It's hard to think of now after many huge, epic movies from Quentin Tarantino, but "Kill Bill" was a wild swing for the writer-director at that time in his career. He was known mostly as the guy who could write great dialogue, and most of his work up until "Kill Bill" was more about people sitting down and talking with each other and less about visual spectacle. 

But Tarantino wanted to put his mark on all of his favorite sub-genres and decided to put revenge movies, kung fu movies, Westerns, and grindhouse into a blender, and out came "Kill Bill." This project went through a lot of changes before he rolled film. Famously, Warren Beatty was set to play Bill, and when he fell out they scrambled and got David Carradine in, who is a much different screen presence than the charismatic playboy originally set to fill those boots. 

Tarantino reworked the script to fit Carradine's talents and some stuff was lost, but the biggest thing that never made it from script to screen was a whole chapter devoted to Gogo Yubari's (Chiaki Kuriyama) revenge-seeking sister, Yuki, tracking down The Bride in Los Angeles shortly after the confrontation with Vernita Green. According to Tarantino, the reason he made that preemptive cut was because of "Apocalypse Now: Redux." 

Bad Pacing ... The Horror ... The Horror...

For cinephiles, the extra footage from "Apocalypse Now" took on a bit of a mythic quality, so when Francis Ford Coppola assembled the "Redux" cut and reintegrated the French Plantation sequence that had been cut from the theatrical edit, people were insanely curious about it. It's a sequence that kind of stops the story cold for a bit as our crew pauses on their quest to find Marlon Brando's renegade Colonel Kurtz. This sequence is lush and beautifully shot and features some fantastic performances, but pacing-wise it kills the film's momentum. There's a reason it was cut out of the theatrical release.

Tarantino cites this as the main instigator for his cutting the "Yuki's Revenge" chapter out of "Kill Bill," which was supposed to be this epic gun battle between The Bride and Yuki. He still stands by the writing and would love to adapt this sequence, possibly as an anime in much the same way we get Lucy Liu's O-Ren Ishii backstory in "Kill Bill," but after viewing "Apocalypse Now: Redux," he knew the chapter would completely derail the story's pacing.

"I'm watching and I go, 'I'm dealing with a three and a half-hour movie. Yuki's revenge is going to be the first to go. I'm going to kill myself shooting it, it's going to cost $1 million and it's going to be the first thing to go, so I can't do it.'"

So now "Yuki's Revenge" remains a cinephile curiosity, in much the same way the French Plantation scene in "Apocalypse Now" was before it. Perhaps some day Tarantino will revisit this chapter, especially if he ever follows through on his hints about doing a "Kill Bill Vol. 3." But for now, it is a fascinating "what if." 

Read this next: The 15 Most Influential VFX Artists In Movie History

The post Apocalypse Now: Redux Made Quentin Tarantino Reconsider An Entire Chapter Of Kill Bill appeared first on /Film.

Brett Gelman can do it all — he plays the obnoxious, alcoholic, abusive husband to Claire on "Fleabag," and he's a fun action hero on "Stranger Things." The actor-comedian is best known for his role on the big-budgeted Netflix sci-fi series, where he plays Murray Bauman, a former journalist-turned-translator who serves as a reliable source to the main cast, always ready to take down the bad guys. His knowledge is invaluable, and though he might appear to be a little quirky and creepy, his character was pivotal during the fourth season of "Stranger Things," where he partnered up with Joyce (Winona Ryder) to help save Hopper (David Harbour) from a Russian prison.

Gelman's character was quite the badass in season 4 — the actor worked with a language coach to perfect his Russian accent and trained with taekwondo masters for months. Murray fights his fair share of Upside Down creatures, particularly demogorgons in the prison cells — and with a flamethrower at that. He couldn't get any cooler. The action scenes required Gelman to get in shape — which led him to believe that he didn't always have to play the part of an antagonist. He could be a fun action star too.

Gelman Is As Cool As His Character

"Stranger Things" fans have mixed feelings about Murray — he sometimes makes questionable decisions but always has a finger on what's going on. He can be reliable when his friends need him. Gelman's character is fluent in Russian and a master of karate, which required the actor to undergo training for the show's action sequences and work with a coach to perfect his Russian speaking.

As an actor, Gelman always saw himself playing a villain — but "Stranger Things" is making him feel differently. He wants to be a hero, too, and it's something he's focused on now. Here's what the actor shared in an interview with Guardian:

"I feel stronger than I've ever felt in my life ... That's a good feeling. It's a lifelong pursuit to combat that low self-esteem that gets implanted into the brain, which a lot of people in my field have. It really makes me mentally healthier than I've ever been."

When Gelman was asked if an action movie was the next big thing for him, the actor replied in the affirmative. "I want to do that," he said, adding, "I want to do that. I really do. I'm meeting with people about that."

'I Always Saw Myself As The Villain'

The "Fleabag" star further explained how "Stranger Things" had changed his perception about what he could do as an actor.

"One of the things that I love about Stranger Things is that it harkens back to a cinema that I really love. For a long time, I always saw myself as the villain. But the show really opened up the possibility of being the hero for me. I would really like to be that fun action star. It is definitely something I am focused on doing right now."

Brett Gelman has played Murray through three seasons of "Stranger Things," and the actor is sure to make a comeback in season 5. He might have helped Hopper escape from the Russian prison, but what will Murray and the gang do when the Upside Down itself begins bleeding into their world? Only time will tell.

Read this next: 12 Shows Like Stranger Things You Definitely Need To Stream

The post Stranger Things Changed The Way Brett Gelman Thinks About Himself As An Actor appeared first on /Film.

"Terrifier 2" marks the latest cinematic appearance of Art the Clown, one of the newer faces in the ever-growing canon of notable slasher villains. Art made his debut in Damien Leone's 2008 short film "The 9th Circle," followed by the 2011 short "Terrifier," later to be adapted into a 2016 feature film. Leone's 2013 anthology film "All Hallow's Eve" also featured an Art the Clown segment. Currently, "Terrifier 2" is playing in limited release and is gathering a good deal of attention for its extreme gore and scrappy can-do success in a theatrical environment typically only friendly to the biggest of blockbusters. 

Art the Clown is a creature that appears on Halloween night to wreak havoc and commit extreme acts of violence. He doesn't speak or even make noises, communicating solely through mime. Even when he laughs or screams, he is silent. At first glance, Art was clearly designed after Paul Beaumont, the clown character from Victor Seastrom's 1924 romantic tragedy "He Who Gets Slapped" starring Lon Chaney. In that film, Paul takes on a clown persona in a circus, giving himself the nickname of HE. As a clown, HE will fall in love with Consuelo (Norma Shearer), the impoverished assistant to the circus' horseback riding performer. Having already fallen in with her boss, Consuelo will rebuff HE's advances. HE will end of dying on stage after a series of mishaps involving a sword and a lion. 

Art the Clown carries with him a darkness that might be extended to the tragedies of HE, along with other notable scary or tragic clowns. Art also clearly take inspiration from "Pagliacci" the opera from the 1890s, as well as Emmett Kelley's "Weary Willie" character, and Pennywise from Stephen King's 1986 novel "It."

The Great Comedy Stars

In a recent interview with Alabama.com, Art actor David Howard Thornton -- an Alabama native -- talked about his silent film-style performance as Art, revealing that he, perhaps appropriately, took a lot of behavioral and movement cues from some of silent comedy's greatest performers. Importantly, he looked to performers who were able to communicate emotions without having to speak. Art may be a horrendous murderer, but he is a comedian first and foremost. Thornton said:

"I took a lot of inspiration from actual serial killers and horror villains, but also took a lot of inspiration from comedy legends, especially those that were great with physical comedy and silent comedy. Like Chaplin and Rowan Atkinson and Doug Jones. And my buddy Stefán Karl [Stefánsson] who I understudied for five years on "The Grinch." He was Robbie Rotten on "LazyTown" and he was a true master of the craft. So that's where I found a lot of inspiration, especially from his tutelage."

Rowan Atkinson created the childlike near-silent buffoon Mr. Bean, and played the role on TV and in two feature films. Doug Jones is a prolific and popular character actor who has played many creatures and monsters in his career including the gillman in Guillermo del Toro's "The Shape of Water," and many monsters and aliens besides. Jones was also a professional mime for many years, and his performances are often communicated through movement.

"Lazytown" meanwhile was an Icelandic children's program from 2004 that ran on Nick Jr. in North America. Robbie Rotten was the plastic-faced, conniving, playful villain of the show. Stefánsson infused the character with an appealing rubbery physicality. 

Art, then, is a strange, bloody combination of comedy, kids' entertainment, and mime. Not a bad place to start for a monster.

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

The post Terrifier 2's David Howard Thornton Took Inspiration From Some Comedy Greats For His Art the Clown Role appeared first on /Film.

Imagining the climax of "The Karate Kid" without Daniel LaRusso's iconic crane kick is like trying to listen to John Williams' "Duel of the Fates" without a lightsaber battle. All seems lost after our underdog hero played by Ralph Macchio has had his leg swept by the villainous Johnny Lawrence (Billy Zabka), but thanks to the balancing act of a crane kick, LaRusso wins the tournament and scores his winning point with the move.

Ironically, the crane kick almost didn't happen, because it's not only a completely made-up move for the film, but it's ridiculously hard to execute. In Macchio's new memoir, "Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me," there's an entire passage about the crane kick that almost never was. According to Macchio's book (which /Film's own Jenna Busch recently spoke with Macchio about), the crane kick was invented by screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen, a move that sounded cool on paper and would have a cinematic look, regardless of its practical effectiveness.

"It worked so well on paper and paid off beautifully on the page, but in actual, practical reality, it was not so easy to achieve," Macchio wrote. "And at first, it was perfectly impossible to execute from script to screen." The move was described as LaRusso balancing on one leg due to the injury, then throwing a high front snap kick before landing back on the good leg that provided the kick. This meant the injured leg would never touch the ground. It's a beautiful idea, but as Macchio tells it, seasoned stuntmen and professional martial artists all attempted to pull off the crane kick, but nothing was working.

The Crane Kick Required Acrobatic Training

Ballet dancers and acrobats are no strangers to performing kicks, leaps, and jumps that allow one foot to never touch the ground, but they usually allow for a "wind up" or running start. The crane kick is executed from a standing position, which made it nearly impossible for someone to generate the necessary momentum to get enough height to pull off the move. Macchio recalled:

"No one could effectively stick the landing without seeming off-balance. If I remember correctly, there was even talk of doing it with wires to achieve the height necessary to throw the kick with enough time to return the good leg to the base position for landing."

Fortunately, an acrobatic martial artist named Darryl Vidal figured out how to make it work. Vidal appeared as one of Johnny Lawrence's semifinal opponents in "The Karate Kid" and doubled for Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi on the log at the beach when Daniel-san sees the technique silhouetted in the distance. "Darryl was a spectacular aerial martial artist, almost balletic in his fluidity," said Macchio. "His ability and technique created a seamless move and the blueprint for what Daniel-san needed to achieve." Macchio worked tirelessly with Darryl and martial arts choreographer Pat Johnson to learn the technique, ensuring that Macchio wouldn't need a stunt double to do the move for him. "That was not an option in my mind," he said.

They Shot The Crane Kick Around 30 Times

While the singular shot shown in "The Karate Kid" has become an underdog sports movie classic, Macchio said the crane kick scene was shot somewhere around 30 times. "We shot it from multiple angles as well, sometimes in slow motion, sometimes super close for impact," he said. "Those shots were never used in 'The Karate Kid,' only the low, wide angle." It wasn't until "Cobra Kai" that any of the other angles were revealed to the public. Macchio added:

"In 'The Karate Kid' itself, the moment was all about the victory for Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Miyagi's magic. The bully got his comeuppance. The crowd jumped to their feet cheering for their hero. Euphoria. To the victor went the spoils. Something iconic was born on that shooting day."

Before "Cobra Kai" became a hit series, it was originally supposed to be a movie, and the creators were given access to the Sony/Columbia Pictures film vault and were able to use camera angles never edited into the original movie for their new movie. "It's interesting to note that when we used close-ups and slow-motion versions of the kick in the TV series, it altered the perspective," Macchio said. "But I still never expected that crane kick to catapult the movie's climax into the stratosphere the way it did."

"Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me" by Ralph Macchio is on sale now. "Cobra Kai" is currently available to stream on Netflix.

Read this next: The 25 Best Kids' Movies Of All Time

The post The Karate Kid's Famous Crane Kick Was a Headache for Ralph Macchio, Seasoned Stuntmen, and Pro Martial Artists appeared first on /Film.

For some time now, Phil Spencer has been beating the Xbox Game Pass drum as hard as possible. It really seemed like Game Pass was seen as the future of Xbox, with Spencer making bold statements about focusing on a hardware-agnostic future rather than console sales. Spencer has also been quite up front about the fact that many of their recent studio acquisitions were made to provide content for Game Pass.

Well, it seems like somewhere along the line, something changed, or perhaps reality has just come knocking. In a statement to UK regulators scrutinizing Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the company downplayed the importance of cloud gaming, a much-hyped recent Game Pass feature. And now, in a new Wall Street Journal Tech Live interview, Spencer seems to admit the whole Game Pass concept has a ceiling (thanks to The Verge’s Tom Warren for the transcription).

“I think [Game Pass] will stay in that 10 to 15 percent of our overall revenue, and it's profitable for us. We're seeing incredible growth on PC... on console I've seen growth slow down, mainly because at some point you've reached everybody on console that wants to subscribe.”

With hardware sales up nicely now that Xbox Series X and S consoles are actually making it shelves, could Phil Spencer’s years of visionary Game Pass talk not end up amounting to that much? In the end, will Microsoft end up remaining largely a boring old traditional console maker? Spencer says he sees free-to-play as the fastest-growing gaming model, but the company doesn’t really seem to be investing in that. Spencer has also admitted a Game Pass price increase may be coming in the future, perhaps indicating he sees the service’s period of aggressive growth tailing off.

Of course, some conspiratorial minds may say Spencer is just playing down Game Pass to push the Activision deal through, but he could do that without providing such specific figures. These statements from Spencer feel honest to me.

What do you think? Is the subscription model going to remain an outlier in the gaming space? Or will Game Pass pay off for Microsoft eventually?

The post Xbox Game Pass Unlikely to Top 10 to 15 Percent of Microsoft Gaming Business Says Spencer by Nathan Birch appeared first on Wccftech.

One day after an Amazon driver in Missouri died of an apparent dog attack, some workers are accusing the company of sending an ill-timed, tone-deaf message in light of the incident. On Wednesday, Vice News reported that some drivers received a “Dog Awareness” message following Tuesday’s incident. The advisory refers to dogs as “our four-legged customers” and “Fido,” seemingly downplaying the danger some canines can present to delivery workers.

“We want to help ensure you aren’t surprised by our four-legged customers when on route, so be sure to check the Amazon Delivery App for the paw print icon in the ‘Delivery Notes’ indicating you should ‘be aware of a dog at this stop,'" the message reportedly states. “If we know Fido is nearby, we’ll add the paw print to give you a heads up. As always, contact the customer to help you with the pet, or ‘Driver Support’ in the Delivery App if you can’t reach the customer.”

Vice News

Amazon did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for clarification if the advisory was sent in response to the attack and whether it was drafted after the incident had already occured. On Tuesday, the company told Vice it was working with police to investigate the death. “We’re deeply saddened by tonight’s tragic incident involving a member of our Amazon family and will be providing support to the team and the driver’s loved ones,” the company said.

The death of one of their colleagues to a likely dog attack has become one of the most popular topics of conversation among driver groups and subreddits. In one thread spotted by Vice, some drivers called for a walkout on October 31st. “Amazon’s response to this has been nothing short of insulting,” says one respondent.

Amazon has frequently come under fire for its questionable responses to worker safety concerns. For instance, after a 2020 report found that workers at the company's most automated warehouses suffered injuries more frequently than their peers, Amazon said it would launch a health and wellness program – instead of reducing productivity quotas.

Hideo Kojima is not a man prone to understatement, and with two new projects in the works, you can expect a lot hype over the coming months and years. For those who haven’t been keeping up, Kojima Productions has announced they're making a cloud-native game with Xbox, a project that started life as a Stadia exclusive before Google abandoned first-party development. It’s also very likely Death Stranding 2 is being developed for Sony, but that hasn’t been officially confirmed yet.

Speaking about his cloud-powered Xbox game in an interview with The Guardian, Kojima was his usual grandiose self, claiming the project could “turn things around” for not only just the gaming industry, but the movie industry as well.

“It’s almost like a new medium. If this succeeds, it will turn things around – not just in the game industry, but in the movie industry as well.”

It’s no secret that Kojima is essentially a frustrated filmmaker trapped in the gaming industry, so the line above is certainly intriguing. Could Kojima’s Xbox project be some sort of transmedia movie-game hybrid? These kinds of things have been tried before, including by Microsoft with Remedy’s Quantum Break, but it would be interesting to see Kojima try his hand at it. Then again, a lot of players tend to balk at games pushing too far into movie-like territory.

For his part, Kojima admits there are challenges to trying something new, but he’d rather be the first to do something, even if it means not all the kinks are worked out…

“You can have successful experiments, but there’s a long distance between an experiment and a place where it’s something that becomes a part of everyday usage. For the first person, everything is hard. But I want to be the first. I want to keep being the first.”

A release window for Kojima’s Xbox game has yet to be revealed. What do you think? Is Kojima going to blow our minds with this one or will it have around the same impact as the “strand-type game” revolution?

The post Kojima Claims his Xbox Project Could “Turn Things Around” for the Game and Movie Industries by Nathan Birch appeared first on Wccftech.

A couple of hours ago, we informed you about the first PC patch for Gotham Knights. What we forgot to mention, however, is that Warner Bros and QLOC have also removed the Denuvo anti-tamper tech from the game. Gotham Knights came out on PC on October 21st. And, in just five days, the developers have … Continue reading Warner Bros has removed Denuvo from Gotham Knights in just five days [UPDATE] →

The post Warner Bros has removed Denuvo from Gotham Knights in just five days [UPDATE] appeared first on DSOGaming.

And I agree with him

Some version of a real life, widespread virtual reality world has been an aspiration of sci-fi enthusiasts for decades, and as technology has improved in recent years, that dream has become closer than ever before. Meta (formerly Facebook) and Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse project have been the closest mainstream attempt we've seen, but if that's the best we have, it'll be a while until we see a VR world akin to something out of Ready Player One. The internet has taken the opportunity to roast pretty much everything the Metaverse has shown because, well, it looks ridiculous. Take their most recent announcement about adding legs, for example, which apparently don't even work how they said they do.

One of gaming's most influential voices, head of Xbox Phil Spencer, recently shared his opinion during WSJ Live, as reported by Tom Warren of The Verge. When asked about his thoughts on the Metaverse as we know it right now, Spencer said that "today it's a poorly built video game. Building a metaverse that's like a living room is not how I want to spend my time." He did add, however, that the concept is still in its infancy and that it will "evolve."

https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1585333956194729986

An evolution is inevitable considering how unpopular the Metaverse has been with both users and actual Meta employees who are paid to use it. The reality is that it looks terrible, and so far, pretty much all we've seen it used for is companies trying to either shill whatever they're selling or make their employees work virtually. Workers are already fed up as it is -- no one wants to make their job even harder by wearing a hot, uncomfortable headset to be in a crappy-looking digital office. The whole idea isn't even novel in the first place. Platforms like VRChat have been around for years, and players actually have fun in that game, so we at least know it's possible.

In my opinion, a few things will have to happen before any form of metaverse will really take off: the hardware will need to be compressed down into light, easy-to-wear glasses, the look and infrastructure of the metaverse itself will have to improve tenfold, and those developing it need to focus more on making it feel good rather than how much more money they can squeeze out of consumers. I'm completely with Phil Spencer on this -- if they want to make something that lasts, Meta needs to get some people who actually know how to make great games on the team, because at the end of the day, all a metaverse really is is a glorified MMO.

The post Xbox’s Phil Spencer says the Metaverse is a “poorly built video game” appeared first on Destructoid.

Thanks to a mix of irrepressible charm, a timeless rags-to-riches story of an underdog overcoming all odds, and some classic imagery that inspired countless fans and filmmakers alike, John G. Avildsen's "The Karate Kid" has remained squarely at the forefront of pop culture ever since the original movie's release in 1984. Yet even after multiple sequels of varying degrees of quality, the Netflix sequel series "Cobra Kai," and even a new movie in the works, there's just something about the magic of that original film that sets it apart and continues to drive our imaginations wild.

With so much pop culture cachet surrounding "The Karate Kid," knowledgeable film fans have spent years internalizing all the odds and ends surrounding the making of the film and other behind-the-scenes stories. But no amount of accepted trivia can rival hearing it straight from the mouth of Ralph Macchio, the actor best known for his role as Daniel LaRusso who has just published a new book titled "Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me" that chronicles his experiences during filming. (/Film's Jenna Busch recently talked to Macchio in a wide-ranging interview that's well worth a look.)

Of the many, many fresh insights and revealing anecdotes from this book, perhaps one of the most interesting details concerns the origins of that iconic headband that Daniel wears throughout the movie and the moment of serendipity from Mr. Miyagi himself, the late Pat Morita, that went off-script to make what was on-page even more special on-screen.

A Moment Of Inspiration

Many movies have tried and failed to recapture its joys, but there simply is no topping the irreplaceable mentor/mentee relationship between young Daniel and Mr. Miyagi in the original "The Karate Kid." But as lovable as they are to watch on-screen, their behind-the-scenes dynamic proved to be even more compelling, to hear Ralph Macchio tell it. He does exactly that in his new book "Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me," where the actor-turned-author takes the time to regale readers with the story of how that striking and symbolic headband first came to be. As it turns out, the script originally called for Mr. Miyagi to use a common rag on young Daniel's bruises from the Halloween fight. In his book, Macchio puts it this way:

"Pat pulled out a 'handkerchief' from his pocket and asked if he could use it as a prop. This handkerchief became the now famous 'Karate Kid' headband. He carefully unfolded the cloth to show us the blue-and-white "rising sun" design and explained it was called a hachimaki, which translates to 'helmet scarf.' He explained to both [director John G. Avildsen] and me its significance in Japanese culture how it represents perseverance, courage, and effort-and why he thought Miyagi would have this. John was on board, and we moved forward with the scene and the use of the hachimaki as a prop."

That wasn't the end of Pat Morita's invaluable contributions, however. Macchio went on to describe how his co-star helped come up with the idea that Daniel would only wear the headband during his training scenes and ultimately during the tournament. If it weren't for Morita's inspired off-the-cuff moment, none of this would've rang quite as true in the final film. How's that for finding balance?

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

The post The Karate Kid Headband Came from an Improvised Moment During an Audition with Pat Morita appeared first on /Film.

[link] [6 comments]

People who complain about population aren’t talking numbers—they’re fantasizing about tightening the reins on workers.

I thought my days complaining about queerbaiting in beloved genre shows died when Tumblr removed NSFW content, but the completion of the "Doctor Who" centenary special has me coming out of retirement to criticize the blatant queerbaiting injected into the relationship between The Doctor and her companion Yasmin Khan (Mandip Gill). As the first female Doctor in the show's decades-long history, Jodie Whittaker's run with writing by Chris Chibnall has been ... complicated, to put it kindly.

In her review of "The Power of the Doctor," our resident Whovian expert Hoai-Tran Bui described the Chibnall/Whittaker era as being "mired in clunky writing, nonsensical plots, half-realized characters, and empty spectacle" all while "missing the heart that made those kinds of quirks bearable." Whittaker and her historic first female Doctor deserved better, as did the queer fans who were seemingly promised genuine representation for the very first time, only to have it tossed to the side like an unimportant plot device ... because that's exactly what happened.

For the uninitiated, "queerbaiting" is a term used to describe a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment, where writers hint at, but do not depict, queer romance or other forms of LGBTQIA+ representation. The intention is to entice LGBTQ+ audiences (who are often very vocal on social media) with the suggestion or possibility of relationships or characters that appeal to them. 

I have a complicated relationship with the term queerbaiting, because I often find that it's being used incorrectly by ship-obsessed fans who confuse genuine kindness or friendship for romantic connection. But when it comes to the most recent run of "Doctor Who," the "Thasmin" (Thirteen + Yasmin) relationship was textbook queerbaiting.

Built Up Only To Be Knocked Down

Throughout the 13th series, there always seemed to be romantic tension between the Doctor and Yasmin. The writers have admitted the "Thasmin" plotline wasn't planned but was added after seeing how much fans loved it. "Doctor Who" has toyed with a romance between the Doctor and human companions before, and Thirteen and Yasmin followed a very similar will-they-won't-they plot progression as Ten (David Tennant) and Rose (Billie Piper), which had many believing Whittaker's Doctor would be saying goodbye to Yasmin pre-regeneration in the form of finally admitting how she feels. 

This wasn't fan speculation or an instance of people "seeing something that wasn't there," as Chibnall himself mentioned in an interview with The Guardian back in April that the duo would finally address the "suppressed feelings" they had for one another in the Easter special "Legend of the Sea Devils."

When that didn't happen, fans looked toward the finale, which featured Thirteen being fatally injured by the Master, and the Doctor taking Yasmin on a final trip to the stars to say her goodbye. The scene had the ultimate set-up for a romantic farewell, but nothing happened. No kiss. No "I love you." Zilch. Yasmin was dropped off in Croydon to spend the rest of her days, and the Doctor regenerated into ... not the previously announced new Doctor played by Ncuti Gatwa (THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THAT LINK, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!).

The Lack Of Closure Felt Intentional

Yaz's feelings about the Doctor were well documented, and a major part of her story arc as a companion was rooted in her romantic feelings. It's not the end of the world that the Doctor and her companion didn't have a relationship, but it sincerely feels as if the romantic subplot between the two was built up for an entire series, only to be completely ignored in Whittaker's final hurrah. That does a massive disservice not just to the queer fans who loved the story, but also to the characters. 

Marc Burrows, a writer for The Guardian, took to Twitter with his complaints, acknowledging that the lack of payoff wasn't just annoying for those invested in the story, but was a fundamental misstep in storytelling. "Final thought on 'Doctor Who,'" he wrote, "not paying off Yaz being in love with the Doctor, teasing it in the last season as a major dramatic point and not even *mentioning* it feels totally untrue to their relationship. And, if I'm honest it feels like queerbaiting." 

Final thought on Doctor Who ... not paying off Yaz being in love with the Doctor, teasing it in the last season as a major dramatic point and not even *mentioning* it feels totally untrue to their relationship. And, if I'm honest it feels like queerbaiting.

— Marc Burrows (@20thcenturymarc) October 23, 2022

Ellie Wilson of The Phase Magazine was writing about the series' queerbaiting implications all the way back in February, saying "I was pretty convinced that nothing substantial would come of the ambiguity surrounding Yaz's feelings for Jodie Whittaker's Doctor and that maybe it was all in my head," only to be excited in the very next sentence with "The queerbait wasn't bait! No spiky hook, just tasty gay fish all the way down!" 

She was referring to Yaz's canonical feelings about the Doctor in this instance, and I'm anxiously awaiting her thoughts after "The Power of the Doctor."

Unrequited Love Is Fine, Queerbaiting Is Not

If you watch "The Power of the Doctor" as a standalone special without the context of Thirteen and Yaz's relationship throughout the series, the two just look like your regular ol' Doctor and companion relationship. The two don't speak of the feelings they have for one another, and Yaz leaves at the end as though her feelings don't mean anything. Sure, the Doctor could have felt the same way about Yaz but wanted to spare her the pain of living a life without her after she regenerates, but it's never mentioned. If the Doctor didn't reciprocate Yaz's feelings and wanted to spare her the pain that'd also be perfectly fine, but again, it wasn't even acknowledged.

Queer relationships don't have to be perfect and romantic and end with the two riding off into the sunset together, but teasing it for an entire series only to act as if it never happened in the finale is unacceptable. If you want the sweet clout of retweets on Twitter and gifsets on Tumblr from the extremely active queer online communities, you can't dangle queer themes in front of our faces like a carrot and act brand new when we're upset that the carrot was a cardboard cutout all along.

Fans aren't mad that the two didn't end up together, they're mad that closure wasn't on the menu. The season built up to this massive, emotional moment, only for it to be completely ignored. If they didn't want the Doctor and Yaz to develop a romantic relationship, so be it, but making these unspoken feelings a canonical plot point, only to abandon it in the final hour is insulting, disappointing, and yes, queerbaiting.

Read this next: The 14 Best Sci-Fi Shows On Amazon Prime

The post How Doctor Who Failed the Unspoken Queer Relationship With The Doctor and Yaz appeared first on /Film.

We have seen improvements and bug fixes attached to the Radeon Vulkan "RADV" driver within the Mesa3D platform on the Linux front for several months now, improving ray tracing games such as Metro Exodus: Extended Edition, Deathloop, Resident Evil Village, Control, and the recent RTX update to the classic game, Quake II. Now, AMD is introducing a Parallel Locally-Ordered Clustering to support building bounding volume hierarchy nodes, or PLOC BVH, in the form of a builder to enhance the RTX capabilities of Quake II's recent performance.

AMD improves Radeon Vulkan "RADV" open-source driver in Quake II RTX by use of the PLOC BVH builder, boosts ray tracing performance by 33%

The new PLOC BVH builder recently requested to merge by Friedrich Vock yesterday, in collaboration with Bas Nieuwnhuizen, into the Radeon Vulkan driver for Quake II (RTX version) will enhance the graphical performance by as much as 33%. The PLOC BVH builder incorporates an in-shader global synchronization and a task partitioning algorithm similar in structure to the GPU ray-tracing project, or GPURT for short. AMD's open-source Vulkan Linux driver, AMDVLK, received enablement from the GPURT project to serve as another option to the RADV in the Mesa Project.

Last month, Nieuwenhuizen presented at the X.org Developers Conference (XDC 2022) about ray-tracing basics and discussed AMD and the company's Radeon RDNA 2 GPUs that utilize the ray-tracing capabilities. One discussed topic was the team's difficulties implementing ray-tracing in older AMD GPU generations. For those interested in the presentation, you can check out the recorded sessions on Youtube through this link.

Vock added in the merge request that his "benchmarking on a 6700XT indicates a 33% uplift for Q2RTX and the nvpro demos. Control suffers a bit from the increased build times, but still gets a tiny bit better (around 47 -> 51 FPS)."

It appears that the build time takes a slight hit, but it also sounds like progress is being made to not only AMD with their Radeon Vulkan ray-tracing but also benefit NVIDIA with their Vulkan ray-tracing as well.

Michael Larabel of the website Phoronix mentions that AMD has added several hundred lines of new code in this new merge request before the window closes on adding features to Mesa 22.3 in the first part of next month.

The post AMD Boosts Radeon Vulkan “RADV” Ray Tracing Performance With PLOC BVH Builder, 33% Improvement In Quake II RTX by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.

The idea of fitting an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 into a gaming laptop may sound absurd (because it is), but this apparently isn't stopping team green from trying. Well, sort of, as these mobile models may not use the same GPU die found in their desktop counterparts.

RELATED LINKS: RTX 4000 - everything we know, GeForce Now RTX 3080 review, Best graphics card

As far as spin-offs go, Fallout: New Vegas might just be the best there is. Developed by Obsidian Entertainment after the success of the Bethesda RPG game Fallout 3, New Vegas aimed to capitalise on the revived Fallout open-world game brand, and it’s safe to say it succeeded. Widely regarded as one of, if not, the best entry in the series due to its world building, writing, and characters, could you imagine a world where Fallout: New Vegas wasn’t a fully released game? Well that was almost the case.

RELATED LINKS: Fallout: New Vegas mods, Fallout 5 release date, The best RPG games on PC 2022

If I have to choose between one evil or another, I'd rather not choose at all – Geralt of Rivia

15 years ago, on October 26th, 2007, CD PROJEKT RED released the first part of The Witcher series, the beginning of the incredible adventures of Geralt of Rivia and his companions. Although it was the developer's first game, this story-rich, atmospheric, fantasy RPG received critical praise around the world and started to gather crowds of fans whose love for The Witcher’s world was either reignited or started anew.

And it is 2007’s The Witcher that allowed the series to later bloom on an absolutely massive scale with both The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and now already legendary The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt.

In celebration of the birth of The Witcher, CD PROJEKT RED announced the REMAKE of the original title!

The project, previously referred to by the codename "Canis Majoris" during the studio’s Strategy Update earlier in October, will be a modern reimagining of the first part of The Witcher Trilogy. It will be built from the ground up using Unreal Engine 5 technology, and will use the toolset CDPR is creating for the new Witcher saga. The project is currently in the early stages of development at Fool’s Theory — a game development studio specializing in role-playing games. The team employs numerous veteran developers who previously worked on The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. In addition, CD PROJEKT RED is providing full creative supervision. You can find the original announcement HERE.



It is impossible to express how excited we are hearing that news! But then again, incredible titles deserve incredible anniversary gifts! We would also like to pitch our part to this and remind you that you can claim The Witcher: Enhanced Edition for FREE!

In order to do so visit our GWENT Welcome Bonus which by subscribing to the GOG Newsletter allows you not only to claim The Witcher: Enhanced Edition but also a free GWENT Card Keg! Remember that in order to do so you must have GWENT in your game library.

But that’s not all! We’ve also prepared a Special Sale for all CD PROJEKT RED titles with discounts as high as 85%! This sale lasts until November 3rd, 11 PM UTC. Check out some examples:

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition - 85% off
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Game of the Year Edition - 80% off
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales - 70% off
GWENT: Rogue Mage - Deluxe Edition - 30% off
Cyberpunk 2077 - 50% off

Let’s remind ourselves how The Witcher Trilogy started, while we await both new and remade chapters in our favourite dark, grim, fantasy world.

NowSecure recently partnered with Coalfire to contribute mobile risk data to the cybersecurity advisory company’s 4th Annual Penetration Risk Report. The report findings reveal the importance of continuous testing in vulnerability management combined with human-based testing to reduce risk.

The most successful vulnerability and risk management programs are no longer focused on point-in-time schedules but are instead deployed continuously, or at the very least, with more granular frequency. Monitoring and testing take place in real-time, all the time. Results show that organizations embracing this strategy and running best-practice testing programs over the last three years saw high-severity risk factors reduced by a remarkable 25%.

The Coalfire report reflects the results of more than 3,100 penetration tests from nearly 1,600 client engagements in the technology, financial services, healthcare and retail sectors. We analyzed both enterprise and cloud service providers’ internal and external attack vectors, application development and mobile app security, social engineering and phishing and framework-specific findings. Data was segmented by industry and company size based on revenues (“large” being over $1 billion, “medium” between $100 million and $1 billion, and “small” below $100 million).

Over time, the Coalfire research shows that cyber risk significantly shifts every year based on company size, vertical market, and a variety of other factors including increasing cloud migration, proliferation of remote workers, more distributed operations, far-flung supply chains, etc. Due to a surge of highly publicized breaches, the recent overemphasis on external risk has had the negative effect of allowing internal threats to persist. This creates points of weakness that increase the potential for internal “blast radius” catastrophes from the growing legions of sophisticated domestic hackers and nation-state attackers.

Though the top-performing vulnerability management programs are now mostly automated, the best of the best employ a hybrid of continuous integration with at least some level of traditional human-based pen testing, applied alongside a perpetual offensive security and/or red team operations regimen.

Why the Human Factor?

Platform-enabled solutions are clearly the wave of the future, but over-reliance on the promise of automation can create new vulnerabilities. Perhaps one of the most significant trends reflected in our research is enterprise acceleration toward prioritized risk management strategies. With more exposed attack surfaces and supply chains, it has become impractical to think in terms of eliminating risk, and the most successful security programs are establishing a hierarchy of vulnerabilities prioritized through the lens of human experience and intuition. Knowing an organization’s inherent risk profile, threat landscape, risk appetite, and effectively managing security operations with this knowledge requires human intelligence-driven security programs and pen testing.

Tools-based monitoring may uncover known and documented vulnerabilities. But human-based testing is more likely to discover new vulnerabilities, unearth more unknowns, and leverage new and more creative exploitation techniques for older vulnerabilities that tools can’t always achieve consistently. This applies especially to out-of-date software implementations which represent some of the most significant vulnerability challenges, particularly in healthcare and financial services.

Our recommendations for financial services security teams are to continue to follow tech’s lead with tools and solutions for mitigation and defensive posture monitoring.

Dramatic Improvements in Financial Services

We’ve seen a lot of change in the last four years of pen test research, and one of the most dramatic has been the financial services sector’s overall improvements in vulnerability risk management. High-risk factors were a low 8% for FinServ; however, NowSecure found that high-risk levels for mobile apps was 37%, indicating that financial services mobile apps are performing far worse than web or desktop apps.

Much of financial services IT and security ops are handled out of central headquarters, with less technically skilled staff spread thin across multiple locations and often thousands of digital endpoints. There remains all manner of security challenges with payments, trades, personal privacy, diagnostic file management, and the handling of sensitive information. Almost all of it remains tethered to legacy systems that interface within hybrid IT environments and with workloads spinning up and down in the cloud, seasonally and in concert with financial reporting periods.

Overall, FinServ is picking up the pen testing pace, and is running almost neck and neck with the tech sector, the proverbial leader in maturing cyber posture.

Financial services’ reliance on entrenched network backbones has kept them a step behind, but our research shows they’ve made great strides. However, much like their tech counterparts, FinServ internals are still soft and vulnerable.

• Security misconfigurations, out-of-date software and patching issues are top vulnerabilities
• Financial services companies are also becoming more concerned about potential brand and reputation damage – this mean lots of financial data security scanning on the perimeter (external and apps)
• Pervasive attacks on the external continue to shift focus away from internal

Our recommendations for financial services security teams are to continue to follow tech’s lead with tools and solutions for mitigation and defensive posture monitoring.

• Prioritize vulnerability management programs
• Adopt more disciplined patching (watch out for unpatchable legacy software)
• Integrate more continuous testing, both automated and human-driven

The biggest difference when compared to tech is financial services’ and other verticals’ persistent dependence on legacy systems. These companies are slower to move to newer systems and services, so issues with out-of-date software, encryption, and patching are more common, and carry higher consequences. Fear of cascading vulnerabilities while working with uptime-sensitive businesses is on the rise and on the radar.

Solution: Smarter Testing

With high-risk vulnerabilities nearly cut in half since Coalfire started compiling our data four years ago, the large enterprise has been getting smarter about external threats – but they are falling behind on internal vulnerabilities. Smaller businesses are doing a better job balancing internal and external risks; however, mid-size companies struggle in the face of complex hybrid environments, heavy compliance demands, and extensive supply chains expanding their attack surfaces.

The good news: a prioritized vulnerability management approach is taking place across organizations of all sizes, and across all vectors – external, internal, and applications – which is clearly resulting in reducing the highest risk vulnerabilities. The tech sector, cloud service providers and now financial services are leading the way. The problem is that bad actors have the luxury of time and are finding ways to turn low- and medium-risk vulnerabilities into high-risk disasters.

Security testing is moving away from point-in-time, check-the-box cycles to continuous, enterprise-wide risk assessments using real-time dashboards for effective monitoring and oversight. These are powerful positive trends, and Coalfire has validated that institutional intelligence that informs cloud-enabled methodologies is the favored strategy on the long road to a cyber-secure future. With the right mix of technology, human intuition, and perpetual testing cadence, we can apply the best-practice solutions to the problems we’re all trying to solve.

The post The Results Are In: Vulnerability Management Comes of Age appeared first on NowSecure.

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On an uneventful Tuesday afternoon, Ryan Reynolds shocked Marvel fans all over the world when he tweeted a video announcing Hugh Jackman's return as Wolverine in the upcoming "Deadpool 3." After hanging up the claws following the release of James Mangold's critically acclaimed "Logan," it seemed unlikely that Jackman would ever portray the mutant again. So when the announcement arrived, fans obviously met it with a mixed response. Some believed that Jackman's performance in "Logan" provided a powerful and impactful ending for the mutant, showing that comic book movies can have closure and not need to recycle their characters and stories endlessly. However, some also believe that the presume chemistry between Jackman and Reynolds, based their real-life friendship, was too good to pass on a Wolverine and Deadpool crossover.

Unsurprisingly, Hugh Jackman himself is one such advocate for the potential of the duo. While the video announcement made it seem as if Reynolds was pressuring Jackman into putting on the claws again, a new interview revealed that it was Hugh Jackman who actually approached Reynolds regarding his return as the Wolverine. Moreover, it was Jackman's enjoyment of Reynolds' "Deadpool" films that inspired the actor to step into the role one more time, as the stark contrast between the two characters will likely lead to some entertaining and hilarious dynamics between the two.

'It's Been Brewing For A Long Time'

In a profile of Hugh Jackman in Variety, the actor opened up about his decision to return to the character of Wolverine. Leading up to the release of "Logan," Jackman had been vocal that the film would be his last time as the character. However, the idea of teaming up with Reynolds as Deadpool was in the back of his head ever since he first saw the film in 2016:

"I went to a screening of 'Deadpool.' I was 20 minutes in, and I was like, 'Ah, damn it!' All I kept seeing in my head was '48 Hours' with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. So it's been brewing for a long time. It just took me longer to get here."

"Deadpool" had been released the year before "Logan" came out, and it was a film that almost didn't happen, were it not for a serendipitous test footage leak. Before the leak that would get "Deadpool" greenlit, it was a long path to Reynolds getting his iteration of the character right. The timing made it seem like the team-up was never meant to be, because by the time Reynolds could finally do the character justice, Wolverine was already in the ground. However, that didn't stop Reynolds from incessantly proposing the idea of a Deadpool film with Wolverine, as Jackman says in the same interview that the "Deadpool" actor would be pleading with him "on the daily."

The Big Decision

Eventually, Jackman would come around to the idea of returning for a "Deadpool" film. While Reynolds was the one who had been trying to convince Jackman that he should do it, it wasn't until August 2022 that Jackman decided he would call Reynolds to let him know that he would play Wolverine once again. Jackman described Reynolds' reaction to the call, as the timing couldn't have been more uncanny:

"I think, actually, he'd given up. I think it was a big shock to him. There was a massive pause, and then he said, 'I can't believe the timing of this.'"

According to the Variety piece, Reynolds was about to meet with Kevin Feige, the man in charge at Marvel Studios. The story after that is very-recent history, as the Twitter video announcing the return would make waves throughout social media. In the same piece, Reynolds was asked about the project, and it's apparent he was very excited about the opportunity to have Wolverine and Deadpool star in an MCU movie together:

"Oh my God, I'm thrilled. It's like old home week. To be on set with one of my closest friends every day is a dream come true. But to do it with these two iconic characters side by side, that's beyond our wildest dreams."

Whether or not "Deadpool 3" will justify bringing Hugh Jackman back after his retirement following "Logan" remains to be seen. However, you have to love the admiration and respect the two actors clearly have for each other.

Read this next: The Most Powerful X-Men Villains Ranked

The post Hugh Jackman Actually Approached Ryan Reynolds About Returning as Wolverine in Deadpool 3 appeared first on /Film.

The Xbox Series X|S and the popular service that offers a grand catalog of games, Xbox Game Pass have become staples in the industry. However, it seems like not even this brand is safe from the tough call of having a price increase. While there wasn't a specific outlet that would be increased, there's still the possibility that either could see an increase in the future, according to Phil Spencer.

This was said during today's WSJ Live, where Phil Spencer stated that Xbox Game Pass or console prices might be increased in the future. As spotted by Tom Warren, the Xbox executive, stated, "I do think at some point we'll have to raise the prices on certain things, but going into this holiday, we thought it was important to maintain the prices."

Now, which one of the two would be increased? The most natural guess would be the console, as PlayStation increased the price of its next-gen console by $50 across several regions. Of course, that doesn't discount the possibility of an increase in the price of the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. While the service continues to see new users joining it, its price can be increased.

Still, this may contradict Microsoft's plans of making the service more appealing to broader audiences. Especially considering that the company responsible for Xbox has paid upwards to $2.5 Million to feature games on Xbox Game Pass, all while trying to emulate Genshin Impact's success for PlayStation.

This is still a ways off in terms of the date, as Spencer stated that the price would remain the same throughout the Holiday Season. Will the prices of the console or Xbox Game Pass service change after the turn of the New Year? Or perhaps it will happen at some point throughout 2023? We'll continue to report on this story as more developments happen.

The post Xbox Game Pass or Console Future Price Increase Hinted by Phil Spencer by Ule Lopez appeared first on Wccftech.

Apple just launched new ad placements on the App Store, and developers aren't happy with the types of ads surfacing beneath their apps. From a report: As spotted by MacRumors, several app developers have pointed out that ads for gambling have started appearing in the "You Might Also Like" sections beneath their App Store listings, which is just one of the new places Apple has started sticking ads. Developer Simon B. Stovring posted a screenshot of an ad for an online casino app appearing beneath his text editor Runestone. Stovring says he visited the page for his app 10 times and noticed that ads for gambling apps showed up on three visits. Marco Arment, the developer of the podcast app Overcast, said on Twitter he's "really not OK with" the gambling ads showing up on his app product page. Another user replied to Arment's tweet, noting that the App Store is even showing gambling ads beneath apps designed specifically to help users recover from a gambling addiction, while another noticed gambling ads have even popped up on children's education apps.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

And speaking of missions, let’s get back to the job at hand…

Mission 9: TBD

This stretch of the game is really light on details. I don’t have a setting for this mission, except that it should probably be some sort of industrial facility owned by South African industrialist Samkelo Mensah.

We need to take care of Mensah. Also here is fellow board member Camila Ferreira, a Brazilian Environmentalist / Politician. We should find these two together, plotting. Camila is evidently an environmental crusader, and here we learn she doesn’t actually care about the environment and it’s all part of the game to her. 

Mensah has [some polluting property] that isn’t really working out for him, and he wants to get the red ink off his books. He asks Ferreira to shut it down. She’ll get credit for stopping a polluting industry, which will help her in the polls. At the same time, Mensah will be able to blame his losses on “environmental regulations” instead of taking responsibility for his poor management and leadership. In return, he wants her people to look the other way for this other place he’s starting up. It’s clear this game is familiar to the two of them, with each of them benefitting from their feigned conflict.

This time, Everett decides to tell us about himself:

I got my start working on the first-generation of social media platforms. I was in University just after the turn of the millennium, looking for a way to distinguish myself. A lot of the Old Guard was scared of the internet. DeBeers in particular. He was afraid that people would route around our stranglehold on the news, and we’d be neutered or even exposed. 

But I saw an opportunity. Social Media gave us the tools to take DeBeer’s adversarial politics and supercharge them. With the right algorithms, we could find the most enraging members of the left / right conflict and signal boost them. We could deliver a non-stop feed of fear and worry about the horrible things those “other people” were doing. It was exactly the fear and paranoia that MaCarthy had tried and failed to sustain half a century earlier.

As I told Lucius at the time, “If Dorothy had spent the entire trip bickering with Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man, they never would have discovered the Man Behind the Curtain.”

You want to know how well it worked? During the cold war, there was a never-ending supply of movies, books, and television shows where two people from opposite sides of the Iron Curtain would team up for some adventure and become friends in the process. They would set aside their differences and discover that their mutual distrust had been making them weak. These stories were a direct reflection of people’s feelings at the time. Deep down, common people longed for reconciliation.

Can you even imagine someone making a story like that today, featuring explicitly red state and blue state people? It’s been decades, and it’s never happened. Nobody wants reconciliation. Thanks to the internet, the animosity is a self-sustaining reaction. Anger is both the food and the waste product of social media.

We used to have to manage mass media carefully, talking out of both sides of our mouth. It was a brutal balancing act. But now everyone has their own version of the truth, curated by algorithms controlled by us. 

Once again, Everett asks you to kill the conspirators and spare the infrastructure, and once again you’re free to work with him or do your own thing.

Okay, we’ve now dealt with everyone except Maggie Chow. We should learn her location when we take care of Mensah and Ferreira. 

Mission 10: Stalemate

Here we drop a reminder that Troy is still wanted for the assassination. He’s infamous for brazenly killing one of the most popular leaders in a generation. Even if he can somehow prove his outlandish story about being hijacked, there will always be people who blame him. He’s a marked man for life, and really needs a clean slate identity from Everett if he ever wants to live a normal life.

Everett only has one directive for us this time: Kill Maggie Chow. He will overlook it if you’ve been sparing people up until now, but here he puts his foot down: Chow needs to die.

Maggie Chow knows you’re coming. You’ve already eliminated the rest of the Board. So she’s hiding out in some fortified location in Hong Kong. The place is wall-to-wall with Seraphim guards and everyone here is part of the conspiracy, so if the player is in a mood to purge, they’re not going to have to worry about civilians / innocents. If they’ve been lugging around a big, nasty weapon and hoarding ammo for it, then this should be a good place to cut loose.^[1]

Of course, there should also be a way to stealth / hack past everything as well. Gotta respect the genre.

At the end, we find Maggie Chow hiding in a panic room^[2] behind bulletproof glass. She speaks to us through an intercom.

She says she knows she’s beaten. She renounces her leadership position, and just wants to be left alive. (To go live her life of wealth and privilege without paying for her crimes, naturally.) If you spare her, then she offers you something in return: Morgan Everett’s location. If you really want to break the conspiracy, then you need to take him out.

There’s a control panel nearby. You can open the door to her panic room and kill her, or you can open (some other door) and allow her to escape.^[3] If you do the latter, she’ll tell you how to find Everett.

So what is it you really want? Do you want personal revenge for what happened in Washington, or do you want to end the Board forever?

We get a player-directed conversion where we can ask her questions, ask about her goals, and learn about her side of the story. Once we’re done, we make our choice and Maggie Chow is either dead or escaped forever.

Endings

Ending #1: Paid in Full

If we kill Chow and Everett is basically happy with us, then we head back to the same London rooftop from earlier. 

Inside, there’s a box of goodies waiting for Troy. It should contain a fat stack of money, a pile of augmentation upgrades, a few weapons, and a new identity.^[4] Everett appears as a hologram and makes it clear that we’re never going to see each other again.

We get a last conversation with the guy where we can debate him a bit and clear up any lingering questions. Then Troy takes his treasure and returns to the heli. 

Roll credits.

Ending #2: Backstab

If we kill Chow, but otherwise have betrayed Everett’s wishes in all of the previous missions, then the ending is a little different.^[5]

We end up in the same rooftop office, but this time the box is empty, except for a small note with a crosshair that says “Sorry :(“.  Again, we speak to holo-Everett:

“I’m sorry Mr. Denton. I don’t want you to think this is personal. I have immense respect for you and your abilities. But it’s clear you never cared about our mission, and you’ve just been waiting for your chance to stab me in the back. I’m simply preempting you. I wish we could have parted on friendlier terms. Farewell.”

A wall opens up, and a ton of Seraphim guards pour in.

After we mop them up, Troy walks back to the heli and flies off. He’s still a fugitive, Everett is still in charge, and he didn’t even get any cool loot. 

Yes, this ending kind of sucks. Sure, Everett is a bit thick when it comes to reading people. But you’ve been thumbing your nose at his wishes and blowing up his shit for the whole game. Even he could see your murderous intent coming. If you’re looking to take on the Illuminati, maybe you need to be a little more subtle than this, you know?

Ending #3: Scorched Earth

If we spare Chow, then she reveals that we’ll find Everett back in Switzerland. She gives us some access card / password to get us into the inner sanctum.

The castle is really fortified this time. Everett evidently figured out we’re coming. We go through yet ANOTHER murder dungeon to get to the man. This time we’re able to get into the secret meeting room that we couldn’t enter last time. We get to stand in the shadowy board room we saw in the opening cinematic. 

We find Everett in a control room of some sort. Once we enter the control room, a little conversation with Alex gives us a choice.

One option is to just kill Everett and blow the place up. This will put an end to Upper Management forever. Nobody will ever know what happened, but Everett and his machinations will come to an end.

The ending is a cinematic of the castle blowing up and the heli flying away, with a voiceover from Troy saying he doesn’t care about clearing his name. He just wanted to make sure the bad guys were brought to justice. A sort of DIY justice.

Roll credits.

Ending #4: Promotion

As above, but when we get to Everett in the control room we could talk to him instead of blowing him away. He’ll say he’s impressed that you managed to track him down. 

“If you disagree with how I’m running things, then why don’t you join the Board and help guide the organization in a different direction? The Board is a meritocracy, and you’ve proven your worth. A seat is yours if you want it.”

And then the player can debate Everett a bit. (The same dialog options we get in other endings.) Alex abandons you if you do this, and Everett welcomes you to the team.

We get a closing cinematic that looks a lot like the opening one, with a bunch of shadowy figures sitting around a shadowy board room,^[6] running the world. Everett is at the head of the table, and Troy Denton is sitting at his right hand. If you spared any of the other conspirators then they’ll be here too. (Except for Chow.)

Troy gives a voice over about how things will be different this time because he’s a good person and means well and won’t repeat the mistakes of the past. Roll credits. 

I can’t believe you picked this one. What’s wrong with you?

Ending #5: The Truth, Illuminated

Troy either knocks out or kills Everett. Once we enter the control room, a little conversation with Alex gives us a choice. We can either blow the place up, OR we can take the information on Everett’s jumbo computer and just dump the whole thing on the internet. Everything. The entire conspiracy. Just tell people the truth, and let them sort it out for themselves.

This is Alex’s preferred ending, and if you’re willing to hear her out then she’ll argue hard for it.

This is the most ambiguous ending. This is also the one ending where Alex narrates instead of Troy. We see a montage: We see Troy at some sort of congressional hearing. Troy being questioned in an interrogation room. Headlines calling him a “Whacko” and “Conspiracy Theorist”. We see regular people holding protest marches, demanding the truth. Ideally, we should have people coded heavily red state / blue state. Except they’re marching side-by-side, holding signs together, holding hands, working together. 

Alex’s voiceover asks questions of Troy: Did we do the right thing? Will people believe us? Can the system be changed? Is this hate something the system created, or is it something we made ourselves, and they just harnessed it? I guess it’s up to us to find out.

Roll credits.

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Paul Reiser has been around the block a time or two, but joining the hit subversive, superhero satire series "The Boys" was something he never could have imagined. In the third season of the hit show for Prime Video, Reiser joined the cast as The Legend, the former Senior Vice President of Hero Management for Vought International. Despite the popular show boasting Emmy-nominated status and consistently being one of the most-watched shows on the streamer, Reiser had never heard of the series until showrunner Eric Kripke approached him about playing The Legend in a guest spot. As we recently learned in an interview with Consequence of Sound, he admitted he tried to reject the offer after reading the raunchy, violent, and intentionally offensive script.

"I got this thing and then my agent said, "It's a really hot show, you should read the script,' and I read it and I was not familiar with the show, so I just read my scenes and I went, 'I can't do this,'" he said. "There was some rude stuff in there, I literally said no." Fortunately, Reiser's agent pushed forward, but he was unconvinced. It wasn't until he asked his son if he knew anything about the show that he contemplated accepting the part, with his son telling him, "Oh, it's great. And you'll hate it."

Reiser said it took him a minute to realize what the show was trying to do, but once he realized the graphic violence and dark comedy were by design, he was "able to appreciate the quality." He did admit that the show in a general sense is "not [his] cup of tea," but appreciated the work of his co-stars. "Man, they're good at it," he said. "I was impressed and I was tickled."

'I Don't Think America Needs To See That'

Reiser was only in a few episodes of season 3 but said the creative team let him play with the script and character to his comfort level. "A lot of the stuff that was in there, we just came up with on the set," he said. "Looking at Jack Quaid, who's seven years old, it was very easy to go, 'What do you mean? You never heard of me? Read a book, kid,'" he joked. Is it weird that I can read that line and hear it in Reiser's voice? Maybe it's because I've been watching too much of his current starring series, "Reboot," on Hulu.

Reiser admitted that a moment that initially inspired his rejection was cut at his request. "I don't want to give it away, but some stuff that was in there — we first meet him in some very compromised positions..." Reiser said. "I don't think America needs to see that, or my family, so, they took that out." I never want an actor to do anything they're not comfortable with, but seeing Reiser in that manner would have been absolute gold.

Despite his initial apprehension, Reiser spoke highly of the entire cast and crew and loved his time on the show. He did say, however, that the best part of his time was getting to wear a purple velvet smoking jacket. "It's the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life," he joked. "I don't know why I'm not wearing this all the time."

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The post Paul Reiser Initially Thought The Boys Was Too 'Rude' To Accept A Role In appeared first on /Film.

It might have taken 100 years but since the Me Too movement, Hollywood has become more sensitive to the production of intimate scenes. Today you have intimacy coordinators on set to ensure that all parties feel comfortable with a scene, and in some cases improve them. And after you hear Woody Harrelson talk about his experiences in the 1993 film "Indecent Proposal" you understand why intimacy coordinators are needed on every set.

"Indecent Proposal" is an erotic thriller where a billionaire (Robert Redford) offers a struggling young architect (Harrelson) a million dollars to spend one night with his wife (Demi Moore). The movie quickly joined the pop culture lexicon as a proxy for the question, "What would you do for the right amount of money?" It also stands as a monument for a dying sub-genre, the erotic thriller, and what it often meant for female actors in Hollywood.

The movie was made long before the Harvey Weinstein arrest and the Me Too movement that prompted change in Hollywood. If you listen to the actors discuss their experiences in the film, it reveals a disparity of concern and empathy towards filming intimate scenes.

Harrelson And Moore Had Very Different Experiences

A 1993 Baltimore Interview with Harrelson reveals that the pre-Me Too blasé approach to sex scenes in the film industry dates back far beyond this century. In the cringe-worthy chat, Harrelson revealed that his biggest concern wasn't how comfortable co-star Demi Moore was with their intimate scenes, but rather what her husband might think. The actor said:

"I'm close friends with Demi and with Demi's husband [Bruce Willis]. You have to draw the line at how far to go, and I'm not good at drawing lines. I like to be lineless, without boundaries. The scene was flesh and flesh coming together. I don't know if Demi was turned on, but me... But you have to think of what the repercussions will be. I don't want Bruce coming after me."

It seems that Moore had a different experience making the movie. In her 2019 memoir, Moore discussed her sex scene with Harrelson in "Indecent Proposal." Not only did she have to deal with a turned-on co-star, but an inappropriate director as well. Moore wrote, "[Director Adrian] Lyne would cry things like 'F**king raunchy!' and 'Oh god, got a boner on that!' Here was this guy getting all sweaty and worked up, yelling about boners."

Moore did note that because the director made so many loud, inappropriate comments, it "took the focus off my own awkwardness." Surely there's got to be a better way to assist actors with awkward intimate scenes, right? According to director Adrian Lyne, not only is there not a better way, but intimacy coordinators only get in his way.

Is A Regression In Hollywood Coming?

In an interview with The Independent, Adrian Lyne said he doesn't want his actors to perform in silence so he acts as a "cheerleader" during sex scenes. Despite his unorthodox methods, Lyne developed a reputation as the "master of erotic thrillers" in the 1980s. He created the template for the sub-genre with films such as "9 ½ weeks" and "Fatal Attraction."

After a 20-year hiatus from filmmaking, Lyne recently returned to direct the open-marriage drama "Deep Water." He didn't miss a beat as we called the film a throwback to overheated nonsense. The film feels out of place in 2022 and frankly, Lyne seems out of place as a director. He lamented the use of an intimacy coordinator for the production, citing interference in the relationship with his actors.

That thinking seems shockingly insensitive today given what we know about the male-dominated film industry. Lyne has teased a full-time return and you have to wonder if it also signals a regression in Hollywood. It's a question asked by The New York Times this week while noting that "some of the men who were sidelined by misconduct accusations are working again."

Although Lyne hasn't changed much since "Indecent Proposal," it seems Harrelson has matured plenty. In 2018 he told The Guardian, "I want to see things clearly, to be aware and sensitive to what's going on in my life and in the world." When asked about the Me Too movement, the actor said:

"There are going to be predators across every profession. And, in a way, what's happening is great because, hopefully, the more people that come forward, the more people that deserve that kind of attention are weeded out."

Harrelson credits his wife and daughters, and not Bruce Willis, for helping change his mindset.

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Longtime Slashdot reader Tablizer shares a report from CNN: The hunt for planets that could harbor life may have just narrowed dramatically. Scientists had long hoped and theorized that the most common type of star in our universe -- called an M dwarf -- could host nearby planets with atmospheres, potentially rich with carbon and perfect for the creation of life. But in a new study of a world orbiting an M dwarf 66 light-years from Earth, researchers found no indication such a planet could hold onto an atmosphere at all. Without a carbon-rich atmosphere, it's unlikely a planet would be hospitable to living things. Carbon molecules are, after all, considered the building blocks of life. And the findings don't bode well for other types of planets orbiting M dwarfs, said study coauthor Michelle Hill, a planetary scientist and a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Riverside. "The pressure from the star's radiation is immense, enough to blow a planet's atmosphere away," Hill said in a post on the university's website. M dwarf stars are known to be volatile, sputtering out solar flares and raining radiation on nearby celestial bodies. But for years, the hope had been that fairly large planets orbiting near M dwarfs could be in a Goldilocks environment, close enough to their small star to keep warm and large enough to cling onto its atmosphere. The nearby M dwarf, however, could be too intense to keep the atmosphere intact, according to the new study, which was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. A similar phenomenon happens in our solar system: Earth's atmosphere also deteriorates because of outbursts from its nearby star, the sun. The difference is that Earth has enough volcanic activity and other gas-emitting activity to replace the atmospheric loss and make it barely detectable, according to the research. However, the M dwarf planet examined in the study, GJ 1252b, "could have 700 times more carbon than Earth has, and it still wouldn't have an atmosphere. It would build up initially, but then taper off and erode away," said study coauthor and UC Riverside astrophysicist Stephen Kane, in a news release.

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Damien Leone's "Terrifier" has become infamous within horror circles for its extreme, no-holds-barred gore. Even by slasher movie standards, the kills are relentlessly brutal, the violence particularly cynical. "Terrifier 2" raises the bar even more, reportedly causing audiences to throw up and pass out in theaters as its main slasher villain Art the Clown chops, maims, and slaughters his way through the whopping 138-minute runtime. However, the sequel also introduces a new component to the story: a genuine protagonist that's supposed to stand tow-to-teeth with Art. Despite the gore fixation, it's this heroine, Sienna Shaw, who Leone was most excited about.

You see, the closest the first "Terrifier" had to a main character was the ordinary party-goer Tara Heyes, but Art killed her before the film's third act in a twist that echoes the death of Janet Leigh's Marion Crane in "Psycho." Even her surviving sister Vicky never truly gets her revenge, instead becoming horribly disfigured when Art decides to eat her face. The cruel fate of these characters makes it clear that "Terrifier" is all about Art and his sick, murderous habits. Not so with "Terrifier 2," which seeks to build an arch-nemesis for Art and a hero that the repulsed audience can root for.

An Arch-Nemesis For Art

In an interview with Awards Radar, Leone explained that developing the character of Sienna was the part of the writing process he was most excited about:

"My primary goal this time... was to really focus on a compelling protagonist... This was my crack at a heroine, a heroic character that's also very grounded in reality that I was really hoping that the audience could empathize with and get behind on her journey and really be scared for her and rooting for her during the film's climax. Thankfully, a lot of people have seemed to respond very favorably to her so that's awesome."

As dark and brutal as "Terrifier 2" gets (and, oh boy, it gets there), Sienna reveals Leone's desire to make something at least a little more optimistic. The director has been trying to create his own iconic slasher in Art the Clown ever since his short film "The 9th Circle" in 2008 and his anthology film "All Hallows' Eve" in 2013. Now that horror fans have accepted Art as a bona fide modern slasher villain, Leone has introduced the horror world to the inevitable archetype that makes watching these types of films more fun: the slasher hero.

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