Ronald.phillips

In its fifth season, "Cobra Kai" gets both its "Empire Strikes Back" moment and its "Avengers: Endgame" moment, as the legacy sequel reaches its finest moment. The show also throws any resemblance to the real world out of the window and goes full sports anime. This means the show has its own ridiculous set of rules and laws that may not make sense in our world, but if you're willing to accept that in this version of the San Fernando Valley the only law is karate, then you might find this season utterly delightful. Add some career-best performances by some of the cast members, one incredible cartoon villain, and thrilling stunts, and you've got a season that is the best, around.

We pick up where we left off last season, with Cobra Kai cheating its way to the top of the All Valley Under 18 Karate Tournament, Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny (William Zabka) forced to shut down their dojos, and Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) in Mexico looking for his father.

Daniel LaRusso's Test Of Faith

This is to say, the first half of the season starts in a really dark and hopeless place, especially for Daniel LaRusso. So far, every two seasons of "Cobra Kai" have acted as a sort of follow-up to each of the films in the original movie. This makes this season the "Karate Kid Part III" of the series, serving as LaRusso's test of faith as he faces his lowest point and his inner darkness as he did in that movie.

The man who spent four seasons criticizing and belittling Johnny for his lack of honor finds himself fighting fire with fire at every turn this time around. He breaks the promise he made last season to leave Cobra Kai alone, and leave karate for good. Instead, he contacts his former enemy and duel-to-the-death opponent, Chozen Toguchi (season MVP Yuji Okumoto), to bring Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) down by fighting dirty and personally.

If you thought his squabble with Johnny was dumb and blown out of proportion, then Daniel's fight against Silver is an all-out total war. This time, things go outside the dojo mats and into the homes of the fighters, with Daniel's vendetta impacting his personal life to the point where even Johnny Lawrence looks at his former rival with pity and compassion. Macchio delivers one of the best performances of his career this season, showing a desperate, unhinged LaRusso whose every waking moment is spent thinking of ways to stop Silver. Every time he utters the name Silver, it carries the weight of 40 years of trauma and pain.

An Old Villain And A New Friend

This all works because Terry Silver is phenomenal as a villain. He is much different than Kreese, a less physically intimidating, but just as scary presence. Just like when he debuted in "The Karate Kid Part III," Silver is more of a cartoonish anime villain, one that acts nice to your face while stabbing you in the back at the same time as he plots to take over the world.

Griffith fully leans into Silver's status as an obscenely wealthy white man — one that is still such a weeb his entire house is styled as a traditional Japanese home, complete with a basement full of katanas and other medieval Japanese artifacts — and how that immediately gives him a level of credibility and forgiveness that surpasses any accusation of abuse or of literally hiring a thug to harass and beat up a kid.

On the other hand, we have former enemy-turned-best-bud Chozen, who easily becomes the MVP of the season. He is essentially one big caricature, a blood-thirsty karate master assassin that acts like a member of the Yakuza and brings twin sai everywhere he goes. And yet Yuji Okumoto fully leans into it, playing the part up with such gusto and charm that you can't help but laugh along with him and cheer whenever he suggests just going up to Silver and cutting him up a bit. It's an over-the-top performance that perfectly matches the over-the-top tone of the season. 

Karate Avengers, Assemble

If the first half of the season is all about the good guys being backed into a corner, then the second half finds its "on your left" moment, and making strides towards stopping Silver. We already know that Mike Barnes from "Part III" shows up this season, and there are even more surprising guests showing up, bringing us even closer to completing every major cameo from the original films — meaning we're even closer to the inevitable appearance by Hilary Swank's Julie Pierce.

Even the tone changes drastically in this latter half, with more (and better) jokes. There's also a running gag about Johnny's love of "Rocky" that could cause many a head scratches given that Survivor's song "Eye of the Tiger" is featured in an episode, while Survivor also wrote "The Moment of Truth," which was used as the theme song for "The Karate Kid."

As for the fight scenes, they continue to be a highlight, even if they have stopped having any actual resemblance to real karate years ago (and are essentially MMA brawls now). We even see more of the adults fighting this season, and it is an absolute treat seeing some of these actors kick as much ass as they do. One thing the show does really well is connect the past to the present, even in fight scenes, with one particularly thrilling fight in the finale being cut against flashbacks to the original movies that adds gravitas to the present.

We're In The Endgame Now

It is a "Karate Kid" fan's dream come true to watch the hero of the original "The Karate Kid" team up with both the villain of the first film, plus the villain of the second movie, all to fight the villain of the third film, Terry Silver. That "Cobra Kai" finds a compelling and believable reason for these three to come together is a testament to the writers.

Five seasons in, "Cobra Kai" has reached the point where most sitcoms start changing up the formula in order to keep audiences engaged. Though this season does change the status quo and adds both complications and sweet developments to the characters' stories, it doesn't feel like a show trying to keep things fresh as it does a show entering its endgame. The initial premise of this story was that these two kids from the '80s could not move past something that happened 40 years prior, and while there are still issues to revolve, we are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel where Daniel and Johnny can embrace a life beyond the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament. As Johnny would say, that's badass.

Cobra Kai season 5 premieres globally September 9, 2022 on Netflix.

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

The post Cobra Kai Season 5 Review: We're in the Endgame Now appeared first on /Film.

AtomTeam brings us what's supposed to be the final update for their post-apocalyptic ATOM RPG: Trudograd. To cap things off, the developers have added a French localization, customizable player bases, a number of new quests and locations, and more.

Here are the rather sparse patch notes:

Greetings friends,

After several months of work we are finally ready to present you with the final planned update for Trudograd. In it, you will get to visit brand new locations, meet new characters, and finally build a personal base many of you asked for ever since the release. The update also includes a lot of typo fixes, improved and added interface functions and much more.

For our French-speaking players this update will add the French localization. Please enjoy, and be sure to email us with any suggestions, typo reports and general feedback. We truly hope it was worth the wait!

During all of the time our team worked on this update, we felt your care and worry for our team. We wish to thank every single one of you for all the kind messages you sent us, and we want you to know that our team is alive, well, and ready to conquer new goals... the details of which we will share at some other time 🙂

Thank you for being with us.

Changelog:

• Added French localization;
• Added player base building option;
• Added ability to visit a bathouse;
• New quests and locations;
• Fixed player-discovered typos;
• Fixed and improved some of the interface functions.

Sincerely yours, Atom Team

Alone in the Dark is one game that inspired many others, many of those being some of the more popular titles or franchises in the industry's history. Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Barbie's Horse Adventures, and almost any 3D survival horror game you've ever heard of had inspiration from the original 1992 release. Now, thirty years later - I was four when the original was released - we're going back to the beginning with Alone in the Dark (2022), a game getting inspiration from those it inspired.

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Described by developers Pieces Interactive (Magicka 2, Titan Quest: Ragnarök & Titan Quest: Atlantis) as a love letter to the original, the studio has brought in experienced horror writer Mikael Hedberg (Amnesia: The Dark Descent, SOMA, and Need for Speed: Payback) who explained during the presentation how he's only worked with some aspects of the original, wanting this version to stand alone, bringing an entirely new story for the series.

What has he brought from the original? You're back in Decerto Manor, still in Louisiana. This time, however, the manor is a mental hospital for the wealthy. Also, you will not be stuck solely within the mansion, branching out into the Louisiana countryside and New Orleans itself. Immediately, the new Alone in the Dark expands upon the original setting while still aiming to stay faithful.

Who will you be doing this as? Sticking with the original cast, you'll be controlling Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood. What should be interesting is how Pieces Interactive borrows from titles like Resident Evil. Rather than going along the same path, each character will have their story, with the one you haven't selected appearing as an NPC. Like Resident evil, it should make a second playthrough valuable. How these stories will differ hasn't been explored.

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What is clear from the presentation and other videos of the game is that Pieces Interactive is focused on the atmosphere of the game. After trying multiple camera styles, they have also settled on the over-the-shoulder camera style made famous with later Resident Evil titles. Even the creatures you'll face have a pedigree, designed by long-term Guillermo Del Toro collaborator Guy Davis.

Not much has been said regarding facing off against the creatures within Alone in the Dark. Pieces did indicate that there will be a wide range of weapons, designed to offer choice - but also designed in a way that makes you aware you can't beat everything - flight or fight, flight being the more sensible option. With limited ammunition, a variety of items to find and collect and several puzzles to work your way through, there's little doubt this is aiming for the traditional survival horror experience.

While I didn't get hands-on with Alone in the Dark, Pieces Interactive has said the right things to catch my interest. Bringing in pedigree like Mikael Hedberg and Guy Davis should help to push this game far and above the 2008 reboot and the utterly atrocious Alone in the Dark: Illumination. Initial impressions are certainly favourable, the hope being that Pieces can deliver on the promise.

The post Alone in the Dark Impressions – Back to Basics by Chris Wray appeared first on Wccftech.

Since he first started appearing in film serials in the 1940s, Batman fans have been blessed with many great movie and TV depictions of the Dark Knight, with recent blockbuster "The Batman" being but one example. As a hero without superpowers, Batman lends himself particularly well to pseudo-realistic interpretations of the Christopher Nolan kind. Villains like the Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, Two-Face, Riddler, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Ra's al Ghul, Scarecrow, Bane, Harley Quinn, and Killer Croc have all made the transition from comic books to live-action films. But some of them have turned out better than others, and Batman has an even deeper bench of colorful foes who have thrived best onscreen in animated form.

When "Batman: The Animated Series" premiered on Fox on September 5, 1992, kids were just getting back to school after the summer of "Batman Returns." For many, Danny Elfman's theme music and the show's one-minute opening sequence — where police blimps shine their spotlights down on a "Dark Deco" Gotham City and Batman tussles with criminals on the rooftop — became a fixture of weekday afternoons. While its time slot may have targeted kids, however, "Batman: The Animated Series" brought mature, downright sophisticated craftsmanship and characterization to its storytelling, ensuring its place in the TV hall of fame as one of the greatest shows of all time.

Batman's Case Files

The artwork of producers Eric Radomski and Bruce Timm helped furnish the visual aesthetic and character designs for "Batman: The Animated Series." Together with Matt Reeves and J.J. Abrams, Timm is now producing the spiritual follow-up "Batman: Caped Crusader," which was affected by the recent corporate shakeup at Warner Bros. and is currently looking for a home outside HBO Max.

Diving back into "Batman: The Animated Series" is like opening case files on a computer in the Batcave. The show holds a timeless quality, and the episodic nature of it ensures you can watch it at random, just as it was syndicated.

If Michael Keaton is the best Batman and Christian Bale is the best Bruce Wayne, then Juilliard-trained voice actor Kevin Conroy splits the difference, giving perfect balance to the square-jawed hero's dual identities. Until "The Batman," we had yet to see the World's Greatest Detective doing much actual detective work in the movies (and he still couldn't deduce that a bat is a rat with wings). Yet it's a common staple of his animated adventures, with Batman searching microfiche, interrogating goons and mob bosses, and having important breakthroughs in his efforts to solve cases.

Conroy nails the lower register of Batman's growl without overdoing it like Bale, and when he adjusts his pitch, his voice conveys a lightness of being for Bruce without reducing the billionaire playboy to a vapid daytime disguise. Episodes like "Appointment in Crime Alley" and "Perchance to Dream," which rank among the show's best, get to the heart of Batman's resilience amid personal loss. But maybe the best way to revisit his animated adventures on their 30th anniversary is to crack open some of those case files on his villains.

The King Of All Clown Princes

Long before "Spider-Man: No Way Home" put forth the idea of a superhero "curing" his villains, "Batman: The Animated Series" was there to build realistic psychological profiles for a compassionate hero who works through his childhood trauma constructively (through crimefighting) while other flamboyant personalities beside him break bad. In the Caped Crusader's first-rate rogues' gallery, some are tragic villains, failed by therapy or warped by an unhealthy relationship with pharmaceuticals. Others are incurable — and for Mark Hamill's Joker, who was born in a vat of chemicals ("Beware the Creeper"), laughter is the best medicine.

In a DVD featurette for "Batman: The Animated Series," Hamill said he approached the Joker's laugh "like a musical instrument" that would "illustrate his mood." The character's mercurial nature keeps him unpredictable, both frightening and funny. "The Laughing Fish" puts these qualities on display in an episode that adapts elements of more than one classic DC Comics tale, including Denny O'Neill and Neal Adams' "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge," which inspired the flashlight visual of Joker smiling next to a shark. Taking a page from Jack Nicholson's Joker and his Smylex gas, Hamill's Clown Prince of Crime exposes his victims to a toxin that leaves their faces contorted in a rictus grin — just before Batman administers the kid-friendly antidote, naturally.

Where Batman is brooding, Hamill's Joker is boisterous. He's the homicidal yet happy medium between other cinematic Joker portrayals, marrying the best parts of them into the perfect character foil, who would surely have the last laugh in any Bat-villain tournament bracket. As Hamill put it, "Sherlock Holmes has his Professor Moriarty; Batman has his Joker."

The (Un)usual Suspects

The Joker admittedly has been done, and done well, in live-action. The same goes for his 1966 "Batman" and "The Batman" compatriots, Penguin, Catwoman, and Riddler, respectively voiced by Paul Williams, Adrienne Barbeau, and John Glover in "The Animated Series." Yet these versions hold their own and give each character extended play, not to mention a distinct musical feel courtesy of composer Shirley Walker's leitmotifs. In "Joker's Favor," for instance, whoopee-cushion whistling accompanies the Clown Prince of Crime. The "Home Alone"-like "I've Got Batman in My Basement" has a soundtrack that musically waddles when the bird-minded Penguin makes his entrance. 

With Michelle Pfeiffer still fresh in the mind of 1992 viewers, Barbeau's animal-loving, morally grey-costumed Catwoman had the distinction of kicking off "Batman: The Animated Series" with the first aired episode, "The Cat and the Claw, Part I." She burgles from the rich and gives to the poor, and Anne Hathaway's Seline Kyle in "The Dark Knight Rises" has a similar attitude toward Gotham's wealthy elite. This wouldn't be the last time "Batman: The Animated Series" influenced the movies.

Riddler comes in further down the line, but his debut, "If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?" reimagines him as a genius game designer exploited by a work-for-hire contract in a maze of cubicles. He sends Batman and Robin (Loren Lester) through one modeled after his game, "The Riddle of the Minotaur." Riddler's scheme to enact vengeance on his boss is echoed in Jim Carrey's slapstick 1995 portrayal, while Paul Dano's 2022 serial-killer version mirrors his tech-savvy side with "over 500" online followers.

These are the standard players, but the deeper you go, the more "Batman: The Animated Series" shows the untapped potential of the Dark Knight's full line-up of antagonists.

Men Who Are Bats

One thing that immediately sets "Batman: The Animated Series" apart from other movie and TV treatments of Batman is the way it embraces the creature-feature corner of the mythos. In the first produced (and numbered) episode, "On Leather Wings," the very first villain we meet is a monstrous inversion of our hero who undergoes a werewolf-like transformation to become a literal Man-Bat. "The beast knew what chemicals were needed to bring itself about," says Man-Bat's human alter ego, Dr. Kirk Langstrom (Marc Singer). With his face distorted behind beakers in his lab, Langstrom explains that he co-discovered a formula for a new species and started taking it—only to have it take over his life.

As Man-Bat, Langstrom flies high, robbing pharmaceutical factories, unable to suppress the monster within him or control his need for the formula. Since it's ostensibly geared toward children, the show calls it a "formula" instead of a "drug," but it's not the last time we'll hear that word or see a villain with an addiction that brings out his worst side. Meanwhile, the closest we've ever had to a live-action Man-Bat was a giant bat, designed by Rick Baker, in a deleted scene from "Batman Forever."

Humans In Monster Form

There are ways to make a "Batman: The Animated Series" villain like Clayface work on film that wouldn't require goopy CGI. You could have him be a master of disguise, peeling off "Mission: Impossible" masks, or even a techie in a digital environment, running deepfakes or posing as people via lifelike avatars. As it is, Clayface's powers are well-served by the animation farmed out to Tokyo Movie Shinsha Co. in the two-parter "Feat of Clay."

Unbound by physical realism, "Batman: The Animated Series" hews to a psychological realism whereby the monstrosity of each villain is merely an outer manifestation of their inner turmoil. Actor Matt Hagen (Ron Perlman, no stranger to playing comic book monsters), has a substance abuse problem. He's hooked on Renuyu, an addictive cream described as a "facelift in a jar." It's something he uses to self-medicate after being disfigured in an accident, left with a "face like putty."

Renuyu comes from pharmaceutical king Roland Daggett (Ed Asner), who keeps Hagen supplied with the experimental new product, which "can perform miracles even plastic surgery can't." When Daggett's henchmen force an overdose on Hagen, the man of a million faces turns into a shape-shifting clay monster whose thoughts become transformations. Thinking himself functional and healthy(?), Clayface boasts, "I figured out how to manage this thing pretty good," right before Batman confronts him with the video-monitor ghosts of his former acting self.

Even with Clayface running amok, "Batman: The Animated Series" finds time to explore the mentality of low-level enforcer Germs (Ed Begley Jr.), who turns doorknobs with a handkerchief and is afraid of setting foot in a hospital with sick people. Fleeing Batman, Germs runs into a room with "infectious disease specimens" and is soon living his worst nightmare.

Faces Of Tragedy

As good as "The Dark Knight" was, and as much as the narrative may have structured itself around Harvey Dent, Heath Ledger's Joker stole the show there. While the film was in development in the 2000s, there was talk that Dent might not turn into Two-Face until a potential third Christopher Nolan movie. Aaron Eckhart's character could have benefited from such treatment because, in his zeal to save nothing for the sequel, Nolan crammed Two-Face's whole criminal career into the third act before killing him off.

"Batman: The Animated Series" gives Richard Moll's Harvey Dent more room to breathe, both before and after he's Two-Face. In "Pretty Poison," his character development runs parallel to that of Pamela Isley, a.k.a. Poison Ivy (Diane Pershing), a PhD botanist with a "plants are people" fetish. She doesn't take kindly to anyone bulldozing over endangered wild roses. Dent is smitten with Isley, but she poisons him with a kiss that sends him into a coma.

The "Two-Face" two-parter gives Dent a new fiancée named Grace and a tragic supervillain origin that would inform Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's "Batman: The Long Halloween." He becomes one of the show's most compelling characters, an ally-turned-enemy haunted by dreams of his dark side and incapable of keeping up the front of a squeaky-clean district attorney.

When Harvey puts his anger management issues on public display, crime boss Rupert Thorne (John Vernon) looks to dig up dirt on him, observing, "All men have something to hide. The brighter the picture, the darker the negative." In secret, Harvey sees a psychiatrist, with the lightning offering a flash of what he will become when his Big Bad Harv personality takes over and he adopts a yin-yang suit and Tommy gun as Two-Face.

Not Just A Boy's Club

Created by Paul Dini for "Batman: The Animated Series," Harley Quinn (Arleen Sorkin) made her first media appearance in "Joker's Favor," which frames the Clown Prince of Crime through the eyes of a civilian who makes the mistake of telling off the wrong grinning driver in traffic. The vulnerable schlub perspective, picked up later by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo's "Joker" graphic novel, squeezes maximum menace out of the Joker while setting up his relationship with Harley.

Like Margot Robbie's Harley, Sorkin's version of the character is emancipated from that abusive, manipulative relationship in the girl-power episode, "Harley and Ivy," the first of her many pairings with Poison Ivy. They, Catwoman, Batgirl (Melissa Gilbert), and other characters help keep the treehouse co-ed.

"Mad Love" explores Harley's origin as Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a buttoned-up intern at Arkham Asylum with an "attraction to extreme personalities." In their therapy sessions, the Joker unlocks her repressed fun-loving side. She falls in love with him, her Hannibal Lecter-esque patient, even as he lies about his backstory like Heath Ledger's Joker (with his multiple-choice past straight out of Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's "The Killing Joke").

"Mad Love" was the final episode of "Batman: The Animated Series" to air under its "New Batman Adventures" redesign for The WB. It also has Joker threatening Commissioner Gordon (Bob Hastings) with dentistry by way of a power drill, and even winking at Hamill's role as Luke Skywalker with a "Star Wars" pun. ("May the floss be with you.")

What A Croc

Unlike Man-Bat and Clayface, Killer Croc grew up looking the way he does. He started out as a carnival sideshow attraction, then became a pro wrestler, before settling into a life of crime. Throughout the series, we also see him depicted as a sewer monster ("Vendetta") who fraternizes with circus people ("Sideshow") similar to Penguin in "Batman Returns."

As an escaped convict, Croc finds acceptance at an idyllic freak farm, where a boy with flippers tells him he can be himself and not feel bad or have people stare at him. He shows signs of reform when he passes up the chance to steal $50,000, but then his past, personified by Batman, catches up with him. We soon see that, for Croc, being himself means being a petty crook, driven by emotions like greed and the desire for revenge against Batman, Harvey Bullock (Robert Costanzo), and anyone else who wronged him.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, known for his role as Mr. Eko on "Lost," did appear under makeup and a hoodie as a cannibalistic Killer Croc in "Suicide Squad." He was a supporting character, though, and it feels like "Batman: The Animated Series" is the only place where Croc has received his full due.

In "Almost Got 'Im," the show even gives Croc a seat at the card table with other heavy hitters like Joker. They gather at the Stacked Deck Club, where the episode stacks story on top of flashback story, allowing each villain to recount the time they almost killed Batman. Croc has the best line — "I threw a rock at him!" — and even better, it turns out he isn't the real Croc, but Batman in disguise.

From Lame To A-Game

Another standout "Batman: The Animated Series" episode is the Emmy-winning "Heart of Ice," which rescued Mr. Freeze from the slums of the C-listers and made him a rich, sympathetic villain like Two-Face. Victor Fries (Michael Ansara) is a scientist left in a frigid emotional state after a cutthroat CEO nixes the life support for his cryogenically frozen wife. "Unforgiving ice" rules his actions, freezing people out (it's a coping mechanism, and gives Batman the sniffles), until chicken soup for the soul defeats him.

This portrait of Mr. Freeze changed how he was depicted on celluloid and the comic book page. It's just a shame the average moviegoer might associate the character more with Arnold Schwarzenegger's punny performance in "Batman and Robin," a flick even director Joel Schumacher apologized for.

The Mad Hatter (Roddy McDowall) is another villain "Batman: The Animated Series" legitimized, so much so that he topped our poll of the villains fans most want to see in live-action. In a show that spelunks the human psyche like a regular old Batcave, Hatter's first episode, "Mad as a Hatter," sees him turning people into mind-controlled puppets and pawns when he's otherwise powerless to win their respect or manage his unrequited love for a co-worker named Alice.

The Ventriloquist (George Dzundza), first seen in "Read My Lips," is a man with dissociative identity disorder whose dummy, Scarface, has such a forceful personality that you almost wonder if the doll isn't truly possessed. Though just a one-off, "Fire from Olympus" also makes a meal out of Maxie Zeus (Steve Susskind), a delusional smuggler who nurtures a Greek god complex after a stress-triggered breakdown. He finds a home among the inmates of Arkham Asylum—where we all belong.

Clocking Out

There are so many stellar "Batman: The Animated Series" episodes, like the kangaroo-court villains bonanza "Trial" and the Adam West showcase "Beware of the Gray Ghost," that to really do it justice, we'd need to do a full series rewatch and review. Even within this overview, however, a pattern emerges. Bruce Wayne puts it into words as he stands over his badly burned friend Harvey Dent in the hospital, saying, "I'm more worried about the mental scars."

Harvey's backstory as a kid who locked up his anger after lashing out as a bully is just one example of how the series took the mindset of its characters seriously, engaging kid viewers as mini-adults. In the same way the ever-changing Scarecrow (Henry Polic II) uses people's fears against them, "Batman: The Animated Series" wields psychology as a storytelling weapon.

If we had all the time in the world, there's a ton of other characters it would be worth talking about, such as Ra's al Ghul (the late David Warner) and his life-prolonging Lazarus Pits ("The Demon's Quest"). However, like the time-obsessed Clock King (Alan Rachins), we might risk missing our court date that way. Then, we'd probably — clock pun intended — wind up vowing revenge and tying the mayor to a clocktower's hour hand, to be crushed to death unless Batman could save him.

Even obscure "Animated Series" villains like Clock King come with motives and an M.O. that have some basis in recognizable mental reality. "Batman: The Animated Series" puts a fantastical turn on human psychology, but by rooting itself in the truth of the mind above all else (even the laws of physics), it left us with the most definitive, all-encompassing take on the world of Batman that has ever graced the screen.

Read this next: Joker's Wild: Ranking The Cinematic Versions Of The Clown Prince Of Crime

The post Why Batman: The Animated Series is the Definitive Depiction of the Dark Knight and His Villains appeared first on /Film.

With the retail launch of the Ryzen 7000 approaching, the existing AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs have started to receive some pretty major price cuts.

AMD Ryzen 5000 CPU Prices See Huge Retailer Cuts With Only Weeks Left in Ryzen 7000 Launch, 5800X3D Down To $379 US

With less than a month left in AMD's Ryzen 7000 launch, the existing product stack is finally down to less than $500 US. AMD's Ryzen 5000 CPUs launched almost two years ago, offering the most competitive multi-threaded and gaming performance against Intel's lineup seen in years. Now two years later, AMD is going to repeat the same, offering much higher single-threaded performance & in a highly efficient package to gamers, content creators, and high-performance users.

While AMD's Ryzen 7000 CPUs are without a doubt going to blaze past their predecessors, the current Ryzen 5000 CPU stack at their current prices is just too good to ignore for the majority of gamers and builders who don't see a need to upgrade to the AM5 platform, just yet. While AM5 is the way to go for future longevity, AMD already confirmed that they will stay committed to AM4 users for the foreseeable future.

Another reason why AM4 might seem like a more value-oriented choice is that it still supports DDR4 memory which is much cheaper to get compared to DDR5 and that still hasn't reached price parity with the older standard. Also, AM4 motherboards give users the choice to pick up anywhere from a $50 to a $500 motherboard whereas AM5 will begin at a slightly higher $125 US bracket. So while those who want something new and fresh with faster performance should aim for AM5, the rest of the audience who are building budget PCs should aim for AM4 while it still has some juice in it and wait till AM5 gets more mature.

With that said, let's take a look at the latest pricing of AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs. Starting with the top-dog, the Ryzen 9 5950X, the chip is down from its MSRP of $799.99 US to just $499.99 US. That's an impeccable deal for a 16-core processor but if you want to save even more money yet still get lots of high-performance cores, then the Ryzen 9 5900X with 12-cores at $349.99 US is an amazing deal. That's in fact even cheaper than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D which is currently down to $379.99 US but it is definitely an interesting choice. If you want to go the content creation and multi-threading route, then the 5900X is going to be your best choice and if you are looking to game, then the 5800X3D is going to be your best bet.

At $379.99 US, the 5800X3D is positioned right in between the Ryzen 5 7600X & Ryzen 7 7700X which will have fairly the same amount of performance in games. AMD's own benchmarks show that the 7600X would be 5.6% faster than the Core i9-12900K for just $299 US. The 5800X3D is anywhere from 5-10% faster than the 12900K but compared to the 7600X, the 5800X3D has more cores and threads. You can also get 8 cores and 16 threads with Zen 4's Ryzen 7 7700X but it will cost slightly higher at $449 US.

Moving down the stack, we have the Ryzen 7 5800X which can be bought for just $239.99 US while the 6-core Ryzen 5 5600X can be bought for just $179.99 US. Following are the links from various US-based retailers where you could buy the chips. You can also find several AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs still retaining their top seller positions at Newegg & Amazon.

AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs (Microcenter)

• Ryzen 9 5900X - $499.99 US
• Ryzen 9 5900X - $349.99 US
• Ryzen 7 5800X3D - $379.99 US
• Ryzen 7 5800X - $239.99 US
• Ryzen 5 5600X - $179.99 US

AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs (Amazon US)

• Ryzen 9 5900X - $549 US
• Ryzen 9 5900X - $379 US
• Ryzen 7 5800X3D - $384 US
• Ryzen 7 5800X - $245 US
• Ryzen 5 5600X - $194 US

AMD's Ryzen 7000 and AM5 motherboards are going to hit retail shelves on the 27th of September so we can expect even further price cuts on the Ryzen 5000 CPU family in the coming weeks.

The post AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs See Major Price Cuts As Ryzen 7000 Retail Launch Approaches: 5800X3D Down To $379, 5950X at $499, 5900X at $349, 5800X at $239, 5600X at $179 by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

The Meta Quest 2 (formally Oculus Quest 2) has been the VR headset of choice for Steam users for quite some time now. The device has sat at the top of the platform's hardware and software survey for some time, but in a surprise turn of events, it appears that many are ditching the all-in-one virtual reality gaming solution for mystery alternatives.

RELATED LINKS: Best VR games, Oculus Quest 3 release date, Project Cambria release date

The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is shaping up to be the most powerful processor on the planet when it finally arrives later this month, promising new levels of performance in both single-core and multi-core workloads. Just how powerful the flagship Zen 4 CPU is remains to be seen, but new benchmarks allegedly place it well ahead of its Intel Core competition.

RELATED LINKS: Ryzen 7000 CPUs - everything we know, RDNA 3 GPUs - everything we know, Best gaming CPU

A Fallout: New Vegas mod restores a variety of visual and environmental content that was originally cut by Obsidian when the Bethesda-published RPG was released for consoles, bringing new life and dozens of neat little details back to the Mojave Wasteland.

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

Whether it's embracing his dark side or giving improvisation a shot, Sebastian Stan is drawn to roles that scare him. In 2019, the actor starred in "Endings, Beginnings," filmmaker Drake Doremus' relationship drama that also features Shailene Woodley and Jamie Dornan. The film required Stan to think from his character's perspective in more ways than expected, which was a daunting process for him. The film follows Daphne (Woodley) as a woman undergoing a bad break-up before she gets involved with friends Frank (Stan) and Jack (Dornan) and begins a relationship with each of them. 

Like several of Doremus' films, "Endings, Beginnings" is mainly improvised, with the actors filling in the script's blanks. Sebastian Stan jumped at the opportunity to challenge himself as a performer, but it wasn't easy for him. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Marvel Cinematic Universe star described the learnings from his improv experience and illustrated how it was challenging to stay in-character. 

'We're Improvising As Honestly As Possible'

Sebastian Stan shared how having direction and an outline was helpful and made him stay true to his character. Sometimes, the lines between performer and character get blurry, but luckily for the actor, the film's director knew exactly what moments to capture during the ad-libs, and only the chosen ones made it to the movie. The actor was full of praise for the director, and appreciated his talent for filtering performances and sequences that felt right for each character and what they were intended to do:

" ... In the editing room, which is what makes Drake brilliant at this, he finds the moments; the way he cuts is just fascinating to me. I remember saying to him, 'Drake, no take is the same. I don't know how you're going to cut this. It's impossible.' And yet, he made it work."

The actor continued, revealing that many scenes he filmed with co-star Shailene Woodley didn't make it to film:

"He found the conversation, and he found the moments. He's got a very specific way of cutting that I love which is the reactions and so on. He really filtered those performances in the editing room as well. There was a lot of back-and-forth dialogue between me and Shailene that never made it, but again, it's about him picking what he feels is right for who each character is."

Sebastian Stan Didn't Have Any Practice With Improv Before

"Endings, Beginnings" was Stan's first attempt at improv, and he wasn't shy to admit how it intimidated him. The "Fresh" star didn't have any prior practice or training, and decided to use the opportunity as a stepping stone for future projects. Stan has always felt "protected" by the right script, and "Endings, Beginnings" was a chance to see how far he could go as an actor. It's something he took seriously:

"I definitely was [intmidated]. Absolutely, I was. I didn't have an audition for the movie, but I had that three-hour session with Drake where we talked about different things and topics. I think he was just curious to see how honest our conversation could go, and I just wasn't afraid of that. It was very scary at the beginning. It's that question you asked, where you go, 'Well, this isn't really who I am. I don't do these things that this character does.'"

He Did It Once, And He'd Do It Again

Stan learned a lot from his experience improvising for a character and is committed to doing it again if the opportunity presents itself. The actor is excited about employing his learning experiences in the future.

"I've always felt protected by scripts, lines and scenes. I feel like I'm one of those people who's opened up much more by scripts. I'm not as witty on my own. This was one of those different experiences, and I would certainly do it again. I'd be curious to see if I could ever use parts of it in a bigger movie. Believe it or not, on those bigger projects, you do use improv. You do the scenes a couple times. You get it as it's written on paper, and then you say, 'Let's just do this one more time and try it out this way. Let's just see what happens and then we have it.' Sometimes, that ends up in the movie because it's weirdly a sort of wildcard. So, maybe this was a really training experience for that."

Sebastian Stan has spoken about how he enjoys venturing out of his comfort zone and wants to continue taking on different roles from his past projects. With "Pam & Tommy," "Fresh," and his next, "Sharper," an upcoming comedy thriller film from A24, the star has proved he's an actor of his word.

Read this next: Ranking Morgan Freeman's 20 Best Roles

The post All The Improv In Endings, Beginnings Was A Scary Prospect For Sebastian Stan appeared first on /Film.

Two new Skyrim mods launched at the start of September are looking like they could be a revolution for those hoping to mod the UI of the ageing RPG game. While The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has long been one of the best open-world games thanks, in part, to its rather extensive mod support, these new offerings promise to further improve functionality for players hoping to implement multiple mods and upgrade the game’s navigation tools.

The Skyrim Compass Navigation Overhaul mod, created by alexsylex, takes inspiration from the likes of The Witcher 3, Horizon Zero Dawn, and God of War to revamp the Skyrim compass displayed at the top of the screen. It adds the name of the landmark you’re currently looking at, the distance it is from your current location, and arrows indicating height difference in cases where the target is above or below you. Distances can even be changed to be displayed in either feet or metres depending upon your regional preference.

In addition, when you face an active quest marker, the current objectives for that quest will pop up on the side of your screen in a handy quest list widget, so you don’t have to dive back into menus. Furthermore, there are toggles that allow you to choose if you want to display undiscovered locations, nearby enemy locations, and markers located behind doors while you are outside. It’s a very helpful overhaul to one of the most useful elements of the Skyrim UI, and we’ll definitely be using it in our future playthroughs.

RELATED LINKS: Skyrim mods, Play Skyrim, Games like Skyrim

Amazon's new $465 million series — a prequel to the Lord of the Rings — drew more than 25 million viewers on just its first day, according to Reuters, "a record debut for a Prime Video series." The Independent shared reactions from J. R. R. Tolkein fans, including one who said "it looks like they put absolutely all that Amazon money to use for scenes." First up, the praise. Many are agreeing that the show's costly budget, which positions it as one of the most expensive shows of all time, has paid off, with the series boasting impressive visuals.... @marklee3d added: Rings of Power has done a great job of capturing the feel of Tolkien's world. The challenge is creating a compelling story where one didn't exist before. The show's success lies in pulling that off." Agreeing that the "spirit" of Tokkien has been captured, @suzannahtweets wrote: "I'm far less concerned about little lore details than I am about the spirit. And while I thought that Peter Jackson fundamentally misunderstood the spirit of Tolkien in ALL his movies, so far the spirit of THE RINGS OF POWER feels remarkably authentic to Tolkien...." However, others argued the show felt "goofy" and featured "terrible" dialogue, with some suggesting that "Tolkien himself" would be "ashamed" of the series. But "by releasing the first two episodes instead of just the more predictable first, Amazon gave The Rings of Power a strong start," argues Cinemablend. Collider's senior TV editor praises the show's "stunning visuals, compelling characters, and magnetic lead," while one podcaster even called the show "a cinematic masterpiece... masterfully orchestrating a mythology that fans have been waiting for." Deadline reports that "Critics reviews, save a scathing piece in the UK Daily Mail, have generally been positive for The Rings of Power, as measured by aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic.... As of Friday evening, the IMDb rating stood at a respectable 7.1 out of 10." And Variety adds that Amazon had already taken steps to thwart review bombers three weeks ago: Starting around the time of the launch of the distaff baseball dramedy "A League of Their Own," which premiered its full first season on Aug. 12, Amazon Prime Video quietly introduced a new 72-hour delay for all user reviews posted to Prime Video, a representative for the streamer confirmed to Variety. Each critique is then evaluated to determine whether it's genuine or a forgery created by a bot, troll or other breed of digital goblin. The practice caught notice after the premiere of the first two episodes of "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power"... The series appears to have been review bombed — when trolls flood intentionally negative reviews for a show or film — on other sites like Rotten Tomatoes, where it has an 84% rating from professional critics, but a 37% from user-submitted reviews. "The Rings of Power" has been fending off trolls for months, especially ones who take issue with the decision to cast actors of color as elves, dwarves, harfoots and other folk of Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth. Amazon's new initiative to review its reviews, however, is designed to weed out ones that are posted in bad faith, deadening their impact.... Whether Amazon successfully beat back the tide of internet trolls for "The Rings of Power" will likely be revealed on Sunday. Reuters reports that future episodes of the series will be released weekly until the October 14 season finale. "Amazon plans to let the full story unfold in 50 hours over five seasons."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A 21-year-old New Jersey man has been arrested and charged with stalking in connection with a federal investigation into groups of cybercriminals who are settling scores by hiring people to carry out physical attacks on their rivals. Prosecutors say the defendant recently participated in several of these schemes — including firing a handgun into a Pennsylvania home and torching a residence in another part of the state with a Molotov Cocktail.

Patrick McGovern-Allen of Egg Harbor Township, N.J. was arrested on Aug. 12 on a warrant from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. An FBI complaint alleges McGovern-Allen was part of a group of co-conspirators who are at the forefront of a dangerous escalation in coercion and intimidation tactics increasingly used by competing cybercriminal groups.

Prosecutors say that around 2 a.m. on Jan 2, 2022, McGovern-Allen and an unidentified co-conspirator fired multiple handgun rounds into a residence in West Chester, Pa. Fortunately, none of the residents inside the home at the time were injured. But prosecutors say the assailants actually recorded video of the attack as “proof” that the shooting had been carried out.

A copy of that video was obtained by KrebsOnSecurity. According to investigators, McGovern-Allen was one of the shooters, who yelled “Justin Active was here” as they haphazardly fired at least eight rounds into the lower story of the West Chester residence.

On Dec. 18, 2021, police in Abington Township, Pa., responded to reports of a house fire from homeowners who said it sounded like something was thrown at their residence just prior to the fire.

Weeks later, on the day of the shooting in West Chester, a detective with the Westtown East Goshen Police Department contacted the Abington police and shared another video that was circulating on several online message boards that appeared to show two individuals setting fire to the Abington Township residence. The criminal complaint said the two police officers agreed the same suspect was present in both videos.

A copy of that video also was obtained by KrebsOnSecurity, and it shows at least two individuals smashing a window, then lighting a rag-soaked Mad Dog 20/20 grape wine bottle and hurling it at the side of the home [Update: My apologies for the file download link, but YouTube just deleted both of the videos included in this story — for allegedly violating their community standards].

“The Molotov cocktail caused the immediate surrounding area to ignite, including the siding of the house, grass, and the wooden chair,” the government’s complaint against McGovern-Allen states. “The two suspects then fled on foot toward the street and begin yelling something when the video stops.”

The government mentions the victims only by their initials — “K.M.” in the shooting and “A.R.” in the firebombing — but said both had been the target of previous harassment by rival cybercriminal groups that included swatting attacks, wherein the perpetrators spoof a distress call to the police about a hostage situation, suicide or bomb threat with the goal of sending a heavily-armed police response to a targeted address.

A number of previous swatting incidents have turned deadly. But these more “hands-on” and first person attacks are becoming increasingly common within certain cybercriminal communities, particularly those engaged in SIM swapping, a crime in which identity thieves hijack a target’s mobile phone number and use that to wrest control over the victim’s various online accounts and identities.

The complaint mentions a handle and user ID allegedly used by McGovern-Allen’s online persona “Tongue” on the Discord chat service, (user: “Tongue#0001”).

“In the chats, [Tongue] tells other Discord users that he was the person who shot K.M.’s house and that he was willing to commit firebombings using Molotov Cocktails,” the complaint alleges. “For example, in one Discord chat from March 2022, [the defendant] states ‘if you need anything done for $ lmk [“let me know”]/I did a shooting/Molotov/but I can also do things for ur entertainment.”

KrebsOnsecurity reviewed hundreds of chat records tied to this Tongue alias, and it appears both attacks were motivated by a desire to get back at a rival cybercriminal by attacking the female friends of that rival.

Recall that the shooters in the West Chester, Pa. incident shouted “Justin Active was here.” Justin Active is the nickname of an individual who is just as active in the same cybercriminal channels, but who has vehemently denied knowledge of or participation in the shooting. Justin Active said on Telegram that the person targeted in the shooting was his ex-girlfriend, and that the firebombing targeted another friend of his.

Justin Active has claimed for months that McGovern-Allen was responsible for both attacks, saying they were intended as an intimidation tactic against him. “DO THE PATRICK MCGOVERN ALLEN RAID DANCE!,” Justin Active’s alias “Nutcase68” shouted on Telegram on Aug. 12, the same day McGovern-Allen was arrested by authorities.

Justin Active’s version of events seems to be supported by a reference in the criminal complaint to an April 2, 2022 chat in which Tongue explained the reason for the shooting.

“The video/is [K]’s house/getting shit/shot/justin active/ was her current bf/ the reason it happened,” Tongue explained. “So that’s why Justin active was there.”

The Telegram chat channels that Justin Active and Tongue both frequented have hundreds to thousands of members each, and some of the more interesting solicitations on these communities are job offers for in-person assignments and tasks that can be found if one searches for posts titled, “If you live near,” or “IRL job” — short for “in real life” job.

A number of these classified ads are in service of performing “brickings,” where someone is hired to visit a specific address and toss a brick through the target’s window.

“If you live near Edmonton Canada dm me need someone bricked,” reads on Telegram message on May 31, 2022.

“If you live near [address redacted] Lakewood, CA, dm [redacted] Paying 3k to slash the tires,” reads another help wanted ad in the same channel on Feb. 24, 2022. “If you live near here and can brick them, dm [address omitted] Richland, WA,” reads another from that same day.

McGovern-Allen was in the news not long ago. According to a Sept. 2020 story from The Press of Atlantic City, a then 19-year-old Patrick McGovern Allen was injured after driving into a building and forcing residents from their home.

“Police found a 2007 Lexus, driven by Patrick McGovern-Allen, 19, that had lost control and left the road, crashing into the eastern end of the 1600 building,” the story recounted. “The car was driven through the steps that provide access to the second-floor apartments, destroying them, and also caused damage to the outer wall.”

A search on the Inmate Locator of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website shows that McGovern-Allen remains in federal custody at a detention facility in Philadelphia. He’s currently represented by a public defender who has not responded to requests for comment.

A copy of the criminal complaint against McGovern-Allen is available here (PDF).

ANALYSIS

Many of the individuals involved in paying others to commit these physical attacks are also frequent participants in several Telegram channels focused singularly on SIM swapping activity. As a result, the vast majority of the people being targeted for brickings and other real-life physical assaults tend to be other cybercriminals involved in SIM swapping crimes (or individuals on the periphery of that scene).

There are dozens of SIM swappers who are now teenage or 20-something millionaires, by virtue of having stolen vast sums of cryptocurrencies from SIM swapping victims. And now many of these same individuals are finding that communities like Telegram can be leveraged to hire physical harassment and intimidation of their rivals and competitors.

The primary barrier to hiring someone to brick a home or slash some tires seems to be the costs involved: A number of solicitations for these services advertised payment of $3,000 or more upon proof of successful completion, which usually involves recording the attack and hiring a getaway driver in the town where the crime is to take place (calling a cab or hailing an Uber from the scene of a bricking isn’t the brightest idea).

My fear is these violence-as-a-service offerings will at some point migrate outside of the SIM swapping communities. This is precisely what happened with swatting, which for years was a crime perpetrated almost exclusively against online gamers and people streaming their games online. These days, swatting attacks are commonly used by SIM swapping groups as a way to harass and extort regular Internet users into giving up prized social media account names that can be resold for thousands of dollars.

In a recent New York Times article, longtime flower gardener Jenny Rose Carey proclaimed that when it comes to flowers, “September is the new May.” Each year, she visits fall gardens around the country to see what’s still in bloom in September, then applies what she learned in her home garden.

Read more...

"Across the United States, parents are increasingly buying Apple Watches and strapping them onto the wrists of children as young as 5," reports the New York Times: The goal: to use the devices as a stopgap cellphone for the kids. With the watch's cellular abilities, parents can use it to reach and track their children, while the miniature screens mitigate issues like internet addiction. Children and teenagers appear to have become a disproportionately large market for smartwatches as a whole. In a 2020 survey of American teenagers by the investment bank Piper Sandler, 31% said they owned a smartwatch. That same year, 21% of adults in the United States said they owned one, according to the Pew Research Center. The use of smartwatches as a children's gadget shows how the audience for a consumer technology product can morph in unexpected ways. It has also given new life to the Apple Watch, which was unveiled in 2015 and has been variously positioned as a fitness tracker, a style statement or a way to free yourself from an iPhone. Apple has deliberately turned the watch into a device that can be attractive for children and their parents. In 2020, the company released the Apple Watch SE, which had fewer features than a premium model and was priced $120 cheaper. Apple also introduced Family Setup, software that let parents track their children's locations, manage their contacts list and limit their notifications.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Ocean Cleanup project has an announcement.... 75% to 86% of plastic debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch "originates from fishing activities at sea." Plastic emissions from rivers remain the main source of plastic pollution from a global ocean perspective. Plastic lost at sea has a higher chance of accumulating offshore than plastic emitted from rivers, leading to high concentrations of fishing-related debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch [or GPGP]. New findings confirm the oceanic garbage patches cannot be cleaned solely through river interception and highlight the potentially vital role of fishing and aquaculture in ridding the world's oceans of plastic.... Our previous research has shown that almost half of the plastic mass in the GPGP is comprised of fishing nets and ropes (fibrous plastics used, for example, to make our The Ocean Cleanup sunglasses), with the remainder largely composed of hard plastic objects and small fragments. While the provenance of fishing nets is obvious, the origins of the other plastics in the GPGP have — until now — remained unclear.... In 2019, System 001/B, an early iteration of our cleanup technology, retrieved over 6,000 hard plastic debris items (larger than 5 cm) from the GPGP, providing our scientists with a unique opportunity to study larger objects not studied by previous research efforts. Each item was sorted into predefined item categories and inspected individually for evidence of country of origin (evidence may include language or text on the object, company name, brand, logo, or other identifying text such as an address or telephone number, etc.) and date of production. This comprehensive analysis revealed that roughly a third of the items were unidentifiable fragments. The other two-thirds was dominated by objects typically used in fishing, such as floats, buoys, crates, buckets, baskets, containers, drums, jerry cans, fish boxes, and eel traps. Nearly half (49%) of plastic objects which could be dated were produced in the 20th century, with the oldest identified item being a buoy dating from 1966. This distribution is in line with our previous research showing significant occurrence of decades-old objects in the GPGP and re-emphasizes that the plastic in these garbage patches persists and can cause harm for lengthy periods, continually degrading into microplastics and becoming increasingly difficult to remove. In short, these results underline the urgent need to clean the GPGP; no matter what actions are taken to prevent riverine plastic emissions, the GPGP will persist and its content will continue to beach on remote islands, such as the Hawaiian Archipelago, and fragment into microplastics that will eventually sink to the seabed. Surprisingly, countries near the edge of the northern Pacific (like the Philippines) weren't major contributors to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and instead their research blamed Japan (34%), China (32%), the Korean peninsula (10%), and the USA (7%). While they're not major sources of plastic from rivers, "they do carry out the majority of industrialized fishing activities in the GPGP region.... "[T]rawlers, fixed gear, and drifting longlines accounted for more than 95% of identified fishing activities that may account for emissions of floating plastic debris into the GPGP. "

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This week we have played some actual new things, including Tinykins, The Last of Us Part 1, and Midnight Fight Express! But also some older stuff including a lot of Splinters Cell.  This week's music:  Architects - Deepfake

Tom Hardy may be regarded as one of Hollywood's few bonafide movie stars, but the actor has never made it a priority to be a leading man in his films. Sure, he has headlined his own superhero franchise in "Venom," but he has rarely gone out of his way to be the sole acting powerhouse in any given film. In fact, some of his best performances are in a supporting role, across the so-called "leading man." For example, in the three Christopher Nolan projects he's been in — "Inception," "The Dark Knight Rises," and "Dunkirk" — Hardy is relegated to being second (or third) fiddle to the lead performances. However, that doesn't mean he isn't as crucial as the protagonist. According to Hardy himself, he takes after the best talents in the business who have made their imprint on cinema as co-stars.

Let's be clear: Hardy is absolutely more than capable of carrying a project on his shoulders. But that's not something he seems to be interested in doing, even in his most prominent roles. He may be the titular character in "Mad Max: Fury Road," but he is on an equal playing ground with Charlize Theron's Furiosa. As a character actor, Hardy excels in bringing the best out of the individual across him.

Being A Role Player

Hardy revealed to AV Club his penchant for supporting roles, referencing other actors in the process. He also aptly compared his acting philosophy to a popular sport:

"I mean, you look at Dustin Hoffman, Gary Oldman, Philip Seymour Hoffman—these are great character actors. Not necessarily the lead, but what's so bad about playing a co-star? What makes you think that that's so different from playing the lead? The difference in some aspects is like playing soccer...There is no difference between passing the ball to someone's feet accurately than there is to the striker being accurate on the goal. Being a co-star or actor is as significant position on the field as it is to be a striker."

Aside from the shockingly accurate football analogy, Gary Oldman is a fascinating mention when it comes to being a co-star. Oldman has three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor under his belt, yet there is truth to what Hardy is saying. Like Hardy, Oldman has acted in supporting roles, including in the same film, Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises." But if you look even closer at the trajectory of Oldman's career, it includes a bevy of memorable characters like Sirius Black in the "Harry Potter" saga, and some of his earliest work as the villain in "Léon: The Professional." If we were to compare one actor to another, I'd argue Oldman's resume is the closest to what Hardy brings to the table.

Lead actor or not, a key aspect of Hardy's thought process when it comes to acting is his commitment to supporting the person across from him.

Giving Is To Receive

Out of his many acting roles, the one performance that garnered Hardy an Academy Award nomination was playing the villain in the Leonardo DiCaprio-led "The Revenant." While DiCaprio is undeniably the protagonist in the film, Hardy more than holds his own and contributes to an engrossing back-and-forth dynamic with his co-star. If that film is a prime example of feeding off each other's energy, then count it as just one of Hardy's many attempts at prioritizing his fellow actor on-screen. Hardy stated the following to AV Club:

"These actors and the characters they play are imbued with the ability to actually lift the lead and one another up in a film, and apart from serving the script and the director's vision, but an actor's sole purpose, my sole purpose as an actor, is to feed my opposite actor as much as humanly possible in order for him or her to do their job. That's it. If I'm doing that for them, and they're in return doing that for me, then we have a lot of options, and you hopefully have the potential to capture some great drama. Then we've done our job."

Coincidentally enough, the one and only Academy Award DiCaprio has won is for his work in "The Revenant." Both of their success is surely a result of their own individual efforts; however, it is no mistake that DiCaprio and Hardy raised their A-game simultaneously. The character work previously described by Hardy is not only instrumental to prop up the lead actor but it allowed him to elevate his own work.

Read this next: The Best Movies Of 2022 So Far

The post Being A Leading Man Was Never A Priority For Tom Hardy appeared first on /Film.

【BM】 .Net framework 4.0 for Windows 2000公開
以前公開した .Net Framework 4.0 for Windows 2000 の日本語パッケージをリメイクしました
そのままの実行でインストール・アンインストール両方に転用できるのが特徴です･ω･

After beginning his career in stage plays around London's West End and earning short-lived roles on random television shows, Tim Curry sashayed into stardom when he portrayed Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the 1975 cult classic film "Rocky Horror Picture Show." Originally debuting as a stage play in London, "The Rocky Horror Picture show" is a unique blend of old-school horror, campy sci-fi, and dramatic musical that no one expected to remain popular for nearly 50 years.

Since 1976, theaters across America and England regularly host midnight showings of the film, where the audience tosses rice, confetti, and insults at the screen. While this is more than enough to get viewers tossed out of any other showing, this behavior is encouraged during "Rocky Horror" screenings, and has become part of the viewing experience.

Along with catchy songs and fun dances, a majority of the film's long-lasting success rests on the glittered high heels of Tim Curry. While a slew of actors have taken on the role over the years, Curry's portrayal of the pansexual, extraterrestrial, mad scientist is undoubtedly the most popular and successful. As a result of Curry's excellent characterization, Frank-N-Furter might have become more recognizable than the actor. In the late '70s, Curry was accused of being a fraud and was thrown out of a midnight showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."

Typecasting Fears

After Dr. Frank-N-Furter became the breakout star of the movie, Curry shied away from discussing the role. While other actors flock to morning and late-night talk shows to discuss their popular characters, Curry chose to keep a low profile.

One of the rare interviews he participated in after the release of the movie was with The Student Television of Imperial College (STOIC), where he was asked if he had any hesitation about playing such an unforgettable character. In his answer, Curry may have revealed one possible reason he stepped away from a very bright spotlight when he said, "I was hesitant in that, if it worked, it might be a difficult image to shake off."

It's a fair point. Typecasting is a frequent concern of actors, and a "sweet transvestite from Transylvania" is a tough act to follow, but Curry was willing to take the risk. Although the risk was a successful one, it seems that Curry tried to avoid over-saturating himself with the achievement of "Rocky Horror" by avoiding countless interviews and television appearances at the time of the film's release. As he explained to NPR:

"That first performance that introduced me to everybody was so out there and so outrageous that I was a very quiet boy for a while, just to make sure that people got it that that wasn't necessarily who I was."

After Frank-N-Furter, Curry had a moderately successful career in Hollywood, most famously as Pennywise in the 1990 miniseries "It," but his decision to separate himself from his most iconic role may have backfired. Curry has a strong and devoted fanbase, but the transexual mad doctor has hordes of fanatical loyalists all his own, who kicked Curry out of a midnight showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" for being a fraud.

An Imposter

As reported by the Hollywood Reporter, when Leta Powell interviewed Curry for Oliver Twist in 1982, she spent much of the interview talking about the Rocky Horror Picture Show. As a result, the actor might have wondered if he could ever separate himself from Dr. Frank-N-Furter, but an incident at Waverly Theater may have given him some comfort.

As he explained to Powell, when he attended a midnight showing of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," fans of the mad scientist weren't impressed by Tim Curry:

"I went rather early on at The Waverley [Theater] in New York, where it started, and they thought that I was an imposter, and they threw me out."

Odds are, if the actor had come with the attitude and fishnets of Frank-N-Furter, he would have received a hero's welcome, but the interview-ducking English actor got the boot. He must not have been too torn up about it though because, throughout his career, Curry has avoided interviews about "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," as well as the midnight showings and fan conventions. It appears that Curry doesn't mind if the character has taken on a life of his own, even if it includes die-hard fans who toss him out of a theater.

After many decades of avoidance, Curry finally returned to the cult classic in the 2016 TV movie, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again." This time around, he played The Narrator, also known as The Criminologist. The Fox remake bombed with fans and critics, but it's great to see Curry feeling confident and secure enough in himself to return. Hopefully, Curry has made peace with the fact that his legacy is forever tied up in the corset of a beloved, extraterrestrial, pansexual, mad scientist. 

The Real Legacy

Curry distanced himself from "Rocky Horror" because he didn't want Hollywood to disregard his ability to play terrifying characters like Pennywise in "It," the suspicious butler in "Clue," and the devilish Darkness in "Legend." While he loved the wackiness of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, he didn't want to be typecast into the weird roles for the rest of his life, but the legacy of "Rocky Horror" goes a lot deeper than a tight corset, funny dances, and campy characters.

Perhaps, Tim Curry's powerful and confident portrayal of Dr. Frank-N-Furter is so memorable and beloved because it inspires people to accept themselves for who they are and to celebrate all the things that make them a little unusual. That's an important and powerful lesson for the world, and one Curry should be proud of. 

Read this next: 20 Movies About Time Travel Ranked Worst To Best

The post Why Tim Curry Got Thrown Out of an After Dark Showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show appeared first on /Film.

It’s been a while since our last look at the Morrowind Rebirth project. Today, we are happy to report though that modder ‘trancemaster_1988’ has released a brand new version of it that you can download right now. Morrowind Rebirth is a complete overhaul for Morrowind. This mod adds countless new details, weapons, armors and much … Continue reading The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Rebirth 6.0 is available for download →

The post The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Rebirth 6.0 is available for download appeared first on DSOGaming.

Earlier this week, California passed a law requiring all employers based or hiring in the state to post salary ranges on all job listings. The law will also require California-based companies with more than 100 employees to show their median gender and racial pay gaps -- a first for a US state. Bloomberg reports: The bill will head to Governor Gavin Newsom, who has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto. He hasn't yet expressed a position and didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. If he signs it, the law would affect some of the biggest US companies, including Meta, Alphabet and Disney [...] California joins Colorado, New York City, and Washington state in adopting the job-posting tactic. Only Colorado's law is currently in effect; New York City-based employers will have to start listing pay ranges starting on Nov. 1. The New York state legislature also passed a similar bill that's awaiting Governor Kathy Hochul's signature. If the California and New York governors, who are both Democrats, sign the pending laws, almost a quarter of the US population will live in states with such salary disclosure requirements. The California Chamber of Commerce opposes the bill, even after lawmakers stripped a requirement that would make all pay data public. New York City's rule also faced business pushback, which delayed enforcement by six months. "I think this becomes a tipping point, frankly," said Christine Hendrickson, the vice president of strategic initiatives at Syndio, which provides software that helps employers identify pay disparities. "It's at this point that employers are going to stop going jurisdiction by jurisdiction and start looking for a nationwide strategy."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Even if you've never seen a single second of the hit Adult Swim show "Rick and Morty," chances are you are at least aware of "Pickle Rick" -- if only because of pop-cultural osmosis. First introduced in the show's third season, Pickle Rick is the alter-ego of main character Rick Sanchez, used when he wants to avoid having to talk about his problems in therapy. Since the character's appearance, Pickle Rick has become ridiculously merchandised, including a line of pickle-flavored seltzers and a special Super Bowl collaboration with Pringles. For better or worse, Pickle Rick has become an inescapable presence in the world of "Rick and Morty," something show co-creators Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon never saw coming.

During an interview with Screen Rant ahead of the series' sixth season, Roiland confessed that the Pickle Rick mania caught him completely by surprise. "Every season's got its own different, crazy, behind-the-scenes story, right?" he said. "Like I mean, every single season has something insane." For season 3, that insanity was all about Pickle Rick. "Dan [Harmon] and I and the writers, we never know which ones are gonna be the big popular episode," Roiland said. "Like we never thought Pickle Rick was gonna be some huge, jump-out thing." The Pickle Rick episode skyrocketed in popularity and ended up winning the show its first Emmy for Best Animated Series.

I'M PICKLE RICK!!!

Written by Jessica Gao and directed by Anthony Chun, "Pickle Rick" was a parody episode of action films and loosely inspired by the season 2 "Breaking Bad" episode "4 Days Out." "I swear to god, we had other episodes that we thought would be more popular," Roiland shared. "I mean, we loved the episode, don't get me wrong, but we didn't know, we had no clue, so when that thing blew up, we were like, 'Holy s***, okay.'"

Oddly enough, the obsessive fandom that surrounds the Pickle Rick character completely misses the point of the entire episode. The episode shows Rick going through extreme lengths like turning himself into a pickle and enduring the dangers of a high-octane action movie, so long as it means he won't have to come to terms with his own mental health or the way his decisions have directly harmed his loved ones. The episode is a complete takedown of those who fail to recognize that their hubris will be their downfall, and yet the message has been diluted by fans screaming "I'M PICKLE RICK!!!" at the top of their lungs.

That's not to say that the meaning has been lost on all, as plenty of people recognize the staying power of Pickle Rick lies in the episode's message, but it becoming a cultural phenomenon certainly wasn't on anyone's bingo card that year. "There was another one that we thought was gonna be the big deal and that one nobody gave a s*** about, so," Roiland joked. Considering how ridiculously bananas people went over the McDonald's Szechuan Sauce mentioned in "Rick and Morty's" season 3 opener, we can only imagine which moment didn't become a massive hit that Roiland and crew were betting on.

Read this next: The 13 Best Comedy Shows On Amazon Prime Right Now

The post Justin Roiland And Dan Harmon Had No Idea Rick And Morty's Pickle Rick Would Be Such A Hit appeared first on /Film.

Odds are, most people know Julius Onah for directing "The Cloverfield Paradox," the third entry in the "Cloverfield" franchise and a film that was infamously surprise-dropped on Netflix right after Super Bowl LII ended in 2018. I seem to be among the rare people who actually kind of liked the movie, though I also won't deny it's clearly an original sci-fi thriller that got messily re-tooled as a "Cloverfield" flick during its development.

If all you know Onah for is his "Cloverfield film, then you might have been a tad confused when Marvel Studios hired him to direct the fourth "Captain America" movie, "Captain America: New World Order." The sequel will pick up with Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) at some point after the events of "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier," as the former Falcon continues to settle into his role as the new Star-Spangled Avenger. However, the idea of Marvel entrusting Onah to tell a story about a Black man dealing with the pressure of having to uphold a high standard while navigating prejudice and politics in modern America makes a lot more sense if you're familiar with his most recent directorial effort, "Luce."

Adapted from the play of the same name by J.C. Lee, 2019's "Luce" centers on a well-to-do white couple (played by Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) whose lives are flipped upside down when their teenaged son Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) — who was a child soldier in Eritrea before they adopted him — comes under scrutiny from his teacher (Octavia Spencer) for an essay he wrote. Not only was Onah's mesmeric, nuanced examination of race, tokenism, and identity widely praised by critics, it also led to Marvel consulting Roth directly before hiring Onah to helm "New World Order."

'Julius Is Incredible'

Roth only recently made his return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Emil Blonsky, a role he first played in "The Incredible Hulk" all the way back in 2008. After making a cameo as Blonsky's Hulked-out counterpart, Abomination, in the 2021 MCU film "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," Roth reprised his role as the character in human form for the "She-Hulk" series.

In an interview with ComicBook.com, Roth took a moment to applaud Onah for his efforts behind the camera on "Luce." He also admitted he hadn't heard Onah was directing the next "Captain America" movie until the outlet told him:

"Oh wow, I love ['Luce']. Okay, let me tell you this. Julius is incredible. He's an extraordinary human being and the story that we told... Again, it was my second time working with Naomi Watts, too. I love her. She's one of the funniest humans you'll ever meet, but Julius is extraordinary and I didn't know that he was doing ['New World Order']."

Roth added that Marvel had reached out to him about Onah before, without specifying what it was about. (CIA-level secrecy in their hiring process? Couldn't be my Marvel.) "They came to me to ask me about him. And I wrote letters and stuff," he explained, adding:

"You know what? They're in safe hands. I'm so pleased, I didn't know. You just told me, I didn't know."

While I don't think anyone expects the next "Captain America" film to have anywhere near the thematic complexity as "Luce," the hope is that with Onah at the helm, the film will prove to be a little more daring and less muddled in its messaging than "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" ultimately was. "New World Order" opens in theaters on May 3, 2024.

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The post Marvel Consulted with She-Hulk's Tim Roth Before Hiring the Director of Captain America: New World Order appeared first on /Film.

Christian Bale is known for disappearing into his roles and "Velvet Goldmine" was no exception. Written and directed by Todd Haynes, the 1998 movie was named for David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" era B-side. Haynes is no stranger to music movies, having begun his career with the 1987 controversial short film, "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story." He also helmed the incredible "I'm Not There" in 2007, which explored the various phases of Bob Dylan's career through a host of different actors. Haynes also made the excellent recent documentary about my all-time favorite band, "The Velvet Underground."

"Velvet Goldmine" chronicles the life of pop star Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a Bowie-esque figure, as well as his love affair with the Iggy Pop-inspired Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor). Their performances are swoon-worthy — Meyers and McGregor both did their own singing in the movie. Plus, the film's fictional bands included members of Radiohead, Suede, Sonic Youth, and more. Then there's that amazing soundtrack: There are artists of the era, such as Roxy Music, T. Rex, Lou Reed, and Brian Eno, but also '90s musicians, like Pulp, Placebo, and Teenage Fanclub. Haynes did attempt to gain the rights to Bowie's music for "Velvet Goldmine," but the musician politely refused because he had plans of his own for such a story at the time.

Bale's role in the film is a pivotal one as well. As a reporter named Arthur Stuart, he tries to unravel the mystery of what happened to Slade by interviewing his friends and colleagues, piecing together the artist's life in flashbacks à la "Citizen Kane". All three actors are top-notch in the film, but when preparing for the part, Bale got some unconventional advice from his mother. 

A Steady Diet Of Sex, Drugs, And Rock'n'roll

One of the most famous examples of Christian Bale transforming himself for a role is the 2004 movie, "The Machinist," for which he lost a whopping 63 pounds. His diet for that film consisted of a single apple and a can of tuna a day, plus whisky and cigarettes. When speaking to GQ, Bale was asked about what he did for "Velvet Goldmine," since he'd lost quite a bit of weight for that movie as well. He explained:

"Yes, although I didn't do the rakish rock-star thing all that successfully, I have to admit. For 'Velvet Goldmine' I started running very early in the morning before any breakfast, but it didn't seem to be having much impact on my waistline. My mum came down to stay with me in London during filming and said, 'Listen, why don't you just try to do what rock stars did back then. They weren't up running on an orange at 6am! Their diet was sex, drugs and rock'n'roll!' What a diet for a mother to prescribe, right?"

When asked if he had taken his mom's advice for "Velvet Goldmine," Bale didn't directly answer, simply saying, "Let's just say it was certainly a fun movie to be involved in!" That fun is infectious. "Velvet Goldmine" is a wild ride that successfully emulates the glam rock it so lovingly pays tribute to. It's beautiful, chaotic, and also delightfully over-the-top. Much like the movie's disclaimer states, this film should absolutely be played at maximum volume.

Read this next: The 14 Greatest Biopics Of The 21st Century

The post Christian Bale's Mom Gave Him Some Extreme Advice Going Into Velvet Goldmine appeared first on /Film.

Flash floods, wildfires and hurricanes are easy to recognize as ravages of a fast-changing climate. But now, climate change has also emerged as a growing threat to clean, safe drinking water across the country. The New York Times: The deluge that knocked out a fraying water plant in Jackson, Miss., this week, depriving more than 150,000 people of drinking water, offered the latest example of how quickly America's aging treatment plants and decades-old pipes can crumple under the shocks of a warming world. "There's a crisis at hand," said Mikhail V. Chester, a professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering at Arizona State University. "The climate is simply changing too fast, relative to how quickly we could change our infrastructure." Earlier this summer, more than 25,000 people lost their water, some for weeks, after deadly floods ripped through eastern Kentucky, breaking water lines as they obliterated entire neighborhoods. Utility companies across Texas spent the summer coping with hundreds of water-main breaks as record heat baked and shifted the drought-stricken soil surrounding pipes. This came after a bitter winter storm that plunged Texas into freezing darkness in February 2021 and caused thousands of pipes to burst. And from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast, supercharged hurricanes like Harvey and Ida now regularly debilitate water suppliers, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to boil their water or scramble for bottles days or weeks after the storms pass. This is on top of the slower-moving threats such as rising sea levels that can contaminate water supplies with saltwater, or a Western "mega-drought" that is withering reservoirs and parching the Colorado River that supplies water to some 40 million people.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The sdl12-compat is a SDL 1.2 compatibility layer implementation atop SDL 2.0. This sdl12-compat project allows for old, out-of-date games and other applications relying on the old SDL 1.2 interface to in turn run via the modern SDL2 library for better compatibility with input devices, Wayland support (assuming no direct X11 hard dependencies), support for PipeWire audio, improved input controls, and various other enhancements only found in SDL 2.0 and not the unmaintained SDL 1.2...

The Callisto Protocol may be coming to Xbox Game Pass at some point, but the service may not be ideal for a linear single-player game from an independent studio.

Speaking with TrueAchievements during Gamescom 2022, Striking Distance Studios' CTO Mark James commented on the possible addition of the game to Xbox Game Pass, saying that the team is thinking about it. On the other hand, the developer feels the service is built towards open-world style and multiplayer games more than towards linear single-player games:

"You play through once [in The Callisto Protocol]. I think those services are built towards some of the open-world style and repetitive multiplayer games. I think games [like that] survive well on that service."

Elaborating further, The Callisto Protocol dev said that the Xbox Game Pass business model is a difficult one to make work as an independent studio. Single-player games will continue being available from similar services, Mark James added, but mostly from platform holders:

"Microsoft has their own single-player games within the service, and I still think you're going to see the platform holder studios provide single-player games in them; I'm just saying [that] as a financial model, it's a difficult one to make work as an independent studio. I think you're going to see single-player games, but it will probably come from the hardware companies.

As an independent, third-party, it's really hard to make a linear third-person game work within those services. I'm not saying never; it's hard financially to make that work."

The Callisto Protocol launches on December 2nd for PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One worldwide.

The post The Callisto Protocol Dev Is Thinking About Xbox Game Pass, but the Financial Model Doesn’t Work Well for Single-Player Games From Independent Studios by Francesco De Meo appeared first on Wccftech.

Police and law enforcement agencies, even in small areas with fewer than 100,000 residents, have been using a low-cost phone tracking tool called Fog Reveal, according to AP and the EFF. AP has published a report detailing authorities' use of the tool since at least 2018 for various investigations, including to track murder suspects and potential participants in the January 6th Capitol riot. The tool, sold by Virginia company Fog Data Science LLC, doesn't need a warrant and can be accessed instantly. To get geofence data, authorities usually have to issue a warrant to companies like Google and Apple, and it could take weeks for them to get the information they need. 

Fog Reveal, AP explains, uses advertising identification numbers, which are unique IDs assigned to each mobile device, to track people. It gets its information from aggregators that collect data from apps that serve targeted ads based on a user's location and interest, such as as Waze and Starbucks. Both the coffeehouse chain and the Google subsidiary denied explicitly giving their partners permission to share data with Fog Reveal. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained access to documents about Fog through Freedom of Information Act requests, which it then shared with AP. EFF special adviser, Bennett Cyphers, describes the tool as "sort of a mass surveillance program on a budget." Its prices reportedly start at only $7,500 a year, and some agencies even share access with other nearby departments to bring costs down further. Looking at data from GovSpend, which monitors government spending, AP found that Fog managed to sell around 40 contracts to nearly two dozen agencies. Authorities have already used it to search hundreds of records from 250 million devices. 

While Fog Reveal only tracks people using their advertising IDs that aren't connected with their names, authorities are able to use its data to establish "patterns-of-life" analyses. They can, for instance, establish that a specific ad ID belongs to a person who typically passes by a Starbucks from home on the way to work. Further, Fog gives authorities access to the movements of an ad ID going back to at least 180 days. Fog managing partner Matthew Broderick even recently admitted that the tool "has a three year reach back."

Authorities used the tool to varying degrees of success over the past years. Washington County prosecutor Kevin Metcalf said he has previously used Fog without a warrant for circumstances that required immediate action, such as to find missing children and to solve homicide cases. He said about privacy concerns surrounding Fog's use: "I think people are going to have to make a decision on whether we want all this free technology, we want all this free stuff, we want all the selfies. But we can't have that and at the same time say, 'I'm a private person, so you can't look at any of that."

The EFF, of course, doesn't share his sentiment. It called Fog "a powerfully invasive tool" and is encouraging people to disable ad ID tracking on their phones. 

Yonggang Luo, an independent contributor to the Mesa3D graphics project, has begun work to enable AVX-512 support for the LLVMpipe implementation. The reason the Mesa contributor took it upon themselves to add support to the Mesa3D graphics pipeline is to allow AVX-512 to be utilized within the new AMD Ryzen 7950X processors and the remainder of the 7000 series.

LLVMpipe driver for Mesa3D Project adds AVX-512 optimizations for the upcoming AMD Zen 4 architecture

Yonggang felt the implementation was necessary because AMD's newest Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 processors could benefit from the latest performance.

"As AVX512 can be a thing with Ryzen 7950x, so I'd like to enable it in llvmpipe[...]"

— Yonggang Luo in the newest merge request for the LLVMpipe driver in Mesa3D

LLVMpipe is a unique Mesa OpenGL software execution that is utilized when the graphics card or GPU driver is not found by the computer system or is not on the system. Readers will remember that the LLVM is a collection of "compiler and toolchain technologies used to create a front end for any programming language and a back end for any instruction set architecture." The LLVMpipe will allow the LLVM to utilize a particular set of extensions and produce more performance than other software executables, such as Softpipe and OpenGL.

AVX-512 has seen the most use with Intel processors for several years. However, it is interesting to see LLVMpipe support the unreleased Ryzen 7000 series CPUs since it features an integrated RDNA 2 graphics integration and performs better than LLVMpipe. With AMD Zen 4 CPUs not released yet, it is unknown if AVX-512 will offer increased performance on the newer architecture. AVX-512 is utilized by a 256-bit pathway and not a 512-bit path.

The newest merge request will alter the essential sections to enable AVX-512 in Gallium, where AVX-512 was not activated. This request will also include an environment variable called "GALLIUM_OVERRIDE_CPU_CAPS" to allow the CPU abilities to be overridden inside Softpipe and LLVMpipe. AVX, SSE, and several other features can be disabled or enabled after overriding the processor. Lastly, "LP_NATIVE_VECTOR_WIDTH" will allow for altering vector bits width to utilize AVX/AVX2/AVX-512 in LLVMpipe.

The post Mesa3D Project’s LLVMpipe Driver Introduces AVX-512 In AMD’s Zen 4 CPUs by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.

You've seen the comparisons before, but it's impossible to deny there's more than a likeness between Lies of P and FromSoftware bangers like Bloodborne and Sekiro. There's the obvious stuff like the perspective, UI, lock-on effect, weighty melee combat, 'you died' style death screen, parrying, and dingy urban world, but that barely scratches the surface.

The pace of exploration is classic FromSoftware. Turn down a dimly lit street and you'll spot an apparently dead soldier at the end. As you approach a dog appears from behind a carriage, snarling with its first few paces towards you. Just as you begin trading blows with the hound you hear another soldier coming from where you entered the alleyway, and as you turn you notice the soldier that was prone at the end of the alley is now on its feet and shambling your way. Figuring out the best order, attack patterns, and counters for this trio takes a few attempts, and it takes a few more runs before I can squeeze past with enough health to make subsequent fights worth attempting.

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