Ken Block Talks New Amazon Show While Doing Tricks on the Slopes
Ken Block has made a name for himself as an action sports star, turning his love of sports into a career. Alyssa Julya Smith caught up with Block on the mountains of Park City, Utah during the Sundance Film Festival to talk about his latest Amazon Prime original series.
"The Gymkhana Files" is a Prime original series highlighting the making of Gymkhana 10, the recently announced 10th installment of his Gymkhana film series. Block says the unscripted series will be an exclusive look at what goes into the making of one of the biggest viral campaigns of all time. The series will have eight episodes of untold stories and never-before-seen footage from Block’s previous nine films.
Block also discusses the marketing that goes into the viral videos and what it takes to make a video with up to 100 million views. The prolific entrepreneur also talks about his other ventures including DC Shoes, which he eventually sold to Quiksilver.
Natalie Fertig, federal cannabis policy reporter at Politico Pro, joins Cheddar News to discuss a new YouGov poll that looks at how Americans feel about marijuana and politics.
A virtual gathering in the online space, Decentraland, of Elvis Presley impersonators is looking to grab the Guinness World Record for most Elvis impersonators in one place after the record-keeping org recently approved the use of avatars as stand-ins for people.
A powerful winter storm hit the Northeast over the weekend leaving 100,000 New Yorkers in the dark as well as snowfall up to 30.9 inches in parts of Massachusetts. The nor'easter hit with blizzard conditions of wind speed and poor visibility.
After classic rocker Neil Young demanded removal of his music from Spotify over vaccine misinformation coming from The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the platform made the decision to take down Young's songs and continue supporting Rogan with whom they have an exclusive contract. The move touched off a firestorm of controversy, leading to responses from both the streaming service and the podcasting host. Evan Nierman, CEO of Red Banyan Crisis PR, joined Cheddar to break down the latest on the fracas. "I think when [Spotify] initially said, we're not going to be commenting on that, that was a silly move because guess what? They did end up commenting about it, and nine times out of 10, when an organization says they're not going to be issuing a comment, they ultimately do," Nierman noted.
The 1999 cult classic "Fight Club" has been given a very different ending in China — and this time, the authorities win. Cheddar News speaks with Joan Solsman, senior media reporter at CNET who breaks down how China is using films for political messaging.
NFT art platform TRLab recently raised $4.2 million in funding. TRLab launched just last year but says its platform focused on NFT curation and distribution is growing quickly. The company hopes to bridge traditional and digital art worlds and help artists explore NFTs as an emerging medium. TRLab co-founder and chairwoman Xin Li-Cohen and co-founder and CEO Audrey Ou joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
