Omaze, a charitable website that auctions off once-in-a-lifetime hangs with A-list celebrities for good causes, has just teamed up with the talented star of The Wire and Luther to make Valentine’s Day 2017 one you’ll be telling your grandkids about—and it’s all for a great cause.
For every $10 you donate to Omaze’s “Be Idris Elba’s Valentine” campaign, you’ll be entered to win the grand prize: a candlelit dinner with Elba at one of his favorite restaurants where, according to Omaze, “you’ll enjoy delicious conversation and great food. You can talk about anything you want to: movies, music, your deepest desires. Idris is a great listener. He’s also a great talker. He’s pretty much great at everything. I mean, have you seen Luther?”
One caveat: the dinner won’t take place on February 14 precisely, it will be slightly belated, but you will be flown to whatever city Elba happens to be in at the time, with all your airfare and hotel expenses included. And, if you’re in a sharing kind of mood, you’ll be allowed to bring along a friend.
Best of all, all donations will benefit W.E. Can Lead, a nonprofit organization that, according to its mission statement, ensures “young girls receive the educational opportunity, leadership development, and mentoring support necessary to become the new generation of female leaders who are able to impact every area of society across the continent of Africa.” Which means that everyone who takes part will come out a winner. (Okay, one a little more so than the rest.)
With the release of the live-action Beauty and the Beast remake later in 2017, it will be exciting to hear Emma Watson sing classic Disney songs, such as “Belle” (Little Town) and “Something There.” In the meantime, take a look at the song recording sessions from 10 classic Disney movies.
1. “BE OUR GUEST” // BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991)
When Broadway star Paige O’Hara was cast as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, she had a little trouble adjusting and projecting her voice from performing to sold out large theaters to singing and acting in a small recording booth. In fact, lyricist Howard Ashman jokingly gave her the nickname “Ethel Merman” because of the full range of her voice.
2. “A WHOLE NEW WORLD” // ALADDIN (1992)
Although the pair didn’t perform Aladdin and Jasmine’s speaking voices, Brad Kane and Lea Salonga were the animated couple’s singing voices, respectively, in Aladdin. Co-director John Musker emphasized to the pair to really put real emotion and the thrill of flying behind their performance to capture the correct mood of the scene.
3. “PART OF YOUR WORLD” // THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989)
Voice actor Jodi Benson performed both the singing and speaking voices for Ariel in The Little Mermaid. Watch as lyricist Howard Ashman coaches Benson during a recording session for “Part of Your World” in 1989. She would later reprise her role in The Little Mermaid‘s straight-to-video sequels, as well as taking on Barbie in the Toy Story film series.
4. “LET IT GO” // FROZEN (2013)
Oh, we all know this song! In 2013, Disney unleashed the box office juggernaut Frozen on the world. The animated film gained global success partly due to the hit single “Let It Go,” which was performed by Broadway star Idina Menzel, as well as 24 other wonderful singers from around the world.
5. “I SEE THE LIGHT” // TANGLED (2010)
In 2010, Disney released Tangled, a CGI-animated film about Rapunzel. Singer Mandy Moore voiced the Disney Princess, while Zachary Levi played the dashing rogue “Flynn Rider.” “I See The Light” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song, but lost out to “We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3.
6. “A GUY LIKE YOU” // THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME (1996)
Seinfeld‘s Jason Alexander performed the speaking and singing voice of Hugo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Charles Kimbrough and Mary Wickes join Alexander as Victor and Laverne, respectively, as a trio of gargoyles that befriends Quasimodo. Watch as they perform “A Guy Like You.”
7. “STRANGERS LIKE ME” // TARZAN (1999)
In 1999, Disney hired Phil Collins to write and perform the soundtrack for Tarzan. He later won an Academy Award for Best Song for “You’ll Be in My Heart.” Watch Collins’s recording session for “Strangers Like Me” in multiple languages above.
8. “REFLECTION” // MULAN (1998)
Lea Salonga returned to Disney as the singing voice for the titular character in Mulan. A 65-piece orchestra accompanied her while she belted out the animated film’s hit ballad, “Reflection.”
Fun Fact: While B.D. Wong and Donny Osmond provided the speaking and singing voices for Captain Li Shang, respectively, Jackie Chan performed the voice for the three different versions of Mulan in China.
9. “FROM ZERO TO HERO” // HERCULES (1997)
Before Hercules was animated, singers Lillias White, Cheryl Freeman, LaChanze, Roz Ryan, and Vanéese Y. Thomas were brought in to record the song “From Zero To Hero,” while co-directors John Musker and Ron Clements blended live-action sequences and storyboards to help animators visualize the musical number.
10. INTO THE WOODS (2014)
In 2014, Stephen Sondheim’s hit Broadway musical Into The Woods was adapted to the big screen with a number of Hollywood A-listers, including Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, and Johnny Depp as The Big Bad Wolf.
The $1 billion museum will be built in Exposition Park, with the museum’s board of directors saying in a statement on Tuesday they chose Los Angeles over San Francisco because it will fulfill “our goal of inspiring, engaging, and educating a broad and diverse visitorship.” In his own statement, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said that thanks to George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, “millions of Angelenos and visitors will enjoy an extraordinary collection anchored in storytelling—an art that carries so much meaning in the history and legacy of Los Angeles.”
The museum said it will house works from Edgar Degas, Pierre-August Renoir, and Lucas’s own collection, celebrating “the power of visual storytelling in a setting focused on narrative painting, illustration, photography, film, animation, and digital art.“
Think you’re smart enough to match wits with Benedict Cumberbatch’s clever detective in a funny hat? Well, the BBC is giving you a chance to prove it. The network is challenging Sherlock fans to solve a live mystery, which they’ll launch via Twitter at 8 p.m. GMT tonight (that’s 3 p.m. if you’re in New York City).
Dubbed #SherlockLive, the social media mystery is a bit of a mystery itself; not many details have been released about what to expect. What we do know is that Sherlock co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (who plays Sherlock’s brother Mycroft) will be taking over BBC One’s Twitter feed and tweeting in character as Sherlock, where they’ll share each clue the detective uncovers. Participants will take part using the #SherlockLive hashtag, with the goal being to solve the crime before the most brilliant mind on Baker Street does. The game is on!
Though her filmography consists of more than 80 credits, the late Debbie Reynolds is best known for her role as aspiring actress Kathy Selden, the singing-and-dancing love interest of movie star Don Lockwood (played by Gene Kelly) in Stanley Donen’s classic musical, Singin’ in the Rain. To celebrate the life of the iconic actress, who passed away on December 28, Entertainment Weekly reports that the film will return to theaters across the country for a special two-day engagement beginning this weekend.
The Oscar-nominated film, which turns 65 this year, will screen as part of Fathom and Turner Classic Movies’ Big Screen Classics series. The film will screen on Sunday, January 15 and Wednesday, January 18 and will include a brief introduction from TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.
Over the next year, the series will bring a host of classic films—including North by Northwest, Smokey and the Bandit, The Godfather, E.T., and The Princess Bride—back into cinemas. But the year’s lineup will kick off with Singin’ in the Rain, of which Reynolds once wrote: “Singin’ in the Rain and childbirth were the hardest things I ever had to do in my life.”
Set and filmed in South Florida, Wild Things involves two teenagers, Suzie (Neve Campbell) and Kelly (Denise Richards), who accuse their high school guidance counselor, Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon), of rape. They hire a lawyer (Bill Murray) and a detective (Kevin Bacon) to investigate Lombardo. The events transform into an erotic film noir, as everyone betrays one another.
Richards described the film as “Scream meets Body Heat,” a cross between a whodunit and sleazy cinema. Written by Stephen Peters and directed by John McNaughton, the film is best known for its pool makeout session between Campbell and Richards; for a lurid threesome between Campbell, Richards, and Dillon; and for Bacon showing his, um, full bacon. On March 20, 1998, the movie opened with $9.6 million and went on to gross a tepid $30,147,739. But the film proved popular enough to spawn three straight-to-DVD sequels were made (none of the original cast members, writer, or director were involved): Wild Things 2 (2004), Wild Things: Diamonds in the Rough (2005), and Wild Things: Foursome (2010). Here are 13 wild facts about the movie.
1. KEVIN BACON THOUGHT THE SCRIPT WAS “THE TRASHIEST PIECE OF CRAP” HE HAD EVER READ.
Kevin Bacon not only has a role in the film but is also one of its producers. “When I first picked up the script, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, this is the trashiest piece of crap I’ve ever read,’” he said to Entertainment Weekly. “But every few pages, I kept discovering that it wasn’t what it seemed. Every few pages, there was another surprise.”
2. ROBERT DOWNEY JR. ALMOST PLAYED THE MATT DILLON ROLE.
Christopher Polk/Getty Images for PCA
Pre-Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. had been chosen to play the school counselor, but his drug issues endangered the production. “It was during his rehab, and he’d just been on Diane Sawyer’s show,” John McNaughton told Entertainment Weekly. “And to the people in Hollywood, that was a great career move. That made him hot.” The film’s insurance didn’t want to cover the actor, though, as Downey Jr. became too much of a liability.
3. DENISE RICHARDS DID NOT NAIL HER FIRST AUDITION.
McNaughton told Entertainment Weekly that at her first audition, Richards “was good, but not so good we had to hire her. But when she came back for a second audition, she was a lot better. She’d obviously thought about the character, which we took as a good sign that she could do the role. If worse came to worst, we knew she’d be beautiful.”
4. JOHN MCNAUGHTON PURPOSEFULLY CREATED BEAUTIFUL SURROUNDINGS.
“Wild Things … is a movie about really ugly people in terms of their interiors—there’s almost nobody of any moral value whatsoever in that picture,” McNaughton told Filmmaker Magazine. “So to make their surroundings ugly is telling the joke twice; I wanted it to be beautiful and lush and gorgeous, like the movie was a commercial selling you that world.”
5. BILL MURRAY MISSED OUT ON “THE BIG FUN.”
Bill Murray’s character, lawyer Ken Bowden, doesn’t get to engage in threesomes—or any kind of sex. “Although I’m twisted, I’m about the nicest guy in the thing,” Murray said in a behind the scenes segment on the film. “So I don’t get to have the big fun, and no sex at all. It’s like the guy who comes the next morning, to the party—‘What happened? Really? I miss everything.’ But I’m in on it. I’m the only one that gets out unscathed.”
6. THE CAST HAD TROUBLE KEEPING THE LIES STRAIGHT.
“To determine their motivation in each scene, the cast had to gather with the director, writers, and producers to establish the sequence of events,” Bacon said. “We’d sit in rehearsals trying to piece together what was going on in the script, whom we were lying to about what, and it’d just get so complicated we’d have to stop and rest.”
7. BACON’S FULL-FRONTAL NUDITY WAS ACCIDENTAL.
Bacon didn’t think anyone would see his nether regions, mainly because he thought Dillon was blocking the shot. However, McNaughton explained to The Huffington Post how Bacon’s manhood made an unintentional cameo. “Kevin steps out of the shower and Matt throws him a towel and he catches it and it covers him and he did it in every take but one. It was a little miscue and it didn’t cover him.” The film’s editor, Elena Maganini, convinced McNaughton to use that take. “We called Kevin and he said, ‘How do I look?’ We said, ‘You look good Kevin.’ He goes, ‘No problem.’”
“I didn’t think any more about it so I was shocked, really shocked, when everyone kept on about it after the movie’s release,” Bacon told Total Film. “It really wasn’t that big a deal.” In 2015, Bacon shot a funny “Free the Bacon” PSA (below), encouraging more male actors to do full-frontal movie scenes.
8. BACON AND DILLON WERE SUPPOSED TO DO A SHOWER SCENE TOGETHER.
That already racy scene in which Dillon throws a nude Bacon a towel almost pushed the envelope further. Dillon was supposed to join Bacon in the shower and kiss him, but Dillon was against the idea. “Man, I was relieved when they got rid of that scene,” he told Total Film. “Kevin seemed pretty attached to it through. One twist too many, man, one twist too many.”
“I thought it was great because the whole movie is about secrets coming out, right?” Bacon also told Total Film. “As reveals go, that one was just huge [no pun intended]. Unfortunately, the financiers didn’t like the idea of men making out. They felt it went too far. They felt it wasn’t right.”
9. A DEAD BODY FLOATED INTO THE PRODUCTION.
While Campbell and Daphne Rubin-Vega filmed a scene near a swamp, a dead body rose to the surface. “All of a sudden one of the crew says ‘cut’—it was one of the lighting guys—and they said there was a dead body in the water,” Campbell recalled. “And so the cops came by and were like ‘You makin’ a movie?’ And we were like ‘Yeah.’ So they actually—typical Hollywood—held the body next to the dock so it wouldn’t float through the shot so we could finish the scene.”
10. RICHARDS’S BOOBS BECAME THE FOCAL POINT OF MEETINGS.
According to Richards’s memoir, Real Girl Next Door, storyboards of her breasts were passed between her lawyer, the producers, and the director to see what she would be okay with revealing. “At first it was decided that only one [breast] would be filmed, though they eventually filmed both,” The Daily Beast wrote.
11. NEVE CAMPBELL ENJOYED KISSING RICHARDS.
“It was fun,” Campbell told Rolling Stone about the film’s most famous scene. “We just sorta went in and did it. Actually, we mixed margaritas and brought a bottle of wine in my trailer and got drunk first.” Campbell wrote in her journal about the experience: “Okay, I’m gonna make out with a girl for the first time in my life. It’s so interesting that a lot of times you learn things about yourself and have new experiences when shooting a scene, because they’re things you wouldn’t normally do in your life.”
But Richards found it all very weird. “At one point during Wild Things, we were shooting at night and I just sat there and thought, ‘It’s four o’clock in the morning. I’m half naked in a swimming pool. I’m making out with Neve Campbell. What am I doing here?”’ she told Entertainment Weekly. Whereas Richards went topless for the scene, Campbell decided to not show anything.
12. BACON THINKS THE MOVIE SHOULDN’T BE TAKEN SO SERIOUSLY.
Is the movie self-aware or is it being serious? “It’s fun for me now to sit back and watch an audience which really doesn’t know what to expect,” Bacon said. “It’s kind of neat, because people are not quite sure what they’re supposed to be thinking and feeling. They kind of go, ‘Am I allowed to laugh at this at all? Or is this just like so bad? Are they serious?’ The other side of that is that it creates certain inherent problems in marketing the picture. I mean, I almost want to put a disclaimer on the poster that says, ‘We don’t take this too seriously, so we hope that you don’t either.'”
13. MCNAUGHTON WANTED TO MAKE A SEQUEL.
In 2013, McNaughton said he wanted to film a sequel called Wild Child Things, focusing on a child Suzie could’ve had. “Do you know the Amanda Knox case? It’s something like that,” he told Hollywood.com. “Something that’s like the child of Suzie Toller. She claimed that Matt Dillon‘s [character] had raped her a long time ago and maybe there is a child and maybe Bill Murray‘s character had a child and they’re exchange students and things get out of hand.” Though three straight-to-DVD sequels have been made, McNaughton has not been involved in any of those.
Much like computers, smartphones can start to slow down after years, or even months, of use. However, there are some ways to keep your iOS and Android devices running as good as new until you have to upgrade. Here are eight simple ways to speed up your smartphone.
1. UPDATE YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM.
If your smartphone is running slower than usual, then your operating system (or OS) might not be up-to-date. Having the latest version of iOS or Android on your phone is the best way to ensure it works at its zippiest. Just make sure your phone is connected to Wi-Fi and backed up before you update your phone’s software, and make sure that your phone can handle it. Newer operating systems might not be optimized for older or lower-cost phones.
iPhone: Go to “Settings,” then “General,” and then “Software Update.”
Android: Go to “Settings,” and then “About Phone.” Tap “System Updates” or “Software Updates” at the top of the screen to check if you have any Android updates.
2. REDUCE MOTION AND ANIMATION.
Animations might look cool when transitioning from one app to another, but they can really slow down your phone, as they use up space and resources. Disabling animations on both Androids and iPhones can be tricky, but it’s worth it to make your device run faster.
iPhone: On iPhones, there is a setting to reduce motion by going to “Settings,” then “General,” and then “Accessibility.” If you have yet to update to iOS 9.3.2 (there are probably a few of you out there) there is a convoluted way of disabling all animations, but that bug was patched in later updates.
Android: Your phone has to be in developer mode to disable animations. To do so, go to “Settings,” then “About Phone.” Find “Build Number” and continuously tap the option until you’re granted “Developer Mode.” Go back to “Settings” and “Developer Options” to find “Window Animation Scale,” “Transition Animation Scale,” and “Animator Duration Scale.” Set all three options to “Off.” Then you might need to restart your phone (although this has been known to create glitches, so be careful).
3. GET RID OF WIDGETS.
If you’re an Android user, stop using widgets on your home screens. While widgets are useful for quickly giving you info at a glance, they are serious data hogs. Many widgets constantly refresh in the background to find new information and updates, so if you don’t need it, you should probably delete it.
4. STOP USING LIVE WALLPAPER.
Live wallpaper is a fun feature to show off your new smartphone, but much like widgets, they eat up a lot of memory and battery life. Over time, live wallpaper will slow down your phone and kill its efficiency. If you have a high-end Android with an AMOLED display and want to speed up your phone and save some battery life at the same time, use solid color wallpaper, preferably all-black, to reduce pixel activity and divert resources elsewhere.
5. AUTOMATICALLY CLEAR MESSAGES AFTER 30 DAYS.
One place few people ever think of clearing space is in iMessage and other text messaging apps. If you have more than 1GB of text messages slowing down your phone, it’s probably a good time to clear them out to make your device run faster. Luckily for iPhone users, you can set iMessage to clear old messages every 30 days. It’s recommended that you archive your text messages to iCloud if you still want to keep them.
Go to “Settings,” then “Messages,” and finally “Keep Messages” to pick the 30 days option.
Unfortunately, there is no such option for Android devices, so you’re going to have to delete messages in bulk manually (although there is an option under “Settings” to delete old messages when storage gets low).
6. ENABLE WI-FI ASSIST.
When you’re using a spotty Wi-Fi signal, Wi-Fi Assist for iPhone can help you transition to data without missing a beat. It’s built into iOS 9 and higher (for most devices) and it’s pretty useful when you can’t keep a strong enough Wi-Fi connection. It also helps your iPhone’s performance and battery life, so it doesn’t constantly look for a good signal when you’re out of range.
Go to “Setting,” and then “Cellular,” and toggle “Wi-Fi Assist” to on. It’s smart enough to not turn on for big downloads, but it’s still a good idea to keep track of your data usage as some users have complained of unexpected overages.
7. ADJUST BACKGROUND APP REFRESH SETTINGS.
A lot of email, weather, and location apps work in the background, even if you’re not using them—and they’re constantly and automatically refreshing without you even noticing. However, you can adjust and tweak all of your apps so that they only refresh to get new information when you choose.
iPhone: First it’s a good idea to turn off “Find My iPhone” by going to “Settings,” then “iCloud,” and turn off “Find My iPhone.” Then go back to “Settings,” and then “General.” Pick “Background App Refresh” and turn off any app that you don’t need to speed up your iPhone.
Android: Go to “Settings,” and then “Data Usage.” Tap the menu icon and find “Restrict Background Data.” Now your Android device will only refresh its apps when you think it’s necessary.
8. INITIATE A FULL RESET AND FACTORY RESET.
When all else fails and all the tips above didn’t make your smartphone work any faster, then your only choice is to initiate a full or factory reset. This will restore your phone to the first day you bought it with a clean OS, but with all the current firmware updates. But be warned: a factory reset will wipe out all of your photos, music, text messages, apps, and any important files you might have on your smartphone. It will also get rid of all the junk that’s bogging your phone down too, but you’re going to have to start over again. It’s highly recommended that you backup and encrypt all of your data before you choose to reset your iPhone or Android device.
iPhone: Go to “Settings,” then “General,” and then “Reset.” Tap “Erase All Content and Settings” and confirm with your password. You can also perform a Factory Reset with iTunes under the “Restore Phone” tab when you plug your iPhone into your computer.
Android: Go to “Settings,” then “Backup and Reset,” and tap “Factory Data Reset.” Tap “Reset Phone” and confirm with your password. Finally, tap “Erase Everything” and your Android device will reboot to the condition when you first took it out of its box.
The white stuff in your ice cubes is actually very, very tiny air bubbles. Virtually all natural water you deal with is oxygenated to some extent; it’s why fish can breathe in it. Scientists measure dissolved oxygen in streams to determine how healthy the environment is. And when the water flows from your tap, it also tends to be pretty well oxygenated.
As the water freezes, it wants to form a regular crystalline structure (ice). That means impurities like oxygen and other dissolved gasses are pushed away from the crystallization front into the remaining liquid. This means that the last parts of the ice cube to crystallize end up with most of the impurities. If you take a look at an ice cube, you’ll note that the parts of the ice cube that were at the bottom of the tray are the milky colored bits. That’s because those were the last parts to freeze. The ice cubes in your tray froze from the top downward, which pushed the contaminant air downward until it was trapped at the bottom and had nowhere else to go.
You can, however, get bubble-free ice by first deoxygenating it. Oxygen solubility in water decreases with increasing temperature. If you boil the water first, you remove the oxygen from it. Next, cool it and then pour it into your ice cube trays to freeze. It should be much more clear. (See photo below.)
While many movies, books, and TV shows take place in alien or fantasy worlds, it doesn’t mean you can’t learn how to speak their fictional languages. Here are 12 that you can start studying right now.
1. NADSAT
In the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, author Anthony Burgess created the language Nadsat for his teenage characters who used it as slang throughout the book and later in the 1971 movie adaptation. The fictional language is essentially English with some borrowed Russian and Gypsy words and terms, along with childish phrasing. Nadsat is derived from the Russian word for teen; it also borrows from cockney slang and German.
Example: “I read this with care, my brothers, slurping away at the old chai (tea), cup after tass (cup) after chasha (teacup), crunching my lomticks of black toast dipped in jammiwam (jam) and eggiweg (egg).”
2. ELVISH
Before he even started to write The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, author and linguist J.R.R. Tolkien developed the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin for Middle Earth. Quenya is the language of the High Elves of Eldamar, while Sindarin was spoken by the Grey Elves of Telerin. Tolkien based Elvish on Finnish and Welsh, along with a few elements of Greek and Latin.
Example: “Êl síla erin lû e-govaned vîn.” — “A star shines on the hour of our meeting.”
3. HUTTESE
Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt created Huttese for Return of the Jedi in 1983. Burtt derived the language from an ancient Incan dialect called Quechua. It’s a fictional language that is mainly spoken by Jabba the Hutt and his species on Tatooine, but many other characters can speak Huttese, such as C-3PO, Anakin Skywalker, and Watto from 1999’s Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
Example: “Wee now kong bantha poodoo.” — “Now you’re bantha fodder.”
4. KLINGON
Created from only a few words and phrases, Klingon was first used in Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, but it became a full-fledged language five years later for Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. Linguist Marc Okrand created and developed the alien language from words originally made up by actor James Doohan (who played Scotty) in the original film. In 1985, Okrand, who also created the Vulcan language, later wrote The Klingon Dictionary, which includes pronunciation, grammar rules, and vocabulary from the Star Trek alien species. Over the years, many plays from William Shakespeare were translated into Klingon, such as Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing.
Example: “bortaS bIr jablu’DI’ reH QaQqu’ nay.” — “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
5. MINIONESE
Despicable Me co-director Pierre Coffin created Minionese for the animated movie and its sequels. While the language might sound like gibberish or baby talk, Coffin, who also voices the Minions, borrowed Minionese from other languages, such as Spanish, French, Japanese, Tagalog, Korean, and English.
“I have my Indian or Chinese menu handy. I also know a little bit of Spanish, Italian, Indonesian, and Japanese. So I have all these sources of inspiration for their words,” Coffin told the Los Angeles Daily News. “I just pick one that doesn’t express something by the meaning but rather the melody of the words.”
Example: “Le jori e’ tu” — “For better or worse”
6. PARSELTONGUE
J.K. Rowling created Parseltongue for the Harry Potter book series. It’s the fictional language of serpents and those who can speak it are known as Parselmouths, who are descendants of Salazar Slytherin, with Harry Potter as an exception. Rowling even wrote a user guide to Parseltongue on her website, Pottermore.
7. LAPINE
Author Richard Adams created the fictional language called Lapine in his 1972 novel Watership Down and its sequel Tales from Watership Down. It’s primarily spoken to make the rabbit characters sound more “wuffy, fluffy” and comes from the French word lapin, which means rabbit. “I just constructed Lapine as I went—when the rabbits needed a word for something, so did I,” Adams explained during an Reddit AMA.
8. DOTHRAKI
Linguist David J. Peterson developed the Dothraki language for Game of Thrones from George R.R. Martin’s fantasy novel series. He created the language for the nomadic warriors with a combination of Arabic and Spanish sounds, along with Swahili and Estonian. Currently, there are over 3100 Dothraki words. Peterson also wrote Living Language Dothraki: A Conversational Language Course, so Game of Thrones fans could also learn and speak the language.
In 2015, “Khaleesi” Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), the wife of the Dothraki ruler “Khal,” was a very popular name for newborn baby girls.
Example: “Dothras Chek!” — “Ride well! Godspeed!”
9. ALIENESE
To give the world of the 31st century more realism and depth, Futurama co-creator David X. Cohen created an alien language called Alienese, which was mainly used as background graffiti and store signs for in-jokes. It was a simple substitution cipher that fans quickly decoded. This forced the writers of Futurama to create another language called Alienese II, which was math-based and more complex to figure out.
10. MONDOSHAWAN
Although it’s referred to as the Divine Language, Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) speaks the Mondoshawan alien language in 1997’s The Fifth Element. It’s a limited language with only 300 to 400 words in total that director Luc Besson created. Jovovich had to memorize and refine the language before filming began. By the end of production, Besson and Jovovich were speaking Mondoshawan to each other between takes.
11. ATLANTEAN
Disney hired linguist Marc Okrand (the same linguist who created Klingon for Star Trek) to develop a living language for 2001’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire. He made Atlantean as the “mother language” for the animated film’s screenwriters and concept artists. The fictional language was derived from Indo-European words with a mix of Sumerian and North American languages. Okrand created a complex writing and language system with writer’s scripts, an Atlantean alphabet, and reader’s script for the Disney animated film.
12. NA’VI
James Cameron was developing Avatar for 15 years before it was released in December 2009. While Cameron was developing the filmmaking technology to bring the 3D film to fruition, he also brought on University of Southern California linguist Dr. Paul Frommer to help bring the alien culture of the Na’vi to the big screen. The pair worked for months, creating a language that was a mixture of Ethiopian and New Zealand Māori languages to develop a lexicon with more than 1000 words. Since the release of Avatar, Frommer has continuously added new words and expanded the grammatical rules of Na’vi on his website, so fans could learn to speak the alien language.
“The sound system has to be all nailed down first, so that there is consistency in the language,” said Dr. Frommer. “When you create a language, you experience the joy of rolling sounds around in your mouth, hearing unusual sounds, playing with the sounds and structural properties of language—it’s a process that took about six months for the basics,”
Nearly 40 years after his death, Elvis Presley remains a rock ‘n’ roll icon and has yet to be ousted from his position as “The King.” Yet the Tupelo, Mississippi-born, Memphis, Tennessee-raised superstar never took his fame for granted, nor did he forget his roots. On what would have been his 82nd birthday, here are 20 memorable quotes about Elvis’s life and legacy.
ON AMBITION
“Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.”
ON MAINTAINING YOUR VALUES
“It’s not how much you have that makes people look up to you, it’s who you are.”
“Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same, but you leave ’em all over everything you do.”
ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
“I happened to come along in the music business when there was no trend.”
“I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.”
“I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.”
ON THE ARMY
“After a hard day of basic training, you could eat a rattlesnake.”
“The army teaches boys to think like men.”
ON TRUTH
“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.”
ON THOSE LEGENDARY DANCE MOVES
“Rock and roll music, if you like it, if you feel it, you can’t help but move to it. That’s what happens to me. I can’t help it.”
“Some people tap their feet, some people snap their fingers, and some people sway back and forth. I just sorta do ’em all together, I guess.”
ON KEEPING POSITIVE
“When things go wrong, don’t go with them.”
ON STARDOM
“If you let your head get too big, it’ll break your neck.”
“I have no use for bodyguards, but I have very specific use for two highly trained certified public accountants.”
“The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.”
“The Lord can give, and the Lord can take away. I might be herding sheep next year.”
ON LOVE
“Sad thing is, you can still love someone and be wrong for them.”
ON THE PITFALLS OF HOLLYWOOD
“I sure lost my musical direction in Hollywood. My songs were the same conveyer belt mass production, just like most of my movies were.”
ON GETTING OLDER
“Every time I think that I’m getting old, and gradually going to the grave, something else happens.”
