I've compiled a list of 10 weird indie adventure games that I've enjoyed and I hope you will too. All of these games are short and fun and none of them will ask you for money via microtransactions.
The post Top 10 Weird Free Adventure Games on Steam appeared first on Indie Game Bundles.
This story is a short update and a follow up to my editorial posted yesterday. If you have not read that already, I would highly advise you start there. This is a summary update of the Arc discrete desktop situation based on my talks with several sources well-placed inside Intel. As always, I will point out that roadmaps, especially Intel's, are never set in stone and always subject to change without notice - so keep that in mind while reading this.
Yes and no. MLiD was the first leaker to show actual pictures of Arc prototypes and I have no doubt what he heard came from authentic sources and that Intel actively and seriously considered this. That said, it is almost impossible to predict this kind of shake up before the official announcement as even the top brass at Intel do not know what will eventually be decided.
So while I can safely say that this has not happened *yet*, there remains a non-zero chance that it still could happen in the future. This is also why I think the wider industry, gamers and tech press need to be a bit more responsible and encourage the entry of a third player in the GPU industry instead of assigning extremely unrealistic expectations of a miraculous first launch to Intel - which, frankly speaking, no company in the world can deliver to.
The post Update: The Future of Intel Arc (Discrete Desktop Graphics) by Usman Pirzada appeared first on Wccftech.
After his heart attack in 2018, Kevin Smith isn't even supposed to be here today — but boy, are we glad he still is! The New Jersey native with the gift of the gab has spent the better part of the past three decades willing his whimsy into reality. They say write about what you know, and Smith has made a solid career out of doing precisely that, much to the adoration of his die-hard fans across the globe.
It's more than that though. As one of the original indie filmmakers of the early '90s, Smith proved that anyone could make a movie. While Quentin Tarantino splattered us with blood and Wes Anderson perfected immaculate shots, Smith seemed like one of us — just a regular guy, with a regular life, who loved dissecting the big issues of the day like movies, TV, and the logistics of building a Death Star.
Cut to 2022 and both Smith and his work have not only endured, they feel more relevant than ever. As comic books and "Star Wars" dominate our downtime, mainstream audiences have finally caught up with Smith's meta mindset. Still, some of us were here from the beginning, and while each of his films holds a special place in our celluloid-loving hearts (if we have to choose), here's our rundown of every Kevin Smith movie, ranked from worst to best. Snoogans.
If we had to pick the Kevin Smith movie that holds up the least, it'd have to be "Yoga Hosers." Part two of Smith's as-yet-incomplete "True North" trilogy (sandwiched between 2014's "Tusk" and the yet-to-film "Moose Jaws") takes its cues from a throwaway gag made by Smith's former producing partner and the co-host of his SModcast podcast, Scott Mosier.
The titular phrase caught fire with fans, and after Smith noticed the chemistry between his daughter Harley Quinn and Lily-Rose Depp during their time on "Tusk," he delved deeper to give the pair their own movie. They play convenience store clerks, musicians, and yoga enthusiasts who get embroiled in an evil nazi plot involving a crazed Canadian Führer and an army of demonic SS sausages known as "Bratzis."
Ironically, Smith's worst-reviewed movie also boasts one of his biggest stars. Lily-Rose's father, Johnny Depp, plays oddball French-Canadian detective Guy LaPointe, delivering a larger-than-life performance. Although you'd hardly know it's him thanks to his accent and excessive make-up. While it sounds promising, things quickly devolve into a mess of nazis, bratwurst, and showbiz impressions, led by Smith's pal and voice-man Ralph Garman. Clearly the creative force behind the duo's podcast "Hollywood Babble-On," Garman seems at odds with the film happening around him. Still, the fact that a movie this weird exists remains undeniably impressive.
If there's a trend running through Smith's work, it's that the films in which he's forced to play in someone else's sandbox usually tend to connect with his fans the least. That's certainly true for 2010's buddy-cop comedy "Cop Out." Starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, the film marked Smith's first attempt at directing a screenplay he didn't write, a bit of a milestone given the strength of his writing and knack for crafting distinct character voices.
Originally titled "A Couple of Dicks," "Cop Out" went through a few censorship-induced title changes, but these proved to be the least of its worries. The story is simple. Willis plays a hot-shot cop who loses a valuable baseball card that he was going to use to pay for his daughter's wedding. With his loudmouth partner (Morgan), he sets out to retrieve it, only to get embroiled in a case involving a memorabilia-loving gangster.
Taking a pay cut to direct a childhood hero, Smith's dreams were quickly squashed thanks to Willis' apparent difficult behavior on set. Over the years, the ever-talkative Smith hasn't shied away from recounting the experience — warts and all. According to reports, at one point he ended up punching a wall out of frustration. Smith later told "WTF" host Marc Maron the experience was "soul-crushing," but he seems to have since found peace following Willis' recent aphasia diagnosis.
The end credits of 2001's "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" sees God Herself (aka "Dogma"'s Alanis Morissette) close the book on Smith's View Askewniverse. This connective tag for the director's onscreen world linked all his projects up until that point, something that began more than a decade before Marvel normalized interconnected stories. However, with the mid-noughties looming, Smith was seemingly ready to try something new and potentially more mature.
The result was mixed. While "Jersey Girl" became Smith's punching-bag movie — often used self-deprecatingly by the filmmaker to reference his worst work — the final product isn't as terrible as he'd have you believe. It's essentially a small-time story of a guy (Ben Affleck) forced to balance a hectic career with the equally demanding job of raising a daughter (Raquel Castro) and starting a new relationship (Liv Tyler) after his wife (Jennifer Lopez) tragically dies during childbirth.
"Jersey Girl" could arguably be described as another victim of Smith attempting to be someone he's not. Despite being undeniably linked to the text (Smith's daughter would've been around 4 at the time of shooting), it was his priciest film to make and only just broke even. To make matters worse, Affleck and Lopez's real-life split in early 2004 overshadowed what's essentially one of the sweeter entries into Smith's catalog.
Despite arguably inspiring the frat-pack scene that dominated comedy following Judd Apatow's "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," these comparisons ultimately came back to haunt Smith during one of his non-Askewniverse efforts. Released in 2008, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" splices the director's trademark irreverent humor and love of pop culture with the world of pornography as lifelong pals Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) attempt to shoot their very own raunchy movie to make ends meet.
"Zack and Miri Make a Porno" mixes a great cast, featuring Apatow-alums Rogan, Banks, and Craig Robinson, with Smith's own View As-crew members like Jason Mewes and "Clerks" star Jeff Anderson. He even throws in a few real-life pornstars, with Traci Lords and Katie Morgan delivering some of the film's more risqué sequences. Overall, it remains a solid entry into Smith's filmography. However, it wasn't enough to continue Rogen's box-office joyride, ultimately earning him his lowest opening. Smith later eulogized things by saying, "That was supposed to be the one that punched us through to the next level. Everyone thought it would do $60 to $70 million, and it wound up doing Kevin Smith business."
Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) have long been the connective tissue of Kevin Smith's output, and while they finally got their own movie with 2001's Hollywood spoof, "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," Smith saw an opportunity to poke fun at the neverending remake craze with 2019's "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot."
Things are as meta as Jay and Bob's previous outing, which saw them visit Hollywood to stop Miramax from creating a movie based on the weed-toking heroes they were the basis for, Bluntman and Chronic. Almost 20 years later, Jay and his hetero life-mate Silent Bob make a similar pilgrimage when they discover those superhero-obsessed studios are making a new movie — directed by Kevin Smith, no less.
There's other stuff going on like Jay discovering he has a kid and a nefarious plot to destroy comic cons. However, the real magic comes in its cameos, which may overwhelm and baffle the uninitiated but play like magic to longtime Smith fans. In this sense, there's almost too much to love as Silent Bob and Kev Smith's realities collide. The whole thing culminates in a truly heartwarming re-welcoming of Ben Affleck into both the Askewniverse and Smith's circle. Forget "Phantoms," it's here that Affleck is truly the bomb.
Kevin Smith's universe comes full circle in this road trip fueled by pot smoke, fart jokes, and more self-referential humor than you can fit inside Silent Bob's trenchcoat. Upon hearing that Miramax is making a cash-in superhero flick of the Bluntman and Chronic characters they're the basis for (and after witnessing the hate their bong-hitting heroes receive online), Jay and Bob make for Los Angeles to stop the production and clear their good names.
Plenty of goofy action happens along the way, from a run-in with a gang of sexy jewel thieves and a stolen monkey to the duo evading Will Ferrell's rubbish federal wildlife marshal. However, like "Reboot," "Strike Back" really wins because of its guest roles. Alongside satisfying returns from various "Clerks," "Chasing Amy," and "Mallrats" faces, it's also full of genuinely hilarious moments that give the film irresistible fourth-wall-breaking energy, which was extra fun in a pre-"Deadpool" world.
We have "Strike Back" to thank for Jay's now-iconic expletive-filled rap alongside Holden McNeil's (Ben Affleck) razor-sharp takedown of online movie trolls. However, both pale in comparison to its stellar cameos, including Chris Rock's white-guy-hating director, a dollar-counting Gus Van Sant, and the piece-de-resistance, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's sublime "Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season." Remember: "Lion face! Hmmm. Lemon face! Argh!"
Inspired by a SModcast episode in which Kevin Smith and co-host Scott Mosier discover a bizarre Gumtree ad from someone promising free board for a tenant who agrees to dress and act like a walrus, the director used this tantalizingly messed-up notice as a muse for mayhem.
In "Tusk," we meet Wallace (Justin Long), a podcaster specializing in viral videos. When his guest falls through during a trip to Canada, he finds a replacement in former seaman Howard Howe (Michael Parks). However, when Wallace mysteriously passes out during their meeting, he wakes to discover that Howe's history with a walrus that once saved his life is far from over. He's hoping to rekindle the friendship by turning Wallace into a deformed beast via a series of horrific medical procedures. Cue the screaming.
Say what you will about Smith's later output, but you can hardly say it's boring. To some, "Tusk" probably seems like a hand-break turn from the guy who made "Clerks," but it features enough Smith humor to lure even his most lax fans into its dark corners.
After taking Sundance by storm with "Clerks," everyone was eager to see what this checkout boy turned filmmaker would do next. It turns out that he kept things local by replacing a tiny convenience store with a huge mall for another adventure in retail.
"Mallrats" is a day-in-the-life tale following two friends hanging out at the mall while trying to forget that they've both been dumped. Despite only being Kevin Smith's second film, he wastes no time cementing much of the lore that's since become the cornerstones of his brand.
Smith also elevates Jay and Silent Bob, transforming them from the drug dealing drop-outs of "Clerks" to larger-than-life comic book characters. The film's hero-heavy storyline (which even boasts an appearance from the OG true believer, Stan Lee) has helped it rewrite its troubled history. When "Mallrats" debuted back in 1995, it was considered a down-and-out flop. Cut to the hero-obsessed culture of 2022, and it's damn near prophetic.
If "Mallrats" was the movie that nearly killed Smith's career, "Chasing Amy" is the film that saved it. What's more, like "Mallrats," this third outing also feels startlingly ahead of its time thanks to its considered depictions of love, sexuality, and LGBTQ+ relationships.
After the critical pounding of his second feature, Smith took things back to basics to do something that'd become a staple of his career: He surprised people. "Chasing Amy" is a love triangle between comic book creators Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck), Banky Edwards (Jason Lee), and Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams), the lesbian third party that McNeil falls for. After hearing about her raucous sexual past, Holden's paranoia threatens to ruin everything before love finds a way of guiding them to a bittersweet conclusion.
"Chasing Amy" encapsulates the self-discovery of your 20s and also the beginnings of a more sexually open era of storytelling. Ultimately, it was enough to resuscitate Smith's career, winning two Independent Spirit Awards and going on to become one of his most loved films. It features probably Silent Bob's most iconic monologue, and in true Smith fashion, it also boasts a stellar sexual war wound spoof of the "Jaws" scar scene.
The disparity between "Red State" and the rest of Smith's work is startling and alluring in equal measure. When word first got out that the guy behind "Clerks" was taking a stab at horror, interests were piqued. When Tarantino fave Michael Parks was announced as its lead, and the always-dependable John Goodman joined, fans were downright champing at the bit to see what he was up to.
Smith's genre segue follows three teens who stumble upon the terror dwelling inside a fundamentalist church, the patrons of which are eagerly awaiting the rapture. Its aces in the hole are Parks and Goodman, who transform Smith's typically bawdy to something Coen brothers-esque. The only thing more alluring is the suggestion that Smith originally toyed with all the way and ending his religious cult movie with the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. Fortunately (or unfortunately?), cooler heads prevailed.
Feathers were ruffled when a faux-auction saw Smith sell "Red State" rights to himself and touring it under his own SModcast Pictures label. Looking back, it not only marks a ballsy gamble on Smith's part but also a turning point where he ditched expectation and embraced his weirdness.
"I see myself more like retail's Richard Linklater," deadpans Randal (Jeff Anderson) part-way through Smith's full-circle threequel, "Clerks III," just after being labeled a budget Steven Soderbergh by a frustrated patron. In a moment of life imitating art, Quick Stop's fast-talking clerk has decided to make a movie based on his own life after suffering a massive heart attack. Sound familiar?
Following his brush with death, Smith returns to the well to conclude a story that he started 28 years ago and set him on the path that made him an indie film icon. This satisfying final chapter delivers all the elements you'd expect from another "Clerks" movie. After relocating his workers to fictional fast-food joint Mooby's in "Clerks II," Smith returns his day-job duo to their beloved convenience store for more pop-culture chatter — this time with an added meta element, as Randal replicates familiar moments from Smith's 1994 original while indulging his filmmaking dream.
However, what audiences might not be expecting is the emotional gut punch that "Clerks III" packs. While part one was a study of the meandering nature of youth and part two took a long look at the sweaty panic of mid-life, "Clerks III" offers a candid yet touching message about legacy, mortality, and being happy with your lot in life — even if you've spent most of it behind a counter.
On the surface, creating a sequel to something as influential and zeitgeisty as "Clerks" seems like a terrible idea. However, instead of trying to recapture the same magic, Smith's follow-up, set a decade after his 1994 original, takes his regular joes somewhere new while keeping their problems meaningful and relatable.
After Randal (Jeff Anderson) accidentally burns down the Quick Stop, he and Dante (Brian O'Halloran) go to work at fake fast-food chain Mooby's. With their weird subordinate Elias (Trevor Fehrman), they quickly return to doing what they do best: moaning about life and chatting. While his heroes try to figure out if "The Lord of the Rings" is a better trilogy than "Star Wars," Kevin Smith weaves something deeper into the mix: ideas of maturity, male friendship, and love.
"Clerks II"'s biggest success is its ability to move its characters forward, elevating it from a cash-in sequel to a film with something to say. Smith doesn't limit the character development to his protagonists either. "Clerks II" also features a newly reformed Jay and Silent Bob embracing sobriety (they were arrested for driving with a deployed airbag, something Mewes actually did in real life) while managing to retain their edge. It also might be the only movie to feature a donkey show as a key third-act plot point — which is highly impressive.
Okay, we know what you're thinking and yes, it goes without saying that without "Clerks," Kevin Smith wouldn't have had a career. However, placing Smith's breakout in the top spot on a rundown of his best movies surely implies he's never managed to top it. With an IMDB director list full of rich and quotable fun, it feels like a crime to suggest Smith peaked right out of the gate.
Still, that's not to say "Clerks" isn't one of the most culturally important works he's ever created. The story behind the story is enough to inspire any budding artist stuck in a dead-end job and harboring a dream. After seeing Richard Linklater's "Slacker," Smith struck out for Vancouver Film School where he met future producing partner Scott Mosier. Dropping out, he decided to take matters into his own hands and make a movie based entirely inside the convenience store where he worked, shooting at night while the store was closed and writing a broken shutter into his script to aid the illusion.
Paying for the production with credit cards, Smith put it all on the line and was rewarded with his dream career. Winning big at both Sundance and Cannes, Smith's little movie about two store clerks (one of whom wasn't even supposed to be there) remains one of the most influential indie films ever made.
Smith's fourth film manages to perfectly harness everything that makes his movies great while also marking the most ambitious outing of his early career. Packed with lore, "Dogma" feels like something ripped straight from one of Smith's beloved comics. It follows Loki (Matt Damon) and Bartleby (Ben Affleck), two disgraced angels who get booted from heaven only to find a rare religious loophole that could get them back in.
In addition to featuring some of Smith's best dialogue (Bartleby and Loki casually discussing the exhaustiveness of mass genocide and Jay's gloriously meta John Hughes rant are particular faves), it also has a jam-packed cast. Chris Rock delivers one of his most memorable roles as Rufus, the 13th apostle (cut from the bible because he's Black), Jason Lee sizzles as demon Azrael, George Carlin sleazes it up as Cardinal Glick, and Salma Hayek dazzles as Serendipity. Meanwhile, Alan Rickman turns in one of his most enjoyable performances as the cynical Metatron (aka the voice of God).
That said, the star of the show has to be Jason Mewes, who not only steps up to the plate to carry much of the movie as Jay but does so in a way that redefined the role moving forward. With "Dogma," Smith mixes realness with a big budget without losing any of his cool.
This final Kevin Smit film is an added extra. "KillRoy Was Here" takes itself out of competition due to its groundbreaking method of distribution. After completion in October 2018, Kevin Smith released his most recent horror film (with a title inspired by the popular World War II graffiti slogan) as 5,555 unique non-fungible tokens distributed by Legendao, the NFT mining platform of Secret Network.
While we can't offer a review of the finished film, we do know that it has its roots in "Anti Clause," the Krampus-themed holiday horror that Smith was working on before the similarly themed "Krampus," released in 2015, forced him to change direction. Despite a theatrical release being teased, distribution rights were ultimately sold off through Jay and Silent Bob's Crypto Studio before a limited run of NFTs were created. Consequently, we may never know how "KillRoy Was Here" stacks up alongside the rest of Smith's work.
Read this next: The Coen Brothers Movies Ranked Worst To Best
The post Every Kevin Smith Movie Ranked Worst to Best appeared first on /Film.
Historical fiction can be a hard road to travel for filmmakers. Sometimes there can be a delicate balance between depicting people and events accurately while still presenting an entertaining story. And it can be especially difficult if the subject of the project is still living because it's a crapshoot whether they'll be receptive to their portrayal or not.
That's why the subgenre of biopics can be tricky. People like Mark Zuckerberg, Hunter "Patch" Adams, David Letterman, and Lil' Kim are just a few people that have disliked their onscreen counterparts. That's why a number of influential figures opt to get involved whenever their own stories are told. Eminem and Howard Stern are just a few performers that have starred in their own biopics.
That's where people like "Weird Al" Yankovic come in. Rather than stepping into his own shoes for this project, he's entrusted a younger, more experienced actor to play the part of himself in the upcoming movie, "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story." This seems to be a move that has paid off, as critics and fans alike are raving about Daniel Radcliffe's performance as the beloved musical parodist following the film's debut at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.
While it easily could have been a high-pressure situation with Yankovic so heavily involved, the former "Harry Potter" star recently shared his positive experiences behind the accordion. And though he received a good bit of feedback, it doesn't seem like he took any issues at all with the "Eat It" singer's notes.
In an interview with Collider during TIFF, Radcliffe shared that he was given a fair amount of freedom with his interpretation of Weird Al. The actor was able to take some liberties since the subject of the biopic wasn't watching him like a hawk constantly critiquing every aspect of his performance. Although, when it comes to Al's trademark squeeze box, that's where the most intervention came in from the film's subject and co-writer.
"Most of the notes that I got from him were musical, and particularly about the accordion. He was like, 'Can you be a bit more expansive in how you're pumping it? Because you're a bit cautious with that,' and he's very expressive with it. So, I think he was a bit concerned that I was gonna make him look like a shy accordionist. So yeah, there was that, but generally speaking, it was intimidating but also, as Evan said earlier, when you would see him laugh at something, you'd be like, 'Okay, great! I can go home.' It's a very good seal of approval."
The Evan he refers to in the quote is Evan Rachel Wood, who plays Madonna in the movie. The Queen of Pop wasn't as involved in the production as Weird Al, so it will be interesting to see her reaction to being the central antagonist of the story. Radcliffe and Wood will also be joined in the cast by Rainn Wilson as Al's mentor Dr. Demento, Julianne Nicholson as his mother Mary, Toby Huss as his father Nick, recent Emmy winner Quinta Brunson of "Abbott Elementary" as Oprah Winfrey, and many more.
Regardless of what the real people being depicted in the film will think, "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" premieres on the Roku Channel on November 4, 2022.
Read this next: The Best Movies Of 2022 So Far
The post What It's Like Working with Weird Al, According to Daniel Radcliffe appeared first on /Film.
Today, Techland released Dying Light 2 Chapter 2, a free content update titled A Huntress and a Hag, on all platforms. According to the developers, their goal with Dying Light 2 Chapter 2 has been to introduce a strong foe to the game as players hadn't seen before in the base game. They teased that the Hag can somehow bend the game's rules, making the day as dangerous as nighttime in the City. Players are therefore encouraged to stay on their toes.
Track and hunt your prey with the Huntress and help put down once and for all the unimaginable horror that is the Hag and her legion of Plaguebearers. The Hag is a very dangerous creature and the ultimate challenge for any hunter. However, amazing new ranged weapons await for those brave enough to pursue.
New Chapter Agent — Meet Shen Xiu AKA The Huntress—the newest Chapter Agent and a very talented tracker— in Dying Light 2 Chapter 2. The mysterious bow containers littered throughout the City used to belong to her, as she is an expert in ranged weapons. Moreover, she represents the Hunters, a faction as mysterious as the Pilgrims themselves. These highly talented warriors hunt the most dangerous Infected. The chase for Shen Xiu's latest prey led her all the way to the City.
New Enemies — Face thrilling new dangers in the form of the Hag (a threatening Banshee Variant) and the Plaguebearers (Human Enemies infected by the Hag). But watch out—the Hag is a very fast and nimble foe, almost impossible to hit in close quarters and easily able to catch you off guard. Humans infected by her toxic fog are almost indistinguishable from normal people; only your Survivor Sense can help you detect them!
New Weapons — Unlock powerful gear, such as Hunter’s Crossbow or Ballista Bow, for impressive additions to your arsenal of ranged weapons.
New Bounties — Accept a brand-new series of bounties focused entirely on defeating your enemies with traps, ranged weapons, or without getting hit.
In addition to the Dying Light 2 Chapter 2 trailer, Techland also released an extensive developer Q&A with Paweł Płaza regarding the Hag's abilities, the mysterious Hunters faction, and more. Check it out below.
The post Dying Light 2 Chapter 2: A Huntress and a Hag Now Available for Free by Alessio Palumbo appeared first on Wccftech.
This blog post is part of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association guest blog series. Learn more about MISA.
Endpoint protection platforms (EPPs) are dead and no longer sufficient to protect your organization, right? Wrong.
When it comes to cybersecurity, the ability to normalize and correlate disparate logs from different devices, appliances, and resources is key, as is the ability to react quickly when under attack. The faster you can react and remediate, the smaller the blast radius and impact on your organization. In this blog post, we explore the importance of EPP as an essential component in your security strategy, the importance of securing your endpoints, and the evolution of EPP into endpoint detection and response (EDR) and extended detection and response (XDR). We’ll also discuss managed detection and response (MDR), and the value that an experienced managed security service provider can bring. The Transparity Cyber Managed Security Service takes a holistic approach to cybersecurity, and it uses EPP, EDR, and XDR to protect our customers while providing all-day, everyday MDR to detect and remediate threats.
Learn what EPP, EDR, XDR, and MDR can mean to you, and how Microsoft Cloud Security services work together to support the delivery of a comprehensive security foundation.
Traditional EPPs, such as antivirus and antimalware, protected endpoints by identifying and blocking known, common, and easily detectable threats using signatures and passive heuristics (pattern or routine matching). This type of EPP is no longer sufficient to protect an endpoint and can easily be circumvented using even basic defense-evasion techniques.
Modern endpoint protection adds many layers of protection beyond what has historically been offered and is an essential part of the endpoint protection framework. This type of EPP detects malicious activity using pre-execution analysis, behavioral analysis, active heuristics, and sandboxing.
Many next-generation antivirus products include passive protection capabilities such as host-based firewalls and data encryption.
An important feature of an EPP to consider is the deprecation of a traditional management server in favor of the platform being cloud-managed. Cloud management enables the collection of telemetry data and provides continuous monitoring, along with the ability to manage the endpoint even if there is no line of sight to the organization.
Next-generation EPPs such as Microsoft Defender Antivirus add critical protection by utilizing machine learning, big-data analysis, in-depth threat resistance research, and the Microsoft Cloud infrastructure. Being cloud data-assisted means that the EPP no longer needs to maintain a local database of all known indicators of compromise (IoCs) but can query the cloud intelligence to validate artifacts that it cannot classify.
Endpoint protection should always be used in conjunction with an EDR, such as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, as opposed to a standalone product. When used with Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft 365 Defender can be configured to provide passive scanning alongside an EPP from another vendor.
Elements of both EPP and EDR are required to ensure an all-encompassing endpoint protection platform. EPP and EDR should complement each other rather than replace.
Endpoint detection and response builds on the EPP but does not replace it. Both are required to correctly protect an endpoint.
EDR vastly extends the endpoint protection scope to detect and respond to threats across all endpoints holistically, thus eliminating blind spots. If a threat is detected on one endpoint, an automated response immediately protects, contains, and removes threats from the compromised device and begins investigations for similar behaviors across all devices onboarded.
Unlike EPP, EDR focuses on device and user behaviors to detect anomalous and nefarious activities. This means that EDR can detect sophisticated attacks designed to evade detection, a primary element of the cyberattack kill chain.
EDR surfaces significantly more telemetry data from the devices (more than 24 trillion signals analyzed every 24 hours) than EPP, allowing security engineers to perform threat hunting and forensic operations across all devices simultaneously while enriching the context of the data.
By analyzing the attack behavior rather than the specific payload or predefined attack pattern, EDR can detect advanced attacks such as fileless, living-off-the-land, polymorphic malware, and other advanced persistent threats (APTs). Any initially undetected attacks can also be automatically remediated post-compromise, looking back in time to identify the start of the attack before it became malicious by removing injected registry keys, services, or scheduled tasks, for example.
AI, machine learning, and threat intelligence play a key part in delivering this behavior-based protection and enabling immediate responses to active threats.
Where EDR builds on the capabilities of EPP, XDR builds on the protection and security posture management of EDR. XDR is designed to take signals, logs, and telemetry data from disparate feeds and connectors and provide security analysts with a further augmented view of the organization’s security posture and landscape.
By bringing in feeds from cloud and on-premises workloads, firewalls, proxies, cyber-AI, user and entity behavior analysis (UEBA), cloud access security broker (CASB), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS), secure access service edge (SASE), security events, Domain Name System (DNS), wireless controllers, active directory (AD), active directory domain services (ADDS) and Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), applications, threat intelligence, security analytics, syslog, Common Event Format (CEF), threat and vulnerability management (TVM), and more, XDR can extend visibility beyond the individual security tools and platforms to provide correlation of attacks. For example, security analysts might be alerted to an attack through the EPP or EDR but could potentially identify the initial attack vector and track its lateral movement through the XDR.
This capability greatly reduces the time to identify the threat, contain it, and remediate it. The aforementioned threat hunting and forensics also now extend beyond the endpoints and can be performed across the entire estate.
In a study of our internal data, we found that 39 percent of incidents were detected by Microsoft Defender for Cloud, while 23 percent were detected by Microsoft Sentinel. On the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft 365 Defender detected 0.3 percent of incidents, and Defender for Cloud Apps detected 2.1 percent.
Many XDR platforms, such as Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, and Microsoft Sentinel security information and event management (SIEM), add security orchestration automation and response (SOAR) capabilities to drive down the time to react and perform automated actions. Sentinel also uses the data it ingests to provide powerful insights into user and device behavior using its UEBA engine.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) platforms like Defender for Cloud can analyze the ingested data to derive hardening guidance tailored to the resources identified, along with a Secure Score to help engineers prioritize remediations.
XDR provides a single pane of glass and insight into the security posture of your environment.
As discussed in the previous sections, EPP, EDR, and XDR provide security analysts with the enriched data for threat hunting and forensics. The MDR service uses this data for these functions as well as incident response and management, and to reduce the mean time to detect (MTTD) and the mean time to respond (MTTR). The faster and more accurately the security team can respond, the smaller the blast radius and impact to the organization.
Threat actors are gaining in sophistication each day. Their aim is often to avoid detection for as long as possible, and they are likely to have performed a great deal of research about your organization before an attack. As such, they should be aware of your working times and potential gaps in security cover or blind spots. Having the ability to defend against threats continuously all day, every day is a must for MDR, as is the highly skilled team of security analysts.
MDR is not a product or technology—it’s a service. This service provides the best-of-breed threat detection and response along with highly skilled security experts working around the clock to protect your organization. The term “defense-in-depth” is commonly used, and having multiple layers of protection is the best way to mitigate various attack vectors, but not having a team of expert engineers to correlate this data means you are not getting the various tools’ true values.
Transparity is a MISA member and Microsoft pureplay Gold Partner founded in 2015, made up of a family of specialized members including a dedicated security brand, Transparity Cyber. With our unique culture and commitment to outstanding service and expertise consistent throughout the family, we work together in coordination across disciplines to provide the best in Microsoft Cloud technologies.
Transparity is home to skilled cloud experts with decades of combined experience. We’re proud to hold 16 Microsoft Gold Partner accreditations, Azure Expert managed service provider (MSP) status, and 11 Advanced Specializations. Transparity Cyber upholds this standard of excellence every day. In addition to our Microsoft Gold Security accreditation, we adhere to several elite standards, giving you confidence that you are working with a security partner who strives to be the very best.
We’re proud to have been named finalists in the Microsoft Security Excellence Awards 2022.
Our Managed Security Service offers constant end-to-end protection with a proactive approach to cybersecurity. Founded in the principles of Zero Trust, our experts lead with protection and prevention first, as well as performing detection, response, and recovery activities. With proactive threat hunting and vulnerability management, our clients’ environments are protected from day one while we strengthen and develop their security posture over time.
We manage and respond to thousands of incidents directly threatening our customers’ environments every month, preventing them from gaining access to your environment. From December 2021 to June 2022, we defended our customers against more than 1,000 threats every month that may have otherwise led to a breach.
The need for robust security infrastructure is growing more urgent as threats become more sophisticated and attacks become more frequent. Incidents appear to be on the rise, with 1,388 in April 2022, 1,396 in May 2022, and 1,357 in June 2022, respectively.
There were 1,212 medium priority incidents detected in May 2022, and 54 highest priority incidents in January 2022.
Find Transparity on the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace.
To learn more about MISA, visit our MISA website where you can learn about the MISA program, product integrations, and find MISA members. Visit the video playlist to learn about the strength of member integrations with Microsoft products.
Learn more about Microsoft Cloud Security services.
To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.
The post Secure your endpoints with Transparity and Microsoft appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.
With a fourth season on the way, "Doom Patrol" has earned its place among the best live-action superhero shows currently on the air. Its zany, outrageous personality sets the HBO Max series apart from others in the genre, and the bevy of unique characters in the three seasons available is nothing short of mind-blowing, hilarious, and more often than not, heartwarming. Aside from the never-ending existential crisis, the members of the Doom Patrol find themselves interacting with the deepest and strangest parts of DC Comics canon. However, the series isn't afraid of filling out its universe with original characters that are just as crazy — if not crazier — than the source material.
Enter Ezekial: a very intelligent cockroach and recurring guest star on "Doom Patrol." Like any other normal cockroach, Ezekial believes it is meant to rule the earth for the Christian god once humans have been wiped out. He first appeared early in season 1 and later played a big role in the bats***t crazy finale where he battled a giant rat and, I kid you not, made out with it.
The deeply religious cockroach was originally meant as a brief joke but ended up having a minor character arc.
In an interview with GateCrashers, "Doom Patrol" writer Shoshana Sachi talked about the unintended importance of her beloved creation:
"We're a weird bunch. For me, personally, it would have to be Ezekiel. I just started writing the character, expecting it to be thrown out, but Jeremy really responded to him, and who could've known he would become such a pivotal piece of season one. I'm proud of the character, as silly as it may seem because Ezekiel also signifies me stepping out of my comfort zone as a baby TV writer and being confident enough to follow through on pitching this insane concept ... even though I was a little scared."
Although Ezekiel managed to be more than a one-off character, the cockroach eventually met his demise in the aptly-titled "Ezekiel Patrol." The self-proclaimed omnipotent creature proudly states his god-like status before biting the dust, proving there is no justice in this cruel world. The confident follow-through with the "insane concept" not only speaks to the unique nature of "Doom Patrol," but proves the superhero series is up to the task when it comes to subverting the genre and our expectations.
In a show already deranged in its natural state, it is inspiring to see that the writers did not restrict themselves to the established canon. Ezekiel would have never occurred if "Doom Patrol" wasn't so fearless in its execution, even if its place in the DC Universe is a bit confusing.
Read this next: Every DC Movie Made Prior To The DCEU Ranked From Worst To Best
The post One Of Doom Patrol's Best Characters Was Supposed To Be A One-Off Joke appeared first on /Film.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has bestowed upon us a number of beloved pairings. There's Steve Rogers/Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, and Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson. Of course, there are others that don't include Captain America too. For instance, thanks to "She-Hulk: Attorney At Law," we can add Wong and Madisynn King to the list of Marvel's fan-favorite duos.
Benedict Wong and Patty Guggenheim's characters from the fourth episode of the Jade Giantess' Disney+ series were brought together thanks to the second rate magic of Donny Blaze. But thanks to a mutual love of "The Sopranos" and froyo, Madisynn and Wongers became fast friends. We even saw them start a new show together in the post-credits scene for the episode titled "Is This Not Real Magic?"
But the most interesting part about these besties is that their friendship didn't originally extend past the credits. This relationship between the Sorcerer Supreme and the supreme party girl evolved out of the actors' undeniable rapport. So rather than going by the script for the episode's stinger, director Kat Coiro just let the camera roll to capture their hysterical interaction about their favorite drinks.
While speaking to TV Line about the most recent episode of "She-Hulk," Coiro (who directed the first four episodes of the season, as well as the last two) revealed that the cast members improvised the latest MCU post-credits scene where Madisynn asks Wong about a laundry list of alcoholic beverages and whether or not he's had them.
"When Wong and Madisynn are riffing with each other...? That didn't exist in the script. That came purely from the actors' comedic chemistry and us going, 'We've got to throw some cameras on these two, because they're so funny.'"
Since this isn't the first time that the filmmaker has collaborated with Guggenheim, Coiro knew the extent of the actor's comedic genius. They had previously worked together on Pop's "Florida Girls." And though the Marvel execs and head writer Jessica Gao hadn't heard of her before the ball had gotten rolling on the casting process for this show, they knew she was the perfect fit after her audition as they were "actually crying with laughter."
It's currently uncertain whether Madisynn or Wong will be popping up in the remainder of the season, but True Believers are definitely enamored with the characters and their relationship. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw them together again somewhere down the line, even if it's just for promotional material of some kind. I mean, if Thor's roommate Daryl can show up again, then Madisynn King could too, right? Picture this: Next time Shang-Chi and Katy invite Wong to go to the karaoke bar, Madisynn comes along and does a duet with Wongers. You're welcome, Kevin Feige.
"She-Hulk: Attorney At Law" debuts new episodes every Thursday on Disney+ through October 13, 2022.
Read this next: MCU Jokes That Didn't Age Well
The post She-Hulk's Post-Credits Scene with Madisynn and Wong Was a Moment of Unscripted Magic appeared first on /Film.
This article contain's spoilers for "House of the Dragon" episode four.
Author George R. R. Martin writes truly compelling characters regardless of gender, but unfortunately, "Game of Thrones" had a bit of a problem when it came to depicting women. Female suffering was constantly on display without showing much female pleasure or agency. (I still have not forgiven that series' showrunners for Sansa's wedding night.) "House of the Dragon" has come under similar scrutiny, as fans shocked by the premiere's graphic birth scene wondered if the "Game of Thrones" prequel was going to follow in its predecessor's fumbling of female perspectives. Thankfully, the prequel series seems more concerned with telling these stories with authenticity, focusing on the painful struggles of women surviving in a patriarchal world while actually commenting on that suffering.
In the fourth episode of "House of the Dragon," Princess Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) is coming into her own as an adult, and that includes a sexual awakening. The adolescent dragon-riding princess got sent on a tour by her father to find a suitable husband, but instead ends up back in King's Landing for some much-needed fun. The episode follows Rhaenyra's perspective almost entirely, and helmed by director Clare Kilner, it's a refreshingly authentic view of what it's like to be a teenage girl sneaking out. It's difficult to explain the "female gaze" in concept, but once you see it in action, it's hard to deny.
There are several moments throughout the episode where Rhaenyra looks at a man like a tender morsel she wants to feast on instead of another person, and it's honestly a joy to see female desire portrayed so openly. The idea of a "gaze" in storytelling determines who has the power in a given dynamic, so the "female gaze" gives the woman all of the power. The objects of her desire — namely Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) and Ser Cole (Fabien Frankel) — are put on display so the audience can see them as Rhaenyra does. They are objectified in the same way that women have been objectified in everything from James Bond movies to hamburger commercials over the years, because this isn't their story; it's Rhaenyra's.
Director Claire Kilner considered Rhaenyra's perspective when setting up every shot. In the "House the Dragons Built" behind-the-scenes featurette for the episode, director Claire Kilner explained that the scenes were carefully blocked out to show Rhaenyra's interests, fears, and desires. In the sequence where Daemon and Rhaenyra have a chat in the godswood and he offers her a glass of wine, seated below her while she perches on the edge of a table, the shots were arranged to give Rhaenyra power and comment on the flirtatious game the two were playing despite their familial relationship. "House of the Dragon" lets Rhaenyra be a horny teenager, and honestly, it's awesome.
There are three sex scenes within the span of a few minutes, and they're used to show the various power dynamics in (straight, cisgender) relationships. Rhaenyra and Daemon get hot and heavy together in the middle of an orgy, but when Rhaenyra shows she's not an easy conquest and wants control of her own, he flees. Meanwhile, Alicent (Emily Carey) lies on her back and stares at the ceiling while the aging Viserys (Paddy Considine) thrusts atop her. It's her duty to produce children, or as Rhaenyra says, "squeeze out heirs." Sex is something she must endure, not enjoy, and it's a brutal juxtaposition compared to even Rhaenyra's short dalliance with her uncle. Then Rhaenyra sneaks back into her room and seduces Ser Cole, and the two have what looks like really great sex. Mutual satisfaction is basically guaranteed, and there seems to be mutual respect.
All three sex scenes are shot with the focus on the woman's experience, and while there are hints of nudity, it never feels exploitative. Each scene serves a purpose in the character's narrative, as Rhaenyra claims her adulthood and Alicent submits to her own. Alicent's dead stare tells the story of her suffering far better than any of the horrific, graphic scenes of sexual violence in "Game of Thrones," proving that sometimes less is more, especially when it comes to uncomfortable content.
It's important to have a diverse crew in order to bring everyone's unique experiences to the table when telling a story this big and multifaceted, and "House of the Dragon" has learned from the mistakes of "Game of Thrones" by hiring more women to tackle some of the episodes that need a truly feminine perspective. Kilner and her team manage to make episode four of "House of the Dragon" feel like a much more personal story than anything on "Game of Thrones," and a great deal of that is simply because of attention to the character's faces and performances instead of spectacle. While "Game of Thrones" had dozens of perspective characters, "House of the Dragon" wisely settled on only Rhaenyra and Alicent, the two coming matriarchs. Daemon is shown, but we rarely really see things from his perspective, instead only viewing him through Rhaenyra's gaze or the gaze of the people who look upon him in awe and fear. He's a mythic brat prince, the potentially problematic object of Rhaenyra's desire, but it's still her story, and Alicent's.
We're only four episodes into "House of the Dragon," but it already feels like it's doing better by its female characters than its predecessor ever did. It's not exactly justice for Sansa or Ros or Daenerys, but it's at least a bit of hope that the creators behind this series have learned from the franchise's past mistakes. It's a step in the right direction that not only makes for better diversity and authenticity, but also for better storytelling.
New episodes of "House of the Dragon" debut Sundays on HBO and HBO Max.
Read this next: Every Game Of Thrones Spin-Off Show In Development
The post How House of the Dragon Explores the Female Gaze appeared first on /Film.
Joe Pesci's career has been filled with gems throughout the years. He's constantly shown off his range from his comedic turn in "My Cousin Vinny," to his fiery roles in Martin Scorsese's Casino." He even combined his comedic chops and intensity in a strange way in his role as one of the Wet Bandits in the family-friendly "Home Alone" and "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York." But Pesci was never content with the evolution of his craft, and in his latest collaboration with Scorsese in "The Irishman," he plays a far more subdued crime boss than he has portrayed in the past. But it was his role in "Goodfellas" that gave Pesci is one (and only) Academy Award win.
The creative process to mold Pesci's performance as Tommy DeVito in "Goodfellas" was unique, to say the least. Casting Pesci clearly paid off as his performance not only earned him his lone Academy Award win, he was the only winner out of all of the Academy Awards "Goodfellas" was nominated for. Pesci won Best Supporting Actor and gave his famous five-word acceptance speech, "It was my privilege. Thank you," before exiting the stage.
While the job of being an actor is playing the character they are cast as, drawing from experience can be valuable, as seen in Pesci's preparation for his role in "Goodfellas." In an interview with Empire, he talked about those experiences and how they shaped his performance, "I've been in tough places... Nothing I can talk about, but I've seen terrible, terrible fights. So I knew the sense of fear."
One of the most well-known scenes from "Goodfellas" is the "Funny how?" bit between Pesci's DeVito and the late Ray Liotta's Henry Hill. This scene not only scared Hill but viewers everywhere. It's a cold, abrupt change of pace in the conversation after what seems to be an average night out. Believe it or not, this bit was based on experiences that Pesci actually had. In the same interview, Pesci discussed this, "At first, the 'Goodfellas' producers said I was too old to play Tommy DeVito, but I knew this guy who was Tommy — he'd even done the whole, 'Funny how?' thing to me."
"Goodfellas" wasn't Pesci's first rodeo with Scorsese or co-star Robert de Niro. The trio teamed up for Scorsese's 1980 historical sports drama, "Raging Bull," which chronicled the life of boxer Jake LaMotta. Pesci played Joey LaMotta, brother of Jake who was played by de Niro. After "Goodfellas," the trio would reconvene for crime drama "Casino" and then would wait years to collaborate once again until 2019 when they made "The Irishman."
That said, it seems that Pesci really had to sell it in order to not only get Scorsese on board, but also the producers who said he was too old to play the part. When talking about how he auditioned for the role of DeVito, he said, "So I pulled back the skin on my face, wore a wig and had a friend follow me around with a camera while I behaved like. I showed it to Marty and that was it."
It doesn't sound like Pesci has had an easy life, but the way he molded his experiences into something as he did with his character in "Goodfellas" is admirable. Obviously, Pesci got the role, and look at what came as a result of it. As mentioned, Pesci won his lone Academy Award for his turn as DeVito in "Goodfellas" (his other two nominations were also from Scorsese's films, "Raging Bull" and "The Irishman").
While "Goodfellas" co-stars such as the late Liotta, de Niro and Lorraine Bracco are all stellar in the film, Pesci's performance that really stands tall above the rest. Of course, there's the "Funny how?" bit, but there are loads of other standout scenes including the one he shares with the late Catherine Scorsese — who plays his mother in the film — and his back-and-forth exchanges with Spider. Pesci's dedication to his craft makes it easy to see how he was recognized for his work by way of the only Academy Award win for "Goodfellas."
Read this next: The 23 Best Heist Movies Of All Time
The post Joe Pesci Had to Hand Deliver His Goodfellas Audition to Martin Scorsese appeared first on /Film.
Gigabyte is working on a huge variety of Intel 700-series & AMD 600-series motherboards for upcoming Raptor Lake & Ryzen 7000 CPUs.
The Gigabyte motherboards featuring Intel and AMD next-gen chipsets were spotted over at EEC (Eurasian Economic Commission) by Harukaze5719. The lineup not just includes the flagship Z790 and X670E models but also the mainstream B760 and B650 models. There are lots of boards to go through and one reason why there are so many Intel boards compared to AMD boards is that the Raptor Lake platform features support for both DDR5 and DDR4 memory whereas the AMD Ryzen 7000 series only supports DDR5 memory. So for almost every DDR5 motherboard, Intel has a DDR4 motherboard too.
Gigabyte Intel 700-Series & AMD 600-Series Motherboard Lineup (Image Credits: Harukaze5719):
Starting with the Intel lineup, we have a total of 23 Z790 motherboards and 46 B760 motherboards. Out of those 23 Z790 motherboards, there are just five DDR4 variants which mean the majority of the DDR4 motherboards are within the B760 series and it makes sense because that's a more cost-effective lineup. There are 23 DDR4 motherboards in the B760 lineup which is half of the complete list. Following is the complete list:
Gigabyte Intel Z790 Motherboards (DDR5/DDR4):
Gigabyte Intel B760 Motherboards (DDR5/DDR4):
Moving over to the AMD camp, we have a more refined list with both X670E/X670 & B650E/B650 options. Gigabyte has only revealed its X670E offerings so far which we covered in our roundup here. The listing also confirms that the next-gen Tachyon from Gigabyte will be utilizing the B650E chipset as the company recently pointed out. So let's take a look at the new AMD AM5 boards by Gigabyte and AORUS:
Gigabyte AMD X670E & X670 Motherboards:
Gigabyte AMD B650E & B650 Motherboards:
As you might have noticed, the majority of the ITX and mATX options from Gigabyte rest in the AMD B650 and Intel B760 series. There isn't a whole lot of variety when it comes to form factors within the higher-end X670 or Z790 series. With that said, the Intel Raptor Lake (700-series) and AMD Ryzen 7000 (600-series) motherboards are expected to hit retail in the coming weeks.
The post Gigabyte’s Entire Intel 700-Series “Raptor Lake” & AMD 600-Series “Ryzen 7000” Motherboard Lineup Leaked by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.
A new Skyrim Legacy of Kain DLC mod has been released for both the Legacy Edition and Special Edition of the Elder Scrolls V.
Created by modder ‘Turelim Vampire’, the Freeport Island mod is a DLC-sized modification for Skyrim that adds a new world space set in the Legacy of Kain universe. Not only does it include a recreation of the Freeport map from the free-to-play Legacy of Kain PVP game Nosgoth, but also various ruined forts, temples, and crypts to explore. All of these locations are inspired by Blood Omen, Soul Reaver, or Nosgoth. In addition, this mod packs 13 quests, new followers, new armor, enemies from Nosgoth and Blood Omen, weapons from Soul Reaver 2, Blood Omen 2, and Soul Reaver alongside several new spells.
It’s a pretty exciting mod for sure and one that Legacy of Kain fans playing Skyrim will surely appreciate.
Down below you’ll find some screenshots of this mod in action.
As said, this mod is available for both the Legacy Edition and the Special Edition of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. As always, follow the installation instructions before using this mod.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is available globally now for PC and consoles. Bethesda’s popular RPG was released back in 2011 and recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. To celebrate this anniversary, Bethesda released a special Anniversary Edition and upgrade.
EPIC FANTASY REBORN
The next chapter in the highly anticipated Elder Scrolls saga arrives from the makers of the 2006 and 2008 Games of the Year, Bethesda Game Studios. Skyrim reimagines and revolutionizes the open-world fantasy epic, bringing to life a complete virtual world open for you to explore any way you choose.
LIVE ANOTHER LIFE, IN ANOTHER WORLD
Play any type of character you can imagine, and do whatever you want; the legendary freedom of choice, storytelling, and adventure of The Elder Scrolls is realized like never before.
ALL NEW GRAPHICS AND GAMEPLAY ENGINE
Skyrim’s new game engine brings to life a complete virtual world with rolling clouds, rugged mountains, bustling cities, lush fields, and ancient dungeons.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU PLAY
Choose from hundreds of weapons, spells, and abilities. The new character system allows you to play any way you want and define yourself through your actions.
DRAGON RETURN
Battle ancient dragons like you’ve never seen. As Dragonborn, learn their secrets and harness their power for yourself.
The post The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Legacy of Kain DLC Mod is a Must-Have Mod for Fans of the Series by Aernout van de Velde appeared first on Wccftech.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The following article contains major spoilers for the movie "Barbarian."
It is impossible to discuss "Barbarian" without spoiling "Barbarian." That seems obvious, but the reveals of Zach Cregger's horror phantasmagoria are partly what makes it art. At its core, the story of a woman named Tess (Georgina Campbell) who rents an Airbnb is about narratives — the ones that catalyze growth and the ones that leave others stymied. It's also about the stories "heroes" tell themselves, and to say literally any more than that ruins the first viewing experience of what is likely the year's most shocking film.
The discourse will tell you (correctly) that "Barbarian" is this year's "Malignant" or, in the words of our own Ryan Scott, an "absolute unpredictable roller coaster of craziness." Both are accurate. But what makes it scary is a blend of surprises, social insight, and razor-sharp filmmaking that stuns from the beginning. Here are the 12 most terrifying moments of "Barbarian."
The list starts, ironically, with a moment that isn't scary at all — at least, retrospectively. The brilliant marketing campaign for "Barbarian" has hinged on obfuscation. At most, it has revealed that there are possibly sinister things happening in the basement of a Detroit-area Airbnb booked simultaneously by the previously mentioned Tess and Keith (Bill Skarsgård), a jazz musician with Motor City roots.
Since Bill Skarsgård is arguably most famous for playing Pennywise the Dancing Clown in "It," ads for "Barbarian" have strongly suggested Keith has sinister aims. This isn't an accident and neither is Skarsgård's casting in the role (the actor is an executive producer of the project). Everything about Keith is a massive act of misdirection, which is why the film's genuine meet-cute is, on first viewing, downright terrifying.
"Barbarian" winds up having two protagonists: Tess, a woman of color, and AJ (Justin Long), a cisgender white male. How both observe and approach the menace at their rundown rental home speaks volumes about their gender, privilege, and moral characters. And that's why Tess' first encounters with Keith feel rife with danger, right up until the moment that they aren't. Let's break it down.
When we first meet Keith, he's staying in the Airbnb Tess booked. This raises massive red flags. Keith then encourages her to enter the Airbnb and figure out her next steps (another red flag). Tess then shrewdly asks to see Keith's reservation. These narrative beats alone are rife with tension and mounting menace. Zach Cregger takes advantage of his actors' natural height disparity — Bill Skarsgård apparently stands just under 6'4" while Georgina Campbell is reportedly 5'6" — and shoots Keith looming over Tess from the jump. There's an eerie sense he's in control and has the lay of the house's strange, impeccably decorated environment.
What's more, Keith's further attempts at kindness are potentially sinister on paper. He makes Tess tea (it could be spiked) and is the one person who's seen the obscure documentary that's brought her to town (did he know she was coming?). Then, he seems to make a point of uncorking wine in front of her because Tess shouldn't trust strangers. Keith is either a great guy or a ticking time-bomb of terror; in most movies, he'd wind up as the latter.
"Barbarian" isn't most movies. Keith is a genuinely good dude. He couldn't be less like Marcus, the controlling boyfriend Tess is building up the courage to split from, or AJ, a producer accused of sexually assaulting an actress. The meet-cute is only scary on first viewing and a terrifying setup for a thematic point "Barbarian" stipulates: There are no good guys out there because the ones who are don't survive the world built by those who aren't. And, the good guys are outnumbered.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Tess and Keith have a wonderful night and Tess appears to nail her all-important interview. She returns to the Airbnb to use the bathroom and finds it out of toilet paper. Things instantly get worse from there. Tess goes to the cellar for toiletries and swiftly gets locked within it. She notices a rope peaking out of the wall, and, curiosity getting the better of her, pulls it. With a sharp creak, a hidden door opens, revealing a pitch-black hallway. Wisely, Tess doesn't enter it at first. She sets up a mirror to reflect some light down the hallway and after seeing it is clear of danger, ventures forward. She discovers a padded room with a soiled mattress, an old VCR tape recorder, and a bloody handprint on the wall.
This is shocking enough (in part because the room's sickening green color palate is a sharp departure from the rich blue and golds that Zach Cregger's favored up until this scene) but the harrowing room is just an appetizer for a second reveal. When Keith returns to the Airbnb, frees Tess, and almost immediately goes missing, a second door leading to untold depths is found. The moment doubles as a storytelling promise: things are about to go so much farther than the characters or audience are ready for.
Keith dies as he lives, awesome and awkward. His attempts to flirt with Tess are gorgeously bumbling. With the liquid courage of wine in him, his attempt to fold a recently washed duvet, which involves throwing it over his head like a Halloween ghost costume, is exhausting but endearing. Keith is a solid human so, of course, he gets his head bashed in.
Tess goes to find Keith down the previously mentioned second doorway and, thankfully, she does. He's crouched on the ground, eyes wide and almost bloodshot. Before Tess has time to react, Keith whispers two chilling phrases: "There's something else down here" and "Something bit me." Up until now, there's been little suggestion that "Barbarian" was anything other than a horror film full of humans. This is the first hair-raising hint it isn't. Still, Keith might not be trustworthy. Is he claiming something bit him to manipulate Tess' fears?
It appears that way, briefly. Keith grabs Tess' arm and tries to drag her into the tunnel. He claims the thing which bit him came from Tess' direction, and it's immediately clear he's wrong. With terrifying speed, the naked and abnormally large creature called The Mother (Matthew Patrick Davis) sprints into the frame and bashes Keith's head into the rock until his skull is less than pulp. That's a terrifying image, but what's scarier is how succinctly this moment flips "Barbarian" on its head. Any stable ground its audience was on is gone, and it only gets more horrifying from here.
There are all sorts of monsters in "Barbarian." One of them is The Mother. Another is AJ. Yes, AJ, the owner of the sinister Airbnb and the film's second protagonist, played by frequent paragon of virtue Justin Long. Long's casting is as purposeful as Skarsgård's. "Barbarian" is deliberately calibrated to subvert expectations. Long has built his career on playing "nice guys" and his podcast, "Life is Short," suggests he's an empathetic one in reality. The audience arrives at "Barbarian" primed to trust Long's AJ, even as evidence mounts they shouldn't. When it becomes clear that AJ's committed an atrocity, "Barbarian" is at its most terrifying.
In a single unbroken shot, AJ talks to his friend (Zack Cregger, in a stomach-churning cameo) in a Detroit club. The friend wants AJ to tell him what really happened: Did AJ actually rape the actress that's accusing him? AJ says no. Then he says more. He says she "took some persuading." He says she wasn't "into it at first, but then she was really into it."
This is the language of rape culture, but if audiences aren't familiar with that, AJ's description of himself as a "really persistent guy" should ring the loudest of alarm bells. The scene goes from disquieting to acid-reflux-inducing in a manner of seconds, offering an extended and slow-burn look at the logic of a sexual predator. AJ isn't just as scary as The Mother. As "Barbarian" goes on to reveal, he's actually scarier.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Richard Brake's character of Frank in "Barbarian" might be the movie's most surprising element — and that's saying a lot. Frank anchors the movie's shocking flashback to the 1980s when the run-down area of Detroit is set in a bustling suburb. Frank lives in AJ's Airbnb decades before it becomes one, and what he does there is deeply unsettling.
We follow Frank to the store for plastic sheets and diapers because he's prepping for a home birth sans midwife. He then goes to a woman's house and puts on a jumpsuit embroidered "Carlos." As "Carlos," Frank approaches a woman's house and claims he works for the power company and needs to examine her living space. She lets him in, gets the lay of the land, and leaves.
Are you unsettled yet? You should be. What's terrifying about this sequence is the implications it's rife with. The composition of Zach Cregger's shots and Anna Drubich's squeamish score make it abundantly clear Frank is up to no good. What that entails, though, is rough around the edges. We don't see Frank harm the woman whose house he invades. There's no mention of Carlos again. In this sinister stretch of the movie, Frank is both a monster on screen and one made worse by the audience's mind. That's what makes Frank's "work" call so scary and levels up the tension as the film continues.
"Barbarian" is a tremendous work of horror film craft. Yes, the movie's surprises are excellent. But praising them doesn't accurately convey how technically excellent and precise Zach Cregger's film is. The reveal of Frank's living room is a perfect example. Following Frank's deeply upsetting "work" call, he arrives home and talks to a neighbor. That neighbor is getting ready to move because the area's getting more dangerous Frank then claims he'll never leave. When he enters the house, that statement feels abundantly clear.
The living room — which, in the present, is clean, chic, and spare — is rife with trash and rot. It's clear from one look that something awful happened there. And the time that Cregger takes making audiences familiar with Frank's abode during the first act of "Barbarian" makes this moment hit like a hammer. The audience already intimately understands the layout of this space and what lies beneath it; this terrifying moment proves that Cregger educated them well.
For almost the entirety of "Barbarian," it isn't clear why The Mother exists or what her endgame is. As The Mother's captive, Tess has learned these precious facts: do what she says, and she gets angry when agitated. Oh, and she also treats her captives like they're babies. When AJ winds up in a cell with Tess, she tries to tell him as much. An opportunity to make good on her wisdom arrives swiftly. The Mother lowers a large, milk-filled baby bottle into the cell. She shakes it. Tess, unblinking, walks over to the bottle and places her lips on its nodule, sucking down the milk within. For many, this will be upsetting enough. Zach Cregger and "Barbarian" take things further.
AJ refuses to drink The Mother's offering and she responds with due punishment, lifting AJ out of the cell and dragging him to a sheet-covered room bathed in nauseous purple light. The Mother then throws AJ onto the ground and forces him to nurse directly from her breasts. On one level, this is a sort of karmic justice. AJ forced himself onto a woman and is now forced into an act against his will. On the other hand, this image is so out of the left field that my jaw, personally, landed on the movie theater floor and is still there, at least spiritually. The dichotomy is terrifying, giggle-inducing, and a true "Barbarian" original.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
Let me preface this with the following truth: I am a cisgender white writer unpacking the racial and social implications of a sequence in "Barbarian" where Tess, a woman of color, interacts with two useless cops, one of whom is also a person of color. If you're reading what I have to say about this scene, I advocate you read what writers of color think, too. Read what they have to say first and come back if you'd like. This article isn't going anywhere.
Continuing, I have to start with wow. Tess' interaction with Detroit Metro P.D. is easily one of the scariest moments in "Barbarian." Tess encounters two cops when escaping the Airbnb. AJ is still inside, trapped with The Mother, and so she calls the police and seeks their aid. When the squad car arrives, she is initially relieved to see one of the officers isn't white.
That relief vanishes swiftly. The officer is quickly dismissive of Tess and profiles her from the jump. Tess, ever savvy, is quick to anticipate and refute the officer's classist assumptions that she's a "crackhead" or "junkie" and quickly makes him accountable for AJ's potential murder at The Mother's hands. Things get worse, though, when Tess and the officers actually arrive at the Airbnb.
When Tess and the officer get to the Airbnb, he refutes her evidence that something's amiss. Yes, there's a broken window, but Tess already admitted to breaking it herself. Sure, the house is eerie, but Tess is probably a raving lunatic on drugs and that's the far more pressing issue. When Tess tries to exert her will and break down the front door to save AJ, the officer's hand goes straight to his gun. The only crime he sees here is Tess attempting a B&E. The dispatch crackles to life with reports that shots have been fired in a different neighborhood. The officers drive off quickly.
For my money, this sequence is a daring reinforcement of Zach Cregger's core thesis and an escalation of it. Neither of these men treats Tess with anything even resembling empathy. She is profiled, dismissed, and threatened for trying to save someone's life, all within a matter of minutes. These are the guys who are supposed to be protecting and serving. They barely do either. Oftentimes, reality can be the scariest element in the horror genre.
As frighteningly, their allegiance to the oppressive institution which employs them is iron-clad. Cregger knows audiences are familiar with the "white, racist cop." By casting an actor of color in one role (and having the white actor play a silent but no less threatening officer), he isn't refuting the stereotype so much as stipulating a different, terrifying thought. Those who protect and serve are rarely on the side of those they protect and serve, no matter what they have in common with them. Defenders of police brutality refer to those who are corrupt as "bad apples." In a movie full of bad men and misunderstood women, it's no mistake that there are no good men on the police force we see.
For most of "Barbarian," The Mother is depicted as caring and relentless. She pursues her aims to the fullest at all times. Her investment in her captors (and their obedience) is unyielding. During the film's third act, it becomes abundantly clear how little she's able or willing to let go of. That's why the one moment when she does back off is utterly terrifying.
AJ and Tess have both escaped The Mother's cage but head in opposite directions. Tess finds herself in the Airbnb's cellar and headed towards the house's higher ground. AJ, conversely, is in uncharted territory. He follows the house's underground caverns all the way to a spare wooden door. The Mother pursues him, going so far as to come into AJ's view. Then she freezes. Without making a sound, she backs slowly into the darkness. If "Barbarian" has taught its audience anything, it's that the movie they're watching has a tendency to escalate. Whatever's behind that door is worse than The Mother herself, and the moment when AJ and the audience realize that is chilling to the bone.
Enough is enough for Tess. She's been a captive for weeks, the cops were ineffective, and AJ is more than likely dead. It's time to leave the Detroit metro area. Tess gets into her car and prepares to drive into the night, far from the Airbnb, The Mother, and a month's worth of horror. To the credit of Zack Cregger and "Barbarian," the film could end here and be satisfying. There have been enough "WTF" moments. The parallel stories of Tess and AJ are a thematic exploration of gender and racial privilege, and how women of color and cis white men are conditioned to handle horror. If Tess leaves at this exact moment, "Barbarian" is still very good.
Then, The Mother bursts through the Airbnb door and scares the breath out of the audience, elevating "Barbarian" to "great" status. The Mother's emergence to the surface comes out of nowhere. She's been subterranean until this moment. Suddenly, she's also bursting onto the scene like a grudge-addled professional wrestler. That, too, comes out of nowhere. Because "Barbarian" has trained its viewers to expect the unexpected, this all tracks, but that doesn't make it any less horrifying or fun.
Remember how I said The Mother takes on professional wrestler tendencies in the film's third act? That isn't hyperbole or exaggeration. WWE has a video showcasing the biggest wall-busters; when AJ and Tess take shelter in a local water tower with a homeless man named Andre (Jaymes Butler) who encountered The Mother before, The Mother tops all those entrances and exits entirely.
Andre's story is low-key layered with thematic resonance. He's ignored by the film's protagonists until the film's third act. As a person of color who is also homeless, he is why Frank's neighbors micro-aggressively think "the neighborhood's getting worse." But Andre isn't the problem or a source of violent terror — Frank is. Andre, unlike those who care for his neighborhood or play tourist there, is aware of the rot at his home's core. He tries to care for those who visit. He actually protects and serves his neighborhood. Andre rules.
Unfortunately, in a terrifying instant, the Mother bursts through his wall and tears his arm off his body. Andre's death is a genuinely funny and sad punchline. He's convinced he's safe in the water tower because The Mother hasn't bothered him in 15 years. Professional wrestling, and "Barbarian," teaches him otherwise. The second you feel safe is when someone comes out of left field and squashes your hope or literal body. For Andre, it's the latter.
Justin Long's AJ is exactly who the audience thinks he is. He's a self-preserving and deluded blowhard who's preyed on at least one woman. Self-preservation is his modus operandi. His return to Detroit to liquidate his rental home is proof of this, as is his inability to work with Tess while escaping The Mother's clutches. We see AJ for who he is.
And yet, "Barbarian" is still so twisty and unpredictable that Zack Cregger fools us into thinking AJ will try to have a real hero moment. He knows he has to make things right in his life; he says as much. Then, staring The Mother down atop Andre's water tower, he chooses self-preservation again and throws Tess off the tower to make The Mother give chase.
This is nothing less than comic book villain behavior (quite literally, this is what the Joker does in "The Dark Knight") and at this point, it is frightening not because Tess is in peril. It's scary because the movie has managed to throw the audience for another loop as AJ shows his true colors once and for all: He is a barbarian.
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The post The 12 Most Terrifying Moments In Barbarian, Ranked appeared first on /Film.
Assassin's Creed Origins is currently facing some controversy among specific PC users. This is due to a graphical bug that was seemingly introduced in one of NVIDIA's updates. This issue causes texture flickering in various situations as well as artifacts that manifest themselves at seemingly random spots for unknown reasons.
You can watch a video showing the issue below:
Some users have also explained that this issue is happening when you're outside of the water. The flickering of textures can be downright game-breaking as players are left without knowing where to go. Prepare your sunglasses because this next footage will have some very aggressive flickers:
The issue appears to have been introduced with NVIDIA WHQL drivers 465.89. Unfortunately, ever since then, neither Ubisoft nor NVIDIA have tried to make any claims regarding the state of a fix for this graphical bug in Assassin's Creed: Origins. In fact, the companies are rather spending time blaming each other and telling consumers to go to the other company for a potential fix.
So, what's happening? Well, as AdoredTV pointed out yesterday, RTX users are the ones being affected by this issue. Adding onto this is that Ubisoft responded in the Steam community forums, essentially blaming NVIDIA and citing that Ubisoft has no further plans for future updates to Assassin's Creed: Origins.
On the other side of the claims, NVIDIA has stated that the fix for this issue would have to come from an application update issued by Ubisoft. In other words, users are being downright flung back and forth between NVIDIA and Ubisoft just to try and get this graphical issue fixed. Unfortunately, this may be the state of affairs for RTX users at the moment.
As mentioned before, this issue only affects RTX users at the moment. As such, if you're a Radeon graphics user, you might not have to be subjected to the torture of being assaulted by screen flickering. Hopefully NVIDIA and Ubisoft can work on a solution to this problem as soon as possible. Assassin's Creed: Origins is currently available on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 as well as Stadia.
The post Ubisoft and NVIDIA Blame Each Other for Assassin’s Creed: Origins Bug Present in RTX Builds by Ule Lopez appeared first on Wccftech.
Mel Brooks is best known for his legendary comedy movies like "Spaceballs," but some are probably unaware that his career also included produced David Lynch's "The Elephant Man." Such a dark, film might feel like a strange choice for Brooks, but the producer actually decided to work with Lynch after seeing his debut feature, "Eraserhead." His collaboration with Lynch was a huge success, and it also introduced Brooks to more than one burgeoning talent in the film industry.
The set of "The Elephant Man" was where Brooks first met John Hurt, who played the film's protagonist. "I first got involved with Mel Brooks through 'The Elephant Man,'" Hurt told The Talks. "Everybody knows now, but they didn't know at the time that he was the producer... he didn't put his name on it, but what a fantastic producer he was." Lynch has also spoken Brooks' praises. "He backed me in ways you can't imagine," the director proclaimed (via Sean Adair).
The 1980 film is a period drama about the deformed historical figure Joseph Merrick, played by Hurt. The actor's performance in the film impressed the Academy enough to earn him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
However, when you think of John Hurt, the first role that probably comes to mind is that of Kane in Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror classic "Alien." In one of the film's most memorable scenes, Hurt famously has a growing xenomorph burst from his chest in front of the rest of the ship's crew. The scene was so famous that Brooks couldn't help but recreate it in his own way in the 1987 "Star Wars" spoof "Spaceballs." as his character in the 1979 movie "Alien." As Brooks recalled in his memoir "All About Me," released in 2021:
"We had our own version of the creature once more burst out of John's chest and he got a great laugh when he said, 'Oh no . . . not again!'"
"The Elephant Man" sparked a creative relationship between Brooks and Hurt. Shortly after the pair completed their first collaboration, Brooks invited Hurt to play Jesus in his next comedy. "After that film he kept ringing me up saying, 'I want you to do 'History of the World,'" Hurt recalled. "He said, [with accent] 'C'mon over John, c'mon! We'll put you in a nice hotel, give you a couple of grand.'"
This sounded like a good deal to him at the time, but upon reflection, Hurt regrets not asking for more. "You suddenly find that you're involved in a scene which is worth millions and you're getting $2,000 and a nice hotel — that's it! Very clever, Mel," he recounted. Still, the actor was willing to work with him again years later in "Spaceballs."
Brooks was an "amazing" producer on "The Elephant Man," Hurt said, and his parody films are among the most beloved comedies of all time. So despite feeling a bit shortchanged for "History of the World," the actor agreed to join the incredible ensemble cast of "Spaceballs" under Brooks' direction, and the rest is history. Though Hurt appeared distressed to have an alien burst from his chest yet again, audiences certainly enjoyed seeing it happen for a second time nearly a decade after "Alien" hit theaters.
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The post You Can Thank David Lynch's Elephant Man For John Hurt's Hilarious Spaceballs Cameo appeared first on /Film.
Magnet Releasing has announced that the horror-thriller PIGGY will be opening exclusively at Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas on Friday, October 7, 2022. The film will open in additional theaters and be available On-Demand starting Friday, October 14, 2022.
With the summer sun beating down on her rural Spanish town, Sara hides away in her parent’s butcher shop. A teenager whose excess weight makes her the target of incessant bullying, she flees a clique of capricious girls who torment her at the town pool, only to stumble upon them being brutally kidnapped by a stranger, who drives off with them in his van. When the police begin asking questions, Sara keeps quiet. Intrigued by the stranger — an interest that’s mutual — she’s torn between revealing the truth and protecting the man who saved her.
PIGGY stars Laura Galán, Richard Holmes, Carmen Machi, Irene Ferreiro & Camielle Aguilar, with the special collaborations of Pilar Castro & Claudia Salas.
The film is written and directed by Carlota Pereda, and is the feature-length version of her short of the same name.
The post [News] Carlota Pereda’s PIGGY in Theaters & VOD Oct 14 appeared first on Nightmarish Conjurings.
In the recent episodes of House of the Dragon, Princess Rhaenyra is being forced by her father to marry for diplomatic ties. Episode 4 starts with several suitors offering their hand to the Targaryen Princess for marriage, but Rhaenyra declines every offer.
Apart from that, we also saw some intimate moments between Rhaenyra and her uncle, Daemon. So, following the events of the latest episode, fans are eager to know does Rhaenyra marry her uncle, Daemon.
Watching Dameon and Rhaenyra together was shocking for several fans, but there’s more to that. In the episodes, the princess also shared some passionate moments with her Kingsguard, Ser Criston Cole, before losing her maidenship to him. Well, let’s explore with whom the princess gets married in House of the Dragon.
In the source material, Rhaenyra marries Corlys Velaryon’s son Laenor, with whom she shares three children. However, the book suggests that the children are not biologically related to Laenor; instead, the kids are from Rhaenyra’s adult love interest Ser Harwin Strong, the successor of Harrenhal, the largest castle of the Seven Kingdoms.
Laenor, in the books, was not interested in women, so his marriage with Rhaenyra was nothing more than a political arrangement. Meanwhile, Rhaenyra keeps on developing feelings for her uncle, Daemon.
So, after the death of Laenor, Rhaenyra and Daemon got married secretively in the Dragonstone. The duo also shared three children named Prince Aegon Targaryen, Prince Viserys Targaryen, and Princess Visenya Targaryen. However, as their marriage was against the wishes of King Viserys I Targaryen, big controversies took place in the family.
MORE: How is Aragorn Related to Isildur from The Rings of Power?
House of the Dragon episode 4 showed that King Viserys wants Rhaenyra to get married soon, but the princess doesn’t want to. The next scene showed that things went back to normal between queen Alicent and Rhaenyra.
After getting frustrated with everything that’s happening, Rhaenyra gets an opportunity to escape from the castle and experience a normal life at least once. Daemon arranges casual clothes for her and takes her to a pleasure house, where the duo gets intimate. The moment when Rhaenyra entirely gets involved, Daemon pulls himself back and runs away, leaving her alone.
Later, Rhaenyra gets intimate with Ser Criston Cole and loses her maidenship. On the other side, Otto Hightower informs the king about Daemon and Rhaenyra’s visit to the pleasure house. Initially, the king does not believe his words, but later, he calls Rhaenyra and questions her.
He asks her to get married to Leanor Velaryon, to which the princess agrees after a few minutes. But she puts a condition to remove Otto Hightower from his position of Hand of the King, and Viserys does the same.
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The post House of the Dragon: Does Rhaenyra marry Daemon Targaryen? appeared first on ForeverGeek.
When we all got to the end of the pilot episode of "Game of Thrones," there was a collective gasp that could be heard when Bran Stark happened upon twins Cersei and Jaime Lannister in flagrante delicto in a Winterfell tower. This was an incestuous relationship that needed to stay hidden in the shadows for no one to see, which makes sense ... considering the incest of it all.
A lesser remarked-upon moment of that "Game of Thrones" pilot is the first scene between Daenerys Targaryen and her older brother Viserys, where he disrobes her and gropes her breast. While incredibly skeevy due to the power imbalance, it was the first signal that incest within the Targaryen family was not exactly the most frowned upon thing. We come to learn that it's basically commonplace for Targaryens to engage in familial relations, and in the prequel series "House of the Dragon," that has certainly been taken to the next level.
In episode 4 of the series, we have seen the first step into the possible coupling of heir to the throne Princess Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) and her Uncle Daemon (Matt Smith), who engage in some fairly passionate lip-locking and perhaps a bit of hand stuff in a King's Landing pleasure house without a place to hide from the eyes of onlookers. Based on Rhaenyra's fawning eyes for her uncle and Daemon's whole "I f***" vibe, this seemed like an inevitability, and now that it's here, we have to deal with the strong possibility that this incestuous union could be the core relationship for the show's protagonist. A pretty bold move for a populist, brand name show.
What links Rhaenyra and Daemon beyond the blood that flows through their veins is how they feel in constant need to assert that what they bring to the world is valuable. Rhaenyra is meant to be the Queen of Westeros after her father passes, yet no one around believes that a woman should ascend the Iron Throne, instead looking towards a literal infant to supplant her as heir. Daemon suffers from a strong case of look-at-me syndrome, which affects plenty of little brothers (particularly when your older brother is a king). When his brother offers aid at the Stepstones, he has to go in guns blazing on his own to defeat the Crabfeeder, and while he succeeds, it perfectly demonstrates his insecurity.
Though Rhaenyra and her uncle could not be in a more fortunate societal position, they see the scrappy underdogs in one another and feel a connection no one else can relate to. Having grown up in a family where their family members marry other family members frequently, having a sexual relationship with one another makes sense to them. It's telling that the issue in the episode is that Rhaenyra would have had sex before marriage, along with Daemon having sex with someone other than his wife, and not that they were taking the Bonetown Express with their relative.
Temperamentally, the two make decent sense as a match, if you discount the host of problematic elements about it (which you cannot really do). I would not be surprised if there were a development in which Daemon is able to uncouple from his current wife, which I imagine would be through some truly horrific means, and be able to wed Rhaenyra.
Importantly, Rhaenyra and Daemon do not have sex. Daemon gets off the train before they get to the destination. Rhaenyra attempts to keep the engine going, but it's no use. Daemon abandons her at the brothel for her to wander on home by herself. He could have pulled this move for a bunch of reasons. Does he feel remorse at possibly "defiling" his niece? Do his whims change as frequently as the wind? Or does he just struggle with sexual performance, as he did with Mysaria (Sonoya Mizuno) in the first episode?
I think Daemon clearly cares deeply for Rhaenyra and realized he didn't want to bring this young woman into his power play machinations. In the throes of passion, he realized this was the future queen in his hands. As he is not the gentlest of people, he extricated himself from the situation, falling into a self-destructive stupor that landed him in Mysaria's inn.
Daemon has been a bit of a mystery character these first few episodes. Part of that is by design, as he almost never is completely forthright about his intentions and feelings about anything, but part of that is simply because we have not spent a lot of time with him. In episodes two and three, he barely makes an appearance outside of the big action set piece. Deciphering what is going in that guy's head requires us to exist with him alone with his thoughts. Pinning down exactly why he pulls away from Rhaenyra is tough to gage when you don't have all the information you need to make a definitive judgment call. Hopefully, future episodes will be able to better enlighten us on the why.
Rhaenyra doesn't want to pull away from Daemon in the slightest. She keeps trying to kiss him and take things further. Rhaenyra is about 18 years old during this episode, and she's a young woman who has bachelors paraded in front of her daily that she couldn't care less for. Not to say Rhaenyra isn't interested in romance and sex -- just not with these yokels. She's a cloistered young woman. Of course she is horny.
That night, Rhaenyra ends up having sex with the guy whom she should be romantically involved with, Ser Criston Cole (Fabien Frankel). He's noble, caring, and incredibly handsome. When she comes home after an unsatisfying sexual encounter, she looks to satisfy that with Cole. This does present its own power dynamic problems since he is completely at her command, but his resistance to the encounter emerges more from his sense of duty to the King's Guard than him not being totally into Rhaenyra. Their sex ends up being earnest, passionate, and quite lovely. I particularly love the touch of them tenderly and giddily removing the absurd number of layers of clothing they each wear.
The real reason as to why these two cannot be together is one that has always been societally stupid. He comes from a low-born house that would do nothing to strengthen the realm upon their union. In this world, tradition and duty always triumph over personal happiness, so I don't expect them to end up together (though an illicit affair is not off the table). The more likely outcome in my mind is Rhaenyra ending up with Daemon, which would be the more dramatic set of events, and I look forward to seeing how explosive it all gets.
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The post On House Of The Dragon, Daemon And Rhaenyra Are A Match Made In Seven Hells appeared first on /Film.
With "Top Gun: Maverick" making about a zillion dollars at the box office, many are revisiting the 1986 original. The original "Top Gun," directed by Tony Scott, is cinema at its most unashamedly 1980s, with themes of jingoism and questionably self-aware homoeroticism that have either aged extremely poorly or amazingly well, depending on your point of view.
One of the performances that helped the film to absolutely drip cheese was that of Val Kilmer as the cold-hearted fighter pilot known as Iceman. Kilmer, who reprised his role in "Top Gun: Maverick," played the haughty flyboy with the sort of stereotypical 1980's bully mannerisms that simply are not found in most movies made past the 1990s. He was every bit a jerk, from his behavior to his appearance, which Kilmer wrote about in his book, "I'm Your Huckleberry."
In the book, Kilmer discusses "Top Gun" at length, including one of Iceman's defining features. "I must also take partial credit for the weird crew cut I sported. The style was Tony's idea, but I went out of my way to make it weirder," wrote Kilmer, referring to Iceman's extremely obnoxious coiffed hairdo. As you can see, it carries with it such an air of scumbaggery that you may instinctively punch your computer screen.
The haircut is absurd, and it's a masterstroke on Kilmer's part for making his character even more cartoonishly unlikable. Kilmer was, however, surprised by how the haircut caught on after the film's release. "When it turned into a national fad — thousands of guys started emulating the coif — I was flabbergasted. And that's a word you just don't get to say that often and mean it."
Much like Dr. Frankenstein before him, Kilmer created a monster. That hairstyle coming into vogue at any point is the sort of Reagan-era disaster that people could look to in order to see precisely when the United States lost its way. One imagines some dullard teen in 1987 running to the barber holding a picture of the bad guy from the shirtless volleyball movie, and the barber shrugging his shoulders and allowing himself to violate the Geneva Conventions on the guy's scalp.
The subject of a well-received 2021 documentary, Kilmer has had a great career, despite being known as the worst Batman ever put on the silver screen (unfairly, in my opinion, especially when George Clooney has basically admitted as much). To think any part of the great actor's legacy is the proliferation of the Iceman haircut is a chilling thought, but one Kilmer will have to live with. But knowing he lives with having starred in "Batman Forever," I think he'll sleep just fine.
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The post Val Kilmer Went Out Of His Way To Make His Top Gun Haircut Even Weirder appeared first on /Film.
Watching an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is kind of like meeting someone new for the first time: It's awkward as hell. Larry David, the show's creator (of "Seinfeld" fame) and main character, is a master of the neurotic. On the show, he plays an embellished version of himself who is constantly getting into petty tiffs with the show's rotating cast of characters, guest stars (including Ted Danson as perhaps one of the best frenemies TV has ever seen) who often play souped-up versions of themselves, as well. But what makes "Curb" and its actors so impressive is that the script for each episode is sparse — usually consisting of nothing more than a general plot outline without actual lines — leaving it up to the actors to decide exactly what their characters are going to say and do.
When you have a show that's almost entirely improvised, it's important to find actors who are capable of being funny on the fly. Much of the show's main cast is made up of very talented comedians who are naturals at this kind of work, but when it comes time to cast guest roles, actors must go through the show's audition process. So how does one audition for a show that's famous for being ad-libbed? One thing is for sure: David's approach to the auditions is a lot like the show itself.
In an article for The Ringer, actors who have starred on David's neurotic masterpiece talk about their audition process. Susie Essman, who plays Susie Greene (the often-bedazzled, extremely opinionated, leopard-clad wife of Larry's best friend, Jeff) explains, "Larry never lets anyone read the outline, because he doesn't want anybody preparing, you know, bad sitcom lines, lying in bed the night before." Instead, potential cast mates are given a basic scenario to act out on the spot, and the rest is up to them. It's a task that could easily go wrong if you try too hard.
The show's comedy comes from its bizarre relatability, so the actors who book the parts are usually those who don't try to be clever. Instead, in order to achieve humor in a scene, it's better to just act natural. One of the show's guest stars, Rob Corddry, told The Ringer about a piece of advice Jeff Garlin (who plays Larry's best friend and manager) gave him before his audition:
"[Garlin] said, 'Hey, listen, man, I know this is easy for me to say, but don't try and be funny. I know you're gonna think ahh, he's full of s***, but I'm telling ya, that's the way to win this part. I'm gunning for ya, but you can't try to be funny.'"
Garlin's advice worked, and Corddry went on to play a sex offender whom Larry eventually befriends.
Many of those who have gone on to land parts on "Curb" talk about how this non-traditional audition approach actually ends up being a lot of fun. Laraine Newman, one of the show's guest stars, said, "It is absolutely the most fun, because you are writing your part as you go. And you can write to your strengths." Paul F. Tompkins, who plays one of Larry's many lawyers on the show, explained, "I remember walking away from [the audition] thinking, 'Wow, that was a really fun audition, I'm glad I got to do that.' I never imagined I would get the part."
But David's refusal to allow potential cast mates an opportunity to know what they are getting into beforehand isn't always easy. Ben Shenkman, another guest star, said of his audition, "I was never an improv comedy performer. The nerves were about the improv partly, but I also had to improv as a lawyer." He explains how he had to come up with lawyer lingo on the spot, but whatever he did worked out because he eventually got the role.
Sometimes, though, actors aren't as lucky. Jon Daly, who eventually got cast in role of Larry's mailman, didn't quite nail the humor on his first try. "I see Larry make the motion of like, 'cut it off.' Like cutting his neck. He didn't mean for me to see it, but I saw it and I was crestfallen," he explained about his first time auditioning. But just because an actor doesn't hit the humor on the first go-around doesn't mean they won't get another chance. Daly was eventually brought back in for another audition and ended up booking the part. "I went in again the next year and then I got the role," he said. "It was a dream."
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It was another downright dreary weekend at the box office as the top 10 films on the domestic charts made just over $33 million combined. But there is a light in the darkness as "Barbarian," which hails from Disney's 20th Century Studios, managed to overperform and win the day, majorly topping (admittedly modest) expectations. To add some intrigue to the whole thing, "Brahmastra Part One: Shiva," an Indian import distributed by Disney domestically, managed to take the number two spot for the weekend.
So, Disney is back on the charts, while Sony's "Bullet Train" crossed a major milestone. Not all bad, even if it's still mostly bad. Let's dig into the numbers, shall we?
"Barbarian," which entered the weekend riding a wave of critical praise, took the top spot with $10 million, according to Box Office Mojo. Heading into the weekend, despite the praise, it was charting for a debut between $5 and $6 million. That means the intrigue crafted by Disney's marketing campaign, which kept the movie's many secrets intact, as well as buzz from critics helped to push this one far higher than expected. Beyond that, we are still left with little by way of big movies or major competition, so this became a win by default in some ways. It's also, oddly enough, Disney's first number one on the charts since "Thor: Love and Thunder" hit theaters in July. That is kind of remarkable given Disney's sheer dominance in the pre-pandemic era.
Meanwhile, "Brahmastra Part One: Shiva" also arrived in North America through Disney and earned $4.4 million, good enough for the number two spot. That's certainly not enough to save the box office from being a wasteland of small potatoes that can't put enough meat in seats, but it is encouraging in its own way. Much like we saw with "RRR" earlier this year, American audiences will turn up for these Indian imports. Giving theaters more types of movies that can bring in crowds is always a good thing. And it's encouraging in its own way that Disney is the one bringing this one to the U.S.
The big question will be what kind of holdover potential "Barbarian" has. With the likes of "The Woman King" and "Pearl" opening wide this weekend, it's tough to say. Will this get word-of-mouth buzz, propelling it to a good hold? Or is it doomed to fall off a cliff in week two? Time will tell but, for the moment, it's a nice win for original horror.
Rounding out the top three this weekend was Sony's ensemble action flick "Bullet Train." In its sixth weekend, the film earned $3.2 million, putting its domestic haul at $92.5 million. Coupled with the $119.3 million it has earned internationally, director David Leitch's latest has brought in a total of $211.8 million worldwide. That is a very good sign for original films not connected to franchises. Coupled with "Barbarian" taking the crown, one could look at this as an encouraging weekend, with a few caveats.
For one, this is the second-smallest weekend overall at the box office in 2022. Labor Day weekend was terrible and the preceding week was also awful. No big releases are coming until "Halloween Ends" and "Black Adam" in October, meaning small wins like this for the time being. But that isn't really enough for movie theaters to sustain themselves on. Case in point, Regal's owner Cineworld is in the middle of a bankruptcy case. It's not a great situation, to say the least of it. Especially because "Halloween Ends" is going to Peacock the same day it hits theaters, which may end up taking some ticket sales off the table.
More specifically, as it relates to "Bullet Train," the movie carries a huge $90 million budget. That is absolutely going to prevent it from being profitable during its theatrical run. Over time, between VOD and other revenue streams, it might get into the green. But one can hope that Sony sees the market for originals and doesn't abandon them, but looks to make them with slightly smaller budgets in the future as to not wind up in a situation like this again.
Fathom Events released "Lifemark" on more than 1,500 screens over the weekend, landing at number seven on the charts with $2.2 million. Expect that to all but disappear from the charts entirely in a matter of days. A drop in the bucket. The only other new, wide release was "Medieval" from Avenue Pictures. With Ben Foster and Michael Caine leading the way, the film made an abysmal $810,000 on just over 1,300 screens. So yeah, not a great weekend for other new releases, to say the very least of it.
"Top Gun: Maverick" finally slowed down a bit, taking in $3.1 million in its 16th weekend, with "DC League of Super-Pets" coming in just behind it at $2.83 million to round out the top five. "Maverick" now has $1.453 million to its name, meaning it passed "Frozen II" ($1.45 million) to become the 11th highest-grossing movie in history. Truly incredible stuff.
"The Invitation," which topped the charts two weeks ago, landed at number six with $2.6 million and is fading fast. But it has quietly made $25 million worldwide against a $10 million budget. Perhaps a modest hit for Sony, in the end. Meanwhile, Universal's "Beast" fell more than 55% as it was made available on VOD this weekend, earning $1.8 million at number eight. At $52 million worldwide against a $36 million budget, this one is firmly (and tragically) a commercial disappointment.
Rounding out the top ten were "Minions: The Rise of Gru" with $1.65 million ($904 million global total) and the re-release of "Spider-Man: No Way Home" $1.3 million. Meanwhile, "Jurassic World Dominion" sits at $997.4 million, looking for just $2.6 million more to join the $1 billion club. We'll see if it can get there with the last gasps of breath it has.
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![[Movie Review] DON'T WORRY DARLING](https://i0.wp.com/www.nightmarishconjurings.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/rev-1-Txtd_Dom_Main_1sht_DWDRLN_High_Res_JPEG.jpeg?resize=640%2C948&ssl=1)
There’s a specific type of paranoid thriller from the 60s and 70s that is focused on identity. Films like Seconds show how integral identity is to the core of a human being. A human being denied the freedom to chart their own course and assert their own identity is likely to destroy themselves in one way or another.
DON’T WORRY DARLING focuses on the identity of women and patriarchal society’s attempts to control women’s identities and sexuality as a way to control women themselves. It shows the fear that men and patriarchal society have of women and a potential future where women control the courses of their own lives. Director Olivia Wilde (Booksmart) and the writers, Kate Silberman (Booksmart, Set It Up), Carey Van Dyke, and Shane Van Dyke (The Silence, Chernobyl Diaries) did a good job of outlining exactly how the patriarchy functions and how the dual myths of the ideal nuclear family and a woman’s purpose in life are exploited to keep women under men’s control. It is particularly relevant given the recent overturn of Roe V Wade and conservative attempts to repeal most laws giving women and LGBTQ+ control over their own lives aka basically sending the country back to the 1950s. That’s really what they want, in case you haven’t noticed.
Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) are lucky to be living in the idealized community of Victory, the experimental company town housing the men who work for the top-secret Victory Project and their families. The 1950s societal optimism espoused by their CEO, Frank (Chris Pine) — equal parts corporate visionary and motivational life coach — anchors every aspect of daily life in the tight-knit desert utopia. While the husbands spend every day inside the Victory Project Headquarters, working on the “development of progressive materials,” their wives — including Frank’s elegant partner, Shelley (Gemma Chan) — get to spend their time enjoying the beauty, luxury, and debauchery of their community. Life is perfect, with every resident’s needs met by the company. All they ask in return is discretion and unquestioning commitment to the Victory cause. But when cracks in her idyllic life begin to appear, exposing flashes of something much more sinister lurking beneath the attractive façade, Alice can’t help questioning exactly what they’re doing in Victory, and why. Just how much is Alice willing to lose to expose what’s really going on in this paradise?
The performances are good but have a certain artificiality to them that didn’t work 100% for me, but I suspect are part of the overall design of the film. Everything about the film’s look is splendid, the IMDB page even has a credit for a manicurist. So yes, everything about the look of the women in the film is perfect right down to their nails. Florence Pugh (Midsommar, Black Widow) gives a Florence Pugh performance. As an actress, she is a professional, but her performances have lacked a sincere emotional depth to me. Harry Styles (Dunkirk, Eternals) surprised me because I wasn’t expecting much from him as a singer turned actor, but, even though he’s mostly just called upon to be charming or angry, he does both of those things well. At one point, when his character was screaming at Alice, I had a bit of a flashback, so yes, that anger was pretty real. I don’t know that he’s really capable of subtlety though.
The much-bandied female pleasure scene was really sensual and pretty hot up until a certain point when I feel like Pugh pulled back emotionally. I agree with Wilde that such scenes are necessary and should be included in cinema to give equal time to the idea that women deserve to have pleasure given to them by men. It’s part and parcel with the overall theme of the film, namely, that women are people, not things, and have wants and desires that deserve equal time. The cinema’s tendency to focus almost entirely on male pleasure and dominance in sex has contributed to the patriarchial belief that women don’t need to be pleasured and should only be sexually submissive. It has contributed to the idea of women as sexual objects, to be ogled and screwed aggressively at men’s whims and for men’s exclusive pleasure.
Chris Pine is also good in the role of Frank. Wilde said that the idea of the character was based on Jordan Peterson, the sexist con man of whom Wilde said, “We based that character on this insane man, Jordan Peterson, who is this pseudo-intellectual hero to the incel community.” Chris Pine does an excellent interpretation of Peterson. He always looks like he’s vaguely unwell, smug, and obviously likes to hear himself talk. When pressed, he shows his enormous ego and intellectual pretensions that have no real basis in fact. He mouths puerile rot that doesn’t really mean anything. He obviously has no respect for women but pretends to like them as pretty toys and incubators.
Peterson has gone on the record, on Joe Rogan’s podcast, saying that women’s studies, among others, in colleges are to blame for trigger warnings and cancel culture because they spent 30 years producing “ideologically minded, counter civilization political activists.” He’s basically blaming advances in culture on political activists who are against “civilization” and then asks “why are we subsidizing revolution?” He’s serious about this and his books, lectures, and workshops are clearly his attempt to stop the tide of change by convincing men that they are being wronged and civilization is being destroyed. Peterson thinks that only a return to traditional gender roles and putting a stop to the teaching of women’s studies can save our civilization. I’d say climate change is a bigger threat to our world, but apparently, this guy thinks that giving women an education that contradicts his sexist beliefs is the real danger.
Women of the world, do not have sex with Jordan Peterson or any of his acolytes. I can guarantee that he and his disciples are lousy in bed.
I think it was interesting that Olivia Wilde (Richard Jewell, Ghostbusters: Afterlife) cast herself as the female turncoat. She’s the Joan Crawford of DON’T WORRY DARLING, funny, ironic, and no-nonsense, a mother with seemingly very little emotional attachment to her children. There’s a scene in the film that is reminiscent of the film The Women, as models parade by while the main characters order clothing. Her character, Bunny, and Alice are the best of frenemies, Bunny’s kids seem to prefer Alice’s warmer and more approachable nature and you can see the tiny seeds of resentment in Bunny that make her do what she does.
Gemma Chan is solid as Frank’s wife Shelley, a strong, intelligent, cultured, and beautiful woman who somehow allowed herself to get caught up in Frank’s web. She is stoic and seems to be enduring every moment with a wry pain. But her character, like Alice’s, shows that even the strongest of women can fall for this patriarchal trap. Timothy Simons (Goosebumps, Inherent Vice) is effective as the project’s physician, Dr. Collins. He has an air of easy contempt and arch arrogance that works well to increase tension. KiKi Lane (If Beale Street Could Talk, Native Son) is excellent in the few moments she has on screen in the pivotal role of Margaret, who sets the plot in motion. She is vulnerable in a way that can be read as unbalanced or desperate and her performance works equally as well when people are under the spell of the Victory Project and when the scales fall from their eyes.
What is the Victory Project? That’s a really good question and I can’t go that deeply into it without going into spoiler territory, but if you think about what the patriarchy is, you’re on the right track. The Victory Project has rules and those rules seem to mostly apply to the women, not the men. A personal note: one of the proscriptions of the Victory Project is that women should stay put in their homes and women driving is not allowed. One of the earliest scenes is Alice being given a drunken driving lesson that ends up with Alice doing endless donuts in an open desert field.
Both my grandmother and great-grandmother were never taught to drive. It’s an insidious way to keep control of a woman, but both placidly accepted it. The idea that a woman should not be allowed that knowledge or be taught a skill because she doesn’t need it aka she’s not worthy of having that kind of freedom is appalling. It’s treating grown human beings like they are children. The women of Victory are able to go shopping, because of course – women love shopping! But they have to ride a slow circular tram that takes them to the shopping area and then brings them right back. Their world is nothing but cleaning, cooking, buying dresses to look good for their husbands and the rest of the Victory Project, having sex, and birthing children. Why? Because if you let a woman out of the house, who knows what she might do? Who knows what ideas she might get in her little head?
The one thing I will say about my grandmother is that the very day that I was eligible for a teenage driver’s license, she rolled me out of bed and demanded that I go to the DMV and get a license. She gave me no choice in the matter. Go get it, I was told. Shortly after, she made sure that I got my own car, which I had to pay my aunt for, but once I did, it was mine and I was free to drive wherever I wanted while still in high school. While my willful independence from that day forward surely pained her, she made sure that I knew how to drive. It never occurred to me until I watched DON’T WORRY DARLING and sat down to write this review about what her true motivation might really have been. I finally realized that she wanted me to be free.
DON’T WORRY DARLING starts from the title, a condescending pat on the head for women who are troublesome and who think for themselves. It builds a gorgeous world that is ultimately empty and unfulfilling for the women trapped in the gilded cage. It takes the additional step of showing that it doesn’t necessarily make the oppressors happy either. Even the performances work to this end, with the exception of Kiki Lane as Margaret, all of the other characters are hollow. They are human beings who allowed their souls to be carved out in hopes that a toxic paradise will finally make them happy. The most telling lines of dialogue come from an exchange between Alice and Jack. Jack says, “But you were so unhappy.” and Alice retorts, “But it was my choice.” In this time where people are seeking to take choice away from women and LGBTQ again, it’s a pretty strong statement.
There are moments of great unease in DON’T WORRY DARLING, especially the moment where Alice is suddenly in a room where the walls close in, the scene works as both a symbolic statement and a jump scare. The film’s DP is Matthew Libatique, who has also lensed all of Darren Aronofsky’s films starting with Pi, and does brilliant work in a sun-baked, hyper-detailed film where the camera feeds on the beauty of the carefully art-directed homes, brightly costumed characters, with gorgeous make-up and hair, and beats down, like the sun, on the faces of the characters in merciless detail, seeking to plumb the depths of their dissatisfaction and paranoia.
When I watched the film, I believed that it was filmed in a specific neighborhood in Palm Springs that I have seen in person and I read that it was indeed filmed in the city. The work in production design by Katie Byron (Color Out Of Space, Zola), the art direction by Erika Toth (The One I Love, Booksmart) and Mary Florence Brown, the set decoration by Rachael Ferrara (The Final Girls), the costume design by Arianne Phillips (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, A Single Man) and the make-up department head, Heba Thorisdottir, and hair department head, Jaime Lee McIntosh, was all top notch. You should note that every one of these key crew positions is filled by women. I’ve never spent as much time marveling at the beauty of the hairstyles as I have while watching this film. I don’t think that was an accident. The film shows the enticing thrill of the objectification of female beauty, both for the women and the person observing them. It’s that candy that everybody wants and a honeyed, self-obsessive trap.
DON’T WORRY DARLING is a poisoned fairy tale, and is a story of the reclamation of the self that is thrilling, beautiful, and thematically on the mark. It’s so on the mark, in fact, that it’s liable to make people angry, especially men. Don’t make the mistake of judging the film by what you perceive as the arrogance of the director. Men get away with the same actions that Wilde has taken all the time and arrogance is an accepted quality among male directors. Also, a film isn’t required to hand you the answers to the problems it discusses and it’s not there to break down every aspect of the issues it raises. A film is a communication between the artists and the audience that’s meant to get you thinking about the subject in a different way. For me, DON’T WORRY DARLING is a success in that aim.
DON’T WORRY DARLING will be in US theaters on September 23, 2022.
The post [Movie Review] DON’T WORRY DARLING appeared first on Nightmarish Conjurings.
Spoilers follow for "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power."
Through its epic scope and scale, "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" achieves never-before-seen cinematic heights on the small screen. A distant relative to Peter Jackson's original trilogy, the streaming series is not afraid of diving head-first into the source material and exploring a rich fantasy world that spans millenniums. Furthermore, the show is able to take advantage of the mega-sized production budget through its groundbreaking visual effects, costumes, and set designs. Every fantastical element feels grounded in reality thanks to the commitment to detail by the artists behind the scenes. One aspect of the show, in particular, speaks to the care put into the vast history "The Rings of Power" covers in its eight-episode season.
The kingdom of Númenor is already a vital location in "The Rings of Power" for several reasons, but one small detail about their culture puts the dense nature of the series in an entirely new perspective. In the third episode, when Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elendil (Lloyd Owen) arrive at the Hall of Lore located on the Númenor island, scrolls — not bound books — are seen throughout the sequence. The scene does not exactly concern itself with that fact, but the background detail plays an important role in laying out the timeline. According to the production designer, this choice was not only intentional but started as an early idea during the development process.
For the uninitiated, the Hall of Lore was created by the elves and later kept intact by the previous king — Queen Miriel's (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) father — Tar-Palantir. He admired the elves and their contributions to Númenor, ensuring the scrolls they left behind were safe from those who despised the race. However, if you look closely at the Hall of Lore, you can see bound books lying around, separate from the bevy of scrolls organized in the room. It implies that bookbinding was not a gift by the elves, and instead a creation by the humans who inhabit Númenor.
/Film's Vanessa Armstrong interviewed production designer Ramsey Avery, who revealed just how intentional and detailed his work was from the start:
"One of the decisions that I sold the showrunners on early is that elves didn't have bound books — they didn't invent book binding. We know that Elrond has books in the Third Age, but that doesn't mean that they had books in the Second Age. So, I wanted to tell the story that Númenorians invented book binding, and that this storage of older information, everything would have to be scrolls. I looked at a bunch of Tibetan storage, because of the scrolls, and I thought, 'Wow, that's really cool because now we can have this whole space that's filled with scrolls.'"
The creative detail exemplifies how the kingdom of Númenor continued to advance despite its isolation from Middle-earth. Moreover, "The Rings of Power" confirms that despite the vast intelligence the elves have to offer, they still have not evolved very much in that regard.
In the second episode, Elrond (Robert Aramayo) visits Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) in his workplace to discuss plans to create a very powerful forge. The place is covered in loose scrolls, with not a single bound book in sight. The elves have books by the Third Age, as seen in the original trilogy, but they are still rolling up wrinkly pieces of paper in "The Rings of Power" (get dunked on by humans, elves).
The attention to continuity is impressive even by "The Lord of the Rings" standards, but the real showstopper is the intention to tell a story even in the minute details. Narrative drives every creative decision in the streaming series, and showing the difference between elves and humans in such a simple manner may be one of their brightest. As long as "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" continues to impress, I'd argue the series will stand the test of time as a passionate exploration of J.R.R. Tolkien's work worthy of the title.
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The post A Little Detail In The Rings of Power Makes Middle-earth Feel Even More Real [Exclusive] appeared first on /Film.
On July 30th of this year, Nichelle Nichols, the woman who brought the character of Lt. Nyota Uhura, died at 89 years old. Nichols' presence on "Star Trek: The Original Series" was revolutionary for its time, portraying a Black woman as part of an elite crew in a futuristic sci-fi setting. The character of Uhura was symbolic of the endurance of Black existence in a distant world. In many ways, Gene Roddenberry's series was defined by its forward thinking attitude and its willingness to break barriers, its setting directly representing a world where bigotry was left behind in pursuit of scientific progress.
While those values are certainly important for Trekkies to live by, it is also crucial to remember that the post-racial world of "Star Trek" onscreen was still shaped by society in the 1960s at the height of the civil rights movement, and for Nichols and other cast members from marginalized groups, like George Takei, that reality was much more complicated. The barrier-breaking interracial kiss between Uhura and William Shatner's Captain Kirk was a topic well discussed this year, but it is much less publicized that Shatner and Nichols' professional relationship was on much shakier ground. In many cases, Shatner's screentime as Kirk came at the expense of cutting time for Nichols' Uhura.
Famously, Nichols' once described her "Star Trek" role as a "glorified phone operator in space." She was frustrated with how little she had to do compared to her white male co-stars, especially when it came to the trio of Spock, Kirk, and Bones. She actually planned to quit the show after its first season, but Martin Luther King Jr. 's words of encouragement motivated her to stay aboard. MLK told Nichols, "For the first time on television, we will be seen as we should be seen, every day." Nichols learned that day that her own visibility on the show as a dignified and non-stereotyped Black woman was revolutionary in itself.
Unfortunately, Nichols' efforts for Uhura to continue to be present and visible amongst the Enterprise was a fight of its own. In her 1994 memoir, "Beyond Uhura," Nichols revealed that during production of "Star Trek," hers and many of her co-stars' scenes were often cut in favor of the show's bigger stars. She even exposed that network personnel were against her, going so far as to hide her fan mail from her so she couldn't use her star power to negotiate for a larger role. Nichols explained that this hostility was often attributed to William Shatner's behavior on set:
"Over the course of twenty-eight years, I'd witnessed Bill change from my hero to an insensitive, hurtful egotist, and had seen his callousness affect everyone around him, including myself."
In "Beyond Uhura," Nichols detailed a confrontation she once had with Shatner, reflecting on the experience working with him.
"Bill, you cut people's lines, you took away their time. You really don't understand why Jimmy Doohan refuses to talk to you? Why I initially didn't want to talk to you? And why Walter is loath to talk to you? Is George going to talk to you?"
[...]I think I could have let it go there, except Bill retorted, "Oh?" Then with a dismissive laugh, he added, "Specifically, how did I p*** you off?"
Gee, I thought, Where do I begin? The cut lines? The scrapped scenes? The last-minute rewrites? The tantrums?
"Bill, what you did was insensitive. You were looking out for your career, but we were looking out for ours too. When you cut lines and took away our scenes, you hurt us as people and as actors. That you don't remember that, or you don't think it's very important only makes it worse."
Though "Star Trek: The Original Series" only lasted three seasons on NBC, its impact was immeasurable. Nichols would continually reprise her role of Uhura for "Star Trek: The Animated Series" and all six feature films between 1979 through 1991. While Nichols always envisioned more for Uhura, her presence in the franchise proved to be just as important on a cultural level as it was on a personal level for MLK. After "Star Trek" ended, Nichelle Nichols would go on to be an ambassador for diversity for NASA. Mae Jeminson, the first Black woman to travel to space, cited Nichols as one of her biggest inspirations.
A new take on Uhura would also be further developed by Zoe Saldana in JJ Abrams' reboot trilogy. In 2017, Sonequa Martin-Green would be cast as Michael Burnham, the first Black female lead of the franchise in "Star Trek: Discovery," paving the way for more racial diversity in the modern era of the franchise, all thanks to Nichols continued presence. "Star Trek" has outgrown centering primarily Shatner's Kirk, and for a series with such a firm stance on co-existence, this is only for the better.
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The post William Shatner's Star Trek Screentime Came At The Cost Of Nichelle Nichols' Uhura appeared first on /Film.
It’s a beautiful thing, to reach the point in a relationship when your no-longer-new partner has finally discovered all of the horrible smells your body can produce, and chooses to stick with you nonetheless. The last thing you want, however, is for this smelly point to arrive ahead of schedule—killing the romance…
As the first season of "House of the Dragon" finally develops into a show that can stand on its own outside of the massive shadow cast upon it by "Game of Thrones," one of the standout performances has belonged to Emily Carey, the young bride of King Viserys Targaryen, and the dear friend of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen. Carey's turn as Alicent Hightower has provided some of the best scenes of the season thus far, but considering the morally questionable circumstances that align Alicent with the Targaryen king, Carey was understandably apprehensive to take on the challenging role.
At the time of reading the script for "House of the Dragon," Carey was only 17. They were 18 by the time filming started, but the age gap between Carey and 47-year-old Paddy Considine, who plays Viserys, is considerable. According to an interview with Newsweek (via Variety), Carey noted that this age gap almost kept them from pursuing the role, considering the two are to share simulated sex scenes on screen.
"At that point I still hadn't met Paddy, I didn't know how much of a joy he was and how easy he was going to make [the scene], and all I saw was, you know, a 47-year-old man and me," they said. "I was a bit concerned." Performing intimacy in front of others can be extremely challenging on its own, but to add in a nearly three-decade age gap, it's understandable why the young actor would feel a bit reluctant.
In 2018, HBO announced that they would be hiring intimacy coordinators for all of their productions, which includes "House of the Dragon." Their inclusion on set was a welcome addition according to Carey. "Having that outlet of the intimacy coordinator, to be able to talk everything through and not be shunned, or not feel awkward, or not feel like 'Oh, this isn't your job. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable but can I ask you...' It was never any of that, it was just that open dialogue," they said. "In the rehearsal room she was a massive help, and on set she was a massive help ... it was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be."
Before Carey started production on "House of the Dragon," a watch of "Game of Thrones" was in order. It may be hard to imagine there being people who still haven't seen the show, but keep in mind Carey was still an elementary schooler when the series debuted. "Of course the first season, even just the first episode of 'Thrones,' there's a lot of violence upon women," they said. "There's a lot of violent sex, and it made me nervous, I was like, 'Oh God, what am I gonna have to do in this show?'"
Fortunately, Carey has felt comfortable and affirmed on the set, and even highlighted showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik for allowing the space to have an "open conversation," and for making the cast "feel incredibly secure and safe."
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The post House of the Dragon's Emily Carey was Reluctant to Join the Show for an Understandable Reason appeared first on /Film.
When making a television series, trying to do justice to something as beloved and as iconic as "The Sandman" comic series is undeniably a daunting task. For those unfamiliar with the comic, "The Sandman" was the blueprint that goth teens in the early '90s based their entire world around: it ran from January 1989 to March 1996. Written by Neil Gaiman with artwork by several talented artists, every panel is dense with spectacle. The series follows a family of metaphysical entities that personify several aspects of our reality. The main character Dream, aka Morpheus, leads us through a tale that spans the history of humanity and is as poignant as it is horrifying.
To bring stellar artwork and timeless characters to life on screen, Netflix needed a magnificently talented visual effects team and someone to lead them with skill and passion. Netflix hired SFX Supervisor Ian Markiewicz, known for his work on "Agent Carter," "Black Sails," and "The Flash." I had the pleasure of speaking with Markiewicz about the show's design, receiving an inside look at the tremendous effort it took to make each scene worthy of "The Sandman" legacy. Markiewicz and his team used a mix of practical effects and CGI to translate the comics into a living, breathing world filled with beauty and terror. Below, I've collected some stories of how he did just that.
"The first thing that we were tasked with was figuring out Dream's palace," Markiewicz said. "That becomes a real interesting question where it's like, 'Okay, so this is a palace of the dreaming.' It's supposed to be something that is, in my mind, a mosaic of all different forms and things and shapes. In the comic books, there's a wonderful progression -- depending on Morpheus's mood, that palace is a reflection of that, or where he sits in time and space, that palace is a reflection of that."
Markiewicz took inspiration from a sculptor, Kris Kuksi, to design Dream's palace. "He does this amazing thing where he takes all these different bits of iconography," he continued. "So they could be these amazing sculptures. So it's like a Michelangelo sculpture. Then he mashes it with all this other stuff that he finds that are kind of parts of online little pieces. What it felt [like] to me was a dream mosaic, where it was, if we think of these building blocks of this structure as the dreams of not only humanity but also of anything that has a consciousness. That's one of the things that's so fascinating about Sandman in terms of [its] comic book mythology. It's not just humanity that dreams: it's anything that dreams is reflected in the dreaming."
Very few scenes of "The Sandman" were filmed in a full-green box. Shooting at real locations was a priority, as it contributed physical and spatial references for the cast and crew. "It gives us, as visual effects artists and technicians, a huge amount of information to go on when we've got photography on the plate," Markiewicz said. "It means that we can usually do that much better to make sure that those integrations are seamless."
For scenes in Dream's throne room, the show was filmed on-location at Guildford Cathedral in the UK. "A very big decision that was made early on, was to try to get a real space to shoot Dream's throne room. We knew that the throne room was going to have to be heavily augmented. Any reasonable person might say, 'Okay, this should be a fully virtual environment and we should shoot this on a full green screen stage or on an LED array volume, et cetera -- if that proves cost-effective, and worthwhile for the production.' I was really opposed to that idea. I felt like, for me, what I have experienced time and time again is despite everyone's best efforts -- and that it goes for myself and the entire crew and the cast when we're working in green boxes -- I do feel like there is a loss in the artistry of the filmmaking craft."
Markiewicz noted that Matthew (voiced by Patton Oswalt) was one of the more exciting designs the SFX team tackled. "Our objective was to make a completely photo-real raven that was a human trapped inside a bird with all of the physiology of a bird, but with the mind of a human being and the ability to talk. What we were able to achieve with him, whether it be the night wind blowing through his feathers, and curling them back -- whatever the case may be -- the very particular performance quirks that are part of that character, but still I think are successful in feeling very birdlike. I think that we, as a team, were all pretty proud of what that looked like."
According to Markiewicz, about 95 percent of every shot of Matthew is full-CGI. However, the production used live birds on set to provide references for the CGI team to work with during their creation process. Matthew and Jessamy were brought to life with the help of 3 trained birds each.
"So in visual effects, we would take that reference and use it as a sort of goldmine of performance, reference lighting, reference of everything. Take all the best moments across 15 takes and figure out how to generate a character that then had Patton Oswalt's personality as part of its overall behavior classification, and basically recreate that bird."
"When someone says, 'Okay, design Lucifer's palace,' it's terrifying," Markiewicz noted."You're like, 'Okay, well I don't know how that's ever going to feel satisfying to anybody.' But that's a fun challenge creatively to then set out, say like, 'Okay, well what do I think this should look like? What reference images do I gather to start that process?' A decision that we made -- that I was a little worried about was going to be a little bit of a third rail, but I think everybody understood the intention behind it -- was that we deliberately modeled the back of the palace, in terms of the balcony, after St. Peter's square at the Vatican, which was not intended to be any sort of tongue-in-cheek statement about Catholicism at all. It was about Lucifer being a fallen angel. Lucifer is shaping this space as they see fit. I thought it was a really interesting angle into the psychology that allowed for some sense of that iconography."
To make the most of this ironic allusion to a real-world location, the VFX team intentionally played off the expectations of that space. They adjusted the height of the balcony, changed the sculptures, and added small details that evoked hell's version of this iconic space. "I also felt like it was in keeping with Neil's approach to how he finds these direct cultural touchstones, and these real religion, myth, fable. These are things that are Sandman. This is, to me, why the comic is so interesting. [It's] how it's able to gather and recombine all of these amazing literary references and architectural references."
The Threshold of Desire was painstakingly carved out of foam blocks by production designer Gary Steele ("Luther," "Outlander") "It's not easy to move onto an existing cathedral... So, there was always this discussion of, 'Can this be a real place?' If it can, let's start with that, and that will be our first ask. If it can't because of any number of reasons -- it's too far away, geographically, it's too expensive, it doesn't give us what we need -- can we then build it? Then, it became a question of, 'Well, Gary... what can we make on stage to make this work?' So, the Threshold of Desire is a good example where Gary was able to build a section of that set, which is this beautiful curved arch and curved back area where sigils hang in terms of the gallery."
In the original comic, Desire's dwelling isn't well defined: the walls are dark, allowing the reader to focus on the characters. This artistic choice in the original work left space for Steele to design a set reminiscent of something akin to Roger Dean's architecture, as it would look if carved out of a human heart. By giving the interior a more defined look, it becomes luxurious and sensual, yet slightly disturbing -- an absolutely perfect domain for Desire.
The scene where we meet Gregory the Gargoyle is one of the saddest in "The Sandman" television adaptation -- despite the brief time viewers have with him. The visual effects team had the challenge of not only crafting a believable gargoyle but finding a way to get the audience to quickly connect with Gregory.
"For us, we knew that was always going to be full CG, Gregory. Of course, he would have to be, but it wasn't just going in, and shooting after with the tennis ball... Brian (Fisher) was our puppeteer and he did a phenomenal job of giving that character personality, even in the plate photography passes. So if you look at the before and actors of those sequences we have, it looks goofy, but we've got Brian in a full-green suit, but he has a 3D printed head of Gregory, which our props department was able to provide, which was awesome. So we said, 'Here's the model. Here's what we're going to build digitally.' We gave them that VI, and then a week later, they came back with this wonderful stuffy head for us."
"Then we had Brian who was able to go away and think about what that character's performance would be. And then on the day, you can feel that performance with the actors. I think that even [when you're] watching a guy in a green suit, it still has emotional potency and resonance. I think the actors are responding really well, and you already feel that connection. For us, that groundwork was, once again, laid on set even before that well into prep in terms of all the pre-vis, all the sort performance stuff that we did with Brian."
Once the recording session with the actors on set was complete, the special effects team worked on finding ways to make the audience fall in love with Gregory.
"In the later stages of that development, it was all about just trying to find things that I'm a softie for. So I'm a total dog lover, I've got two dogs. I spent a lot of time studying one of my dogs who's a German shepherd mix and tried to get a lot of the same kind of gestures, a lot of the same kind of eye movements... So it's no accident that he's very doglike in his behavior.
"I think that we lean into... any soft spot that anybody has for an animal. I think that's why those scenes are potent. Again, I'll credit the artists who were executing that, because that was one of those things where we would talk about performance, talk about all these things, but when we'd start seeing these full renders come back, it was like, 'Oh, my God, he's there. He has a personality. He has warmth. He is communicating even though he's not speaking.'"
Goldie provided a different challenge for the SFX team of "The Sandman," who decided to match the creature's appearance in the comic book series. Markiewicz focused on getting Goldie's skin coloration and textures right to make the baby gargoyle as realistic as possible.
"Like yes, he's Goldie, and yes, he's gold. But we need to look at wildlife and need to look at reptiles and see how, even if something is one color, there is a variation over different parts of the body, and how it wears different areas of skin and scales. How they stretch so that it doesn't just look like he's been coated in gold paint. In our first early, early draft of him, he looked excellent. But that's exactly what he looked like. He looked like he was a cute little toy that was dipped in gold paint. I think that finding the difference between a toy dipped in gold paint and a cuddly little gargoyle baby character, was the artistry of that particular adaptation. Yes, he is very much one-to-one, but we still had to figure out how to give him life in a way that made him feel authentic to the show and faithful to the books."
Dream has a bag of magical sand that he uses in several ways -- puts people to sleep, transports himself, and sprinkles it into everything he does. Markiewicz revealed that in the early stages of filming the team used six different piles of sand with various combinations of color, glitter, and details that the effects team could manipulate on film. But the practical effect never quite had the elegance they wanted.
"It would be a really, really good reference, but it would never do exactly what it needed to do," he shared. "No surprise. We didn't expect that it would, but just those very subtle art direction things, any one of those, and the same is true for the reabsorption of Gregory in terms of what is Dream stuff in our show." When Gregory dissolves, Markiewicz didn't want to show the viscera of the character but instead conveys the idea that a dream doesn't have mass. He described Gregory the gargoyle as hollow like a chocolate bunny. He used that imagery to guide how the sand would move. "When that facade starts to crack and separate, and then that then separates into smaller individual component granules that hopefully then recombine into this sand stuff -- that became a little bit of the language of figuring out how that would be."
In the final season 1 episode of "The Sandman," there's a bonus story that covers the dreams of cats. To give the episode a unique feel and look, Markiewicz brought on the artist and filmmaker Hisko Hulsing. "Hisko was somebody who Alan (Heinberg) and I found online based on some of his short films from several years ago," Markiewicz said. "Hisko's now doing "Undone", a series for Amazon. So he's since gone, and blown up, and doing this style. But it was a really interesting art style that we hadn't seen before, where it was this really cool blend of live-action photography that was then rotoscoped, but then he oil paints. So, the backgrounds are physical oil paintings that artists paint as real canvases, these large, big canvases. And then there's an additional painting done on top for the characters themselves."
Of course, real cats are notoriously hard to direct, so a company called Untold ended up creating all of the cats with CGI and then passed the footage to Hulsing to rotoscope the work and then paint. "In Hisko's studio... He's got 40 or some of these massive canvases, which are amazing, and then additional hand paintwork on top of that," Markiewicz added. "I love the fusion of what the technology was able to do for that particular sequence. I just thought that the way that they handled that was so interesting."
The amount of work that goes into a show like "The Sandman" is staggering. The production had around 12 companies, including LM, Frame Store, ILP, Rodeo Effects, Untold, One of Us, Union, CBFX, and Resonance. Approximately "The Sandman" had 800 staff members when counting its production and support management teams.
As Markiewicz noted, many times the vast number of individuals who work on these shows are invisible to the public. But without them, our gargoyles would be nothing more than tennis balls on a stick and our dreaming cats would snub the script for a nap.
"I think that recognizing the sheer volume of individuals who were working on this for a very long time and spent a lot of energy trying to come to something that they were excited about and passionate about. I think that in our visual effects field, that recognition is too few and far between... To the credit of those craftspeople, and to those companies... I hope we did it justice."
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The post What The Sandman Looked Like Before The Visual Effects appeared first on /Film.
I’ve loved grocery shopping with my mom ever since I was a wee child in New Jersey. But before our journey, I always asked which store we were headed to. We frequented two types of grocery stores: the American one and the Asian grocery store in East Hanover. A trip to the Kam Man Market was always something to get excited about.
Asian grocery stores are packed with incredible items you can’t find in other grocery stores. And items that you can find your standard grocery store, you can still find in Asian ones, and maybe even at a lower price. The produce and fish are diverse and unmatched in freshness, and the bakery tends to be wonderful. The prepared foods section is worth the trip alone. Asian grocery stores come in all shapes and sizes, but if you have access to a sizable one (or one attached to a food court), you can enjoy an entire afternoon outing and return home with a culinary treasure trove. Here are the things I need to buy every time I visit the Asian grocery store.
