LibGuides: Urban Legends: Media

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Atari: Game Over (1:06:16) The hunt is on to find 3.5 million unsold copies of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial video game, reputed to have been the cause of Atari's downfall in 1984... Atari: Game Over explores the popular urban legend known as "The Great Video Game Burial of 1983". As the story goes, the Atari Corporation, faced with an overwhelmingly negative response to the E.T. video game, disposed of millions of unsold game cartridges by burying them in the small town of Alamogordo, New Mexico. For decades, the myth of Atari and these "E.T." cartridges was whispered about among game fans everywhere. Director Zak Penn (X-Men 2, Avengers) and his team headed to the landfill where the video games were supposedly buried to determine whether the story had merit. A range of interviews were also conducted to uncover the truth behind the legend. Atari: Game Over was created by Xbox with two-time Academy Award®-winning producer Simon Chinn (Man on Wire) and Emmy®-winning producer Jonathan Chinn (30 Days).
HBO Beware The Slender Man (01:55:23) It was a local story that horrified the nation: two 12-year-old girls lured a friend into the Waukesha woods, where they proceeded to stab her 19 times in an effort to appease a faceless mythical entity known online as “Slenderman.” But there’s more to the story than the dark headlines it generated. A sobering documentary that delves deep into the story behind this shocking crime, Beware the Slenderman examines how an Internet urban myth could take root in impressionable young minds, leading to an unspeakable act. Directed by Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky (The Final Inch), the film interweaves an eerie array of Slenderman-inspired art, games and self-produced video culled from the Internet, along with heart-wrenching access to the two girls’ families, courtroom testimony, expert interviews, and interrogation-room footage to cover all sides of this unusual case. Ultimately, Beware the Slenderman reveals how adolescent isolation, mental health, and the nebulous nature of the Internet helped create a dangerous mandate for two young girls, with life-altering consequences for everyone involved.