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After every WWDC event, Apple shares the keynote video on YouTube. However, users also share their take on the keynote on YouTube. According to the latest, Apple has issued multiple takedown strikes for a popular channel on YouTube. Scroll down to read more details on the subject.

Prominent YouTube Channel "Apple WWDC Videos" Issued Multiple Takedown Strikes

As mentioned earlier, Apple has issued multiple takedown requests for a popular YouTube channel that archived past WWDC videos. Brendan Shanks, owner of the channel "Apple WWDC Videos" shared the news on Twitter, highlighting screenshots of DMCA notices sent by YouTube. The YouTube channel contains hundreds of videos from WWDC keynotes and it was quite popular amongst fans.

Congratulations Apple, you took down my YouTube channel containing hundreds of…20-year old WWDC videos. Wouldn’t want anyone learning about Mac OS X, Darwin, Aqua, or WebObjects @tim_cook @pschiller @gruber @jsnell @ismh @mjtsai @reneritchie @reckless pic.twitter.com/w2UgVqOubF

— Brendan Shanks (@realmrpippy) November 4, 2022

YouTube channels usually share short clips from the WWDC events that are relevant to their audience. Searching for the same information on Apple's channel would take a lot of time as it would pose to be quite cumbersome to locate the exact information. Nonetheless, Apple provides a catalog of older keynotes on Apple Podcasts that you can watch. However, you can only go as far as the original iPhone's launch in 2007. In contrast, Shanks' channel contained "20-year-old WWDC videos".

As for Shank, he will upload the original video files from his "Apple WWDC Videos" YouTube channel to the Internet Archive. This is all there is to it, folks. We will share more details on the subject as soon as further information is available.

Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

The post Apple Issues Multiple Takedown Strikes For Popular ‘Apple WWDC Videos’ YouTube Channel by Ali Salman appeared first on Wccftech.

Web scraping is a sensitive issue. Should a third party be allowed to visit a website and use automated tools to gather and store information at scale from that website? What if that information includes personal data? What does the law say? Can it be prevented? This is what we’ll discuss.

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Texas-based IT management solutions provider SolarWinds has agreed to pay $26 million to settle a shareholder lawsuit over the data breach disclosed by the company in 2020.

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Good news for those of us who suck at sewing: If you rip a cushion or seat, you don’t have to reupholster the whole thing. You can usually fix small rips yourself, but how you do it (and whether it lasts) depends on what sort of material you’re dealing with. Here’s how to fix a rips in vinyl and fabric without pulling…

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Netflix has released the official trailer for GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY, which you can check out in the player below.

“We had such an amazing cast in the last one and I didn’t know how we were going to top that, but we’ve equaled it. The working experience, just to come on set and make these movies is such fun,” Daniel Craig tells TUDUM.

“The mystery is not going to be what keeps the audience in their seats. Remember first and foremost that you’re making a movie and that it has to dramatically work before it intellectually works as a puzzle,” writer-director Rian Johnson says. “That’s actually still the hard part – creating a good story that feels unique and feels exciting and emotionally feels satisfying at the end.”

In the follow-up to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, Detective Benoit Blanc travels to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery involving a new cast of colorful suspects.

The film stars Daniel Craig (No Time to Die, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Edward Norton (Fight Club, Primal Fear), Janelle Monáe (Antebellum, Hidden Figures), Kathryn Hahn (“WandaVision“, “Crossing Jordon”), Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night in Miami, The Many Saints of Newark), Jessica Henwick (The Matrix Resurrections, Underwater), Madelyn Cline (“Outer Banks”, “The Originals”) with Kate Hudson (Almost Famous, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days) and Dave Bautista (Dune, Blade Runner 2049).

The film is written, directed, and produced by Rian Johnson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Looper). Ram Bergman is also a producer on the project, with Tom Karnowski as EP.

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY will be released in select theaters for one week on November 23, 2022, and globally on Netflix on December 23.

The post [News] Trailer for GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY appeared first on Nightmarish Conjurings.

At one time, Blizzard was synonymous with real-time strategy courtesy of franchises like Warcraft and StarCraft, but for whatever reason, the studio has largely abandoned the genre. Sure, there have been half-hearted attempts to revisit it with products like Warcraft III: Reforged, but for the most part they’ve allowed others to advance the genre.

Well, that may change if Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard goes through. In a recent interview with Wired, Xbox boss Phil Spencer expressed excitement about the prospect of sitting down with Blizzard to discuss StarCraft and Warcraft, even if he’s careful to mention he’s not free to start any discussions just yet.

“So this is all just kind of talking and thinking about what the opportunity is, but you're absolutely right. Not only StarCraft, but Warcraft, when you think about the heritage of RTS games that we're talking about here, specifically from Blizzard. And I don't have any concrete plans today because I can't really get in and work with the teams. But StarCraft was a seminal moment in gaming, right? 

I'm excited about getting to sit down with the teams at Activision and Blizzard to talk about back catalog and opportunities that we might have. So I will dodge the question other than to say it's not something I can actively work on right now. But the thought of being able to think about what could happen with those franchises is pretty exciting to me, as somebody who spent a lot of hours playing those games.”

Of course, the acquisition of Activision Blizzard still isn’t a sure thing. The deal still has to be approved be regulators all over the world, with some insiders of the opinion it could still fall apart. So, don’t get excited for more StarCraft just yet.

Activision Blizzard has faced a series of lawsuits and other legal action on the heels of a suit filed by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) alleging widespread gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment at the Call of Duty publisher. You can get more details on that unfolding story here.

What do you think? Hoping to see StarCraft and Warcraft return? Or is that era too far gone?

The post StarCraft/Warcraft is Something Spencer Wants to Discuss if the Acti-Blizz Deal Happens by Nathan Birch appeared first on Wccftech.

I, like many people I know these days, will only watch a YouTube video if it's either less than 5 minutes or more than an hour long. YouTube evolved a while ago into a platform for long-form video essays, and I for one am happy about it. Even better: Jenny Nicholson just released an almost four hour video on an uncompleted attraction in Utah called Evermore. Evermore is a sort of theme park-slash-immersive-theatre that appears to have been beset both by uncontrollable world events and bad management, but I still want to go because it looks pretty fun(ny).

I did think about what games I would like to become immersive experience theme parks in this kind of vein, though, and I gotta say... I'm coming up empty.

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Darwinium, a San Francisco-based startup focused on customer protection, has raised $10 million in a seed funding round led by Blackbird and Airtree, with participation from prominent angel investors.

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Guy Pearce has long been considered one of the most compelling actors of his generation delivering memorable roles in notable films like "LA Confidential," "Memento," "Iron Man 3," and even lesser-known gems like "The Rover" and the sci-fi actioner "Lockout." His chameleon-like ability to transform seamlessly from role to role has kept him in high demand for decades. Pearce has recently made the move over to television, appearing in the psychological mystery series "Mare of Easttown" and "Jack Irish." Pearce will be seen next opposite Damien Lewis ("Billions") in the Cold War drama limited series "A Spy Among Friends" which just aired its first episode last week on Spectrum's On Demand platform and BritBox. Adapted from the novel by Ben Macintyre, "A Spy Among Friends" follows two MI6 intelligence officers whose friendship collapses after one of them becomes a double agent for the Russians during the 1950s. 

While promoting the new show, Pearce also spoke about some of the highs and lows of his long career in the December 2022 issue of Total Film. The veteran actor opened up in the interview about working on the cannibalistic horror western "Ravenous," disclosing that it was one of the hardest film shoots he had ever experienced "primarily because there was so much dissent." Pearce recalls: "There was a lot of arguing going on with executives and producers." Even though "Ravenous" has its staunch defenders now and has since become a cult classic, the drama behind the scenes escalated to the point where the original director, Milcho Manchevski, was fired. 

Setting The Record Straight

For some reason, it seems like the executives at Fox wanted to try and turn a gory, psychological horror western set in the 19th century into a movie that could capitalize on the meta-horror success of Wes Craven's "Scream." When there was pushback from Manchevski, Pearce recalls that the "Ravenous" cast and crew were misled by the powers-that-be, telling Total Film:

"We were lied to about why the [original] director was fired. They had said, 'Well, the editor said this stuff can't be edited together.' I went straight to the editor, and said, 'Is this true?' He said, 'No, not at all.' 'Scream' was popular in those days, and they were wanting to make more of that kind of film. Whereas our director, Milcho Manchevski, clearly wanted to make a dark, psychological thriller. It was my first experience in realising that people tell lies about what it is you're making and why."

Pitting a creative team against each other to steer a project in an entirely different direction is the epitome of studio interference. In a clarification from the original director back in 2015, Manchevski revealed publicly to JoBlo that his vision for "Ravenous" had been intentionally undermined: 

"Laura Ziskin, the head of Fox 2000 was unhappy that she could not direct vicariously through me. I told her she did not have the creative credentials to tell me what to do. And she didn't. Money does not buy her the right to change a work of art."

That quote, "Money does not buy the right to change a work of art" should be framed and hung on the walls of filmmakers and financiers alike to remind them to keep the business and the art separate. 

Ending On A Positive Note

Manchevski also told JoBlo that "'Ravenous' could have been a really quirky, fun, disturbing and sophisticated little gem." The silver lining for everyone involved, including the film's eventual director, the late Antonia Bird, was that "Ravenous" turned out to be just that. Originally released as a box office disappointment, the stellar cast including Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Neal McDonough, and Jeremy Davies has helped the horror western become a beloved period piece that is consistently listed as one of the best genre films of the '90s. 

So, if "Ravenous" was Pearce's worst on-set experience, what was his best? The answer is another revered western featuring one of the actor's best performances. "'The Proposition' was one that meant a lot," Pearce tells Total Film, "mainly because John Hillcoat was such a lovely man to be working for. But also being out in that part of the world, and tapping into Aboriginal culture, and the history of Australia. Just being out there is a really spiritual experience, anyway."

The sweeping and sinister soundtrack from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is another reason that "The Proposition" has garnered a larger share of acclaim over the years, providing Cave's loyal fandom another collection of compositions to devour. Because of the attention the score received, Cave went on to score "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" and the Jeff Bridges star vehicle "Hell or High Water" and, most recently, the controversial Netflix series "Dahmer" about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Here's hoping that Pearce and Cave will collaborate on a new meditative western sometime in the near future. 

Read this next: The Best Movies Of 2022 So Far

The post Cannibal Horror Ravenous Was Guy Pearce's Worst Experience Shooting A Movie appeared first on /Film.

The "Star Wars" movies are timeless classics, aren't they? Okay, maybe not the prequels. And not all of the sequel trilogy. And come to think of it, not everyone agrees about "Return of the Jedi." Which versions of the films are we talking about, anyway, given Lucasfilm's propensity for making changes even at the home video stage? The point is, not everything in the "Star Wars" franchise stands the test of time.

From the original trilogy (OT) to the prequels (PT) and sequels (ST), "Star Wars" has included moments that seem very much of their time, to be kind. We love them, and in our minds, we may have even retconned or excused some of the more egregious examples. For every Ewok song, there's a badass Sith Lord in waiting, and the core characters remain iconic. Yet, there are reasons aplenty why entire movies exist to bash "Star Wars" creator George Lucas, who gets as much anger as he does adoration from a fanbase raised on his Rebels and Empire.

We're going to run down several, from the recent to the more far, far away in the past. None of them have kept us from enjoying the trilogies, but it's always best to retain critical faculties even for our favorite films.

Here are 12 moments in "Star Wars" franchise history that have not aged well.

Ziro The Hutt

Jabba the Hutt is an inspired alien creation. Most sci-fi movies make outer space creatures look humanoid, but Jabba, with his sluglike body and deep, bassy voice, really seemed like another species entirely, and a threatening intergalactic crime boss to boot. His Uncle Ziro? Not so much.

Possibly the silliest touch in the campy animated "Clone Wars" movie, Ziro lacks almost every factor that makes Jabba scary. The neon tattoos make him look like a "Tron" reject. His use of English rather than Huttese takes away some of the alien factor. Add to that George Lucas' insistence that he sound like Truman Capote, and you get a character who's clearly the result of a series of bizarre decisions that just don't work. Normalizing Jabba by showing that he has wacky relatives is questionable. Making his uncle an effeminate coward just feels like one of many instances in which Lucas' sense of humor simply doesn't mesh with that of most of his fans. 

Ewoks: The Battle For Endor

When it comes to old-school live-action "Star Wars" TV specials that haven't aged well, most might pick the infamous "Holiday Special." No, there is another. "The Star Wars Holiday Special" was hated and derided right out of the gate. In recent years, its reputation has improved thanks to a camp following, the Boba Fett cartoon appearing on Disney+ and influencing "The Mandalorian," and Disney theme parks' savvy realization that they can make bank on seasonal Life Day merchandise.

"Ewoks: The Battle for Endor" is not necessarily the world's worst movie. It just hasn't aged well as canon. Years before "Alien3," it was a sequel that smacked viewers in the face by immediately killing off most of the heroic family from the prior "Ewok Adventure." All that time on that long quest by Cindel and Mace to save their parents ... and now Mace and the parents are toast. Even in a franchise that commits casual genocide by Death Star, that's shocking for a family film and apparently inspired primarily by the fact that George Lucas had just watched "Heidi" and therefore wanted Cindel to be an orphan now too.

More canon-breaking, however, is the presence of an actual sorceress, who uses magic to shape-shift. Not the Force, but magic. She was retconned as a Force-wielding Nightsister from Dathomir, but the book that did so is no longer canon. Even Dave Filoni, master of salvaging old Lucasfilm concepts, decided not to reuse her when the opportunity arose.

Every Unanswered Question From The Force Awakens

How did the First Order rise to power? Where did Maz Kanata find Luke Skywalker's lightsaber? Why does Rey see visions of Bespin and hear Obi-Wan Kenobi when she touches it? Who are the Knights of Ren, and what's their deal? Who's Supreme Leader Snoke and where did he come from? Why did Rey get left on Jakku?

"The Rise of Skywalker" answered the last two of those questions — to few fans' satisfaction. The rest remain mostly unanswered in the movies, though the comics have tried. (Seriously, though, according to those, "Ren" just means "lightsaber," meaning Ben Solo renamed himself "Kylo Lightsaber," which is too silly, even for a galaxy with Gungans in it.) The relative disinterest of "The Last Jedi" to answer the mysteries put in place by "The Force Awakens" remains one reason that film is so divisive. The awkwardness of "The Rise of Skywalker" is partly due to having to play catch-up while trying to tell its own story.

Blame (or thank) J.J. Abrams, who likes to put mysteries in place while not worrying much about solving them. Is there anybody who knows what the "Rabbit's Foot" actually is in "Mission Impossible III"? It's fair to say George Lucas didn't necessarily plan his trilogies out in great detail either — the entire Skywalker family may have been improvised on the fly. That's no excuse for deliberately establishing mysteries one never intends to solve, though.

Finn Checking His Privilege

Finn's character arc might be the biggest missed opportunity of the sequel trilogy. He begins strongly in "The Force Awakens" as a Stormtrooper who gains a conscience, initially plans on running away, but ultimately stands and fights, wielding a lightsaber using only his skill with a staff and (we thought) no Force abilities. His knowledge of First Order plumbing proves vital to destroying Starkiller base, and he even has the guts to stand up to an (admittedly injured) Kylo Ren, who would normally annihilate him. All because he cares for Rey.

Did Disney diminish Finn and kill a potential romance with Rey because of China's racist removal of him from the posters? Nobody would admit to that if it were true. In "The Last Jedi," though, what is true is that Finn's desire to follow Rey gets portrayed as selfish, and Finn himself as shallow and cowardly. Rose, a maintenance worker who's disappointed that Finn's not the hero she thought, guilts him, tells him what to do, and ultimately sabotages his attempt at heroic sacrifice. Finn, forced into the First Order army as a child, taken from his family, and put through bad-guy boot camp, doesn't particularly need lectures on privilege after being slashed by an aspiring Sith Lord for overcoming his mental programming and scoring a major Resistance victory. The optics of the most prominent Black man in the film essentially being told he should be more woke? Not so good.

Han And Threepio's Worst Comedy Bit

Han Solo can be very funny — usually when he's in danger. His attempt to fake being an Imperial officer on the Death Star is solid "Star Wars" comedy gold, and his exasperation with the ever-malfunctioning hyperdrive is palpable and relatable to anyone with car trouble. In "Return of the Jedi," however, he often feels forced into bad gags, with none more notable than his shoulder-tapping exchange with Threepio in which he keeps demanding to be translated, then as soon as the droid turns to do so, he keeps tapping him on the shoulder to add more demands, then finally says, "Hurry up, will ya? Haven't got all day!"

Han should be more self-aware than that, which is why it plays like forced (not "the Force") humor and not a genuinely funny character moment. On the other hand, that sort of treatment goes a long way toward explaining why Threepio has anxiety.

CG Yoda

When Yoda pulled out a lightsaber to battle Christopher Lee's Count Dooku in "Attack of the Clones," audiences cheered. Even though it was a computer-generated puppet battling an old man, and neither was actually performing those stunts for real, the love for Lee and Yoda as cinematic icons made it work. If we're being honest, though, that CG Yoda doesn't look particularly realistic and certainly nothing like the original "Phantom Menace" puppet, which, of course, Lucas promptly replaced with a digital version for the Blu-rays. The "Star Wars" creator was a visionary in terms of understanding how CG would be used, but he was also a major optimist as far as what it actually looked like at the time. Yoda still has that too-smooth, too-fluid look of early synthespians, even with rubber ear-bouncing added in.

There's just no way (minus heavy suspension of disbelief) that that Yoda becomes the puppet we love in the "later" films. That said, "The Last Jedi" did manage to use a Yoda puppet that looked like CG, kinda-sorta merging the two looks in a semi-acceptable manner.

That Luke And Leia Kiss

When "The Empire Strikes Back" came out, one of the questions it left unresolved was whether Leia loved Luke Skywalker or Han Solo more. It was the classic bad boy versus Boy Scout dilemma, and the fact that she kisses both of them full on the lips at different points amps up the drama, or rather, it used to. George Lucas, working from a loose master plan in which he clearly hadn't figured out every detail, solved the problem by making Luke and Leia secret siblings, allowing Leia and Han to be the winning couple. In doing so, he made it so that everyone who watches "Empire" from now on sees that kiss scene — initially a funny moment allowing Leia to psychologically dominate the two male heroes — as incestuous.

Some stretch the point and say it's even gross that Leia kisses Luke on the cheek in "A New Hope," but siblings do that all the time. There's no dismissing the intent of the one in "Empire," though. It arguably started a tradition: If we assume, as is strongly hinted, that Palpatine was Anakin's father in some sense of the word, then Kylo Ren is his grandson. Rey is absolutely his granddaughter. So their kiss, one might say, is a family tradition — an icky one.

Every Change In The Special Editions Other Than Cleaning Up The Negative

The "Star Wars" Special Editions came about when Lucasfilm decided to clean up the old negatives. However, George Lucas, armed with new CGI technology, decided he was also going to "fix" some things that had allegedly always bothered him. To the extent that the fixes included making some partially opaque mattes transparent, and removing visible FX lines, most fans would agree he did right, but then, he added horrible new visuals.

Han Solo no longer firing first on Greedo, making him less cold-blooded, earned the most infamy, and the scene has even been re-tinkered with since. A CG Jabba so bad that Lucas had to fix it a second time for DVD was even worse. New shots of the Wampa on Hoth don't match, "Return of the Jedi" footage of Darth Vader landing on the Death Star got repurposed to be him landing on a Star Destroyer, those windows on Cloud City that have stuff moving behind them are insanely distracting ... and then, there's the atrocious musical number, "Jedi Rocks" (Spoiler: it doesn't). None of the changes adds to the story. At best, they add needless special effects, and at worst, they hold our hands unnecessarily. Did anyone need to see the "Millennium Falcon" actually land on Cloud City to know that it did, or wonder where Vader's shuttle was that he took back to the Executor? No. The story and editing convey that just fine.

Backlash Bullying Against Ahmed Best And Jake Lloyd Personally

It's no secret that "Star Wars" fans have a bullying problem. In recent years, a lot of it has been race-based and misogynistic against actors like Moses Ingram and Kelly Marie Tran. Decades ago, though, it was based on fan hatred of characters. In much the same way a stereotypical soap-opera fanatic might confuse a character's behavior with the actor who plays them, prequel haters took their anger out on Ahmed Best (Jar Jar Binks) and Jake Lloyd (Anakin) specifically.

That's not to say you're not allowed to dislike characters. Most viewers over a certain age found Jar Jar's loud, obnoxious slapstick out of place and unfunny. Lloyd, meanwhile, was mostly unlucky. Having made an impressive debut in Nick Cassavetes' "Unhook the Stars," and served as a comedic foil to Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Jingle All the Way," the kid was clearly not without talent. He was just miscast, under-directed, and given terrible dialogue that even Morgan Freeman would have trouble with. After constant teasing, he quit acting at the age of 12 and was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after several run-ins with the police.

Best considered suicide at one point over the Jar Jar hatred but survived to see new acceptance by fans who grew up with the wacky Gungan. He has since returned to the "Star Wars" fold as a Jedi master named Kelleran Beq. Here's hoping that Lloyd does so, too.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

The Asian Stereotypes Of The Trade Federation

One could argue that there's a lot of unfortunate racial stereotyping in "Star Wars" that hasn't aged well, but realistically, a lot of it was called out at the time. Jar Jar Binks caught flack from the beginning as a Stepin Fetchit-style Black stereotype, even from the "South Park" movie which came out that same year. The hook-nosed, unshaven Watto was derided as a stereotype as well, though critics couldn't decide if he was anti-Jewish or anti-Arab. The Trade Federation Neimoidians, however, with their squinty eyes, devious and cowardly manipulations of the economy, and Charlie Chan-style "Oriental" accents didn't catch as much heat by comparison. These days, however, society's much more attuned to anti-Asian racism and stereotyping.

The two lead Trade Federation characters, Nute Gunray and Rune Haako, were voiced by white actors, Tom Kenny and James Taylor, which ought to make them more controversial than Jar Jar, who was voiced by a Black man, Ahmed Best, using what he thought was a funny voice to amuse children. We should be cautious to note that we don't know George Lucas' intentions, nor Kenny's and Taylor's, in actually creating the voices. (The name "Nute Gunray" was widely assumed to be a play on Newt Gingrich, the aggressively conservative former house speaker, who is not Asian.) All we do know is they sound very much like the sort of accents typically done by white actors poorly playing Asians in older films.

The Lack Of POC In The Original Trilogy

In the beginning, "Star Wars" wasn't exactly proactive with representation. When it comes to Black characters in the original trilogy, most casual fans can name exactly one: Lando Calrissian. Hardcore fans can name Willrow Hood, an extra running with an ice cream maker that's become more relevant to the saga than its owner. Some may also point out the Black Bespin security guard who got a vintage action figure and the one A-Wing pilot in "Return of the Jedi," but that's about it. And don't even ask about Asians and Latinos in the original trilogy. (Maori actor Temuera Morrison's overdub of Boba Fett's voice decades after the fact doesn't count.)

So let's look at the one major Black character. He makes a move on his old friend's girl, then betrays them both. He only resorts to his better angels when the deal he made with the Empire begins to screw him and his city as badly as it screwed his former pal Han Solo. Not exactly free from negative stereotypes, that's our Lando. That said, he has a complex arc overall and shouldn't have to stand out as a positive representation of any larger group. However, since there are no other major nonwhite characters at all (even James Earl Jones is ultimately voicing a white dude under all that armor) he kind of has to by default.

Thankfully, by the time the prequels arrived, George Lucas knew better.

Luke's Sister Reveal Highlights A Dearth Of Female Characters

In "Return of the Jedi, " when Luke suddenly deduced, "Leia is my sister!" and Obi-Wan responded, "Your insight serves you well," even little kids laughed. Because, what "insight"? She was the only female human character onscreen up to that point in the entire trilogy — besides his aunt Beru. Luke's sister was hardly going to be Yarna d'al' Gargan or Oola, and he hadn't met Mon Mothma yet. There was nobody else it could have been, at that time.

With the galaxy expanded and prequels in place, now we know that, arguably, Jyn Erso could have made a good case or even Ahsoka as a possible adopted sister, if we use the term loosely. Like so many other properties aimed at kids in the '70s and '80s, "Star Wars" had its token woman but with no villainous counterpart. Even "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" had Evil-Lyn to face down Teela. Leia Organa as a character certainly has more dimension than that might imply. By sending R2-D2 to find Obi-Wan, and surviving Darth Vader's torture, she's responsible for setting the events of the original trilogy in motion. And of course, she kills Jabba the Hutt while she's at it. Sure, the Force is strong in her family, but that's no excuse for her being the only woman in action. Since then, thankfully, we've seen female pilots, soldiers, and even Jedi.

Read this next: Star Wars Plot Holes That Still Confuse Fans

The post 12 Star Wars Moments That Haven't Aged Well appeared first on /Film.

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The other day I discovered that 32-bit FreeBSD 11.2 has strange trouble running in an emulated environment. Utilities like ping or top would just hang when trying to print floating-point numbers through printf(). The dtoa() library routine was getting stuck in an endless loop (FreeBSD has excellent support for debugging the binaries shipped with the OS, so finding out where things were going wrong was unexpectedly easy).

Closer inspection identified the following instruction sequence:

    fldz
    fxch   st(1)
    fucom  st(1)
    fstp   st(1)
    fnstsw ax 
    sahf
    jne ...
    jnp ...

This code relies on “undefined” behavior. The FUCOM instruction compares two floating-point values and sets the FPU condition code bits. The FNSTSW instruction stores the bits into the AX register, where they can be tested directly, or the SAHF instruction first copies them into the flags register where the bits can be conveniently tested by conditional jump instructions.

The problem is the FSTP instruction in between. According to Intel and AMD documentation, the FSTP instruction leaves the FPU condition codes in undefined state. So the FreeBSD library is testing undefined bits… but it just happens to work on all commonly available CPUs, in a very predictable and completely deterministic manner, because the FSTP instruction in reality leaves the condition bits alone. What is going on?

To be honest, I failed to find why the condition codes are supposedly left in undefined state by most FPU instructions. What I did discover is that in the Intel 8087 and 287 documentation, there is no hint that FSTP might change the condition bits in any way. Although it is not entirely explicit, the Intel 287 documentation leaves a strong impression that only a select few instructions set the FPU condition bits and most instructions do not modify them at all. Which would actually be a very logical behavior.

For some unclear reason, the Intel 387 documentation (1987) very clearly says that most FPU instructions leave the condition codes “undefined”. This appears to have been copied by Cyrix, AMD, and just about any 3rd-party x87 FPU documentation that goes into sufficient detail.

At the same time, for example the book Programming the 80386 by Crawford and Gelsinger (1987), actual 386 designers at Intel, makes no hint that most FPU instructions might modify the condition code bits at all.

It would be misleading to read “undefined” in this context as “random” or “unpredictable”. When it comes to CPU documentation, “undefined” can mean several different things, including the following:

• We couldn’t be bothered to document the behavior because it’s too complicated
• The behavior actually changed between product families in the past
• The behavior has been 100% consistent, but we might want to change it in the future
• The behavior is so strange that we really, really don’t want anyone using it

In any case, the implication for programmers is “please do not rely on this behavior”. Yet sometimes programmers end up relying on it anyway, and it need not be done knowingly at all (including, I strongly suspect, the FreeBSD case described above).

The SHLD/SHRD instructions are a good example of behavior that changed in the past. It is possible to use these instructions with a 16-bit destination register and using a shift count greater than 16. This is arguably a 386 design flaw (the shift count could have been limited), but in any case, the “undefined” behavior did change. According to Sandpile, SHLD/SHRD behaves one way on the Pentium (and likely 386/486) and a different way on the P6 and P4 families, with additional different flag behavior between P6 and P4.

The behavior will be 100% deterministic and predictable on any given Intel CPU. Because the behavior changed across CPU generations, programs that are intended to run on a wide range of CPUs cannot rely on it. Documentation calls this “undefined”, but that is really misleading.

Another example of “undefined” behavior is the BSWAP instruction with a 16-bit operand. On all known processors, it behaves completely consistently: It reads the 16 bits of the operand, zero extends them to 32 bits, byte swaps the resulting DWORD which has the high half zeroed, and writes the result (zeros) into the 16-bit operand. This behavior is arguably completely useless, because it doesn’t depend on the input and there are better ways to zero a 16-bit register anyway. It is possible that the behavior is “undefined” because Intel wanted to keep the possibility of redefining it in the future, or because it’s not validated and no one can say with 100% certainty that all x86 CPUs really behave the same.

Whatever the reason, the “undefined” BSWAP behavior keeps confusing developers and wasting their time. Emulator developers end up playing silly cat and mouse games with anti-emulation software (see VMProtect note here) because correctly emulating undefined behavior is non-obvious, yet “undefined” behavior on real CPUs has a curious tendency to be anything but.

The FreeBSD runtime library relying on “undefined” FPU condition code behavior brings up interesting philosophical questions. Is the code wrong? Can it be said to be wrong if it works correctly on all supported hardware? How likely are CPU designers to change the “undefined” behavior in the future, knowing that existing software relies on it? (Answer: Extremely unlikely.)

In the end, documenting processor behavior as “undefined” is just a poor excuse. Everyone would be much better served if the documentation told the real story.

If the behavior is different across CPU generations, just say so. Even better, give developers some sense about what those generations may be—if the behavior changed between Pentium and P6 but stayed the same since then, it won’t be relevant for 64-bit software, for example.

As an example, Intel documents that the behavior with regard to executing instructions that cross the 4GB boundary on 32-bit processors differs between P6 and P4 processor families. The documentation could have said “undefined”, but it doesn’t always.

If you really don’t want developers to use certain opcodes—again, just say so explicitly, and much better, make them throw a #UD exception.

As in the initial example, undefined behavior of CPU/FPU flags is one of the worst offenders. As Sandpile shows, there really are differences, but the behavior is very far from “undefined”. Flag bits are almost always either set to a fixed value, changed based on the results of an operation, or left unchanged.

In the old days before CPUID, the detection of Cyrix processors relied on the state of flag bits after dividing 5 by 2—although the behavior was “undefined”, all Intel and AMD processors of the same class (486) in fact behaved 100% predictably, and could therefore be reliably distinguished from Cyrix CPUs.

It does not help that even Intel’s documentation keeps changing. For example, the FCOMI, FCOMIP, FUCOMI, and FUCOMIP instructions, added in the Pentium Pro, are documented in the 1999 Intel SDM as leaving the FPU condition codes C0, C2, and C3 “undefined”. But a newer Intel SDM says that those flags are in fact “not affected”. It is almost certain that those instructions never modified the C0, C2, and C3 flags, but Intel simply didn’t bother documenting that fact. At some point in the early 2000s, Intel changed the documentation to reflect reality. Of course the old documentation was not wrong per se, because leaving flags unmodified is a perfectly valid instance of “undefined” behavior!

It is perhaps not a coincidence that FCOMI, FCOMIP, FUCOMI, and FUCOMIP are just about the only FPU instructions documented to leave the condition codes unmodified. It is possible that that Intel simply does not know how all of their old FPUs behave, or cannot easily prove that they behave the same. The FCOMI family of instructions is relatively new, and Intel may have been able to ascertain that those instructions indeed never change the condition codes; at the time the documentation was updated, only the P6 and P4 architectures would have implemented those instructions.

The bottom line is that it is very wrong to understand “undefined” in this context as “random”, and even taking it to mean “unpredictable” is at best misleading. More often than not, CPU behavior is documented as “undefined” not because it is random, or unpredictable, or in any way unknowable, but rather because it either changed in the past or because the vendor does not consider it useful and won’t commit to keeping the existing behavior unchanged. It may be “undefined”, but it is very far from unreliable.

Chainsaw Man gained massive popularity since its anime adaptation landed on Crunchyroll. Meanwhile, the popular manga heads toward chapter 110, and this article reveals the release schedule for the much-awaited chapter.

Chainsaw Man manga Part 2 introduces us to a girl named Mitaka in the first chapter, and her story takes a devastating turn when she gets fused to the War Devil. The devil doesn’t like to be called War Devil, so it adapts the name Yoru. Moreover, the devil wants nothing more than to kill the Chainsaw Man. Well, fans might get excited to learn that the time is here when we can expect the first confrontation between the two devils.

Official Manga Trailer | Chainsaw Man, Vol. 1 | VIZ

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• MORE: Chainsaw Man Episode 5 Release date and Time

When does Chainsaw Man Chapter 110 come out?

Chainsaw Man chapter 110 will release on Viz Media, Manga Plus, and Shonen Jump Magazine’s official website on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, at 12:00 AM in Japan. Well, below, we have mentioned the timings considering the time differences in different regions:

• Pacific Standard Time- 7:00 AM (November 8th)
• Eastern Standard Time- 10:00 AM (November 8th)
• Greenwich Mean Time- 3:00 pm (November 8th)
• Central European Time- 4:00 PM (November 8th)
• Indian Standard Time- 8:30 PM (November 8th)
• Philippine Standard Time- 11 PM (November 8th)
• Japanese Standard Time- 12:00 AM (November 9th)
• Australia Central Standard Time- 12:30 PM (November 9th)

• MORE: Mob Psycho 100 Season 3 Episode 6 Release date and Time

Chainsaw Man has become the most-read manga on Manga Plus

Chainsaw Man manga returned with part two after a long break of two years since 2020, and the anime adaptation made its way to the screens in October 2022. Well, these are the primary reasons its popularity has increased daily.

Chainsaw Man now ranks 1st on Manga Plus pic.twitter.com/5ZIIjntiom

— Kumi (@D_Kumii) July 20, 2022

Interestingly, its fame has helped it to dethrone one of the most popular mangas of all time, One Piece, on the digital platform Manga Plus. Hence, now Chainsaw Man manga has the number one spot on Manga Plus, making One Piece stand at number 2.

The post Chainsaw Man Chapter 110 Release date and Time appeared first on ForeverGeek.

Sylvester Stallone and the general filmgoing public seem to have very different views of John Rambo. Thanks to the bold, ultra-jingoistic attitudes of "Rambo: First Blood Part II" and "Rambo III," the title character came to be, throughout the 1980s, a symbol for unstoppable American military might. Rambo was often seen charging shirtless into gunfire-heavy areas, heavy artillery draped around his body, firing bullets into anyone or anything that entered his field of vision. 

This ultra-macho, military-forward vision of Rambo stands in direct contrast to Ted Kotcheff's 1982 original "First Blood," co-scripted by Stallone. In that film, Rambo is a depressed veteran, defeated by life and saddened by the deaths of his wartime compatriots. Rambo is then treated so badly by the local cops -- being mistreated is depicted as a symbol for veterans' plight -- that he "snaps" back into military mode, tragically becoming a solider again, kind of against his will. 

Stallone still seems to feel that Rambo is not an unstoppable right-wing military badass, but a wounded, tragic figure, beaten by life and pushed away from his home country. He feels that Rambo is politically neutral, and said as much in a recent interview with the Hollywood reporter, saying "Everyone assumed Rambo is a conservative. President Reagan posted a picture going, 'Rambo's a Republican.' I went, 'Uh-oh.' Rambo is totally neutral." 

When it comes to guns on set, however, Stallone is hardly neutral, saying that weapons -- even without bullets -- are far too dangerous to wield so casually. Perhaps a strange take from a man who has fired more bullets on camera than any other actor.

'No One Has Shot More Blanks Than Me'

There is some debate as to which film currently holds the record for the most number of bullets fired on camera, although some cursory internet research leads to several notable titles. "Rambo: First Blood Part II" is in the mix, as is Antoine Fuqua's "The Replacement Killers." Paul Verhoeven's "Starship Troopers" has also been mentioned, and many cite "The Matrix" as being near the top. Between the Rambo movies and the three films from "The Expendables" series, though, Stallone likely does hold the record for firing the most personally. 

Despite this, Stallone has never been a gun advocate and feels that guns on sets are terrible things, even with blanks. Filmmakers have, he feels, reached the point where actual "muzzle flare" and bullet holes can be achieved with special effects. To test how dangerous things were, he got himself a meat mannequin. In his words: 

"No one has shot more blanks than me. On 'Rambo,' I wanted to show what a .50-caliber could do to a human being. We took a dummy and filled it with 200 pounds of beef. I thought, 'When I fire, it will knock the dummy over.' There were no bullets in the gun. It was just the force of the compression in the shell. But it turned the dummy into mist. It blew it apart. Then I turned the .50-caliber to a row of bamboo trees and it literally cut them in half. This is without bullets!"

"Rambo" was the fourth film in the series, and was released in 2008. In it, Rambo was hired to trek into the jungles of Burma during a violent civil war, having to rescue kidnapped American missionaries. Things go poorly for just about everyone.

The Holster Mishap

After a fatal shooting on the set of the film "Rust" -- when actor Alec Baldwin fired a poorly-prepared prop gun, he accidentally injured director Joel and fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins -- the necessity of having functional guns on a movie set was called into question. Even with safety checks, blanks, squibs, and a great deal of preparation, fatal accidents can still happen. One's mind wanders to what might have been hundreds upon hundreds of "near misses" on film sets throughout the years, where prop guns nearly injured someone. Stallone knows how dangerous even prop guns can be, not just from his meat mannequin experiment, but from an accident on the set of "The Expendables." As he describes it: 

"I've had near misses. I've never said this before, but I had a pistol literally go off in my holster in 'The Expendables.' Bam! Right down my leg. I've used weapons that are incredibly dangerous at close range. I'm surprised I haven't lost a finger or something. It was only a matter of time and I agree: With special effects, there's no need to do this."

Stallone didn't mention any kind of new, expanded ethic when it comes to the depiction of guns in films. He makes no address of certain criticisms that gunplay is too enthusiastically glorified in too many movies. He does seem to explicitly feel, however, that if gunplay is to be featured in one of his movies, there's no reason to have actual explosive shells anywhere on set. Modern SFX can now take care of that, and people working on set can remain safe. 

Read this next: The 16 Best '80s Action Movies Ranked

The post Sylvester Stallone Has a Surprising Attitude Toward Guns on Film Sets appeared first on /Film.

From the low-budget gross-outs of Troma films to head of DC movies at Warner Bros. is a journey maybe only James Gunn could have made. Heavily versed in all the classics — Marvel, DC, and Shakespeare — the writer/director's sensibility have always jelled with fans of his generation and beyond. In his younger years, he made cult films that college kids delighted in. As he grew in stature, his pop culture sensibilities became mainstream. Frequently working with other people's properties, he very much made them his own, to the point that his takes often eclipse the originals. Yondu, Peacemaker, Polka-Dot Man, Mantis, Drax ... chances are when you picture all of these characters, you're thinking of interpretations specifically created by Gunn.

Gunn made his name as a distinctive screenwriter before directing his own words, so in ranking his films we're including features written by him and directed by others. We're not including shorts or segments, so "PG Porn" and "Troma TV" aren't on here. Nor is "Peacemaker," as it's a TV show. Even when other helmers as distinctive as Zack Snyder took on his words, Gunn's voice has always come through, though sometimes to far better effect than others. Here's every James Gunn movie, ranked worst to best.

The Belko Experiment (2016)

James Gunn apparently based this script on a nightmare he had, and (fittingly) watching it feels like being stuck in a bad — and monotonous — dream. Considering this writer made live-action adaptations of Hanna Barbera cartoons and a big-budget zombie remake fun, it's weird that "The Belko Experiment" — produced by him with complete creative control — is the only one of his films that feels like a joyless work for hire. While some early character bits feel like Gunn (one character's arbitrary fondness for model airplanes, for instance), the rest of the movie in which workers locked down in their office building are forced to kill each other or be killed, feels beneath him. The kills aren't particularly interesting, and the premise has been done better many times, with the "Escape Room" franchise as the most recent example.

Perhaps the biggest indictment of "Belko" is that the most memorable character is the villain who barely shows up at the end. Aside from him, Gunn fans may remember that one of the office workers is played by his brother Sean. Gunn's usual penchant for creating a colorful, memorable ensemble is barely in evidence as if he didn't want us to care about any of the characters before massacring them. "The Belko Experiment" is just an out-and-out disappointment, but fortunately for the writer it's been quickly forgotten, and is the only outright artistic dud on his features resume.

Slither (2006)

James Gunn's feature directorial debut, a horror-comedy about killer alien slugs, is an amalgamation of his many pop culture influences thrown into a blender. Where it falls short of his other films, however, is in the need to point them all out. From character names like "MacReady" and "Flagg" to shot homages based on the likes of "A Nightmare on Elm Street," it falls into the film school trap of showing off every influence to prove the director knows his stuff. That only works well for someone like Quentin Tarantino, who references other movies so obscure that only the most hardcore exploitation heads get the references, and more casual viewers aren't taken out of the film by them.

The humor works, and the gore effects are aces, but watching "Slither" still feels a bit like having the class nerd desperately trying to convince the cool kids that he's down with all their faves (something his pal Joss Whedon made a career of, to be fair). With a track record of clever and successful screenplays under his belt, Gunn didn't have to prove himself to anybody, but he might have tried too hard here. The best result was that he formed ongoing friendships with Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker, who would go on to deliver some of their best work in entries further down this list.

Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004)

The first live-action "Scooby-Doo" cleverly balanced its appeal to kids and adults. The second tried to offer more blatant fan service to both, catering to adult online fans who wanted to see Velma dress sexy as well as obsessive cartoon fans who'd appreciate every reference or Easter egg. The result, while still fun, doesn't hold together very well. What it does do, though, is effectively recreate some of the classic animated monsters in live-action, making them fun for young kids without being too scary. That's an underappreciated balance to hit.

Gunn would have directed the third installment, had "Monsters Unleashed" been a hit. He even apprenticed as a director on the first two with that in mind. Instead, he used his training to make "Slither," kickstarting his directorial career with a distinctly more grown-up vibe than "Scooby 3" might have brought on. Matthew Lillard, however, would continue to play Shaggy in cartoons, and new cast member Seth Green would go on to play Howard the Duck in Gunn's "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies.

Dawn Of The Dead (2004)

Suppose you weren't online during the years that the "Dawn of the Dead" remake was being made. In that case, you may not be able to imagine the sheer amount of hatred aimed at James Gunn and a relatively unknown director named Zack Snyder for daring to touch George A. Romero's zombies-in-a-shopping-mall-classic. The original was considered by many cinephiles to be the best zombie movie ever made, and the Scooby-Doo guy dared to think he could rewrite it. Then-prominent Internet geek personality Harry Knowles repeatedly and publicly savaged the idea, with his fans proceeding to harass Gunn until Knowles finally read the script and did a 180.

Though Romero's film won't be replaced, Snyder and Gunn's film made its mark by using "fast zombies." The walking undead onscreen had previously been distinguished by shuffling movement and relative individual weakness. The power of zombies was always in numbers and packs. Gunn changed that, making unique zombies capable of predatory speed and focus, to the point that one could bite before a person even knew it. Zombie-adjacent franchises like "Resident Evil" and "28 Days Later" also took that notion and, well, ran with it. We still got zombies in a mall, but by changing what the zombies actually were the remake made itself new. It's one of Gunn's least overtly comedic scripts, but many of the kill gags are as sickly amusing as fans would expect.

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

James Gunn isn't really a mystery box kind of filmmaker the way J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof are. After setting up the mystery of Peter Quill's father in the first film, it was pretty clear he'd have to come up with a reveal in the sequel. Getting Kurt Russell as said dad, a living planet named Ego, was a nice coup but it still pigeonholed the story into being one where Star-Lord deals with his daddy issues. That's not necessarily the world's most interesting tale to be told. That said, there's a nice contrast to be had in Russell's bad dad playing nice versus Michael Rooker's semi-good dad playing awful, plus it does lead to Rooker proclaiming, "I'm Mary Poppins, y'all!"

Lots of good bits just don't quite add up to the sum of their parts here. Baby Groot is a cute little bastard, Mantis (Pom Klementieff) makes a great almost-but-not-romantic foil for the equally literal-minded Drax, and Nebula makes a turn towards goodness that would be essential later. The end credits introduced an all-new Guardians team that we've never seen since, but will presumably be on deck now that Gunn is at DC. Fans also dig the cameo by David Hasselhoff, and Stan Lee hanging out with the Watchers. Nonetheless, the main story feels slight. Like "Avengers: Age of Ultron," it may regain clout later if/when all its teases actually gets payoff in Vol. 3.

The Suicide Squad (2021)

Somehow, James Gunn persuaded Warner Bros. to give him $185 million to essentially remake "Troma's War." In that low-budget exploitation film, survivors of a plane crash wash up on the beach of an island where insane military types are engaged in biological experiments with which to attack the USA. "The Suicide Squad" mainly adds superheroes and intelligent marine life to that calculus.

While Gunn talked big during the promotional tour for the film about how any character could die, nobody was likely that surprised when the main characters played by the biggest stars survived. The gory death scenes played for laughs really weren't as shocking as they'd been hyped up to be, and unlike David Ayer's genuinely transgressive predecessor "Suicide Squad" (which reimagined major DC supervillains with a Los Angeles gangster-style makeover), Gunn essentially made Adam West Batman-style camp versions of the key characters, then had them commit R-rated violence. The main reason "The Suicide Squad" is as high on this list as it is? It spawned the "Peacemaker" TV show, which is legitimately some of Gunn's finest work. Long-suffering WWE fans finally got to see John Cena turn heel and break free from PG, and both developments proved hugely satisfying.

Scooby-Doo (2002)

Anyone who grew up with the original Scooby-Doo cartoons over the years was familiar with the same jokes. Shaggy's a stoner! Velma's secretly hot! Scrappy ruined everything when he showed up! James Gunn deftly manages to incorporate these memes into his live-action script while still keeping it mostly a kids movie. (Scrappy urinating on the gang is borderline, but definitely entertaining.) It-couple of the moment Freddie Prinze Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar gamely goofed on themselves as Fred and Daphne, Linda Cardellini seemed born to play Velma, and Matthew Lillard's uncanny Casey Kasem impersonation won over even fans who didn't like the movie itself.

Making it a sequel to the original series was a nice touch, with a resentful gang reuniting and ultimately facing a grudge-holding Scrappy, who has disguised himself as Rowan Atkinson. Raja Gosnell's direction isn't especially inspired, but the cast truly makes the material work. What could have been a mean-spirited parody becomes affectionate semi-canon which displeased the critics, but on the whole has aged better than one might think.

Tromeo And Juliet (1997)

"Parting is such sweet sorrow!" declares Juliet. "Totally sucks!" affirms Tromeo, her would-be star-crossed lover in Troma Studios' "Tromeo and Juliet," a Shakespeare semi-adaptation by way of "Class of Nuke 'em High." Narrated by Motorhead singer Lemmy, Lloyd Kaufman's violent, gross, and very funny butchery of the bard takes place in Manhattan, involves a giant penis monster, and was James Gunn's first produced feature screenplay. So much better was it than most Troma fare that it gave the studio a brief comeback of sorts. Kaufman followed it with "Terror Firmer," "Toxic Avenger IV," and "Poultrygeist," meaning he didn't necessarily learn the proper lessons. Rather than noting that audiences were enjoying Gunn's clever meta-humor, Kaufman fixated more on the toilet jokes, amping that aspect up in subsequent films. The director's recent return to Shakespeare with "The Tempest" parody "Shakespeare's Sh*tstorm" features "Free Willy"-ish leaping killer whales repeatedly raining diarrhea on boats below them.

With a soundtrack boasting the likes of Wesley Willis, Superchunk, Brujeria, and Motorhead, along with a vastly changed ending in which the lovers discover they're siblings and have deformed kids together, "Tromeo and Juliet" gained punk-rock cred and college campus followings Troma hadn't had in years. Nobody would have guessed at the time that the scribe who turned Juliet into an incestuous cow monster would one day be in charge of Scooby-Doo and Superman.

The Specials (2000)

Opening in theaters mere months after the first "X-Men" film, this ultra-low-budget parody perfectly skewered comic-book super-teams, but the moviegoing public wasn't quite ready for that yet. Set on a day when the titular dysfunctional super-team isn't actually preoccupied with saving the world, "The Specials" follows the personal squabbles and petty jealousies that come with not-so-great powers. Future Spider-Man foe Thomas Haden Church gives excellent angry monotone as frustrated leader The Strobe, while future "Ant-Man" costar Judy Greer (then barely known) offers morbid comedy as Deadly Girl. James Gunn himself delivers a rare (and good!) acting performance as Minute (pronounced "my newt," to mean tiny) Man, who's quick to anger when fans get his name wrong. Other team members include Paget Brewster, Jamie Kennedy, Sean Gunn (of course), and Rob Lowe.

From suspected affairs to political maneuvering, the team has many cracks, and when their official toy line turns out badly it brings tensions to the fore. Ultimately, though, the team realizes that they exist to help misfits like themselves. With very few uses of superpowers and little to suggest them besides ultra-cheap CG and body paint, "The Specials" has to rely on dialogue. Gunn's script is so knowing and irreverent without being dismissive that it served as a great predictor of where he'd end up. If it came out today, it would still be the best parody of the MCU. Ironically, it arrived first.

Super (2010)

If "The Specials" demonstrated that James Gunn could write an excellent X-Men parody, "Super" proved he could direct an equally darkly comedic riff on Batman. Rainn Wilson plays the Crimson Bolt, a short-order cook who feels called to fight crime in costume when the finger of God reaches inside his head in a vision. Donning red spandex and adopting the phrase "Shut up, crime!" he proceeds to beat offenders in the head with a wrench. Ultimately, he wants to win back his girlfriend (Liv Tyler) from her new drug-dealing man (Kevin Bacon). To do it, he finds a willing sidekick in the delightfully pervy Boltie (Elliot Page), a comic store clerk who's even more violent in her inclinations.

With Michael Rooker as an evil henchman and Nathan Fillion as a Christian TV show superhero called The Holy Avenger, not to mention Rob Zombie as the voice of God, "Super" isn't exactly family-friendly. Its climactic bloodbath is much more "Scarface" than "Iron Man." In combining virulent misanthropy with a weird sweetness and sense of empathy, Gunn demonstrated a rare understanding of the complex feelings great comics can evoke. We can morally condemn the Crimson Bolt, enjoy his beatdowns of bad guys, and feel sad about his inner emptiness all at once. With the MCU only just beginning, there was a more complex voice they needed to co-opt. In hindsight, it also feels like a dry run for "Peacemaker."

Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)

Here, at last, we have James Gunn's masterpiece. A bold step into completely wild cosmic lore far beyond any weirdness the Marvel Cinematic Universe had shown prior. He boldly tackled some of Marvel's weirdest main characters, including a talking raccoon and a tree. The running joke was that Marvel had now made more Rocket Raccoon movies than DC had Wonder Woman movies. He added the kinds of semen jokes that felt more at home in Troma films. Characters of all skin tones and alien races showed up without explanation. Heck, he even brought back Howard the Duck, long ago deemed cinematically toxic.

It's not like he could fall back on the "it's in the comics" defense, either. Gunn took some bold swings, making certain characters like Drax and Yondu very different from what they were on the page. Though he loaded the film with humor and swear words, he still took the space opera of it all seriously and fully introduced the concepts of Thanos and the Infinity Stones, previously only hinted at in small doses. Original writer Nicole Perlman likely deserves more credit than Gunn generally gives her, given that it's so much better than the clearly pure-Gunn sequel. Nonetheless, it's not only his best film but also one of the most distinct in the MCU. This suggests that perhaps Kevin Feige should be looking around some of the studios where Gunn showed up in the first place. Who's Lloyd Kaufman underpaying these days?

Read this next: 9 Filmmakers Who Should Be Given Free Rein In The MCU

The post Every James Gunn Movie, Ranked Worst to Best appeared first on /Film.

"Starship Troopers" is a movie that we at /Film are no strangers to, especially as a piece of poignant sociopolitical commentary. Our very own Jacob Hall wrote in his dedicated Daily Stream that it is "less of an adaptation and more of an evisceration, a shiny, big-budget middle finger to fascism disguised as a vapid blockbuster." When it was released back in 1997, many didn't pick up on the dark humor, confusing the satire for either full-blown apologia or just a really weird attempt at a monster movie. Perhaps the most famous example of this confusion came from The Washington Post's review of the film, which called its tone "so inconsistent that it's impossible to decide whether he's sending up the Third Reich or in love with it."

This statement seems ridiculous now, twenty-five years since the film's release. However, at the time, Paul Verhoeven was not a director people associated with outlandish irony. Although his previous films "RoboCop" and "Total Recall" flirted with deeper messaging, it was arguably "Starship Troopers" that helped define the director as a satirist.

Clearing Up A Misconception

Before elaborating further, we should clarify something. You likely have already heard the Hollywood legend that Verhoeven, when reading the original 1959 Robert A. Heinlein novel, despised its overtly fascist undertones and decided to rework the script. However, that's not necessarily the case. According to "The Making of Starship Troopers" by Paul M. Sammon, the fascistic satire was always a part of the film thanks to "RoboCop" writer Edward Neumeier.

"What I really liked about the idea of this movie was that it allowed me to write about fascism," he said in the book. "You want a world that works? Okay, we'll show you one. And it really does work. It happens to be a military dictatorship, but it works. That was the original rhythm I was trying to play with, just to sort of mess with the audiences."

That doesn't mean the original point about Verhoeven hating the book wasn't true, as well. In fact, the director told Empire Magazine that he couldn't get through it and had to ask Neumeier to summarize it for him. The explanation he got solidified it as an unironic advocate for fascism, and thus the perfect canvas for exaggerated satire.

"All the way through, we were fighting with the fascism, the ultra-militarism," Verhoeven said. "All the way through, I wanted the audience to be asking, 'Are these people crazy?'"

Welcome To The Roughnecks

It turns out that, yes, the United Citizen Federation was crazy, and unabashedly so. From their overly peppy recruitment advertisements to their uncomfortably familiar-looking insignia, Verhoeven made no effort to hide the themes he drew from Heinlein's novel. Instead, he amplified them and made them unmistakable, so much so that he told The Guardian that Columbia Pictures expressed hesitancy upon seeing the final cut.

"When the executives finally saw it, they said: 'Their flag — it's a Nazi flag!'" recalled Verhoeven. "I said, 'No ... it's completely different colours.'"

It wasn't just the flags or uniforms that the director made sure to model after Nazis and the Third Reich. The movie is saturated with pale skin and blue eyes thanks to the likes of Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards, a move that, similar to the aforementioned recruitment ads, was directly inspired by one of the most infamous propaganda films ever created.

"I borrowed from 'Triumph of the Will' in the parody propaganda reel that opens the film, too," Verhoeven told The Guardian. "I was using [Leni] Riefenstahl to point out, or so I thought, that these heroes and heroines were straight out of Nazi propaganda. No one saw it at the time."

The Only Good Bug Is A Dead Bug

The hyper-stylization of the fascist society in "Starship Troopers" presents a future as not one the movie wants to strive towards, but rather, wants to avoid altogether. If audiences get to see the cost of fascism's utopia —  the facade of happiness — perhaps they will be able to see through the ideology's lies. In an article for "Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies," Brian E. Crim writes that "Verhoeven and Neumeier depict a politically correct version of the Nazi national community that is attractive to audiences, but it becomes clear that this gleaming future is just as capable of genocide under the guise of 'total war' as its Nazi antecedent."

That clarity is precisely the core strength of "Starship Troopers," and why it is able to be reevaluated as a misunderstood masterpiece. Everything about the movie, from its violence to its soapy teen drama, is excessive, and it recognizes itself as much. It makes no attempt to downplay how eerie it is. In fact, whenever you think it might tone itself down, it becomes even more overtly excessive; perhaps the most prominent example of this is an advertisement where schoolchildren gleefully stomp on bugs while an adult is overcome with hysterical joy. Depiction does not always equal endorsement, and "Starship Troopers" makes it difficult to assume that it enjoys the "kill first, ask questions later" mentality that hangs over its world.

I'm Doing My Part

If there is one thing that Verhoeven's work can be described as, it's excessive. The ultraviolence of "RoboCop," the eroticism of "Showgirls," and the blasphemy of "Benedetta," among others, more than prove this. However, this excess arguably does not get any more obvious than "Starship Troopers," and it was for a good reason. If "RoboCop" and "Total Recall" were test runs to see how much social commentary Verhoeven can put in his movies, then "Starship Troopers" was the natural end of this experiment.

The soldiers in the United Citizen Federation are constantly giddy about the idea of war, of slaughtering an enemy they hate, but they can't exactly remember why they hate them in the first place. Said war is framed as an important, nay, essential part of life. Characters unironically ask what we are if we don't want our urges to kill, maim, and humiliate to be satisfied. Verhoeven knows that no sane or peaceful person thinks like this, so to demonstrate this point, he makes them the stars of the show. By indulging in this excess, he became the satirist we praise him as today. Verhoeven took the fascist ideology sprinkled throughout Heinlein's original novel and amplifies it to a ridiculous, self-mocking degree.

Twenty-five years later, our society mirrors that of "Starship Troopers" more than ever before. The War on Terror, the January 6 riots, and a sadly never-ending string of hate crimes against Black, Asian, Jewish, and Muslim people prove this. Would you like to know more?

Read this next: 14 Sequels That Truly Didn't Need To Happen

The post 25 Years Ago, Starship Troopers Solidified Paul Verhoeven's Status as a Cinematic Satirist appeared first on /Film.

The most prominent feature of Quentin Tarantino's persona is his obsession with movies — so it's fitting that he became a director. But even among other directors, Tarantino's love of film is vast and encyclopedic. All of his films feature countless references to classic movies, from the wallet in "Pulp Fiction," to basically all of "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." It's become sort of a game for eagle-eyed viewers to spot his many homages.

It makes sense that a movie aficionado who becomes a big-time director would find himself fanboying over some of the huge actors he's worked with, as he apparently did with John Travolta when he met him. Travolta would go on to star in "Pulp Fiction," but according to a 2019 interview, he wasn't offered the iconic role until he fulfilled a very strange request from the director. "All [Tarantino] wanted to do was spend the evening playing board games of my old movies," he said. "For instance, we played the 'Grease' board game, we played the 'Saturday Night Fever' board game, we played the 'Welcome Back, Kotter' board game. He just had this fantasy of being with his favorite actor and playing the board games from that actor's movies."

Fanboy Moments

While the anecdote is certainly bizarre, it's far from surprising if you know about Tarantino. It's not shocking at all that Tarantino not only owns all these (likely awful) movie cash-in board games, but that he has dreamed of playing them with the stars of the movies for years.

But according to Travolta in the 2019 interview, that wasn't all Tarantino asked of him.

"He said, 'If you could possibly become one of those characters out of nowhere, just say a line from 'Grease,' 'Saturday Night Fever' or 'Kotter,' that would make him happy,' so I would do that."

These almost childlike requests for Travolta to say his famous lines sit somewhere between endearing and off-putting, but it landed Travolta the offer to star in "Pulp Fiction." It wouldn't be the first time that Tarantino made a big filmmaking decision based on a hangout with some movie stars, as the idea of "Kill Bill" actually resulted from a night out with the "Pulp Fiction" cast and crew.

Great artists are often just huge weirdos, and Tarantino is no exception. But even if he does it in a particularly strange way, who could blame a man who has spent his whole life obsessed with movies for getting extremely excited when meeting the star of many of his favorites? It's this passion that fuels Tarantino's work, and it shows in the quality of his films.

Read this next: 13 Box Office Bombs That Are Truly Worth A Watch

The post John Travolta Was Offered Pulp Fiction After Helping Quentin Tarantino Live Out His 'Fantasy' appeared first on /Film.

Less than 1% of used clothing gets recycled into new garments, overwhelming countries like Ghana with discards. From a report: It's a disaster decades in the making, as clothing has become cheaper, plentiful and ever more disposable. Each year the fashion industry produces more than 100 billion apparel items, roughly 14 for every person on Earth and more than double the amount in 2000. Every day, tens of millions of garments are tossed out to make way for new, many into so-called recycling bins. Few are aware that old clothes are rarely recycled into new ones because the technology and infrastructure don't exist to do that at scale. Instead, discarded garments enter a global secondhand supply chain that works to prolong their life, if only a little, by repurposing them as cleaning rags, stuffing for mattresses or insulation. But the rise of fast fashion -- and shoppers' preference for quantity over quality -- has led to a glut of low-value clothing that threatens to tank the economics of that trade and inordinately burdens developing countries. Meanwhile, the myth of circularity spreads, shielding companies and consumers from the inconvenient reality that the only way out of the global textile waste crisis is to buy less, buy better and wear longer. In other words, to end fast fashion. [...] Globally, less than 1% of used clothing is actually remade into new garments, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a UK nonprofit. (In contrast, 9% of plastic and about half of paper gets recycled.) The retailers have vowed that what they collect will never go to landfill or waste. But the reality is far messier. Garments dropped at in-store take-back programs enter the multibillion-dollar global secondhand supply chain, joining a torrent of discards from charity bins, thrift stores and online resale platforms like ThredUp and Sellpy. The complex task of sorting through that waste stream falls to a largely invisible global industry of brokers and processors. Their business depends on exporting much of the clothing to developing countries for rewear. It's the most profitable option and, in theory, the most environmentally responsible, because reusing items consumes less resources than recycling them.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"JFK" is one of the most controversial films ever made, because of the alternate view of a major historical event provided by its director Oliver Stone, a filmmaker long known for his unapologetic brashness and penchant for highly subjective narratives. Stone is an outspoken critic of The Warren Commission, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to assassinate the president, and he saw "JFK" as his opportunity to offer a "counter myth to the official one."

Stone's version hypothesizes that Kennedy's peaceful policies made him an enemy of warmongering intelligence agencies, and that the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service conspired to get rid of him so they could wage war in Vietnam. He used a masterful blend of reenactments and archival footage in order to showcase his own theories, which led The Chicago Tribune to accuse him of "rewrit[ing] history." It's an accusation that Stone rejects. He told Speaking Freely in 2002 that "The 'JFK' movie was a hypothesis and it was always stated as such." This clarification did little to tamper down the accusations thrown at Stone and his film.

In addition to weaving together fact and fiction, and accusing the intelligence agencies of murdering the president, "JFK" portrays Lee Harvey Oswald, one of the most notorious murderers in history, as an innocent scapegoat. In order to pull that off, Oswald would have to transform from a psycho lone killer into a helpless victim of a corrupt system, which would require a highly talented actor. Gary Oldman embodied this skill in 1986's "Sid and Nancy," a performance in which Stone told Screen Rant he saw the "dark side he wanted."

A Vicious Little Boy

"Sid and Nancy" explores the deadly dynamic between The Sex Pistols bassist and his girlfriend, which ended with Nancy Spungen dead and Sid Vicious in handcuffs. Initially, Vicious confessed to killing her, but later proclaimed his innocence. Thanks to his addiction to heroin, it's possible that he didn't even know whether he was responsible, and he died of an overdose before he could face trial. Even with this dark history, Vicious is often portrayed as a lost little boy in a grown man's body, who got in way over his head with fame, drugs, and a toxic relationship. That's the way Oldman portrayed him in "Sid and Nancy," and the performance landed him the role of Oswald.

Although the punk legend and accused assassin have nothing in common, Oldman infused both characters with a vulnerability that elicits sympathy. In "Sid and Nancy," Vicious is selfish and self-destructive, but it's still impossible not to feel something when Oldman's on the floor or a jail cell, shaking with withdrawals, or covered in blood with no memory of the night before. He portrayed Vicious like a lost child who naively stumbled into drugs and violence. He makes you feel guilty for coming to any judgments about the punk's behavior. It's a skill he'd use again in "JFK."

Oldman's Oswald is, in fact, "just a patsy," an intelligence agent whom the U.S. government frames for the killing of JFK. The idea sounds absurd at first because this is the guy we've been taught to believe killed the president, but it quickly becomes believable when you watch Oldman's performance.

He plays Oswald like a deer caught in the headlights, a loyal soldier who followed orders into a fatal trap, and once again, I find myself sympathizing with a dark figure of history.

'I Think Oswald Killed Him'

Despite his ability to render the suspected assassin innocent and naive, Oldman doesn't think his version of Oswald actually existed. Unlike the rest of us, who can only draw conclusions from books and movies, Oldman met with Oswald's widow, daughter, and friends to prepare for the role. "[Stone] just gave me a bunch of pocket money and a couple of plane tickets," He told Nerdist in 2016. "And [he] said, 'go and meet these people and find out who Oswald was.' So [I was] both actor and investigator."

Oldman's investigation led him to believe that the official story was accurate, and that Oswald killed Kennedy, but he couldn't allow his personal opinions to get in the way of the role:

"[I had] to get on board with Oliver's vision because I [couldn't] walk on set every day and go, 'You know, I think Oswald killed him.' You're not going to get anywhere with that, so you have to jump on the train with him."

The working relationship wasn't compromised by their differing opinions, but neither man misses an opportunity to call the other out for being wrong. Oldman described Stone as a "conspiracy guy" and "one of the most paranoid men [he's] ever met." Stone told Screen Rant that Oldman was great in the film, but that he's "wrong about certain things, he doesn't really know the story of Oswald, so he's become more of a Warren Commission guy, now that's the shame."

Oldman calls the film's theories a vision. Stone calls them a "counter-myth." Some critics dismiss them as "lies." It isn't important what you believe, because films aren't about showing truths and communicating facts, they are about making you feel something, and both Oldman and Stone achieved this in "JFK."

Read this next: The 22 Greatest Femme Fatales In Movie History

The post Sid And Nancy Convinced Oliver Stone That Gary Oldman Could Handle JFK's Lee Harvey Oswald Role appeared first on /Film.

It's safe to say that "Johnny Mnemonic" has not enjoyed a sterling reputation over the years. Upon its release in the summer of 1995, Roger Ebert damned it with faint praise, calling it "one of the great goofy gestures of recent cinema, a movie that doesn't deserve one nanosecond of serious analysis but has a kind of idiotic grandeur that makes you almost forgive it." Time didn't exactly soften some other critics opinions on it, either; Chris Nashawaty wrote in 2019 that the movie has its admirers but "they're all nuts."

The one person to bear the brunt of criticism for the film was director Robert Longo. In 2021, Longo reflected to Screen Slate on how "Johnny Mnemonic" affected his life: "I basically got thrown into the garbage heap for a while," he said. "My career tanked after that, for sure."

Fortunately for Longo and us long-suffering "Johnny" fans, the film was given a revamp in the form of a meticulously color-timed and restored black-and-white version, "Johnny Mnemonic: In Black and White," which was released on Blu-Ray and digital this past August. For Longo, the new release redeems his having made what he believes is an inferior version of the movie, and the new version even seems to have others re-evaluating the movie and seeing just how prescient it really was.

An Elegant Solution To A Director's Cut

By this point in time, the concept of a director's cut is known to even the most disinterested layman, as numerous home video releases and anniversary restorations have made them commonplace. Even alternate black-and-white cuts of movies that were originally in color have had a moment recently, thanks to films like "Mad Max: Fury Road," "Logan" and "Parasite" being released with a black-and-white viewing option.

For years, rumors of a director's cut for "Johnny Mnemonic" persisted, in part because the Japanese theatrical version of the film was edited differently and contained some additional footage different from the US theatrical cut. But Longo made sure to point out that "There's never been a director's cut."

"Johnny Mnemonic: In Black and White" isn't a different cut of the film from its theatrical release in any way, but its effect is wildly different thanks to the cosmetic change. As Longo explained:

"I always had this fantasy that on the 25th anniversary I would try to get some redemption in relation to this film, because making it was really difficult. And I, at one point, thought about re-editing, but then I realized if I just turned it black-and-white that would be the best, easiest thing to do, and the most radical way of kind of imprinting how I really wanted it, because I wanted to make it in black-and-white originally. I wanted it to be like a contemporary version of 'Alphaville' or something like that."

Longo Gets His Way By Going Rogue

Robert Longo did not make his name in the filmmaking world; indeed, "Johnny Mnemonic" remains his only full-length feature to date. Instead, he rose to prominence within the art world, making a splash with his "Men in the Cities" series of drawings in the late '70s. Not coincidentally, these drawings feature men in basic business outfits, clothes that Keanu Reeves' Johnny wears throughout "Johnny Mnemonic." As Longo observed, "I always thought it'd be really great to make a movie and steal my own images."

Combined with screenwriter (and author of the original short story the film was based on) William Gibson, himself one of the architects of the "cyberpunk" subgenre in literature, Longo's approach to "Johnny Mnemonic" was ambitious, radical, and a little rebellious, something he tapped into when trying to get the black-and-white cut made. Longo shared:

"Originally, when I decided to make this black-and-white conversion, I ripped a Blu-ray and turned it black and white. I contacted one of the film's original producers who was also a good guy, Don Carmody. I said to him, 'I'm doing this, and I'm going to dump it on the 25th anniversary. I'm going to dump it on YouTube,' or something like that. And he said, 'Wait, let me see it.' So, I sent it to him, and he got really excited. 'This is really great. We should show this to Sony.'"

After Sony approved the idea, Longo was given access to "the hi-res footage from the studio" and worked with colorist Cyrus J. Stowe on changing "Johnny Mnemonic" into black-and-white one scene at a time.

'Johnny Mnemonic' Is Now An Easier Neural Upload

One of the issues facing the original theatrical version of "Johnny Mnemonic" lay in its being manipulated by numerous forces behind the scenes. As Longo put it, the movie "had gotten out of control. Keanu had just blown up with 'Speed.' Tristar wanted it to be their summer movie. It was kind of crazy." The change from understated winter release to big summer movie caused the studio to put undue pressures on the first-time film director that included everything from threatening to fire him during production to changing editors on him during post.

While the film is undeniably not action-packed enough to qualify as a summer blockbuster, it has a wealth of compelling concepts and themes, some of which were ahead of their time. Certainly, the movie's concern with megacorporations controlling potentially life-saving information and the internet as a place where things (and people!) can exist as in a separate reality are elements that we in 2022 take for granted.

The black-and-white release makes the film's rough edges seem more deliberate than campy mistakes, and Reeves' performance as a pampered, politically ignorant man increasingly and frustratingly out of his depth plays to the actor's considerable strengths. For Longo, the black-and-white version is "so much closer to what I imagined it to be," and its reception seems to be warmer than it has been over the last 27 years:

"It's kind of great that people are starting to see the movie that was in the movie. [...] It took a pandemic to change people's minds. It took a crazy-ass president. It was all sorts of things."

The true test of any worthwhile science-fiction is that it both speaks to the time in which it was made as well as carries with it a unique resonance, where its future that never was resembles the present that is. "Johnny Mnemonic" does both. It also features Henry Rollins fighting a whacked-out Dolph Lundgren as a murderous zealot. If you haven't already, give "Johnny" another look.

Read this next: 13 Box Office Bombs That Are Truly Worth A Watch

The post Johnny Mnemonic's Black-And-White Release Was A 'Redemption' For Robert Longo appeared first on /Film.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: 70 new text adventures are now online and available for playing — as a long-standing tradition continues. The 70 new games are the entries in the 28th annual Interactive Fiction Competition (now administered by the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, a charitable non-profit corporation). With wacky titles like "Lazy Wizard's Guide" and "Elvish for Goodbye," each game offers its own original take on the classic choice-based text adventures, sometimes augumented with ambient background noises and even music. Each of the 70 games has some kind of fanciful "cover art" — one even generated using OpenAI's image-generating tool DALL-E. And you're invited to help judge the games! Just create an account, and then play and rate at least five of the games by November 15... Slashdot first covered the competition back in 2004. (And in 2006, Slashdot editor Hemos called interactive fiction games "some of the best I've ever played.") But this year the competition raised over $10,000 (so far!) to be distributed among the top two-thirds of entries, with the first-place finisher receiving $489 and each subsequent finisher receiving a little less, with the lowest-finishing prize recipient awarded $10. (And in addition, top entrants are each allowed to choose one prize from a pool of donations.) Game on!

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Watching Terry Gilliam's 1998 film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson is, in 2022, a fraught experience. 

For one, a viewer must contend with their views of star Johnny Depp, recently exposed in a high-profile domestic abuse case. Additionally, director Terry Gilliam has, in recent years, said some notorious things in the press. In 2020, he called #MeToo a "witch-hunt," he once downplayed the crimes of Harvey Weinstein, and, all the way back in 2009, signed a petition pleading to exonerate Roman Polanski. This was all in addition to reports of Gilliam terrifying a young Sarah Polley on the set of "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen." Polley, however, has since given her blessing to enjoy the movie. 

Additionally, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is -- by design -- incredibly difficult to watch. It's a noisy, chaotic film with two protagonists who are constantly zonked out on any number of drugs. The world is a swirling, vomit-colorful miasma of horror seen from the eyes of Raoul Duke (Depp) and Dr. Gonzo (Benicio del Toro). While chemically altered, the two descend upon Las Vegas in what is a Dante-like sojourn into a chintzy, booze-soaked Hell. 

Like all of Gilliam's projects, "Loathing" was beset by multiple production problems, not least of which was an argument as to which screenplay would be used. The script is credited to Gilliam, Tony Grisoni, Alex Cox, and Tod Davies, but the one used for the film was only penned by the former two in ten days. The first version of the script by Cox (director of "Repo Man") and Davies (a Hunter S. Thompson scholar) was thrown out over creative differences, and Cox was fired prior to production. There was brief confusion as to the correct script. 

Working With Uncle Duke

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" involved a great number of recognizable actors in small parts. Christina Ricci appears as a young artist. Tobey Maguire plays a nervous hitchhiker. Christopher Meloni has a notable scene as a vengeful hotel clerk. Ellen Barkin has to endure Thompson's indignities as a diner waitress. Penn Jillette screams for a moment. Even Debbie Reynolds has a brief voice cameo as herself. 

In the film's most adorable cameo, author Hunter S. Thompson appeared as himself in a key flashback scene. Depp is wandering through a wild, acid-laced hippie party in 1965, listening to Jefferson Airplane and taking in the ambiance. "I recall in one place called the Matrix," he narrates. "There I was ..." he begins, but is interrupted. He immediately walks past Thompson, sitting at a table nearby. "Mother of God! There I am!" The famed counterculture journalist leans forward and eyeballs Johnny Depp carefully for a moment, then the scene continues. 

In a recent video interview for Entertainment Weekly, Gilliam talked about Thompson's cameo and how he, on top of everything else, made production difficult. Evidently, Thompson was given to fits of egomania and would throw food. It took a prurient bribe to get the author to cooperate. Gilliam said of the day Thompson was on set was: 

"Horrible. Because Hunter has to be the center of attention. And there we were -- Harry Dean Stanton was there that day, and Hunter was throwing bread rolls around the set all the time. And finally we had to get him in for his scene. I put the best-looking of all the female extras on his table, and [whoosh], there he was."

Not flattering, but perhaps effective.

The Many Dukes

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is one of only two times that Thompson appeared on screen as an actor. In addition to "Loathing," Thompson also had two cameo appearances on the TV series "Nash Bridges" in 1996. He played a piano player. He did, however, appear as an interviewee in over 20 documentary films, commenting on his work or language in general.

Anecdotally: This author once had the privilege of talking to the filmmakers behind the 2005 documentary "F***," a comedic history of English's most notorious cuss word. It was released shortly after Thompson's death. Thompson appeared in that film to talk about the nature of cussing, but offered little insight, more often spitballing ideas about cuss words in general and never finding a thesis. The filmmakers said that the entire Thompson interview was very much the same, with the author rambling more than speaking. It seems that the man who pioneered gonzo journalism wasn't so eager to take direction. 

Thompson also regularly appeared in the comic strip "Doonesbury" as the amalgam character Uncle Duke, and Bill Murray played the author in the 1980 oddity "Where the Buffalo Roam." One might do well to read Thompson's work prior to seeing any of the films based on it. One might find a strange, embittered, disappointed idealism underneath. 

Read this next: The 50 Best Documentaries You Can Watch On Netflix Right Now (November 2022)

The post Hunter S. Thompson Was Hard To Handle During His Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas Cameo appeared first on /Film.

"Saturday Night Live" is a very prestigious show for any comedian to appear in, but it's often treated as a stepping stone to greater success. It's the natural life cycle of an "SNL" cast member to spend a few seasons on television, increasing their reputation, before leaving the show and attempting to get big in movies or to get a television show of their own. That's the path that's been followed by countless cast members, from early stars like Eddie Murphy and Chevy Chase starring in movies to more recent cast members like Andy Samberg or Amy Poehler going on to sitcom success. Unless you're Kenan Thompson, that's just the circle of life.

There are also those who fail to gain any traction on the show, getting fired after one or two seasons on the cast. While some of their careers manage to recover, being fired from "SNL" can be the death knell of a comedian's chance at hitting it big.

Back in the '90s, when Chris Farley and Adam Sandler were some of the standouts of the show, people probably expected them to be some of the next generation of big comedy movie stars. Unfortunately for the two, they were both suddenly fired from the show in 1995. While the two were already proving to have some star power, this could have been a lethal blow to their careers. So, with their biggest platform swept out from under them, the two decided separately that they'd take their shot at the movies. Sandler went to work on "Billy Madison," while Farley signed on to make "Tommy Boy." These two comedies would go on to be classics of the time period.

Billy The Third: A Midwestern

While the two good friends were starring in different movies, the productions were by no means in competition. After all, Farley would actually playing an uncredited role as a bus driver in "Billy Madison." The two were making movies with similar senses of humor, chasing the same audience, but there was enough room in town for the both of them.

However, in the movies' early production, they did bump heads a bit over their respective titles, according to a "Tommy Boy" oral history from 2015. According to "Tommy Boy" director Peter Segal, news of the title of Sandler's upcoming movie sent production into a scramble for a new title.

"What was it called... oh gosh the [original title]... 'Billy the Third: A Midwestern,' is what it was. But we were in pre-production at the same time that 'Billy Madison' was in pre-production, and we didn't want two 'SNL' related films with the same title. So we went into a tailspin, spent months coming up with what it eventually was named."

While Chris Farley's titular Tommy Callahan being named "Billy" probably wouldn't have changed the film much, it does show how the "Saturday Night Live" industrial complex can affect the films that go through it. Even when the creators were great friends, these "SNL" alums' movies would inevitably be compared and put up against each other.

Fortunately for both Sandler and Farley, both films were huge successes. "Billy Madison" was the first of many films Sandler would star in, starting his own Happy Madison production company. While Farley would never reach his film potential due to his tragic death in 1997, "Tommy Boy" was a hit and still stands as one of Paramount's best-selling films on home media. 

Read this next: 20 Underrated Comedy Movies You Need To Watch

The post Billy Madison Caused A Behind-The-Scenes Scramble To Find A New Title For Tommy Boy appeared first on /Film.

Throughout the course of his career, John Carpenter has directed horror movies that have redefined the genre in several ways. His 1978 horror classic, "Halloween" is nothing less than a full-blown pop culture phenomenon, and his lesser-known films, such as "Prince of Darkness," is still being discovered by horror-heads. Carpenter's legacy obviously extends beyond his filmmaking, as he is also a composer with a penchant for creating original soundtracks meant to enhance the source material. Despite being a man of many talents, Carpenter's love for horror seeps into everything he makes, be it hypnotic tales of terror or fast-paced action pieces with horror elements.

So, when exactly did Carpenter discover his affinity towards the genre? The director has been inspired by a string of classic horror writers, as his work has often been adaptations of the works of John W. Campbell, H.P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King. The Lovecraftian influence is evident in his "In the Mouth of Madness," which pays tribute to the ideas of the unknown, the old gods, and the manifestation of cosmic horror within our immediate reality. While Lovecraft still remains a key influence in Carpenter's understanding of the genre, the director credits one particular book that managed to ignite his love for horror. What book might that be?

A Horror Anthology Book That Started It All

In an interview with Vulture, where Carpenter talked about his favorite horror and sci-fi writers, he said that his dad had gifted him a book of "horror tales" that had started it all:

"There are a lot of science-fiction writers I grew up on and love: Harry Harrison and others. My dad gave me a book called Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural. That's where I got my horror tales started. Then, the movies were the big thing for me."

First published in 1944, "Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural" is a collection of 52 horror stories of varied tints. This horror anthology is the perfect starting point for anyone interested in what the genre has to offer, as it consists of stories by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Guy de Maupassant, Henry James, and Algernon Blackwood. Interestingly, the book also contains Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror," which might have been Carpenter's introduction to the writer's body of work, which later influenced his films. Moreover, the variety of tales in the collection, which ranged from detective-style suspense stories to unnerving cautionary tales, might have exposed Carpenter to the various tints of horror, which he later experimented with throughout the course of his career. 

Carpenter also mentioned Harry Harrison as one of his favorite sci-fi writers, whose work was sharp, satirical, and subversive. There are many instances of Harrison being unapologetically anti-establishment via his work, especially in his 1966 breakthrough novel, "Make Room! Make Room!" Carpenter also adopted aspects of this ideology in "They Live," which still emerges as a timeless critique of the capitalist megastructure and the effect it has on the populace.

Science Fiction And Horror Often Go Hand In Hand

In the same interview, Carpenter reaffirmed his love for Lovecraft and talked about the influence that sci-fi writers like Ray Bradbury had on him in his formative years. Bradbury has best known for penning speculative science fiction, which inevitably invites discussions about the unknown and the horrors that might plague us in the near future. Bradbury's "It Came from Outer Space" riffs on the idea of a crashed meteor that unleashes an alien force on earth, which is also the basic foundation of Carpenter's "The Thing." However, "The Thing" focuses less on the creature's origins and more on the haze of paranoia it creates, which lends to a unique cinematic experience rooted in the fear of the unknown.

Circling back to Lovecraft, Carpenter explained that the cosmic horror writer stands out as a major literary influence, not because of the "florid English style" but due to the vast imagination that acts as a framework for the stories themselves. For instance, Lovecraft's novella, "In the Mountains of Madness" delves into the hidden history of the human race and the existence of entities that defy comprehension, and the horror is both explicit and implied. Carpenter was inspired by this form of storytelling, which led to "In the Mouth of Madness," which is a fever dream of a tale about the idea of insanity and how it spreads like a virus, relentless and unchecked.

Carpenter is a master of horror, who is clearly capable of creating layered tales that function on multiple levels of terror. It is always interesting to explore his literary inspirations, which helped shape his outlook in some form and influenced his dynamic filmography.

Read this next: The Horror Movies We Can't Wait To See In 2022

The post The Book That Started John Carpenter's Love Of Horror appeared first on /Film.

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"An Apple archivist has had his YouTube account disabled after Apple filed multiple takedown requests against his account," reports the blog Apple Insider: Brendan Shanks, owner of the Apple WWDC Videos channel on YouTube, tweeted that Apple had filed a series of copyright removal requests against his channel. The videos in question were decades-old recordings of WWDC events. "I still have all the original files (and descriptions, which were a lot of work!), and I'll be moving things over to the Internet Archive," Shanks posted on Twitter. "It'll take time though, and unfortunately videos get a lot less visibility when you're not on YouTube. "I wasn't super surprised this happened (there were a few takedowns a couple years ago)," Shanks mused in an earlier tweet. "I'm honestly more annoyed that it wiped out my personal YoutTube account and even YouTube TV, which I was just billed real money for. "A cease and desist in the mail would be much friendlier."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you're a film person, you've probably already heard about the balls-to-the-wall chaotic gorefest that is "Terrifier 2." Art the Clown returns from the dead to live his best happy-go-lucky slasheriffic life, and he has done so with aplomb based on reports of people puking while watching the film in theaters. Who can blame him, though? Wouldn't we kill to make sure that we were perpetually stuck in our own happy place? For Art, he most definitely would, and proves it in this latest terrifying installment.

Just to get you caught up to speed, "Terrifier 2" features the return of David Howard Thornton as the suspiciously happy murder clown. Something has brought Art the Clown back from the dead and, like any other giddily blood-seeking clown would want to do, it's not long before he starts terrorizing Miles County again. Per convenient slasher timing, Art the Clown returns on Halloween night, and fixates on a teen and her younger brother who, in all honesty, didn't need these shenanigans. But who ever needs murderous shenanigans in their life?

With "Terrifier 2" getting widespread attention, people have been slowly coming out of the woodwork to talk about where it sits within the genre. It's not quite a traditional slasher the way horror fans have come to understand it. This, even though Art the Clown fulfills the definition of a slasher by hunting and killing groups of people. But horror aficionado Mike Flanagan has another label for the terrifying film.

The MegaSlasher!

Modern horror is always getting re-named something or other these days. Most horror fans have gotten used to rolling our eyes at the term 'elevated horror' because God forbid we hold horror to any sort of esteem in these film-watching parts. It's got to be 'elevated' for anyone to take it seriously or give it the respect the genre rightfully deserves. Read this in a slightly sarcastic tone, readers.

Saltiness aside, when it comes to "Terrifier 2," its full embrace of practical effects and luxuriating in making people watch and take in every excruciating detail of the carnage Art enacts on his victims reads as something different altogether in our horrorscape. It's a slasher, but it also embraces the kind of feel that you'd typically see in a grindhouse theater, with its low-budget, gory, splatter horror that aims to make audiences squirm.

Horror maestro Mike Flanagan had his own thoughts on how "Terrifier 2" should be categorized. Taking to Twitter post-viewing, Flanagan said, "'Terrifer 2' is wild. Very ambitious and deeply disturbing. Practical FX are off the chain. Lauren LaVera is quite terrific and Art the Clown is downright ghastly. Seemed to have invented a new sub genre: the MegaSlasher. Big Respect to all involved."

While Flanagan clearly liked the film, the classification of "Terrifier 2" as a MegaSlasher or inventing a new subgenre is interesting. What differentiates a MegaSlasher from a regular ol' slasher film? What are the parameters? And will people agree with this classification?

Definition Of A Film

As human beings, we like easy classifications for things. In horror, this becomes a bit muddy when you take into consideration the many subgenres that make up the scope of horror. From psychological to splatter to the supernatural, one can argue that there is no need for the creation of a new subgenre like a MegaSlasher. "Terrifier 2" could easily fit into two subgenres of horror already depending on how you look at it without needing a newly invented subgenre.

Obviously, "Terrifier 2" involves Art hunting down people and killing them, with the inevitable faceoff between himself and LaVera's Sienna. Classic slasher material. However, the gore levels in this film are likely what led to that MegaSlasher label. But there's already a subgenre that would fulfill that - the splatter genre.

The splatter genre is defined by its focus on gore and graphic violence, which both of the "Terrifier" films have in abundance. Art the Clown takes his sweet time onscreen destroying his victims, with the audiences morbidly locked into witnessing these slowly-wrought, violent acts of destruction. The splatter genre is also incredibly theatric with the delivery of its gore, which the "Terrifier" films also revel in.

But there IS that slasher element to consider, so there is a genre blur here. A blurring of the genres is nothing new in horror, however, so the invention of a new subgenre seems unnecessary. If one must, one could argue "Terrifier 2" is a splatterslasher if anything.

Read this next: Horror Roles That Changed Actors Forever

The post Mike Flanagan Says Terrifier 2 Just Invented the 'MegaSlasher' Genre appeared first on /Film.

It's been a great year for indie horror, and the surprise hit "Barbarian" is just one of the many fantastic offerings from this glut of spooky cinema. The new film from Zach Cregger highlights the horrors of AirBnBs, creating a truly terrifying tale of travel gone terribly wrong. Justin Long, who frequently stars in comedies but also cut his teeth on the Kevin Smith horror-comedy "Tusk" and Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell," appears in the back half of the film in a role that has to be seen to be believed. This ain't Brandon Saint Randy from "Zach and Miri Make a Porno," folks.

To promote "Barbarian," which is now available to stream on HBO Max, Long sat down to chat with Letterboxd and shared four of his favorite horror movies of all time. For Long, a lifelong horror fan, that was no easy feat, but he managed to recommend four very different films, all well worth checking out. Find out his favorites below, and check out "Barbarian" on HBO Max or VOD to see what kind of crazy creepiness Long has been getting up to. 

What's Your Favorite Scary Movie?

Long begins revealing his four horror favorites with two classics: "The Exorcist" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Both of these 1970s films were seminal scares that frequently make horror "best of" lists, and for good reason. "The Exorcist," based on the novel by William Peter Blatty, spawned an entire series of films and a TV series about demon possession and exorcism. It all started with one creepy film in 1973, a movie that transformed its young star, Linda Blair, forever, and had a major impact on horror movie marketing through its insane word-of-mouth campaign. This movie made people faint in the theaters, all through its depiction of a young girl going through the throes of demon possession. 

Long's other 1970s pick is also about possession, though a very different kind. The 1978 version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" stars Donald Sutherland and has one of the most iconic single frames in any horror movie, as he points and screams in unholy cacophony because he's been taken over by the body snatchers. Both "The Exorcist" and "Body Snatchers" deal heavily with fears of the unknown and uncontrollable, so it's no surprise that Long's contemporary picks deal with similar themes.

Scares That Are Fun To Share

On top of his two 1970s picks, Long shared two movies from the past few years that he felt were worth checking out. The first is "Saint Maud," the directorial debut of Rose Glass, a haunting psychological thriller about a young woman who may or may not be communicating directly with God. The fear of the unknown and cosmic is present, along with a deep dive into mental illness, faith, and how we cope with death, so it fits right alongside the horror classics of "The Exorcist" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." In fact, it makes a pretty good double feature with "The Exorcist," given the fact that both films deal heavily with faith and suffering. 

The final film Long recommends is Ari Aster's "Hereditary," starring Toni Collette as a struggling mother of two whose parental love is put to the ultimate test. Long apparently loved the movie so much that he saw it three times in the theater, and explained that he loves showing it to people he loves, because he gets to see them have the experience of watching it for the first time. (He's not wrong: "Hereditary" is one of the most fun movies to show your friends, especially when it gets to that scene.) 

Who knows, maybe someday soon someone else will get asked their Letterboxd favorite four films and they'll pick "Barbarian," bringing it all full circle. Either way, we'll all just have to keep sharing our love of scary movies.

Read this next: The Horror Movies We Can't Wait To See In 2022

The post Barbarian Star Justin Long Reveals Four Of His Favorite Horror Movies appeared first on /Film.

This is the full version of Morrowind Rebirth 6.0.