellar career with PSG, Barca, AC Milan and Brazil, winning the 2005 Ballon d'Or, World Cup, Champions League and La Liga among other honours.

Messi - regarded as arguably the greatest footballer ever - has claimed a record six Ballons d'Or to go with 10 La Liga crowns, four Champions League medals and many more team trophies and personal accolades.

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But Cardetti, who spent a season playing alongside Ronaldinho at PSG before the Brazilian moved to Barca in 2003, told Crack Deportivo: "As a coach, for my team I would chooseRonaldinhoat his best overMessi.

"I shared a year withRonaldinhoand he is a different player, he's touched by God.

"He always had fun; with the ball he was always doing things and he practiced a lot so that he could replicate those things in matches."

On Ronaldinho, Argentinian Cardetti added: "You see him in training, in matches and every move he makes is different from everyone.

"Players like him appear very rarely and they are remembered in football history.

"I'm proud to have been a team-mate of that kind of player."

Ronaldinho has been in the news of late after heand his brother Roberto Assis were arrested in Paraguay in early Marchfor allegedly using fake documents to enter the country.

After spending a monthin prison, a judgedecided that the duo can live in a hotel inAsuncion while they await trial on their charges.

Speaking to Paraguayan television networkABC Colorfrom the Palmaroga hotel in the Paraguayan capital, the 40-year-old former Brazilinternational insists they came to the country to be at the launch of an online casino.

Former Ballon dOr winner Ronaldinho, part of Brazils 2002 World Cup-winning squad, said the entire situation had been hard to takeand he was working with the police to try and resolve matters.

He said: "We were totally surprised to learn that the documents were not legal. Since then our intention has been to collaborate with the justice system to clarify the facts.

"From that moment until today, we have explained everything and facilitated everything that has been requested of us."

Speaking of the moment he was told he was going to jail, Ronaldinho said: "It was a hard blow, I never imagined that I would go through such a situation. All my life I have sought to reach the highest professional level and bring joy to people with my football."

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How Art Movements Tried to Make Sense of the World in the Wake of the 1918 Flu Pandemic – TIME

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On Feb. 7, 1918, the artist Egon Schiele, then 27, once again looked to his mentor, Gustav Klimt, to be his muse. But this time, Schiele had to visit the morgue of Allgemeines Krankenhaus, the Vienna General Hospital, to make his drawings of the renowned painter. The day before, Klimt had died of a stroke that many historians believe was a result of the flu. Schieles visit resulted in three haunting drawings of a deceased Klimts head, showing his face deformed from the stroke.

That same year, Schiele began working on a painting, The Family, which was meant to be a portrait of himself, his wife and their future child. But before he could finish the piece, his wife, who was six months pregnant, died of the flu. Three days later, Schieles life was also taken by the flu.

Egon Schiele's "Gustav Klimt on his death bed," 1918

Public Domain

Norwegian painter Edvard Munch also found inspiration in the disease. The artist made Self-Portrait With the Spanish Flu and Self-Portrait After the Spanish Flu, detailing his own experience contracting and surviving the illness. These paintings, characterized by Munchs obsession with existential drama, speak to feelings of trauma and despair that were widespread amid a pandemic that killed at least 50 million people. Illness, insanity, and deathkept watch over my cradle, the artist once said, and accompanied me all my life.

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It could be easy to think that these works are the only famous examples of the impact of the 1918 flu on the world of western fine art. Though the ongoing fight against COVID-19 has drawn renewed attention to the pandemic of about a century ago, the influenza pandemic has long been largely overshadowed by World War Iin public memory as well as contemporary thoughteven though the flu had a higher death toll. In light of wartime efforts, news about the initial spread of the 1918 flu was played down in many places. Do not worry too much about the disease, wrote the Times of India, in a country where 6% of the population ended up dying from the illness. In addition, many artists were sent to war during this time or died prematurely of the flu themselves.

Egon Schiele's "The Family," 1918

Belvedere Museum

But the flu did not go unnoticed by artists. Rather, the outbreak magnified the absurdity of the moment, according to art historian Corinna Kirsch. For many, World War I and the flu combined with political upheavals (such as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of newly-formed communist governments) and social issues (such as gender and income inequality) to create a perception of the universe as chaotic and hopeless. A sense of meaninglessness spread, and people started to lose faith in their governments, existing social structures and accepted moral values. Everyday life felt ridiculous. The art movements that came out of this period explored this hopelessness, tried to fight against it and showed the ways in which everyone was trying to cope.

The Dada movement in particular seized on this absurdity as inspiration. The Dadaists wanted to create a new form of art, one that could replace previous notions altogether. Collage became a popular medium at the time; many artists were dealing with the modern era and the horrors of war through strategies of cutting, reassembling and remixing, explains Kirsch. One 1922 piece by Hannah Hch, the only woman who was part of the Berlin Dada group, parodied a traditional German guest book by collecting Dada sayings rather than the typical well-wishes from house guests. One saying included in the piece was from the poet Richard Hlsenbeck: Death is a thoroughly Dadaist affair.

Edvard Munch's "Self-Portrait with the Spanish Flu," 1919

Nasjonalmuseet

George Grosz, another Dada artist, painted The Funeral around 1918, depicting distorted human figures haphazardly overlapping one another in what appears to be a never-ending street, surrounded by nightclubs and buildings. In the middle of the crowd is a skeleton perched on top of a coffin drinking from a bottle. In a strange street by night, a hellish procession of dehumanized figures mills, their faces reflecting alcohol, syphilis, plague I painted this protest against a humanity that had gone insane, Grosz later said of his hellscape.

Though Dadaism was mostly nihilistic in its approach, there was also a utopian impulse at work with many artists who wanted to create an entirely new world and revolution, says Kirsch.

With this impulse in mind, architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus School in Weimar, Germany, in 1919. The Bauhaus aimed to bridge art and design, training students to reject frivolous ornamentation in order to create art objects that were practical and useful in everyday life. Marcel Breuer, who started at the Bauhaus in 1920 and eventually taught there, designed furnishings that historians believe were influenced by the flu. In contrast to the heavy, upholstered furniture that was popular at the time, Breuers minimalist pieces were made of hygienic wood and tubular steel, able to facilitate cleaning. Lightweight and movable, works like the designers bicycle-inspired Wassily Chair and Long Chair met modern sanitary needs by being easy to disinfect and rid of dust build-up.

The rise of modern architecture and design in the 1920s was inextricably linked to the prevailing discourse on health and social hygiene, says Monica Obniski, curator of decorative arts and design at Atlantas High Museum of Art.

Wassily Chair, B3, design By Marcel Breuer at Bauhaus School

Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images

To other artists dealing with the horrors of the time, abstraction was a way to escape reality. Abstraction became a defining sense of that moment in time. There was a definite relationship [between] non-objective, non-realistic art and the horrors of what was going in the world, says Jeff Rosenheim, Curator in Charge of The Metropolitan Museum of Arts Department of Photographs. This was seen in many paintings and photographs made during the time. [View of Rooftops], a 1917 photograph of a desolate New York City scene, made by Morton Schamberg, is one example of this. The photograph, shot at an oblique angle, abstracts the cityscape in a Cubist manner and lacks any signs of human life. Schamberg died of the flu in 1918.

Further, in 1917, Fountain was unveiled under the pseudonym R. Mutt. The work consisted of a standard urinal, signed and dated, and thrust the art world into discussions of what was and wasnt to be considered art for years to come. It is widely believed that R. Mutt was Marcel Duchamp, but the subject has been up for debate. Art historian Michael Lobel argues that R. Mutt could also have been Schamberg. We arent able to know for sure because of the artists premature death from the flu. Schambergs relatively early death not only cut short his career but also means that we have little to no recorded testimony from him on these and related matters. In his case, then, the pandemic registers mostly as a telltale absence in our account of the period, Lobel has written in Art Forum.

Morton Schamberg's "[View of Rooftops]," 1917

John C. Waddell/Ford Motor Company Collection/The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Just as the 1918 flu pandemic was an inescapable part of the zeitgeist of the time, the coronavirus pandemic has already become so today. Though we might not know exactly how COVID-19 will affect art and art movements to come, the visual culture has already shifted.

Photographers discovering empty streets and how our cities look without people show a kind of sad beauty to these urban metropolises around the world, says Rosenheim. The empty cityscapes being captured and shared arent depicting the pandemic, but the effects of isolation and emptiness, psychologically. Others have argued that, as a result of the quarantine, nude selfies have become high art.

Andreas Gursky's "Prada II," 1996

Courtesy the artist/Gagosian/The Metropolitan Museum of Art

As was the case in 1918, the pandemic is just one part of a larger mood that predated the disease. Isolation, stillness and the impacts of consumerism were already themes being explored through art in recent decades. For example, Andreas Gurskys 1996 photograph Prada II shows a display case that is completely void of product and lit with sterile, fluorescent lights an image that now calls to mind news photos of store shelves left empty amid the pandemic. Gregory Crewdsons early 2000s Beneath the Roses series captures with a surreal ghostliness the desolate corners of small towns, evoking the urban loneliness of Edward Hoppers paintings, which are being disseminated widely on social media today.

These works were created before the novel coronavirus swept the world, but they speak to the current moment proving that, as was the case in the past, Rosenheim says, we dont need a pandemic to create chaotic, psychologically traumatic imagery.

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Write to Anna Purna Kambhampaty at Anna.kambhampaty@time.com.

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The Punk Movement Was Over Before It Began – WhatCulture

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The late 1970s was a turbulent time for Britain. Mass unemployment, a new Prime Minister with her eyes on privatising national companies for huge profit, and Glam Rock. For the youth of the era, it was hard to find something to look forward to, but after a shop owner tapped into the zeitgeist from the New York music scene, a new movement began to form.

The first Punk single to be released in the UK was the 1976 track, New Rose by The Damned. The song was fast, simple and catchy. Despite this being the first mainstream British Punk song, The Damned were influenced by and had started as a supporting act to this rising Malcolm McLaren manufactured group, the Sex Pistols.

The Pistols followed The Damned one month later with their debut Punk single, Anarchy in the UK, introducing the Sex Pistols to the mainstream. They became the poster boys for the new Punk movement, which would seemingly eschew pop music orthodoxy and promote disdain for the conventional.

But was it everything they hoped? Was it everything punks now think it was? No, is the short answer...

By the time the bands second single, God Save The Queen, was released in time for the Silver Jubilee, they had been dropped from their EMI record deal due to swearing on primetime television, signed with a young Richard Bransons Virgin Records label, and had made headline news across the country.

Appearing on the front of the Daily Mirror under the headline the FILTH and the FURY, the Sex Pistols represented a new direction for pop music and seemed to endorse the idea of personal freedom, originality, and non-conformity. These ideals were attractive to the youth, and quickly Punk became fashionable. Bands would alter their sound to capitalise on the energetic and simplistic performances of the Pistols and join in the revolution, effectively conforming with the non-conformists.

After the rejection of co-managing the Sex Pistols, Malcolm McLarens former business partner, Bernie Rhodes sought to find a bad of his own. After attending local gigs and getting musicians on board, it wasnt long before he had control of his own Punk band, The Clash.

The band were the next big thing in Punk, and, under the direction of Rhodes, released a variety of singles focused on the troubles of the time. Rather than just spewing no future, The Clash rallied against the disastrous job market, declared apathy towards American music, and detailed events from a riot at the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival.

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5 Recent Comic Book Movies That Were Better Than The MCU’s Offerings (& 5 That Were Worse) – Screen Rant

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Throughout the 2010s, the rate of Hollywood comic book movie releases drastically escalated. The backbone of that movement was theMarvel Cinematic Universe, a 23-part mega-franchise encompassing 11 sub-franchises, most of which stand among the highest-grossing film series of all time. Although its business-oriented structuring has some creative drawbacks, the MCU has never produced a truly bad movie.

RELATED:10 Previous Failed Attempts To Adapt MCU Characters For The Screen

At worst, the MCUs offerings are cookie-cutter blockbusters, like Thor: The Dark World or Doctor Strange; most of the time, theyre fun, entertaining, pretty great movies, like Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok; and at best, they really connect to the zeitgeist, like Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame.

There are still plenty of great comic book movies being made outside the MCU, as well as plenty of not-so-great ones that provoke more fan backlash than a Mandarin fake-out. So, here are five recent comic book movies that were better than the MCUs offerings, and five that were worse.

Patty Jenkins was lined up to direct Thor: The Dark World with a more interesting love story and astronger characterization for Jane Foster, but quit after Marvel made some script changes she wasnt happy with. (As it turned out, neither was the Marvel fanbase.)

Jenkinswas instead snapped up by DC to helm Wonder Woman. Jenkins brought a real sincerity to the project, refusing to acknowledge the word cheesy, that made it a more engaging counterpoint to the MCUs bathos.

Warner Bros. gave David Ayer just six weeks to write the script for Suicide Squad before rushing it into production. Somewhere in the movieis the groundwork for an entertaining piece aboutantiheroes, but that potential is buried under generic characterization, on-the-nose exposition (like Rick Flags introduction of Katana), and mind-numbing plot logic.

RELATED:Suicide Squad: 5 Things James Gunn Should Change From The Original (And 5 He Should Keep The Same)

Following Sylvester Stallones abysmal PG-13 attempt at bringing Judge Dredd to the screen in the 90s with Rob Schneider, the 2000 AD icon finally got his due in 2012.

Karl Urban stars in the title role in this ultraviolent hard-R take on the character as he takes a rookie (played wonderfully by Olivia Thirlby) into a high-rise controlled by a drug lord to bring down their operation with brute force.

In 2019, Simon Kinberg, who is somehow the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood, tried his hand at directing an X-Men movie after years of writing and producing them. As with every $200 million directorial debut, Dark Phoenix was a complete disaster. Days of Future Past may have a couple of plot holes, but it was a cinematic ride, and Apocalypse had its moments, few and far between.

RELATED:5 Things Fox's X-Men Movies Did Wrong (And 5 They Did Right)

Thanks to the Disney merger, Dark Phoenix was always going to be the final nail in Foxs X-Men franchises coffin a crew somberly going down with their ship but Kinbergs script and direction (not to mention the casts bored performances) didnt do it any favors.

Last year, for whatever reason, Academy voters got it in their heads that Todd Phillips Joker was something more profound and artistic than a derivative, confused, thematically vapid Scorsese knock-off being carried on the shoulders of Joaquin Phoenix and Lawrence Sher. James Mangolds Logan is a much better example of a comic book movie taking influence from the classics of cinema to transcend the trappings of the superhero genre.

Its a bleak neo-western taking cues from Paper Moon in its father-daughter story and Shane in itstale of an aging hero reluctantly called upon for one last act of heroism. In both cases, it doesnt feel like a rip-off of those movies but simply a story exploring the same themes in a different, more modern context.

Hugh Jackmans final performance as Wolverine is a grizzled tear-jerking delight, while Patrick Stewarts bittersweet portrayal of a dementia-ridden Charles Xavier and Dafne Keens subdued, emotionally deep performance as X-23 are quite poignant.

Midway through production on Josh Tranks unusually dark reboot of the Fantastic Four franchise, 20th Century Fox executives got cold feet about the directors weird body horror aesthetic and stepped into reshoot most of it.

RELATED:Fantastic Four: 5 Things The Other Movies Got Wrong (& 5 Ways The MCU Can Get It Right)

The reshoots are painfully obvious, from Kate Maras intermittent use of a blonde wigto the inconsistent, anticlimactic plot. Plus, for reasons unknown, the strangely titled Fant4stic carried over the terrible apropos-of-nothing Reed/Sue/Victor love triangle storyline from the previous movies.

After the first Deadpool movie provided an entertaining enough origin story with an agreeable gag rate, the second one really pushed the boat out as a meta commentary on superhero blockbusters.

At every turn, Deadpool 2 masterfully subverts the audiences expectations, such as thegrim early fate of the X-Force. Plus, the subplot involving Wades dream of reuniting with Vanessa in the great beyond gave the sequel a real emotional connection.

Why did they not just let Guillermo del Toro make Hellboy III with Ron Perlman? Instead, wegot Neil Marshall and David Harbour being given a $50 million check by a Hollywood studio to unsuccessfully mimic what del Toro and Perlman already did perfectly in 2004 and 2008, with needless bloodshed added in post to strain for a gratuitous R rating.

In some parallel universe, theres a Hellboy III directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Ron Perlman, and it would probably be included in the best column of this list.

With emotionally resonant voice performances (particularly from Shameik Moore in the lead role), a complex plot that uses lofty sci-fi concepts like interdimensional travel to convey human ideas, and a beautiful animation style that recalls flicking through the pages of a comic book, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse emerged in 2018 as the perfect Spidey movie.

RELATED:Spider-Man: 10 Things We Hope To See In The Spider-Verse Sequel

Into the Spider-Verse reassured fans that Sony wouldnt screw up all of its attempts to tell Spider-Man stories on the big screen even if it screwed up a lot of them.

This is the movie that forced Sony to relinquish some of Spider-Mans film rights to Marvel Studios, allowing his introduction in the MCU. Andrew Garfields bloated second outing as Spidey proves that Sony didnt learn anything from the shortcomings of Spider-Man 3, as they rammed it with terrible villains, and on top of that, it has a bunch of setups for a cinematic universe that never happened.

NEXT:The 10 Darkest Superhero Movies Ever Made, Ranked

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Ben Sherlock is a writer, filmmaker, and comedian. In addition to writing for Screen Rant and CBR, covering a wide range of topics from Spider-Man to Scorsese, Ben directs independent films and takes to the stage with his standup material. He's currently in pre-production on his feature directorial debut (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema and BabbleTop.

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The Rising of the Shield Hero Is Absurdly Popular for NO Good Reason – CBR – Comic Book Resources

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Isekaiis easily the most ubiquitous genre in today's anime and manga. While this means the genre has a huge audience of avid fans, it also means that it has plenty of detractors, as well. Often seen as incredibly cliche, if not boring, the faraway fantasy worlds that isekai transports its heroes and viewers to all seem to blend together at this point. Add in a host of social faux pas, and you have the recipe for a potentially terrible anime.

That recipe was cooked to perfection with The Rising of the Shield Hero. With an overpowered protagonist who's seemingly never wrong, topped with sociallycontentious undertones, the series has gotten its fair share of well deserved flak. Despite this, it continues to find a fanbase, as evidenced by its consistently high ranking on sites like Crunchyroll. Here's a look at how one of today's worst anime has become one of its most popular.

RELATED: One-Punch Man: The Blizzard Bunch Beats [SPOILER] in the Weirdest Way

Like nearly every isekai series, The Rising of the Shield Hero began life as a light novel series before becoming a manga and finally, in 2019, an anime. The plot follows Naofumi Iwatani, a college student who is suddenly transported to a magical fantasy world. After discovering the Book of Four Heroes in this world, he is greeted by three other men and is designated as the titular Shield Hero.

Unfortunately for him, everything goes downhill from there. He's not exactly charismatic among the chosen heroes, having been something of an outcast in his original world. This leads to only one female - a cardinal sin in the harem filled worlds of isekai anime - to join his party and, once she does, she falsely accuses him of raping her. From there, he has to learn how to thrive as a hero in a world where his reputation is lower than dirt.

RELATED: Shield Hero or Reincarnated as a Slime: Which is the Better Isekai?

Fittingly, the show's own reputation and critical reception are lower than dirt, and for good reason. Thestory kicking off with the hero being falsely accused of rape was especially controversial, with many seeing it as being at odds with the zeitgeist of the #MeToo movement, if not wholly opposing it. This led to many Western fans in particular criticizing the series for its casual misogyny, though the sentiment was significantly less felt in Japan. Regardless, though this plot point is played for laughs, many felt that the confines of a fantasy isekai might not be the best place to handle such a serious topic.

The show has also been accused of supporting slavery. Early on, the protagonist actually buys a slave girl and, instead of immediately freeing her or even feeling conflicted over the fact that she's a slave, Naofumikeeps her enslaved to him. Some have excused the plot element through the show's medieval setting, as well as the fact that the hero doesn't treat his slave in a degrading or dehumanizing way. Within the show, Naofumi justifies his needing a slave by saying that no one else would willingly work with him due to his fractured reputation. This hasn't helped the character's real life reputation as an "incel self-insert" who feels put upon by the world.

Even without these unsavory elements, the show itself is just another generic isekai show, and a poorly done one at that. This is exacerbated further by Naofumi constantly winning in some form or fashion, despite him supposedly being the world's victim. He wins fights with relative ease- despite his inexperience with the fantasy game world. Far more experienced gamers and fighters pale in comparison to the awesomeness of Naofumi...for some reason. Other characters also constantly come off as incredibly dumb, either blindly worshiping Naofumiorsimply acting stupid for the sake of the plot.

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Despite all of these legitimate issues, the show continues to develop an audience. Crunchyroll revealed that it was in their Top 20 list of the currently most popular series, in the same ranking as much more acclaimed shows like My Hero Academia, Narutoand One Piece.One justification for the questionable series' popularity is the current wave of other generic, poorly constructed isekai shows that seem to somehow find a loyal audience. The genre is currently plaguing anime as a whole, much as the harem genre had in years before.

The controversial elements might actually be a boon for the show's popularity. Some viewers may seek out Shield Herobecause of its taboo, almost risque reputation, while others might even sympathize with the protagonist. This would justify the show's label as an "incel fantasy," but it would also explain why rampant criticism has failed to break the show's viewership. Another interesting explanation for why the show is so widely watched may be its cult status in the West. The source material was one of the first web light novels to be translated into English, opening a new world of potential readers, and eventually viewers, to an underdog, no-name web novel author. This Western cult status is ironic, given that the West is where the series has seen the majority of its criticism. Nevertheless, the show's popularity, much like its eponymous hero, continues to rise, and it certainly won't be the last generic isekai to get more notoriety than it deserves.

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Empowering, alluring, degenerate? The evolution of red lipstick – Myjoyonline.com

Posted: at 6:43 am

In 1912 thousands of supporters of the suffrage movement marched past the New York salon of Elizabeth Arden. The cosmetics brand founder, who had just opened her business two years earlier, was a supporter of womens rights, and she aligned herself with the cause by handing out tubes of bright red lipstick to the marching women.

Suffrage leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman loved red lipstick for its ability to shock men, and protesters donned the bold colour en masse, adopting it as a sign of rebellion and liberation.

There could not be a more perfect symbol of suffragettes than red lipstick, because its not just powerful, its female, said Rachel Felder, author of last years Red Lipstick: An Ode to a Beauty Icon, in a phone interview. Suffragettes were about female strength, not just strength.

Throughout the centuries red lipstick has signalled many things, from its early use by the elite in ancient Egypt and by prostitutes in ancient Greece, to its status in early Hollywood as a symbol of glamor. In its many hues, this colour on lips has been a mighty cultural weapon, charged with thousands of centuries of meaning. Red lipstick is truly a way to trace cultural history and societal zeitgeist, Felder said.

Until lipstick was popularised in the early 20th century, red lips were often associated with morally dubious women: impolite, sexually amoral, even heretical. In the Dark Ages, red lips were seen as a sign of commingling with the devil. The makeup was associated with this mysterious, frightening femininity, Felder said.

Then, Felders book explains, as the American suffrage movement adopted red lips, their international counterparts did, too.

As womens rights movements spread across Europe, New Zealand and Australia, with British and American organisers often sharing tactics, from organising marches, to hunger strikes, to more aggressive militant strategies. And this solidarity extended to their makeup. Inspired by her American counterparts, British suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst favoured a red lip, which helped spread the symbolic gesture among her fellow activists.

Though suffragettes popularised the red-lip look in their day, Felder notes that there was already momentum to normalise lipstick among women more generally, as they dropped restrictive corsets for brassieres, and started to adopt more streamlined silhouettes, designed by the likes of Coco Chanel.

After the suffragettes wore red lipstick, the exuberant flappers of the Roaring Twenties followed suit. And while suffragettes may not have been solely responsible for popularising a painted lip, they embodied the idea of the modern woman in Europe and America, Felder pointed out.

During World War II, red lips had their bold second act of defiance. Adolf Hitler famously hated red lipstick, Felder said. In Allied countries, wearing it became a sign of patriotism and a statement against fascism. When taxes made lipstick prohibitively expensive in the UK, women stained their lips with beet juice instead.

As men went off to war and women filled their professional roles back home, they donned red lips to enter the workforce. It showed their resilience in the face of conflict, Felder explained, and offered a sense of normalcy in difficult times. It allowed women to retain a sense of their own self-identity from before the war. J. Howard Millers illustration of Rosie the Riveter, the cultural icon who was used to recruit and empower American female factory workers, notably had cherry-daubed lips.

In 1941 and for the duration of the war, red lipstick became mandatory for women who joined the US Army. Beauty brands had capitalised on the wartime trend, with Elizabeth Arden releasing Victory Red and Helena Rubenstein introducing Regimental Red, among others. But it was Arden who the American government asked to create a regulation lip and nail colour for serving women. Her Montezuma Red matched and accentuated their uniforms red piping.

Wearing red lipstick for a woman in that era was so linked to a sense of feminine self-esteem, particularly, resilient and strong female self-esteem, said Felder, who has herself worn the beauty staple nearly every day since high school. After the war, classic Hollywood actresses like Elizabeth Taylor added a layer of glamour to the confident look.

Today, other protest symbols for womens empowerment have become widespread, notably the pink pussy hat that dominated the 2017 Womens March; and the habit from The Handmaids Tale which has been worn internationally for womens causes, including pro-choice demonstrations.

Yet red lips still pack a punch. In a viral image from 2015, a Macedonian woman kissed an officers riot shield during an anti-government protest, leaving a red kiss mark in a poignant moment of rebellion.

In 2018 in Nicaragua, women and men wore red lipstick and uploaded photos of themselves to social media to show their support for the release of anti-government protesters. They were reacting to activist Marln Chow, who defied her interrogators by applying red lipstick.

Last December, nearly 10,000 women in Chile took to the streets wearing black blindfolds, red scarves, and red lips to denounce sexual violence in the country.

By wearing red lips, protesters all over the world have tapped into the same power the suffrage movement once plumbed a century earlier. In this bold, defiant beauty statement, their legacy lives on.

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Readers React: Are the reopen protests about free speech or presidential politics? – The San Diego Union-Tribune

Posted: at 6:42 am

Re New Mexico takes more drastic measures against virus hotspot (May 2): On the same day people protested in San Diego, the governor of New Mexico had to declare an emergency, blocking roads into the city of Gallup as the virus surged overwhelmingly its hospitals. Gallup now has 14 times the number of COVID-19 cases than New Mexicos largest cities.

I pray the actions of San Diego protesters did not endanger themselves and others by unknowingly spreading the virus to participants and those they come in contact with.

We need less protest and more common sense. Lets not make Americas finest city the next Gallup.

Robert Tormey

Escondido

President Donald Trump has stated that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Ironically, he gave the highest award a citizen can get to a radio broadcaster who incites hatred. We do have freedom of speech, but when is someone who encourages hate deserving of receiving a presidential medal at a State of the Union Address?

As a moderate, I respect the conservative perspective, but shouldnt we be encouraging cooperation between liberals and conservatives to reach a balance?

If Trump wants to receive a Nobel Peace Prize, maybe he should not encourage his supporters to demonstrate during this pandemic. He claims to be a wartime president, yet he hasnt procured sufficient ammunition. Shouldnt our pro-life president prioritize life with tests, swabs and personal protective equipment for all? That may help him get his prize.

Jo Powers

North Clairemont

Opinion resources

The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters.

News reports on the protests against stay-at-home orders have mentioned that there are sizable numbers of Trump supporters in the groups. They need to redirect their protests toward the White House.

Epidemiologists have consistently said that a large increase in testing, along with contact tracing, is essential to lifting our isolation. Trump has refused to use the Defense Production Act to increase testing supplies and shown no understanding that doing so would aid in getting businesses open again.

These protests are doubly counter-productive. They increase the possibility of creating more cases while doing nothing to get the government to assist in meeting its own guidelines for opening up.

Susan Schock

Mira Mesa

Re San Diego should reopen to the young and healthy, and focus more on those at risk for coronavirus (April 24): Chris Brewsters analysis of how to re-open things and simultaneously help solve the pandemic problem is an important idea. Many people dont know Brewsters background and accomplishments, but the important thing isnt who wrote that opinion. Whats important is what was said, the analysis, and the ideas.

The numbers and facts appear to be correct, and they lead to his conclusions and suggestions. They are a little radical compared to what our leaders are discussing, but it appears that they would do a better job at both achieving herd immunity and getting the economy going again. I hope many of our leaders read this analysis, dig into the ideas, and consider them carefully.

Laury Flora

Valley Center

Chris Brewsters opinion piece belonged under letters to the editor, not next to Fleischers.

Paul Jester

Miramar

Some who protest the measures put in place to combat COVID-19 see these measures as violations of their Constitutional rights and an instance of Big Government intruding in their lives. Some show up at rallies inexplicably armed to the teeth. Some even harass medical workers battling the virus.

I can only assume, then, that none of these folks will cash their $1200 bail-out checks from the government and will also assert their rights as individuals to care for themselves if they or their families contract COVID-19.

Rick KeenanSan Carlos

If the current approach to disease management - to sharply curtail economic activity - continues, it will cost roughly $500 billion per month in lost income nationwide (that is, about 30 percent of monthly GDP). That is catastrophic, of course, not only to those who are hit hardest (net of stimulus checks and rent holidays), but to future generations who are being saddled with unprecedented debt.

The bottom line is: we just cannot afford to keep doing what we are doing. The hard truth is that we are just going to have to learn how to live with this. We must not rush into a complete reopening (because, lets be clear, that is the same as doing nothing at all), but we must have a clear, and clearly communicated, plan, a path forward, that all can see and buy into and understand. There are trade offs here, just as there are when we decide to drive a car, fly in a plane, eat unhealthy foods, smoke, ride a bike, and in general live our lives. Lets get on with it.

Don Billings

Rancho Santa Fe

Huge headlines about protests and yet the article states 90 percent of the people support the stay-at-home measures. Why do you give credence and publicity to these few.

Yes, an article about them but 2-inch headlines? The media helped get Trump elected for doing this very thing, focusing on the drama instead of the real issues. You are better than this.

Joan Camana

La Mesa

As I look at the picture of the protesters, completely understanding where theyre coming from, I cant help thinking about the risks theyre putting on their children and grandparents (Not many masks in that crowd!).

It profusely reminds us of the genuine heroes who unselfishly risk their lives daily:

The nurses and doctors working in impossible conditions. Twelve hour shifts, the daily disinfecting nightmare, over-nighting in garages, hotel rooms, and cars so as not to infect their families (No hugs allowed!).

The grocery workers, the bus drivers, the police officers, the farm workers, all valiantly performing their obligations while trying to protect their families.

We owe them more than our thanks.

Steve Blumenschein

Clairemont

During this pandemic, I feel privileged to have a stable retirement income and a nice house. In my career as a social worker, I was exposed to people with much less privilege, many of whom probably did not get their nails and eyebrows done or go to a gym, rarely ate out except for fast food, and probably rarely got to go to the beach.

Instead of protesting for the right to go to the beach, wouldnt it be better to be protesting about the inadequate federal response to this crisis for the working people who have not received promised income relief and loans to keep their small businesses going?

Wouldnt it be nice to look back on our own behavior and be grateful that we behaved with grace and patience, that we showed compassion for the least fortunate, and that we were willing to sacrifice for the greater good?

Tom Packard

Encinitas

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The SNPs war on free speech – Spiked

Posted: at 6:42 am

The Scottish government wants to modernise and consolidate the law on what people are permitted to say to each other. The Scottish administrations Hate Crime and Public Order Bill, introduced in Holyrood last week, aims to extend considerably the category of banned speech. This should ring loud alarm bells.

At present, Scots hate-crime law largely parallels the English law (actually it is slightly narrower). It criminalises the stirring up of racial hatred by any behaviour that is threatening, abusive or insulting, and it requires heavier sentencing for a number of crimes if they are aggravated by hostility towards the victims race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender status. Unlike English law, however, Scots law does not yet penalise the stirring up of anti-religious or anti-gay hatred.

In 2017, the SNP government decided this had to change. It appointed Lord Bracadale, a far from libertarian Scottish appeal judge, to review the matter. His spectacularly hardline report was published a year later. Based on this report, Holyrood now proposes leaving racial-hatred law largely alone while introducing, in effect, three new offences.

First: a general crime of doing anything, or communicating any material, which is threatening or abusive and is intended or likely to engender hatred based on age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender or intersex identity. Second: a crime of merely possessing any such material, if you hold it with a view to communicating it that is, in any way to anyone either in public or in private (such as showing a computer file to a friend over a dram). Third: criminal sanctions on anyone involved in the management of any organisation who fails to take steps to prevent any of the above. The penalty in all the above cases is up to seven years inside. And in addition to all this, the government proposes stiffer sentencing for hate crimes based on age.

There is so much wrong with these proposals. For one thing, the whole idea that hostility should aggravate an offence in relation to certain characteristics but not others needs reining in, not extending. To say that assaulting someone because he is old (and within the charmed circle of victim categories) deserves a heavier sentence than assaulting a teenager because he is the teachers pet (and therefore outside it) is discriminatory, grotesque and insulting. It is the hostility that matters, not whether the target falls within a group which has managed to persuade a government that it deserves victimhood status.

For another, the proposed new stand-alone offences not only carry an enormous potential sentence, but are intentionally vastly broader than those in force south of the border. In England, the stirring up offence is limited to religion and sexual orientation (and the latter was only introduced in 2008). Further, this offence is carefully and deliberately circumscribed, applying only to the deliberate fomentation of hatred, and requiring threatening words or behaviour.

The Scottish government has no patience with such softness. Its proposals would outlaw behaviour that is not threatening but merely abusive. According to the very revealing notes attached to the bill, this apparently strikes the right balance between criminalisation and freedom of speech.

The notes also say that requiring intent to stir up hatred is unacceptable because this would make it prohibitively restrictive in practice for prosecutors who might find it difficult to prove intent. Or, to put it another way, the English solicitude for the rights of the defendant makes it too hard for police and prosecutors to tell people with awkward views to put up or shut up.

Holyrood also admits that, with the exception of hostility to religion, there is actually no evidence of either any serious problem or pressing need to extend the criminal law to cover characteristics like sexual orientation, age, disability, transgender or intersex identity. But no matter. The introduction of a suite of stirring-up offences covering all of them, it is said, will introduce a measure of justified parity. This will allow the law to serve an important symbolic and educative function, sending a clear message that this type of behaviour attracts particular condemnation by society and will not be tolerated. In other words, it is now apparently the function of Scots criminal law to punish behaviour simply to make a virtue-signalling point, and to provide as many identitarian pressure-groups as possible with an equal chance to suppress speech and behaviour they do not like.

The law does include a defence of reasonableness, but what reasonable may mean to some impatient and humourless sheriff-depute on a wet Friday in Falkirk is anyones guess. There are also some token protections for the freedom to express religious views or argue intellectually about the morality of sexual practices. Nevertheless, these new laws are likely to have a considerable chilling effect.

There is no doubt that pressure groups, whether gay activist, born-again Christian or rampant anti-TERF, will keep up a steady stream of complaints to Police Scotland about behaviour which they would like suppressed in the media, on social media or elsewhere. There is equally little doubt that police officers will try to keep these groups off their backs by advising all and sundry that it is safer to avoid controversy. If all else fails, police will pressure the Procurator Fiscal to prosecute any refuseniks in order to keep them quiet in future.

For that matter, such prosecutions may often be unnecessary: laws like this breed self-censorship. Campaigning organisations supporting unpopular causes for example, attacking transgender orthodoxy may well feel they have to tone down what they say. It is depressingly easy to imagine editors and campaigners engaging in a good deal of self-censorship to avoid trouble with the police.

Indeed, this may not even be limited to editors in Scotland. Put yourself in the position of someone running a paper, magazine or blog which is published in England but read both sides of the border. If you are told that something which would never be prosecuted in England might lead the police to visit your Edinburgh distributors or even possibly land your company in the Edinburgh Sheriff Court, you are likely to modify your conduct accordingly.

Put bluntly, these are terrible proposals. The Scottish government has no interest whatsoever in freedom of speech. Instead it wants to project a comforting, woke image to professionals and other supporters in Pollokshields and Bruntsfield.

These laws must be opposed. Not only are they appallingly illiberal in themselves, but if passed they will not be the last word. Indeed, the bill itself envisages going further still: it contains a sinister power for the Scottish government to extend its effect in future so as to criminalise misogynistic speech, too. This would open yet another can of worms.

Nor is this only an issue for Scotland. The Law Commission in England is currently consulting on a possible expansion in English hate-crime law. If the Scottish proposals get the go-ahead, the omens in England are not good. You have been warned.

Andrew Tettenborn is a professor of commercial law and a former Cambridge admissions officer.

To enquire about republishing spikeds content, a right to reply or to request a correction, please contact the managing editor, Viv Regan.

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