Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux and Git, has his own law in software development, and it goes like this: "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." This phrase puts the finger on the very principle of open source: the more, the merrier - if the code is easily available for anyone and everyone to fix bugs, it's pretty safe. But is it? Or is the saying "all bugs are shallow" only true for
AMD has responded to recent Ryzen 7000 gaming CPU concerns, and the company says issues aren't linked to Windows 11. While initial tests by various outlets place blame on Microsoft's operating system, the chipmaker thinks the root cause lies elsewhere.
Diablo creator and king of all things dungeon crawler David Brevik tells PCGamesN that he wouldn't have taken the same approach to the iconic action RPG game series as Activision Blizzard has, but that the company's new hellish IPs are still something to be excited about.
Peter: Just seems like there... might be something you... wanna say.
Steve: Peter.
Annie: Like what? I mean, why would I wanna say something so I can watch you sneer at me?
Peter: Sneer at you? I don't ever sneer at you.
Annie: Oh, sweetie, you don't have to. You get your point across.
Peter: Okay, so, fine, then say what you wanna say, then.
Steve: Peter.
Annie: I don't wanna say anything. I've tried saying...
Peter: Okay, so try again. Release yourself.
Annie: Oh, release you, you mean?
Peter: Yeah, fine, release me, just say it! Just fucking say it!
Annie: DON'T you swear at me, you little shit! Don't you EVER raise your voice at me! I am your mother! You understand? All I do is worry and slave and defend you, and all I get back is that fucking face on your face! So full of disdain and resentment and always so annoyed! Well, now your sister is dead! And I know you miss her and I know it was an accident and I know you're in pain and I wish could take that away for you. I WISH I could shield you from the knowledge that you did what you did, but you're sister is dead! She's gone forever! And what a waste... if it could've maybe brought us together, or something, if you could've just said "I'm sorry" or faced up to what happened, maybe then we could do something with this, but you can't take responsibility for anything! So, now I can't accept. And I can't forgive. Because... because NOBODY admits anything they've done!
I might have to start quoting this scene from Hereditary every November 1st now that I have noticed that today is the birthday of both Toni Collette and Alex Wolff. Not that Toni's speech doesn't run through my head at least once a week anyway. "THAT FUCKING FACE ON YOUR FACE." That line is such perfect writing. It's exactly the sort of half-thought out thing you'd say when you're angry that actually represents the truest essence of the thing -- you'd try to say something more clever if you were thinking straight but the words are just flying out and you stumble on a perfect thing like that. Goddamn I can't wait for Ari Aster's next movie!
But back to the birthday people -- what's next for these two? Toni, who always has a billion projects lined up, has a billion projects lined up -- the most exciting one is probably Mickey7, Bong Joon-ho's next movie which also stars Robert Pattinson and Mark Ruffalo; see my previous post here. As for Alex he works less, which sucks! Why aren't people snatching him up after Hereditary, in which he more than held his own against a world-class Colette? That said he's got a role in Chris Nolan's Oppenheimer, so it's not like he's hurting! And he's got two small-sounding projects lined up, as well -- a movie called The Line (the photo below is from the set of that) and a movie called Untold; I don't recognize any of the other people involved on either project. Fingers crossed for fresh talent!
Amazon today announced a new benefit for its Prime members which could lure some subscribers away from other music services, like Apple Music or Spotify. From a report: The company said it will now offer Prime subscribers a full music catalog with 100 million songs, instead of the previously more limited selection of just 2 million songs, and will make most of the top podcasts on its service available without ads. In addition, the Amazon Music app is getting a revamp, which includes a new "Podcast Previews" feature that will allow customers to listen to short clips as a way to discover new podcasts they may like. The move is a direct shot at streaming music competitors, especially Spotify, which has been moving into the podcasts market as a means of generating additional revenue. But Spotify's paying subscriber base is growing frustrated with the fact that they still have to listen to podcast ads, despite paying for the service. Amazon Music's promise of ad-free podcasts along with a full music catalog could make for a compelling alternative, the retail giant hopes.
Among the ad-free podcasts are shows from top brands like CNN, NPR, The New York Times, and ESPN. Other ad-free shows include the Wondery catalog of podcasts, like "Dr. Death," "SmartLess," and "Even the Rich," and new Amazon Exclusive shows including "MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories;" "Suspect: Vanished in the Snow;" "COLD Season Three: The Search for Sheree;" "Killer Psyche Daily;" "I Hear Fear," narrated by Academy Award-nominated actress Carey Mulligan; and a weekly bonus episode of "The Old Man and the Three," hosted by former NBA player JJ Redick. The Amazon Exclusive podcast series "Baby, this is Keke Palmer," from the actress and entrepreneur Keke Palmer (NOPE) also debuts today.
Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, Inc's (AMD) best days are behind it wars financial firm Northland in an investor note that comes just last the company is due to release its earnings report for the third quarter alter today. AMD's earnings will follow a pre-release that saw the company slash down its revenue guidance for the quarter due to a slowdown in the personal computing market. This slowdown has also affected other chip firms, namely Intel and NVIDIA, and Northland states that the way forward for AMD will see growth slowdown as Chinese demand falters and Intel catches up in the technology race.
Intel Will Overtake AMD In Technology Next Year Believes Northland
Northland's research note provides some of the lowest estimates for AMD in the market, as it believes that the firm's earnings guidance for next year that AMD will share in January will be a key factor to watch out for. The research firm believes that AMD will rake in $24 billion in revenue next year, to deliver $2.45 in non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS). This is significantly lower than the Wall Street consensus estimate of $3.96 EPS and the $26 billion in revenue that is currently the Wall Street consensus estimate for AMD.
Behind this drop are a host of factors, according to Northland. The largest driver is a slowdown in Chinese enterprise spending, as demand falls. Additionally, processors, particularly for the server sector are being designed through British design house Arm Ltd's designs, which has ended up taking market share away from AMD, a fact bolstered by the Chinese government's decision to phase out foreign source technology from its infrastructure by 2025.
AMD's shares have bled almost 60% of their value year to date as the personal computing market slows down and the stock market enters bear territory.
Additionally, Intel is believed to be catching up to AMD when it comes to transistor advancements. Northland believes that Intel will have shifted to 4-nanometer transistor technology by the second half of next year with its desktop processors, while at the same time, AMD will be using TSMC's 5-nanometer products. Similarly, it believes that AMD will make the shift to 4-nanometer in 2024, and the company's woes are exacerbated by TSMC's 3-nanometer delays, which the Taiwanese company has denied repeatedly as it stresses that the process technology is on track and that customer interest in the technology continues to remain high.
Furthermore, Northland adds that TSMC's gate all around (GAA) transistors are behind Intel's similar products. These are a new transistor technology that increase the surface area for the internal components to conduct electricity, and TSMC will use these in its 2-nanometer products that are due for mass production in 2025. The research firm cites the facts that Intel was the first to upgrade its transistors, first to high-K metal gates and then to FinFET, and that the firm is under capable leadership of its current chief executive officer Mr. Patrick Gelsinger.
The acquisition of Xilinx will not AMD help much either, since the revenues for field programmable gate array (FPGA) companies typically occur at the early stages of new technology rollouts. Finally, it has been a while since new gaming consoles came out, so the bulk of spending from upgrades is behind up. All these factors make Northland cut down AMD's share price target to $60 from $80 and changing its share price rating to Market Perform from Outperform. The chip company's shares have bled 60% of their value this year as a slowdown in the personal computing industry and a tight macroeconomic environment sap investor confidence.
AMD's chief, Dr. Lisa Su, believes that the future is bright for her company and that the demand for its products is secular. She shared her thoughts in an interview early last month, which came just around the time AMD slashed its revenue guidance.
For better or worse, Hollywood's nostalgia-mining tendencies come for us all. For fans of the Nickelodeon animated series "Winx Club," this was both a blessing and a curse: when the Netflix adaptation "Fate: The Winx Saga" arrived in 2021, it brought the beloved faeries back to screens. But it also received a very mixed reception.
Like so many of the gritty live-action adaptations being forced down our throats, "Fate: The Winx Saga" was after an entirely new audience. Rather than emulating the source material, this series targets older teens, shedding colorful whimsy for a dark fantasy aesthetic. Between the entirely new vibe and the many altered/missing characters, not all fans were pleased when the series first arrived. But this September, the sophomore season brought along some reason for hope. With its second outing, "Fate: The Winx Saga" seemed to incorporate much of that fan feedback — adding in some sorely missed characters and delving deeper into the magical world.
In case you're not familiar, the series tells the coming-of-age story of Bloom (Abigail Cowen), a fairy raised by human parents who enrolls at a magical boarding school. There, she crosses paths with and befriends a group of faeries who must band together when others of their kind start to go missing. "The Vampire Diaries" alum Brian Young served as showrunner and the cast included Eve Best, Hannah van der Westhuysen, Precious Mustapha, Eliot Salt, Elisha Applebaum, Danny Griffin, Sadie Soverall, Freddie Thorp, Theo Graham, and Robert James-Collier among many others.
Unfortunately, the short answer to the question in the headline is no.
Fate: The Winx Saga Has Been Canceled By Netflix
Netflix will not be returning to the Otherworld because the streamer has opted to cancel "Fate: The Winx Saga" — which means that the long list of Netflix series canceled after just two seasons only continues to grow.
The sad news came from showrunner Brian Young, who shared a post on Instagram:
"This is not fun news to share, but Netflix decided not to move forward with season three of Fate: The Winx Saga. This is especially tough because I know how many of you loved this season. It's a heartbreaking silver lining, but a silver lining all the same. I'm so proud of everyone who worked on the show, and so happy we got to tell the stories we did. Our cast and crew put in a ton of hard work creating this world and these characters. I'm grateful for each and every one of them, and for all of you for watching. It's been an amazing four years. Hopefully we'll see each other again in the future."
Young had plans to continue unraveling the overall mythology of Bloom's mother and the Realm of Darkness but sadly, this means that "Fate" will never have a chance to follow up on its season 2 finale.
The first and only two seasons of "Fate: The Winx Saga" are still available to stream on Netflix.
Indirect Branch Tracking (IBT) is still being eyed for enabling as part of the default Linux x86_64 kernel configurations to provide better out-of-the-box security on supported processors. A patch sent out today continues the upstream discussion over flipping on this feature by default that is part of Intel's Control-flow Enforcement Technology (CET) for helping to defend against jump/call oriented programming attacks...
It's time to break earth and set up a new home. The impossibly deep simulator Dwarf Fortress has set a Steam and Itch launch date of December 6, 2022.
This infamous engine for incredible internet stories is often perceived as pretty dense. But as part of the Steam launch, Bay 12 Gamesis also rolling out several major draws for newcomers to make dwarven life a bit easier to manage.
First off, the graphical tile set. Rather than ASCII characters moving around, Dwarf Fortress has pixel visuals you can pick up on a bit easier. Modders and community members have made these tools before, but Steam Dwarf Fortress arrives with a packed-in tile set.
Secondly, the new player experience has been updated to include tutorials. Via the Steam page, these tutorials will guide you through the process of building your first fortress and keeping all the dwarves inside happy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K7T5LXQPJI
Other than that, this is largely still Dwarf Fortress. It's still a massive, simulated world of possibilities and potential disaster. All it needs is a few intrepid dwarves.
Building the fortress
Dwarf Fortress has been the subject of many lengthy forum posts and storytimes. Much like EVE Online, it's a game that's endlessly fascinating to read about, but seems intimidating from the outside too.
With a Steam launch, updated graphics, and new player experience, this might be the time for me to give Dwarf Fortress an honest go of it. I've read enough stories. I'm ready to establish my own beautiful fortress, then watch it fall apart to infighting and chaos.
Developers Tarn and Zach Adams have been working on this game for ages, and seem set to keep doing so. And maybe this version is just the right jumping-on point as they dive further into what this simulation can possibly do.
Dwarf Fortress hits Steam and Itch on December 6, 2022.
Escapism increases with yet another ScummVM release!
The ScummVM Team is thrilled to announce the immediate availability of ScummVM 2.6.1.
ScummVM 2.6.1 is a maintenance release mainly focused on improving the new features and engines we introduced in our previous release.
This update includes upgrades for the following engines:
AGS
AGOS
Asylum
Ultima
SCI
SCUMM
Tinsel
Toltecs
Toon
Other improvements include upgrading the icon-based grid view in the ScummVM launcher and fixing OpenGL render graphic corruptions.
Finally, Android users will be able to properly use a mouse on virtual screens, and Windows users will not have any duplicated icons folder issues.
You can find all of this goodness available for a number of platforms on our downloads page. If you are using Windows, macOS, the Ubuntu Snap package or the FlatHub repository, the auto-update robots will assist you in updating to ScummVM 2.6.1.
As always, the detailed list of improvements is available here.
Thank you for your continuous support — happy adventuring!
A few days ago, NVIDIA released a brand new driver for its graphics cards. According to the release notes, the NVIDIA GeForce 526.47 WHQL driver offers optimal performance in Sackboy: A Big Adventure. Furthermore, it offers support for Victoria 3, and WRC Generations – The FIA WRC Official Game. This new driver packs the hotfix … Continue reading NVIDIA GeForce 526.47 WHQL driver is available for download →
What’s the future hold for Xbox? Obviously, some big things are afoot now with the pending purchase of Activision Blizzard, but we’ve also recently heard Microsoft downplay things like Xbox Game Pass and cloud gaming that had previously been a big focus. Of course, part of that may just be an effort to get the Acti-Blizz deal past regulators, but it does seem like the Xbox strategy is genuinely shifting somewhat.
Well, in a new interview with the Same Brain podcast, Xbox boss Phil Spencer gave an interesting answer when asked about the future of Microsoft’s gaming division. He doesn’t touch much on Xbox Game Pass, instead focusing on new hardware, developing interesting games with their expanded first-party roster, and perhaps most significantly, mobile.
“Longer term, we're all in. We're thinking about new hardware, we're thinking about new styles of games, new partnerships, new first-party things that we can go do. We're also spending more time thinking about mobile and what do we mean for mobile players, because we don't really mean anything for mobile players right now. It's just an exciting time.”
In the same recent interview where Spencer admitted Game Pass will likely never be more than 10 to 15 percent of their business, he also identified free-to-play as the gaming model with the most potential, which is interesting when combined with these new comments about mobile. That said, this is all “longer term” planning – in the short term, Spencer realizes 2022 has been a weak year for Xbox releases, but promises bigger things are coming in 2023.
“One thing we’ve definitely heard loud and clear is it’s been too long since we’ve shipped what people would say is a big first-party game. We can have our excuses with Covid and other things, but in the end I know people invest in our platform and they want to have great games.
We’re excited about 2023 and we’ve talked about games that are coming. Those games are tracking well, we’re out of what Covid did to the production schedule. But I look at 2023 and there’s a great line-up of games coming that I’m excited about. Getting our first real Xbox first-party games out of Bethesda, having them ship with Redfall and Starfield, will be a lot of fun.”
Xbox seems to be at a bit of a crossroads – where do you think the division should go from here?
Bayonetta 3 is out now on Nintendo Switch. Just like practically all Switch games, it is also playable on PC via emulators like Ryujinx and Yuzu, which can actually provide an improved experience when it comes to visuals and performance.
There are already three YouTube videos of Bayonetta 3 running at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second, which is a significant leap over the limitation imposed by the Switch hardware. Digital Foundry reported that the game runs at dynamic 810p when docked and dynamic 480p when in handheld mode. The frame rate doesn't fare better either, as even with these low resolutions, Bayonetta 3 doesn't always run at 60 frames per second on Nintendo Switch.
Unfortunately, even when emulating the game on PC, the cutscenes will be locked to 30 frames per second, which is a bit jarring after the 60FPS gameplay. Still, this is by far the best way to experience the game, despite the following current limitations noted by Ryujinx developers:
Godrays cover the screen in certain areas. On Nvidia, use driver version 516.xx/517.xx to avoid this. A fix is being looked into.
Texture Recompression is required to avoid running out of VRAM. Enable it if you run into an "out of device memory" crash.
Cutscene audio can desync. No solution as of yet.
Bayonetta 3 received a 9 out of 10 rating from Wccftech reviewer Nathan Birch. You can read up on his full review here; below is the final excerpt.
Bayonetta 3 offers up a solid 12-hour campaign with multiple difficulty settings and those elusive Platinums providing tons of replayability. Add collectibles, cosmetics, unlockable “Phenomenal Remnants” bonus missions, and post-game stuff I won’t detail, and you have a game that will keep you locked in action ecstasy for a good long time.
It is the series’ best entry yet, offering an engaging universe-hopping story, bombastic cinematic moments, and refined action that’s both accessible and deeper than ever before. The game can feel slightly hemmed in on the Switch, but Platinum pummels every bit of possible performance out of the hardware. Whether you and Bayonetta have history or not, this is an engagement not to be missed.
Cloud-based repository hosting service GitHub has addressed a high-severity security flaw that could have been exploited to create malicious repositories and mount supply chain attacks.
The RepoJacking technique, disclosed by Checkmarx, entails a bypass of a protection mechanism called popular repository namespace retirement, which aims to prevent developers from pulling unsafe repositories with
There are a lot of actors who end up putting so much of themselves into the characters they play that they become almost indistinguishable from one another in terms of personality or expressions. Likewise, there are characters whose entire schtick is that they are meant to remind us of the actors who play them. Well, Tom Cruise may not fully be like Les Grossman or Lestat de Lioncourt, but he definitely lives up to the monicker of his "Top Gun" character: Maverick.
Well, it seems Cruise got all the preparation he needed to go to space in the (surprising) biggest movie of the year because the lengths the actor went to for his stunts in "Top Gun: Maverick" surpassed even what real pilots do.
A Real Maverick
In the December 2022 issue of Empire magazine, director Joseph Kosinski broke down the standout sequence from "Top Gun: Maverick" where the titular Maverick steals a jet and pulls an elaborate stunt to show his superiors and his students that they could accomplish their mission.
Well, if you expect me to say that it was Cruise doing the entire stunt, shooting that missile, and almost passing out while climbing and hitting 10 Gs, expect to be disappointed. Instead, it was ace Navy pilot Frank 'Walleye' Weiser who did the stunt, with Cruise as a very, very expensive backseat driver taking all the credit for just being there. Still, there's a reason it was Tom Cruise who led the actors' boot camp during the making of "Top Gun: Maverick." Even if he wasn't in the driver's seat, he was still experiencing the thrills and also the terrors of that stunt.
"That was the most extreme thing we shot in the film, just in terms of the practicality of what you're actually seeing on screen," Kosinski said. "It's all in-camera, it's Tom Cruise at 550 knots, going 30 feet above ground through the Toiyabe [Canyon] low-level training grounds. That's a real 'Top Gun' training thing, but they never fly as low as he does."
Thankfully, the scene was shot in one take, because after they landed, Kosinski says Walleye told him he'd never do that stunt again. As for Cruise, "he would have done it 100 more times!" Kosinski said laughing. "In fact, I smile because when I watch that sequence, he's wincing through the Gs, but I know under the mask he's smiling for most of it, because he's having the time of his life."
I am, generally speaking, a horror fan, but this year for Halloween I've niched down on a particular topic and it has sort of accidentally taken me away from horror. Hm. Too late now! Plus, witches are totally Halloween fodder - and they're one of my key trends for games at the moment. Video games are lousy with both current and upcoming witches these days.
It makes sense. They've already got brilliant marketing. Few Halloween-y sights are more iconic than a pointy hat, a black cat, and a sihouetted figure flying in front of the moon on a broomstick. The witches I've collected here are definitely going to get you in the pumpkin spirit, even if they manage to run through most other genres except horror... Look, Halloween is mostly about sweets and dressing up these days anyway (and by the way, I am livid that I've not got any parties to go to this year, because my hair is exactly the right length to do a perfect Carmy Berzatto costume).
Regular viewers of Adult Swim probably know animator Lee Hardcastle from his work on those 15-second skits that often play between commercials. Those segments, called "The Non-Canonical Adventures of Rick and Morty," are wonderful, slightly-unsettling treats for "Rick and Morty" fans, throwing the show's characters into quick movie parodies in a delightfully eerie claymation style. If you don't know Hardcastle from that, you may have been introduced to him through his work on "The ABCs of Death," or his "Simpsons couch gag" shorts. They're violent and often horrifying, but so well-done that you can't help but keep watching.
His latest project was released on Adult Swim at midnight last night: "Summer's Sleepover," a spooky 10-minute short about a sleepover gone horribly wrong. Hardcastle was nice enough to speak to us about his work on the special and his animation career in general.
'It Felt Very Strange Because I'm So Used To Being Scrutinized'
So the first time I saw your work was "The Simpsons" couch gag spoof, which I really loved. What are some key differences with the way you approach working on "The Simpsons" compared to "Rick and Morty?"
The Simpson videos are kind of like exercises. They're just ways for me to flex my creativity and not feel the pressure of trying to produce anything for anyone, but rather to just have a bit of fun and "stick it onto YouTube" sort of thing. And with the "Rick and Morty" thing, the difference with that is that I got approached and asked to do this "Rick and Morty" short film. And then I was suddenly in this different situation, this pressure of trying to produce something that it's like, not only do you want to be creative, but you want to actually produce something that people would like to see. I mean, it's a different kind of situation.
What was the extent of your interaction with the "Rick and Morty" show writers?
Oh, it was nothing. I had none, no interaction. Yeah, it was very strange, a very strange process, in a way that there wasn't very much feedback. They just sort of checked in every now and again, just had a look at what I was doing, read my scripts. And yeah, there wasn't much friction. I just did it. It felt very strange because I'm so used to being scrutinized, just so used to being told to do things differently, and there was none of that.
A lot of freedom with the creative process?
Yeah, too much freedom.
So clay animation is kind of well-known for being time intensive. How long did this short take you?
All in all, I think it was about a four-month project. I think there was about a month of that just sort of developing it and writing the script and storyboarding it. And then there must have been another month for that, which was post-production, and then two months of just building sets and animating and that sort of stuff. I think it was like three or four months.
How does that compare to some of your other projects?
It was a bit longer than what I'm used to doing. My other projects are usually two to five minutes long, like music videos. I'm used to just getting those projects done and then moving on to the next one. But this bigger one, there's just a lot more to think about. Takes a lot more energy, a lot more navigation. Yeah, it is completely different to the shortest stuff that you make.
'There Was Going To Be Some Sort Of Virus That Got Out Of Rick's Lab'
So your special is mostly focused on Summer as opposed to Rick or Morty or the other family members. What inspired you to go in that direction with the special?
When I was approached by Adult Swim to make the short film, they asked me if I'd be interested in making a short film. And I was like, "Yeah." And they said the previous three that they'd made were focused on Rick and Morty, so they'd like to do one that focused on some of the other characters. So I very quickly just come up in my head, "Summer."
I just thought of Summer having a sleepover and having Summer's friends there, and trying to find a scenario to let bad things happen. That was my initial sort of go-to starting point. And from that, that's where it just went from. I didn't explore any of the other people, really. You know when you just think of something, you go, "Oh, Summer sleepover? Yeah. Yeah, we'll go with that."
What was the inspiration behind the villain?
Yeah, I really don't know. It was a very, very sort of developing process when it came to that. Initially, the idea was that there was going to be some sort of contamination break. There was going to be some sort of virus that got out of Rick's lab. I was going down this path of ideas in my head where a pizza man would turn up and then the pizza man would get infected and then it escalates. I was thinking about these situations where things escalate, starting from something very small.
And from that, I developed like, "Oh, well, I'll have maybe this little cute creature." It was a very unoriginal idea, but I was rolling with it. And you've got "Gremlins" and the Mogwai. And I looked for character design for the creature as well. I was looking at the Mogwai from "Gremlins" and looking at its big eyes and its big ears and stuff like that. One of the things that I find funny about "Rick and Morty" is how they do these rip-offs and stuff. They've got "Hellraiser" and Freddy Krueger, but the way that they change the characters, they do it in such a ridiculous way to avoid the copyright situation.
That's what I tried to do with that. I was trying to make a ridiculous Mogwai and just got rid of his ears and introduced that little wavy thing on top of his head. Yeah, it was a sort of wonky process of development that was involved in that creature. It was like that.
Yeah, I thought it was funny how it's like on the show, Rick always has a cute alien who seems harmless, and then it just spirals out of his control so quickly.
Yeah. I mean, it just felt like such a safe idea. Yeah, very sort of typical situation.
'I Wanted To Make Something That Rick And Morty Fans Would Enjoy'
What would you say was the most challenging part of this project?
I suppose the most challenging aspect was that I was more concerned about delivering a video that people wanted. I didn't want to just make some wacky old off-the-wall stuff. I wanted to make something that "Rick and Morty" fans would enjoy. I wanted to be very safe about it.
Yeah, because I was feeling like I was making something for this audience. I was feeling not Lee Hardcastle anymore. I was feeling like I was being hired to do something. That was the most challenging aspect of it, I guess, was just that pressure of wanting to deliver something that would be accepted in the "Rick and Morty" universe. It's a bit of a strange thing to be asked to write a story that fits in with the world of something that already exists and in such capacity. Everyone seems so familiar with everything that's going on in "Rick and Morty." I understand what that sort of fandom is like. It's very delicate, isn't it? You don't want to upset anyone with the wrong details and that sort of thing.
Well, I think you've succeeded. I really enjoyed the special, especially as a fan of the show.
Oh, brilliant, mate. Not many people have seen it, not many people have given me any feedback, really. I'm dying to see what people think. I'm dying to see what the response is. I can't wait.
So, you have a bunch of short parody clips with "Rick and Morty" that you do for Adult Swim.
Oh yeah. The Non-Canonical Adventures. Yeah.
What's your favorite parody that you've done?
Oh, I don't think I've got a favorite. I'll try and think of the ones that I like, though. I like the "Pulp Fiction" one. I like the joke in that. I think that was really funny. Oh, the "My Neighbor Totoro." I thought that one turned out really well. And yeah, God, there's so many of those -- like 36 of them. Then the first initial ones that we did, I really enjoy. I was really quite proud of them. We did the "Re-Animator" and "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids." Yeah. I don't have a favorite, though.
So, just one more question before we go. I noticed the Rick and Morty pinball machine behind you. Is that a gift from the show, or did you buy that yourself?
I bought it myself.
Looks cool.
I was able to afford it because I did this short film. Yeah, it was a bit of a recent project, so I got it a couple of months ago. A friend of a friend was selling it, and it's a bit of a rare opportunity to be able to buy one. And just because the opportunity came up, it just felt like the right thing to do. I was like, "Yeah, let's get a 'Rick and Morty' pinball machine. Definitely."
"Summer's Sleepover" is currently streaming on HBO Max. You can find many of Lee Hardcastle's projects free to watch on his YouTube page.
"Today, tools like drones, digital recorders, and artificial intelligence are helping us listen to the sounds of nature in unprecedented ways," writes Vox, citing Karen Bakker, author of the new book Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants.
But how far will this lead?
Automated listening posts have been set up in ecosystems around the planet, from rainforests to the depths of the ocean, and miniaturization has allowed scientists to stick microphones onto animals as small as honeybees. "Combined, these digital devices function like a planetary-scale hearing aid: enabling humans to observe and study nature's sounds beyond the limits of our sensory capabilities," Bakker writes.
All those devices create a ton of data, which would be impossible to go through manually. So researchers in the fields of bioacoustics (which studies sounds made by living organisms) and ecoacoustics (which studies the sounds made by entire ecosystems) are turning to artificial intelligence to sift through the piles of recordings, finding patterns that might help us understand what animals are saying to each other. There are now databases of whale songs and honeybee dances, among others, that Bakker writes could one day turn into "a zoological version of Google Translate."
In an interview with Vox, the author points out that already "We can use artificial intelligence-enabled robots to speak animal languages and essentially breach the barrier of interspecies communication. Researchers are doing this in a very rudimentary way with honeybees and dolphins and to some extent with elephants.
"Now, this raises a very serious ethical question..."
I'll give you one example. A research team in Germany encoded honeybee signals into a robot that they sent into a hive. That robot is able to use the honeybees' waggle dance communication to tell the honeybees to stop moving, and it's able to tell those honeybees where to fly to for a specific nectar source. The next stage in this research is to implant these robots into honeybee hives so the hives accept these robots as members of their community from birth. And then we would have an unprecedented degree of control over the hive; we'll have essentially domesticated that hive in a way we've never done so before. This creates the possibility of exploitive use of animals. And there's a long history of the military use of animals, so that's one path that I think raises a lot of alarm bells.
Luis Llosa's 1997 creature feature "Anaconda" is one of those rare films that many people saw, but that few people love. Unapologetically reminiscent of monster movies from the 1950s, "Anaconda" was snarfed at by the general public, earning generally negative reviews (it currently holds a 40% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and netting 11 Razzie nominations. It won none of its Razzies, "losing" to films like "The Postman" and "Batman & Robin." One may interpret the losses as a compliment or an insult. Despite the sour reception, "Anaconda" -- which starred Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Danny Trejo, Eric Stoltz, Owen Wilson, and Jon Voight -- earned a massive $136 million on a mere $45 million budget. It was followed by four sequels, including a "Lake Placid" crossover film wherein the titular snake did battle with a giant crocodile.
The premise of "Anaconda" is about as complex as a cheap animal attack movie might warrant, and bears a few nods to Ruggero Deodato's 1980 gore classic "Cannibal Holocaust." A documentary film crew treks deep into the Amazon to capture a remote, undiscovered (fictional) local tribe called the Shirishamas. On their trip, the crew runs into a Paraguayan snake hunter named Paul (Voight) who has been searching for a 25-foot-long green anaconda. The audience is given a few interesting snake facts that will be pertinent later in the film, notably that anacondas have been known to regurgitate their most recent meal just so it can enjoy the pleasure of eating a second time. This is a comforting assurance to audiences that one character will certainly be swallowed alive and then barfed back up. In that regard "Anaconda" does not disappoint.
My Anaconda Don't
Snake facts! The titular constrictor in "Anaconda" was based on a real South American snake which is the largest found on the continent. In real life, they can grow to be about 15 feet in length, although in 2000 -- after the release of Llosa's film -- Dr. Jesús Antonio Rivas found an anaconda that was 30 feet long and weighed 551 pounds. Anacondas are not venomous.
Set up in 1997, the awesomely rudimentary website Film Scouts detailed the production of "Anaconda," and found that the effects required to visualize a 25-foot snake were difficult to achieve. In some of the longer shots, the snake was animated using CGI, but for closeups, a life-size animatronic snake had to be built. The film's monster builder was Walt Conti who had previously worked on the animatronic animals in "Free Willy" and "Flipper." The main concern with "Anaconda" was that their fake snake had to be able to operate underwater, as there were several scenes of the animal swimming and poking its head through a waterfall.
The animatronic impressed the cast, with Lopez saying "It was scary being in the scene with it, I'd begin to believe it could actually kill me. It looked so real and sometimes it seemed to move by itself." And Stoltz joked that the snake was a prima donna that wouldn't leave its trailer.
Conti's concerns were accurate movements, and creating a realistic, life-size, robotic snake took a lot of study and electronic tools to achieve.
Reticulated, Articulated
Of the snake, Conti said he needed to recreate certain snake-like movements to assure that the monster would be convincing, but also scary for a monster movie. Notably, the snake had to be fast as a slow snake wouldn't startle the characters or audiences. He said:
"We basically tried to replicate a real snake ... We tried to give it as many joints as a real snake, figuring that if we gave it enough degrees of movement, we could emulate a snake's moves. We also tried to create a very smooth, undulating motion, but to serve the story we had to be able to do some movements very fast. The suspense and eeriness of the snake comes from its unpredictable nature. You don't know when it is going to strike. So, the snake had to be decisive and quick."
Conti explains that in order to achieve those movements, the animatronic needed 100 separate joints in its body, along with an articulated jaw, eyeballs, and tongue. It was operated by ten puppeteers, each one helming a different part of the snake's body. The general undulating movements Conti mentioned were driven by a pre-programmed computer. When it came to the fast head movements, Conti piloted the snake himself. Conti mentioned that he was particularly proud of the inside of his creature's mouth. "If you're trying to scare someone, the inside of the snake's mouth is a really important thing," he said.
Production wasn't always smooth, however. In a twist that would have made a great horror movie premise in itself, the snake once malfunctioned and began moving on its own.
The Surly Serpent
Two snakes were built for "Anaconda." A 25-foot version, and a 40-foot version for close-ups. The larger snake weighed over a ton. Actor Ice Cube recalls the time when the robot animal attacked, saying:
"There was this power surge and for a minute, they didn't have control of this thing, which was like 2,000 pounds of momentum, moving like a real snake. It was like fantasy and reality merging. This snake is the best animatronic thing I've ever seen in my life."
The film's executive producer, Susan Ruskin noted that the moment the snake freaked out was like watching a monster having a seizure. Cameras immediately stopped rolling when the crew realized that the snake was out of their control, and they shut it down immediately. Luckily for audiences, however, a portion of the "freak out" was captured on camera and made its way into the final cut of the movie. Keen-eyed viewers might be able to catch the moment when the serpentine thrashing got a little too dramatic.
"Anaconda" is currently available on Tubi, Roku, and Hulu. In 2020, it was announced that a remake of "Anaconda" was in the works, but nothing has yet come to fruition.
Tom Shadyac's 1994 hit film "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" starring Jim Carrey has, in 2022, been the subject of a deep re-litigation. Upon its release, audiences reacted with the utmost enthusiasm to Carrey's over-the-top-and-then-some shenanigans, laughing heartily at the actor's boundless energy and aggressive strangeness. Even the premise was odd: Ace Ventura was a private investigator who only took cases involving pets and animals. His plum gig comes when the Miami Dolphins hire him to find their kidnapped mascot, a dolphin named Snowflake.
What made the film worthy of reconsideration was a staggeringly transphobic twist that mocked and derided one of the film's main characters for comedic purposes. The climax of "Ace Ventura" saw a trans woman (Sean Young) stripped down to her underwear in front of dozens of cops as evidence of her guilt in the case. Her exposure was accompanied by having the surrounding crowd spitting and rubbing their tongues in disgust; it seems she had kissed them all at some point and their gay panic immediately kicked in. The film also include an unfortunate helping of slut-shaming as well. It's a gross, gross ending to an otherwise "wacky" comedy.
Prior to "Ace Ventura," Jim Carrey was known primarily for his standup comedy and for his work on the popular sketch comedy series "In Living Color," itself a cultural juggernaut. Then 1994 saw Carrey starring in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," the cartoonish comic book movie "The Mask," and the farce "Dumb and Dumber." All three were massive hits, and the Canadian comedian immediately leapt to the top of the Hollywood firmament. Afterward, 1995 saw Carrey opening a "Batman" sequel, and in 1996, he would be commanding a $20 million salary (unheard of at the time) for his work on Ben Stiller's "The Cable Guy."
Carrey's Meteoric Rise
Jim Carrey had actually been working in show business for over a decade prior to his trio of big breaks in 1994. In addition to "In Living Color," he headlined a 1984 Canadian sitcom called "The Duck Factory," appeared in the feature film "Peggy Sue Got Married," the vampire sex comedy "Once Bitten," the Dirty Harry sequel "The Dead Pool" (playing an Axl Rose-style rock star), and the glorious Julie Brown-scripted "Earth Girls are Easy," based on her hot novelty song. As the old showbiz axiom goes, it took years for him to become an overnight sensation.
In a 2019 retrospective in The Ringer, the making of "Ace Ventura" was laid out in detail. Carrey, it seems, owes a lot to another famous Canadian comedian for clearing the way for his "Ace Ventura" opportunities: Rick Moranis, star of "SCTV," "Strange Brew," "Streets of Fire," "Spaceballs," and "Little Shop of Horrors."
James G. Robinson, then the head of Morgan Creek Studios, knew he wanted a vehicle for an "untamed" comedian. Moranis was his first choice. When he turned the part down, they tapped Carrey as their second choice. In a 1994 issue of the Los Angeles Times, Carrey said:
"The character had to be rock 'n' roll. He had to be the 007 of pet detectives. I wanted to be unstoppably ridiculous, and they let me go wild."
Wild indeed. It's a physical performance for the ages. Whether or not Moranis would have been able to bring a similar manic energy, one can only speculate.
"Ace Ventura" cost $15 million to make and ended up earning $72 million. The film had two sequels and an animated series. In 2022, Carrey starred in "Sonic the Hedgehog 2."
Mary Harron's 2000 film "American Psycho," based on the notorious novel by Bret Easton Ellis, is not just one of the scarier films of its decade, but also may have proven to be one of its more important. Focusing on a handsome, callow, posturing ultra-yuppie named Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), "American Psycho" explores the depths of emptiness and the pathetic longing for depravity in the heart of America's wealthy. This is a world where exercise and skincare are more important than thought, where sex is to be had while admiring one's self in a mirror, and apocalyptic jealousies can arise over the slight differences in 29-year-old plain white males' plain white business cards. Bateman only seems to have two emotions: narcissism and disgust. When another human being stands in the way of his gross, everyday ambitions toward shallowness, he will murder them without compunction. Most of his targets are women and sex workers, but he also kills a homeless man as well as a co-worker (Jared Leto) who looks kinda like him.
He isn't human. And he's the perfect avatar for unsophisticated Reagan-era ambition and petty wealth worship. It's notable to look at a one-time yuppie lord like Donald Trump -- namechecked in the film -- and see that he is 100% from this world. Harron sees the ultra-male world of '80s stock traders and sees a pitiful clubhouse full of idiot boys having pissing contests.
The original Ellis book was published in 1991, right at the tail end of yuppie ascendency, and was noted at the time for its extreme violence and potential for ending the author's career. Similar concerns arose around the film, and Bale, in a recent video interview with GQ, recalls how he was once threatened for his association with the project.
The Criticism
The book of "American Psycho" was largely lambasted at the time, with some critics feeling that it was an endorsement of the violence inside. Feminist icon and essayist Gloria Steinem was quoted in the Los Angeles Times in 1990 as feeling its sexist attitudes and depictions of harm inflicted on women to be outwardly misogynist. When it came time to adapt the book to screen, Harron and her co-screenwriter Guinevere Turner (an actress known for "Go Fish" and "The Watermelon Woman") left the violence intact, but most assuredly did not once depict Patrick Bateman as sympathetic, or even human.
That didn't prevent some people from wholly objecting to the film being made. In the GQ interview, Bale reveals that he was threatened for taking part.:
"I remember somebody threatening me on the street because some people did object to the film getting made and all that. And I remember people saying they were gonna do me harm and stuff like that, you know? And I would actually go, like -- I remember somebody warned me, must have been a friend of mine who was crazy early on the internet."
Bale brushed off the threat at the time. The phenomenon of internet threats, tactical bullying, and doxxing hadn't yet made their way into the medium's lexicon. Thanks to advances in technology, harassing actors has now become disappointingly easy. In 1999, during the filming of "Psycho," such threats were seen as potentially harmless and risible. Bale was so resolute, in fact, that he tempted fate a little bit.
'I'm Going To That Alley.'
Bale wasn't on the internet yet -- this was 1999, the days of dial-up -- so it took a friend to go scouring for threats. As Bale discovered, one plaintiff in particular even claimed that he wanted to hurt the actor. The actor responded to one particular threat by essentially calling their bluff. When someone actually revealed details of his personal life and claimed that he would meet Bale in public to do terrible things to his brain, Bale was more curious than frightened. Possessed of bluster, Bale wanted to confront the guy. He said:
"[My friend said] 'There's some person, and they know where you walk every single day and you go down this back alley and they say that they're gonna jump on you and they're gonna rip your cerebral cortex out of your head. So please don't go down that alley.' So of course I was like, I'm going to that alley, I wanna see what happens. Unfortunately, nothing. I kept walking up and down it going, 'Where are they?' Come on, what's ... [laughter]? But nothing ever happened."
Bale, to this day, remains unharmed, other than the extreme diets he may put himself on for films like "American Hustle" or "Rescue Dawn," or box office harm he experiencing from notorious bombs like the recent "Amsterdam." Regardless, he remains one of the better, more interesting actors of his generation, and continues to make fascinating choices. May he continue ever to skirt controversy.
As first revealed back in May 2022, former "Doctor Who" star David Tennant is returning to the seminal sci-fi series alongside his former companion Catherine Tate as Donna Noble as part of the show's 60th anniversary. Whovians got their first glimpse of the returning Doctor in the recent special that marked the end of Jodie Whitaker's time in the TARDIS. However, Tennant's appearance in "The Power of the Doctor" wasn't exactly under the circumstances that Whovians expected to see the Tenth Doctor again. Well, I guess it's actually the Fourteenth Doctor now!
In the episode, due to reasoning that doesn't exactly make sense, the Thirteenth Doctor is forced to regenerate into the Master. During this time, when Sacha Dhawan's mad Time Lord is in control of The Doctor's body, she meets a mysterious figure in what is essentially the Ancestral Plane. Dubbed the Guardians of the Edge of Existence, this being inside The Doctor's consciousness can change their appearance to resemble her past regenerations -- specifically the first (David Bradley), fifth (Peter Davison), sixth (Colin Baker), seventh (Sylvester McCoy), and eighth (Paul McGann). They tell the latest incarnation of the Doctor that a Time Lord's body is still unstable following a regeneration, but especially after a forced one, so time is running out to take back their body.
The Doctor eventually regains her body thanks to Yaz, but is mortally wounded in her final confrontation with the Master. After one last ice cream cone with her closest companion from this era of the show, the Doctor's time has come to actually regenerate. And when she does, she emerges with the familiar teeth of Tennant's Doctor.
But how is that even possible? Some clues from some the past decades of the series might offer a bit of an explanation.
Once Upon A Time
Chris Chibnall's run on "Doctor Who" was largely met with a mixed response, but the former showrunner certainly had some big ideas with lots of potential. One thing that he addressed was the Doctor's ability to regenerate past the Time Lords' maximum regenerations of twelve.
By the time Chibnall boarded Team TARDIS, we had already learned of the existence of the War Doctor (John Hurt) and how each number after him from the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) onward was technically off count, which means Nine was actually the character's tenth regeneration, Ten was the eleventh regeneration, and so on. With Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor actually being the thirteenth incarnation of the character, the adventurer from Gallifrey should have died rather than regenerating into Jodie Whitaker's Thirteenth Doctor.
But as we learned from the season 12 episode "The Timeless Children," the Doctor actually isn't the Time Lord from Gallifrey that they believed themselves to be. They were discovered near a boundary to another dimension by Tecteun, a Shobogan traveller and scientist who became one of the first inhabitants of Gallifrey. Once she learned of the Timeless Child's ability to regenerate, Tecteun extracted DNA from the child and was able to splice it into her own body and her Shobogan companions so that they could regenerate as well -- but only up to twelve times.
On top of the revelation that the Doctor is the biological foundation of the Time Lord society, we also learned that a clandestine organization called the Division enlisted their services as they got older, then erased any memory of their missions. Basically, that would all explain the existence of the Fugitive Doctor (Jo Martin) and another incarnation we previously met with an affinity for art.
Twice Upon A Time
The Doctor having the ability to regenerate more than twelve times is a topic that has been explored in the past, but mostly in talking about the future. During the show's 50th anniversary special, titled "The Day of the Doctor," Steven Moffat introduced the Curator, a mysterious figure who resides in the Under Gallery and resembles the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker).
It's implied that the Doctor becomes this character when he retires from his adventuring ways and decides to become "a humble curator" for an art gallery. While speaking to the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) at the end of the episode, the Curator explains that he looks familiar because the Doctor never forgets a face and decides to revisit a few in the years to come, "but just the old favorites." So with this in mind, there is a precedent for a Doctor's regeneration to bring back an old look, even though Whovians didn't expect it to happen in the timeline for a good while.
Time For Another Familiar Face
Of course, David Tennant isn't the only familiar face returning for the upcoming anniversary special. Former companion Donna Noble will be making an appearance as well, but no one knows how that's even possible (except returning showrunner Russell T. Davies).
When we last saw Donna, the former temp worker from Chiswick was imbued with the totality of the Doctor's knowledge accumulated over the course of his long, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey life. Since her human brain can't handle all of that information (despite using it to defeat Davros in the season 4 finale, "Journey's End"), the Doctor erases Donna's memory of him and all their adventures together against her will in order to save her life. If she does remember, the results could be fatal for her. We get a glimpse of this in the final episode of the Tenth Doctor's run when the "DoctorDonna" nearly regains her memories and a failsafe installed by the Doctor is triggered and knocks her out with a telepathic pulse.
When it comes to Donna's return, there's not a lot of information available. There's some speculation that "Heartstopper" actor Yasmin Finney's Rose is actually Donna and Shaun's daughter, but there's no confirmation on that rumor. If that is the case, then maybe Donna actually has retained some flicker of her time with the Doctor deep down in her memory. Or maybe Russell T. Davies just loves having a Rose in the TARDIS. Either way, Donna's presence alongside the Fourteenth Doctor cannot be a coincidence. And there's one more fan theory that may explain it.
Play Time
Based on Davies' warning of "Doctor beware!" after the casting, fans assumed that Neil Patrick Harris is playing a villain when he appears on "Doctor Who" next year. The showrunner confirmed this theory when he called NPH's character (via Den of Geek) "the greatest enemy the Doctor has ever faced." While that tagline could apply to a number of foes in the show's rogues gallery, if we're going by looks alone, the actor looks like an old-timey toymaker in some of the photos shared since the initial announcement. But what if he wasn't just any toymaker?
Originally a thorn in the First Doctor's side, the Celestial Toymaker was essentially a mix of John de Lancie's Q from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and Marvel's Arcade. The villain -- who was played by Michael Gough (whom many may recognize as Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred, from a number of Batman movies) in a mostly missing serial from the third season of the Classic Who era -- is an all-powerful immortal entity that takes joy in toying with his victims. Literally. He would bring people into his Celestial Toybox and force them to take part in his twisted games that were often impossible to win.
But are we really suggesting that Harris is playing this role just because he looks like a literal toymaker? Of course not! If he was in fact playing this classic character, then that could explain the return of Donna. It's possible that the Fourteenth Doctor finds himself in the Toymaker's clutches and the antagonist plucks Donna from the Doctor's memories to mess with our unknowing hero's head. The trauma associated with their adventures is surely enough to throw the Doctor off his game during his latest round with the Celestial Toymaker. Weirder things have happened on this show.
Unprecedented Times
Speaking of weird things happening on "Doctor Who," one of the more unusual occurrences in "The Power of the Doctor" was the Doctor's clothes regenerating along with their "new" face. As far as I can tell, that's never happened before in the series' long history. Even earlier in the episode when the Doctor is forced to regenerate by the Master, he emerges from the process wearing the Thirteenth Doctor's clothes. But during the regeneration at the end of the episode, the Fourteenth Doctor ends up in a variation of the Tenth Doctor's trademark attire of a trench coat over a suit.
At first, I thought that this could have been the Celestial Toymaker's doing as well. Maybe he made it look like the Doctor reverted to an "old favorite" just to mess with him. But then when Russell T. Davies and the rest of the official "Doctor Who" channels started referring to Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor, that somewhat ruled out that possibility.
More likely, this has to do with the botched forced regeneration. There's really no good explanation why, since this is uncharted territory, but that has to factor in somehow, right? Either that or the device that the Master shot the Doctor with during the final moments of their battle affected the impending regeneration. Either way, Chibnall really left a lot on the table when it comes to regenerations, so hopefully RTD picks up on some of those loose threads and addresses them with either the Fourteenth Doctor or Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor, because some kind of explanation would be nice.
Unfortunately, we'll have to wait a while for those answers. Keep coming up with your thoughts and theories because "Doctor Who" returns in November 2023 on Disney+.
This week we're still swimming in games as we talk LEGO: Brick Tales, more Modern Warfare 2, more Modern Warfare 2, Bayonetta 3, Endoparasitic, and plenty more other things too! This week's music: Crosses - Vivien
Among the great movie villains -- the likes of Biff Tannen, Hans Gruber, Nurse Ratched, your odd slasher icon -- Carter J. Burke of "Aliens" is not the most intimidating, but certainly one of the slimiest. Played by Paul Reiser (recently seen in "Stranger Things"), Burke is the weasel-esque company man representing the interests of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Those who have seen Ridley Scott's 1979 predecessor "Alien" know the company to be ruthless; Special Order 937 seen in the film sets the highest priority on bringing the organism of the title back for analysis, while the crew battling the creature was deemed "expendable." Not much has changed in "Aliens," which sees the company send in Colonial Marines along with "Alien" survivor Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) to an exoplanet where a terraforming colony has lost contact.
With screen credits such as "Diner" and the first "Beverly Hills Cop" movie to his name by 1986, Reiser was optimistic that James Cameron's sequel was going to be a success. He told CBR:
That was a rare case where I felt confident going in. I went, "This is a huge movie." I had seen 'Terminator,' and I knew James Cameron's genius. I read the script, and I haven't had this experience since, where you are out of breath reading a paper. "Ohhhh...." It was written almost comic book style, with very short sentences and, "BAM," "SLAM,' and written-out sound effects. I was reading it going, "This is unbelievable, and Sigourney Weaver... She's great. 'Alien,' I loved the first movie." That was not a risk. The risk was on their part, letting the likes of me come into the pool.
'I Work For The Company. But Don't Let That Fool You, I'm Really An Okay Guy.'
Burke, you may recall, introduces himself to Ripley as an employee of Weyland-Yutani, and jokes with her not to hold that against him. What can be held against him is the way he conducts himself for the rest of the movie; it starts with arguing for the "substantial dollar value" of company property over human lives, progresses to intentionally endangering human lives, and ends with some brief but satisfying comeuppance for his callousness. Reiser recalls the gravity of his casting to CBR:
My goal was, "If the movie doesn't come to a grinding halt when you come on screen, it's a victory." When I watched it, I went, "Nobody's throwing stuff, or, if they are, it's because they hated my character." I knew it was great, and when I saw it, I was just blown away. "Oh my gosh. I can't believe I am in something this good." That's the other thing I found out in these conventions is how many people watch it still. It influenced so many movies. So many movies stood on its shoulders. People will still throw that at me. "Oh boy, you seem like a nice guy, but boy, I hated you. You were just a bad guy." "You say bad guy... I say misunderstood."
It's routine for actors to find something relatable in the characters they play, even the sleazy ones, so interpreting Burke as "misunderstood" makes some sense. But don't let the bright blue eyes fool you; Burke would be right at home busting up a labor union if he had been a company suit today.
Geralt of Rivia is dead. Long live Geralt of Rivia
If you've been on social media at all in the past few days or managed to make it through the entirety of Black Adam, you've probably heard that Henry Cavill is once again suiting up as the Man of Steel. Whether or not his return to the DC Extended Universe will finally help Warner Bros. get that disaster train back on track remains to be seen. What we do know is that Cavill will be walking away from the role that's kept him busy in the years since he had to have his mustache digitally removed in post-production. It was announced today that Cavill is stepping down as Geralt of Rivia in the hit Netflix adaptation of The Witcher.
As you can see in the tweet above, Cavill will be replaced in season 4 by Robert California Liam Hemsworth. The second-tier Hemsworth is probably best known for his role as Gale Hawthrone in the Hunger Games films and, like many of his fellow Aussies, a brief stint on the soap opera Neighbours. He also did a show for Quibi. Raise your hand if you remember Quibi.
While Cavill is leaving the Netflix series behind, fans will still be able to see him as Geralt when The Witcher's third season debuts sometime next year. If you're like me and just subscribed to Netflix for the first time in six years a few days ago, know there is a lot of Witcher content to consume on the streamer, including the animated film The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf and The Witcher: Blood Origin, a prequel series that'll debut in December (fingers crossed it's better than that dreary House of the Dragon). In addition to all that, a second animated film has also been commissioned and there is apparently a family-friendly spin-off in the works.
The mission of NASA's robotic lander InSight "is nearing an end as dust obscures its solar panels," reports CNN. "In a matter of weeks, the lander won't be able to send a beep to show it's OK anymore."
"Before it bids farewell, though, the spacecraft still has some surprises in store."
When Mars rumbled beneath InSight's feet on December 24, NASA scientists thought it was just another marsquake. The magnitude 4 quake was actually caused by a space rock slamming into the Martian surface a couple thousand miles away. The meteoroid left quite a crater on the red planet, and it revealed glimmering chunks of ice in an entirely unexpected place — near the warm Martian equator.
The chunks of ice — the size of boulders — "were found buried closer to the warm Martian equator than any ice that has ever been detected on the planet," CNN explained earlier this week. The article also adds that ice below the surface of Mars "could be used for drinking water, rocket propellant and even growing crops and plants by future astronauts. And the fact that the ice was found so near the equator, the warmest region on Mars, might make it an ideal place to land crewed missions to the red planet."
Interestingly, they note that scientists only realized it was a meteoroid strike (and not an earthquake) when "Before and after photos captured from above by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling Mars since 2006, spotted a new crater this past February." A crater that was 492 feet (150 meters) across and 70 feet (21 meters) deep...
When scientists connected the dots from both missions, they realized it was one of the largest meteoroid strikes on Mars since NASA began studying the red planet.... The journal Science published two new studies describing the impact and its effects on Thursday....
"The image of the impact was unlike any I had seen before, with the massive crater, the exposed ice, and the dramatic blast zone preserved in the Martian dust," said Liliya Posiolova, orbital science operations lead for the orbiter at Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, in a statement....
Researchers estimated the meteoroid, the name for a space rock before it hits the ground, was about 16 to 39 feet (5 to 12 meters). While this would have been small enough to burn up in Earth's atmosphere, the same can't be said for Mars, which has a thin atmosphere only 1% as dense as Earth's.... Some of the material blasted out of the crater landed as far as 23 miles (37 kilometers) away.
Teams at NASA also captured sound from the impact, so you can listen to what it sounds like when a space rock hits Mars. The images captured by the orbiter, along with seismic data recorded by InSight, make the impact one of the largest craters in our solar system ever observed as it was created.
