James Franco's pre production test reel for Blood Meridian. Originally selected to direct a feature length adaptation, James Franco filmed a 32 minute test scene of Tobin telling The Kid about how the Glanton Gang first met Judge Holden in the desert.
"Director Martin Scorsese looks at the importance of three films by Italian director Roberto Rossellini, all starring Rossellini's then-wife Ingrid Bergman. "In the late 40s, Ingrid Bergman was the coolest, hottest, and most talented lady around Hollywood. She saw some Italian neo-realist films by Roberto Rossellini, wrote him a letter, starred in a number of his movies, and proceeded to have a scandalous affair and marriage with him. In each film, Bergman experiences some sort of deep existential crises in the midst of political and social upheaval. Since every major player who worked on those films is dead, Martin Scorsese (who was heavily influenced by the films) gives us the 4-1-1 on the three movies in this short doc and it’s fucking fascinating" (Vice).
"Arkansas is one of the worst places to be a renter in America. It is the only state in the US where tenants are treated as criminals for paying rent late and landlords are not required by law to maintain their properties. "Its failure-to-vacate law lets landlords give tenants a 10-day eviction notice if they are even one day overdue. Tenants who can't or won't leave within that span face fines for every day they remain on the property and up to 90 days in jail. "This makes things difficult for the third of Arkansas's residents who are renters and have legitimate concerns about the properties they are occupying. The combination of failure-to-vacate and the lack of warranty of habitability make it almost impossible for tenants to challenge their landlords for legitimate reasons. It's estimated that criminal evictions occur everyday in Arkansas, resulting in over 2000 failure-to-vacate cases being filed each year."
Vice travels to West Africa to rummage through the messy remains of a country ravaged by 14 years of civil war. Despite the United Nation’s eventual intervention, most of Liberia’s young people continue to live in abject poverty, surrounded by filth, drug addiction, and teenage prostitution. The former child soldiers who were forced into war have been left to fend for themselves, the murderous warlords who once led them in cannibalistic rampages have taken up as so-called community leaders, and new militias are lying in wait for the opportunity to reclaim their country from a government they rightly mistrust. America’s one and only foray into African colonialism is keeping a very uneasy peace indeed.
In the lead up to the next great Kiddy Smile concert, diverse and passionate members of Paris’ glamorous ballroom community break down issues of race, immigrant culture, queer visibility, and free expression in a diverse but also deeply divided contemporary France.
For decades, NFL owners marginalize Black quarterbacks; however, the success of Black quarterbacks and calls for racial equality, led by Colin Kaepernick, lead to positive changes.
Since the advent of acid house in the late 80s, British techno music has been in a long, baffling search for some sort of universal lowest common denominator. Breakbeat, digital hardcore, and gabber all made strong efforts in the race for the bottom, but none of them holds a candle to Donk. Combining the 150bpm madness of happy hardcore with indecipherable North English rap and then overlaying the whole mess with a single, infuriating "donk" sound, Donk may well be the apotheosis of all ridiculous dance music to date. It is also the only local thing going for an entire population of working-class kids with dwindling outside prospects. We meet up with Black Out Crew, commonly referred to as the Beatles of the Donk scene. Their video "Put a Donk On It!" has almost 4 million views on YouTube. So come along for some ecstasy fueled all nighters into the bizarre scene that is Donk.
Vice explores an ancient practice of child prostitutes in India.
"Every August, while Europe's bankers, lawyers, and other desk jockeys shut off their phones and head to the beach, the junkies of Prague set up camp in the poppy fields outside the city for a vacation of their own" (Vice).
"The dry and arid Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region – home to the mighty black scorpion – has emerged as the epicentre of a rare drug culture. People in Pakistan’s borderlands are no strangers to narcotics; the Soviet-Afghan war in the ‘80s made sure of that. But scorpion venom is a wildcard drug ripping through communities that no one knows what to do with. People who have smoked it say the high is powerful and can last for days. Its side effects, however, seem too heavy a cost to bear. VICE travelled across Peshawar, Mattani and Dir to speak to users, researchers, a former narcotics-control officer and a journalist to understand why people smoke scorpion venom and how it’s changed their lives."
"Who voted for Donald Trump? Who voted for Barack Obama? What’s it like seeing a black person wearing a MAGA hat? Has the black vote been taken for granted? "Black conservatives and liberals hash it out in the VICE Office."
"In the United States, more people between the ages of 25 and 64 die of complications from drugs than car crashes. According to a 2009 study published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 23.5 million people in this country over the age of 12 need treatment for drug and alcohol abuse, and only 2.6 million of these afflicted individuals actually receive it. In response, drug and alcohol rehab has blossomed in the past three decades into a $35 billion industry with nearly 15,000 facilities across the country. Although non-hospital residential treatment serves only about 10 percent of those in recovery in the US, the exorbitant cost of such care--as high as $75,000 a month--has made it extremely lucrative. And thanks to popular TV shows like Celebrity Rehab, which have installed the luxurious rehabilitation center in the popular consciousness, the national enrollment figures keep growing."
Aside from literally sleeping in feces, these people are dodging rats, flash floods and drug addicts. What's worse, the sewer dwellers are constantly under attack by local "death squads," who fire open rounds and pour gasoline into their underground homes, then set them ablaze.
"The cartels of Juarez, Mexico, are at war with a group of Mormons, some of whom are related to Mitt Romney. We went there to document the conflict, meet Romney's Mormon family, and find out more about how US policy is impacting the war on drugs" (Vice).
"A former employee for one of the biggest betting companies reveals the major flaws in the industry, from gambling addictions to money laundering. With over ten years of experience in betting, he has seen just how much the algorithms and systems are designed to encourage losers to lose more, and winners to stop winning. He describes how management has little care for customers, particularly when it comes to losing it all."
"Despite the spooky overtones, modern Satanism actually has a lot in common with self-help, the green movement, and spunky American individualism. We traveled to Cleveland with Thomas Morton to meet Eric Freeman, authority on the duality of evil, to learn about altering reality through the power of the mind."
"This treatment of the insurrection recreates the attack moment by moment, tracking the protesters mounting agitation and rage, and some rioters breaking into various fronts of the U.S. Capitol, eventually marching the Confederate flag into the building and occupying the halls of Congress. It also reveals the diverse and competing ideologies that coalesced on Jan. 6: angry Trump voters marched alongside sovereign citizens, Three Percenters, Proud Boys, and Christian Nationalists. Some rioters demonstrated solidarity with the police as others brutally assaulted officers."
"Louisville Kentucky has seen sustained and continued demonstrations in the wake of Breonna Taylor’s death and when the protests were at their most volatile one church in Louisville opened its doors as a sanctuary for protestors. The controversial Pastor, Timothy Findley Jr. of The Kingdom Fellowship Church has been the tip of the spear in these grassroots movements fighting for racial justice in Louisville, even being arrested himself while leading marches through the streets of the city. He has penned open letters criticizing evangelical leaders in Louisville for not joining him in his efforts and criticized Trump openly. Vice joins Pastor Tim before the election for a weekend of events designed to inspire and galvanize black voters to take their protest to the polls - but will it make a difference?" (Vice).
"A few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic hit India, VICE travelled to Jammu and Kashmir to report on the mental health in the region. Years of inhumane lockdowns, military presence, and gross human rights violations continue to impact women in the state, making them an unequal target of the region's instability. "On August 5, 2020 Kashmir completes a year of losing its special status since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution by the majoritarian BJP government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In this documentary, we interview women with husbands in jail because of unlawful arrests, daughters with fathers subject to enforced disappearances and those blinded by pellet guns."
"Throughout June and July of 2020 large displays of fireworks were illegally being set off daily around many US cities. New York City specifically saw large scale nightly displays. "Each night residents of New York City would be jolted by the booming sounds of firework explosions, for hours at a time. Record breaking numbers of complaints were received for nights on end. "Many were unsure of the inspiration and motivation behind the displays, sparking conspiracy theories to circulate online regarding the supply of these fireworks and the reasons behind it. "We went out to Canarsie, Brooklyn to join members of the community and attend a display while attempting to understand the supposed mystery behind it all."
