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22 Aug 22:28

Who was the Mad King in Game of Thrones and Why Did He Go Mad?

by Jo Craig

**Warning – Spoilers ahead for House of the Dragon**

Talk of the Mad King, first mentioned in Game of Thrones, surfaced during House of the Dragon’s debut and we recap who was the Mad King and why he went mad.

The prequel’s premiere is the event everyone is talking about to bring us into the Fall television series. Naturally, there are a few references from Episode 1 that need to be addressed.

Created by George R. R. Martin and Ryan J. Condal for HBO, House of the Dragon will serve as a prequel to Game of Thrones starring Paddy Considine, Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, and more, following the beginning of the end for House Targaryen including the family’s war known as the Dance of Dragons.

House of the Dragon | Official Trailer

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House of the Dragon | Official Trailer
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Who was the Mad King?

Aerys II Targaryen became known as the worst king to rule over Westeros in Game of Thrones history and a great villain of the Seven Kingdoms.

After being dubbed a war hero, Aerys became king after the Targaryen family was obliterated during the Summerhall fire, with only Aerys, his wife Rhaella, and his son Rhaegar escaping.

Ruling from 262 AC to 283 AC, Aerys also had Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen as children before a series of events took a toll and turned him into the Mad King.

Aerys was killed by Kingsguard Ser Jaime Lannister during Robert Baratheon’s rebellion.

Why Did the Mad King Go Mad?

In addition to Aerys’ loss of several children with Rhaella, the king was also held captive for six months by House Darklyn which fuelled his descent.

Alongside being known as The Mad King, Aerys was also dubbed King Scab, after the Iron Throne left him with several wounds on his body, causing the king to develop a fear of sharp objects.

Aerys became increasingly paranoid, distrusting his Hand, Tywin Lannister, and even his children at one point, leading to several massacres within the kingdoms.

His fear of sharp objects made him grow his fingernails and hair unnaturally long and he also developed paranoia over being poisoned, all leading to the Seven Kingdoms dubbing him the Mad King.

Milly Alcock as Young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen looking up at the Iron Throne in House of the Dragon
House of the Dragon – Cr. Photograph by Ollie Upton / HBO, 2022. Warner Media, LLC

Targaryen Family Tree

House of the Dragon has called for a Targaryen family tree recap, considering how many names are similar to one another.

The following family tree contains spoilers for House of the Dragon.

Episode 1 established that Lord Corlys Velaryon and Prince Rhaenys (who were considered for the throne) had Laenor Velaryon and Lady Laena Velaryon, the latter of which marries Prince Daemon, brother of King Viserys, after Lady Rhea.

King Viserys and the late Lady Aemma Arryn had Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen before Viserys remarried Alicent Hightower.

By Jo Craig – jo.craig@grv.media

House of the Dragon is now streaming on HBO Max.

The post Who was the Mad King in Game of Thrones and Why Did He Go Mad? appeared first on ForeverGeek.

22 Aug 22:26

Who is Lord Rickon Stark in House of the Dragon?

by Jo Craig

**Warning – Spoilers ahead for House of the Dragon**

During the final scene of House of the Dragon Episode 1, a Stark emerged to pledge allegiance to Princess Rhaenyra and we explain who Lord Rickon Stark is.

Naturally, fans of the series are questioning who Rickon is to the Starks that we know, Sansa, Bran, and Arya, keeping in mind House of the Dragon is set centuries before Game of Thrones.

Created by George R. R. Martin and Ryan J. Condal for HBO, House of the Dragon will serve as a prequel to Game of Thrones starring Paddy Considine, Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, and more, following the beginning of the end for House Targaryen including the family’s war known as the Dance of Dragons.

House of the Dragon | Official Trailer

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House of the Dragon | Official Trailer
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Who is Lord Rickon Stark?

Lord Rickon Stark was the first of his name, Lord of Winterfell and head of House Stark during King Viserys I Targaryen’s reign. Rickon Stark is played by David Hounslow in House of the Dragon.

Son to Lord Benjen Stark and Lysa Locke, Rickon became known as the Warden of the North after his father and the Lord passed away in 121 AC handing down his title to his son and heir Cregan.

Several Starks were named after Lord Rickon, including his grandson, born to Cregan Stark and Arra Norrey. Ned and Catelyn’s son was also named Rickon, who was murdered during the Battle of the Bastards.

How is Rickon Related to Sansa, Bran, and Arya Stark?

As the first of his name born before 96 AC, this makes Lord Rickon Stark the distant great-grandfather of Sansa, Bran, and Arya Stark.

Lord Rickon’s entrance in House of the Dragon illustrates the beginning of the Stark/Targaryen relationship during the later’s dynasty, which is expected to ferment during the course of the series.

House Stark begrudgingly bent the knee during Episode 1, still bitter after being forced to yield during Aegon I’s conquest.

Maisie Williams, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Sophie Turner sitting at the council in Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones – Cr. Photograph by Macall B. Polay / HBO, 2022. Warner Media, LLC

House of the Dragon Episode 2

House of the Dragon Episode 2, titled The Rogue Prince, is scheduled to premiere on Sunday, August 28, 2022, on HBO Max.

The US can tune in to watch the installment at 9 pm ET/6 pm PT, and viewers in the UK can watch at the same during their local time of 2 am GMT.

Titled ‘The Rogue Prince’ suggests this episode will follow Daemon Targaryen after being exiled by King Viserys.

By Jo Craig – jo.craig@grv.media

House of the Dragon is now streaming on HBO Max.

The post Who is Lord Rickon Stark in House of the Dragon? appeared first on ForeverGeek.

22 Aug 22:26

Who are Jon Snow’s Parents and What is His Targaryen Name?

by Jo Craig

**Warning – Spoilers ahead for House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones**

One of the greatest twists from Game of Thrones revealed the series-long mystery of who Jon Snow’s parents were and where his true heritage lay.

Formerly known as the bastard, we provide a recap on who Jon Snow’s parents are and remind you of his rightful name and heir to the throne.

Created by George R. R. Martin and Ryan J. Condal for HBO, House of the Dragon will serve as a prequel to Game of Thrones starring Paddy Considine, Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, and more, following the beginning of the end for House Targaryen including the family’s war known as the Dance of Dragons.

House of the Dragon | Fire Will Reign Official Promo Trailer | HBO Max

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House of the Dragon | Fire Will Reign Official Promo Trailer | HBO Max
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Who are Jon Snow’s Parents?

In the final episode of Game of Thrones Season 7, it was revealed that Jon Snow’s parents were Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen.

As we were reminded in House of the Dragon Episode 1, Rhaegar is the son of the Mad King, Aerys II Targaryen, and older brother to Daenerys – making Jon Snow her nephew.

Viewers were exposed to the revelation during Bran Stark’s foresight into the past, where he watched Lyanna reveal Jon’s true father to Ned Stark.

Kit Harington as Jon Snow holding a torch in Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones – Cr. Photograph by Helen Sloan / HBO, 2022. Warner Media, LLC

Jon Snow’s Real Name is Aegon Targaryen

Season 7 also revealed that Jon’s real name was actually Aegon Targaryen and he was the rightful heir to the throne.

Before Lyanna’s passing, she asked Ned to protect Aegon/Jon at all costs, as news of his true ancestry would cause Robert Baratheon to hunt him down.

There was also a chance that Aegon/Jon could have been used as collateral damage by pro Targaryens and a political pawn to move the house closer to the Iron Throne, despite Aegon/Jon’s disinterest in ruling the Seven Kingdoms.

House of the Dragon Episode Guide

House of the Dragon has ten episodes to air within its first season and will settle into the release pattern of airing every Sunday at 9 pm ET, 6 pm PT, and 2 am GMT until the end of October.

Going by the release schedule outlined below, the House of the Dragon finale will air on Sunday, October 23, 2022.

Below we have included the release dates of the show to mark in your calendar alongside the episode titles that we know so far:

  • Episode 1: The Heirs of the Dragon – Sunday, August 21, 2022
  • Episode 2: The Rogue Prince – Sunday, August 28, 2022
  • Episode 3: TBA – Sunday, September 4, 2022
  • Episode 4: TBA – Sunday, September 11, 2022
  • Episode 5: TBA – Sunday, September 18, 2022
  • Episode 6: TBA – Sunday, September 25, 2022
  • Episode 7: TBA – Sunday, October 2, 2022
  • Episode 8: TBA – Sunday, October 9, 2022
  • Episode 9: TBA – Sunday, October 16, 2022
  • Episode 10:TBA – Sunday, October 23, 2022

By Jo Craig – jo.craig@grv.media

House of the Dragon is now streaming on HBO Max.

The post Who are Jon Snow’s Parents and What is His Targaryen Name? appeared first on ForeverGeek.

22 Aug 22:25

Cyber Signals: Defend against the new ransomware landscape

by Christine Barrett

Today, Microsoft is excited to publish our second edition of Cyber Signals, spotlighting security trends and insights gathered from Microsoft’s 43 trillion security signals and 8,500 security experts. In this edition, we pull back the curtain on the evolving cybercrime economy and the rise of Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS). Instead of relying on what cybercriminals say about themselves through extortion attempts, forum posts, or chat leaks, Microsoft threat intelligence gives us visibility into threat actors’ actions.

RaaS is often an arrangement between an operator, who develops and maintains the malware and attack infrastructure necessary to power extortion operations, and “affiliates” who sign on to deploy the ransomware payload against targets. Affiliates purchase initial access from brokers or hit lists of vulnerable organizations, such as those with exposed credentials or already having malware footholds on their networks. Cybercriminals then use these footholds as a launchpad to deploy a ransomware payload against targets.

The impact of RaaS dramatically lowers the barrier to entry for attackers, obfuscating those behind initial access brokering, infrastructure, and ransoming. Because RaaS actors sell their expertise to anyone willing to pay, budding cybercriminals without the technical prowess required to use backdoors or invent their own tools can simply access a victim by using ready-made penetration testing and system administrator applications to perform attacks.

The endless list of stolen credentials available online means that without basic defenses like multifactor authentication (MFA), organizations are at a disadvantage in combating ransomware’s infiltration routes before the malware deployment stage. Once it’s widely known among cybercriminals that access to your network is for sale, RaaS threat actors can create a commoditized attack chain, allowing themselves and others to profit from your vulnerabilities.

While many organizations consider it too costly to implement enhanced security protocols, security hardening actually saves money. Not only will your systems become more secure, but your organization will spend less on security costs and less time responding to threats, leaving more time to focus on incoming incidents.

Businesses are experiencing an increase in both the volume and sophistication of cyberattacks. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2021 Internet Crime Report found that the cost of cybercrime in the United States totaled more than USD6.9 billion.1 The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) reports that between May 2021 and June 2022, about 10 terabytes of data were stolen each month by ransomware threat actors, with 58.2 percent of stolen files including employees’ personal data.2

It takes new levels of collaboration to meet the ransomware challenge. The best defenses begin with clarity and prioritization, which means more sharing of information across and between the public and private sectors and a collective resolve to help each other make the world safer for all. At Microsoft, we take that responsibility to heart because we believe security is a team sport. You can explore the latest cybersecurity insights and updates at our threat intelligence hub Security Insider

With a broad view of the threat landscape—informed by 43 trillion threat signals analyzed daily, combined with the human intelligence of our more than 8,500 experts—threat hunters, forensics investigators, malware engineers, and researchers, we see first-hand what organizations are facing and we’re committed to helping you put that information into action to pre-empt and disrupt extortion threats.

Learn more

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.


1Internet Crime Report, Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2021.

2Ransomware: Publicly Reported Incidents are only the tip of the iceberg, European Union Agency for Cybersecurity. July 29, 2022.

The post Cyber Signals: Defend against the new ransomware landscape appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

22 Aug 22:23

Half-Life 2 sequel launches on Steam, but it’s not by Valve

by Ed Smith
Half-Life 2 sequel launches on Steam, but it’s not by Valve

A Half-Life 2 sequel has released on Steam, bringing a new, seven-chapter campaign and full voice cast to the world of Valve’s definitive sci-fi FPS, and bridging some of the story gaps between the 2004 original and the long-awaited Half-Life 3.

22 Aug 22:22

Those Little Balls During The House Of The Dragon Council Scenes Sum Up The Best Part Of The Show

by Mike Shutt

I am utterly obsessed with one little detail in "House of the Dragon." 

The show's first episode, "The Heirs of the Dragon," features a plethora of scenes centered on the Small Council in King's Landing. Viewers of "Game of Thrones" are very familiar with the Small Council, which is essentially Westeros' equivalent to a Cabinet meeting. The king sits around with his appointed group of leaders of various branches of the kingdom, and they discuss and debate the various matters concerning the realm, from taxes to celebrations.

The series premiere of "House of the Dragon" institutes something we never saw on the show's predecessor. When the various members of the Small Council arrive at the meeting, they grab what looks to be a large marble off of a little platform in the center of the table and then place it in the middle of a circular dish located at their seat.

Set decorator Claire Nie Richards told The Hollywood Reporter that the balls are used to represent "the council coming in and being part of the meeting," a medieval punch card if you will. Co-creator and co-showrunner Ryan Condal was just as taken with them as I was, saying:

"I thought it was really cool. It's a way of visualizing the set formality of the Small Council chamber. It's enjoyable; we should have things that we like in this world."

So, why does a detail like this, which really doesn't have any bearing on the plot or figure into the episode's most explosive moments, please me so? Well, it taps into the part of brain that got me interested in the world of "Game of Thrones" in the first place. It's about process.

The Intrigue Amongst The Fantasy

Fantasy is probably my least favorite genre. A world of magic, creatures, prophecies, and all that jazz rarely activates my particular pleasure centers when it comes to narrative fiction. The further away from a tangible reality we get, the more I lose interest. When I first fired up "Game of Thrones" all those years ago, I fully expected to not click with it and put it alongside things like "Lord of the Rings," stuff that people love that wasn't my thing. Not only did I like "Game of Thrones," but I was bewitched by it. I would watch episodes multiple times before the next one aired, do full rewatches of the show leading up to every new season, and the long waits between seasons became agonizing.

So, why was this different? In its early days, "Game of Thrones" was not much of a fantasy show. It was a political intrigue show. All of the best moments were people sitting around, dealing and scheming about power. Yeah, there was the threat of ice zombies on the horizon, but I wanted conversations about how much money the crown borrowed from the Iron Bank of Braavos. The Small Council was always the best place for scenes like this because it was their job to frankly discuss these things, but what makes it wonderful is the setting, which forces the participants to put on the air of civility even if they are teeming with rage at their fellow Council members.

"House of the Dragon" ups the civility by taking place at a time where the realm has not been thrown into chaos by the usurping of a monarch. We get to see what a proper Small Council with an attentive king looks like.

A Tradition Waiting To Be Broken

This is why the balls are so fascinating to me. They add to the decorum of the proceedings, a symbol that shows a functioning government. Only seven people at maximum sit around this table. You can clearly see who is and isn't there. This is the process. This is tradition. This is the way the kings have done it before and how it will continue going forward, even if it doesn't really make any sense.

That sentiment applies directly to the show's central conflict. Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, wonderfully played by Milly Alcock in the premiere, should be the natural heir to the throne after her father King Viserys (Paddy Considine) eventually dies, but she isn't because she is a woman. That isn't the tradition of the Seven Kingdoms. That isn't the process they inherited from their ancestors. And we know from "Game of Thrones," let alone the real world, that people are willing to die before they succumb to a tradition being broken.

Practically, the reason the balls were never in "Game of Thrones" were because no one had thought them up yet. That being said, the canon now states that at one point they used these balls in the Small Council, and that practice was abandoned at some point. The process of governing changed, even if the change was slight, and perhaps that signals the kingdom to evolve in other ways. We'll just keep having to watch "House of the Dragon" to see.

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

The post Those Little Balls During The House Of The Dragon Council Scenes Sum Up The Best Part Of The Show appeared first on /Film.

22 Aug 22:17

Saints Row Review

by ehauter@gamingnexus.com
Saints Row is a delightful, profane return to form.
22 Aug 22:16

Quote of the Day

by noreply@blogger.com (Jason Adams)

"I don’t know. I do know that [producer Alex Mace] has already talked to me about doing a third one. And if the script is good, and people love this one, why not? I would love to do that. I don’t think we’re gonna have to wait 13 years because I don’t think it’s gonna be possible in 13 years. When you’re in your 20s you can still look like younger if you get on a little stool chair, or have children play you from multiple angles. But I would love the opportunity if it came up. I wouldn’t say no.”

As I said in my review of this past weekend's Orphan: First Kill (read it over at The Film Experience if you missed it) I demand ten more Orphan movies, so Isabelle Fuhrman here confirming at least the subject's been broached in a chat with Variety today makes me happy... well happy-ish. I'd be happy, I'd be ecstatic, if this was more emphatic, as in, "Fuck yeah we're making that shit!" 

But also as I said in my review -- Isabelle looking not-quite-right is part of the movie's pleasure! I saw some people complaining about not buying Esther size-wise in the prequel and I'm just like, "Have you no joy in your heart???" The ridiculousness is the sweet stuff! That's why I could see this franchise going on forever, and I want it to keep prequel-ing itself on top of that -- keep making Esther be younger while Isabelle gets older. Benjamin Button this shit! But in the cheapest way possible! I want middle-aged Isabelle Fuhrman sticking her head through a hole in the bottom of a crib while an animatronic baby's body slashes around a knife dammit!

22 Aug 22:14

If you need an affordable used car in 2022, maybe don't even bother trying [Interesting]

22 Aug 22:08

The 7 Best And 7 Worst Moments In Only Murders In The Building Season 2

by Cass Clarke

After solving Tim Kono's (Julian Cihi) and Zoe Cassidy's (Olivia Reis) murders — not to mention outing Teddy Diams' (Nathan Lane) criminal enterprise — the "Only Murders in the Building" sleuths finally got the chance to celebrate their investigative achievements. Of course, as soon as the crime-solving trio popped a bottle of champagne in Season 2, Mabel (Selena Gomez) discovers the body of the dreaded (or beloved, depending on who you ask) Arconia's building board president. Worse, whoever killed Bunny Folger (Jayne Houdyshell) sets up Mabel, Oliver (Martin Short), and Charles (Steve Martin) to take the fall.

As "Only Murders in the Building" nears its Season 2 finale, it's fair to say that this sophomore outing has been a vast improvement overall. That's not to say Season 1 failed in its comedy-mystery approach: there's a good reason why the second season received 17 Emmy nominations, whereas Season 1 snagged none. The cast's chemistry and comedic timing soar in its latest season, showcasing a tighter hand on who these characters are and who they desire to become. Buoyed by a less predictable storyline, Season 2 intricately winds its mystery around a light-hearted analysis of true-crime fans and dramatic beats that shines a light on how every character in this show is a complex individual — even Bunny Folger. 

Let's dig into Season 2's highlights and the heartwrenching moments that made us love our indie-podcast crew even more, especially when they make big and cringeworthy mistakes.

Best: Rose Cooper's Secret Painting

I love when mysteries appear to be solved, but then another character reveals there's more beneath the surface to discover. Season 2's "Sparring Partners" accomplishes this feat with Rose Cooper's (Shirley MacLaine) secret painting storyline. When Rose admits she's only ever wanted Bunny's painting because it's her artwork, it didn't come off as too much of a surprise. The stylish chocolate martini drinker always felt too frivolous to be Bunny's mom. However, her reasoning for needing the original painting certainly took me by surprise. Underneath the oil painting of Charles' father having sex was a Rose Cooper-original portrait of Charles as a boy and his father. Rose then tells Charles that more than anything in this world, Mr. Savage (Ben Livingston) wanted to be a good father. 

While Season 2 doesn't delve too far into Charles' relationship with his father, there's more than enough evidence to declare it complicated. We learn that Charles' dad was having multiple affairs. He frequently lied to his son, telling him he was off auditioning for acting roles — a fabrication that inadvertently inspired Charles to be an actor. Later in life, he struggled with an addiction to gambling and alcohol. There is no undoing the damage Charles' father did to his son's sense of trust, and it's clear this pains Charles still. However, this painting gives Charles a more hopeful reminder of the good times between them.

If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Worst: Charles Is Still (Sort Of) Dating Jan

To its credit, "Only Murders in the Building" Season 2 doesn't shy away from exploring the emotional fallout of Chuck and Jan's (Amy Ryan) relationship. Yes, Jan is behind bars, but there are still a lot of feelings for Charles to work through around losing an authentic connection to a murderous ex. While Oliver and Mabel gently poke fun at Charles' questionable dating choices, it's clear that Jan fractured Charles' trust in his judgment. After learning more about Charles' unreliable and manipulative father, Jan's betrayal hits harder.

When I saw Charles still dating an imprisoned Jan in Season 2, all I could say was, "Oh, buddy..." However, Charles' decision to keep in touch with Jan only heightens an integral truth about this character. Beneath his seemingly-arrogant and neurotic Brazzos surface, Charles is a lonely man, desiring a grounded, romantic partner. Returning to Jan once more was necessary for Charles to realize what he wants in life and accept that this is the kind of person he does not need. Here's hoping "Only Murders in the Building" Season 3 shows Charles jumping back into a dating world full of crossword puzzles and post-sex bagels. Considering that "Only Murders in the Building" might be Steve Martin's last role, it'd be lovely to see him stretch his rom-com skills one final time (as he did so well in "Roxanne").

Best: Howard Finds A Date

"Only Murders in the Building" understands the power behind giving a show's minor characters a fair mixture of one-liners and standout moments. Not only does it make the world of the Arconia feel lived-in, but it also opens up so many delightful story opportunities to revisit down the road. In Season 1, Howard's (Michael Cyril Creighton) fixation on his now-deceased cat Evelyn was a long-running gag. Although the cat ends up helping the podcasting trio solve Tim Kono's death, Howard's shut-in persona is used more as comedic relief. We don't know what his job is, and the awkward Howard has no non-cat interests.

But then Season 2 gifted Howard (and us) with an "Only Murders in the Building" blackout episode that shows the librarian's 30(ish), flirty, and thriving side. "Hello Darkness" gives Howard a B-storyline, following his quest to ask a cute new neighbor for a date. Howard rolls up the sleeves of his token sweater-and-collared-shirt combo and, despite thinking he will vomit or weep, asks Jonathan (Jason Veasey) to join him for some wine by candlelight. The two then discover a mutual love of singing, as Jonathan is a Broadway actor starring in "The Lion King." After Howard admits he's a yodeler who is afraid to sing alone, Jonathan encourages him to sing with him, leading the two to fill the Arconia with a yodeling rendition of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence." Take a bow, Howard. We're proud of you!

Worst: Never Partying With Bunny Folger

Unless you can see the future, there's no way to know which seemingly-harmless life choices you'll later regret. Unfortunately, Mabel, Oliver, and Charles learn this the hard way. After half-heartedly inviting Bunny to hang with them and drink champagne, they're shocked when she shows up at their doorstep. As they watch Bunny through the peephole, they loudly whisper about how awkward it'd be, causing Bunny to weep. She goes back to her apartment and is then tragically killed. Although the podcasting trio didn't murder her, they could have prevented it. All it would have taken was to let down their guard and be kind.

The worst part about all this is the audience can tell how giddy Bunny is that she received a gift — an "Only Murders in the Building" sweatshirt — from her tenants. She wants to be involved with others, but it's hard to do that when you're their landlord. Despite the crew assuming that Bunny is a cruel b****, we later learn in the series that she tirelessly worked a thankless job and that the Arconia was the love of her life. It's a shame they'll never see Bunny's lighter side and that such casual cruelty made up her last living moments. I'm sure Bunny would have some badass stories to tell. But, who knows? As "Only Murders in the Building" co-creator and showrunner John Hoffman once told Jayne Houdyshell, "Don't worry, there are always flashbacks."

Best: Oliver, The Babysitter

For as much as "Only Murders in the Building" relies on showcasing Oliver's sprightly nature, Season 2 effectively spends more time digging into how he's a thoughtful parent. Season 1 showed viewers an Oliver whose obsession with gaining relevance and fame jeopardizes his relationship with his son, Will (Ryan Broussard). When we first meet Oliver, he's struggling financially and hasn't had a successful project in years. Desperate times lead Oliver to be the most selfish version of himself. But after he finds recognition with his podcast, and is a part of a high-profile murder case. Oliver shows us (and Will) a gentler side.

One of the best examples of Oliver's tender side comes during his "A Chorus Line" routine. Oliver volunteers to help Detective Williams' (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) gassy baby with a musical dance number, an idea which repels her — which is hysterical since Randolph is also a Tony-nominated Broadway star.  However, she gives him a shot, and Oliver play-dances with the baby like he's a little can-can dancer until he toots. Watching a Tony Award-winning Broadway star teach a baby a dance routine is so delightful that words can't do the sweet scene justice. The only thing that beats this moment are the words Oliver says to Williams: "You'll do anything if you think it'll help your kid." Despite his self-centered tendencies, Oliver deeply cares about Will and being a good parent. It's nice to see his parenting skills take center stage.

Worst: Will's Real Father Reveal

Someone doesn't need to be genetically related to a child to be a good parent to them. In this light, the series' choice to show Oliver as a considerate parent while later revealing he's not Will's biological father is extremely powerful. My biological father never raised me, so I appreciate the importance of representing a loving but not genetically related father on-screen. Explaining what it feels like to be adopted is tricky because, in my experience, people perceive it to be tragic. In truth, there's plenty of joy, too, and enthusiastically expressing that is healing for fellow adoptees who wrestle with feelings of loss. Yes, I will never know my bio-dad, but my father poured his heart into the role as much as Oliver does.

Still, I don't like how the show, and Oliver, handle the reveal. Narratively, we probably didn't need this surprise unless it'll tie into future Teddy Dimas drama schemes. Watching Oliver repair his relationship with his son and grandson is a fruitful enough storyline for Season 2. Additionally, keeping this revealed secret from Will takes away the emotional resonance of what the show accomplished by showing a version of the adoptee's experience on-screen. True, Oliver raised his son without knowing this. Still, it would have been nice to see Oliver reveal this to Will and watch the two communicate around a taboo topic.

Best: Brazzos' Singalong With His Step-Daughter Lucy

In "Here's Looking at You..." a young Lucy (Francesca Rain) is responsible for gifting "Only Murders in the Building" fans with Charles-Haden Savage's endearing performance of "Angel in Flip Flops." During a flashback, we see Charles serenading Lucy in the kitchen back when she (and likely Emma) still lived with him. His then-hit (but soon forgotten) single feels like a John Mellencamp-like approach to be vaguely political with saccharine '80s-era pop vibes. This musical-comedy beat works in favor of Charles' character; of course he'd try to transition his "Brazzos" career into singing in 1989 and flop.

On a deeper level, this scene adds more layers to Charles' present-day relationship with Lucy (Zoe Colletti). Flashbacks are tricky but work best, like in this case, when it feels like someone's memories would wander back to that time organically. After Lucy reappears in his life, of course, he's going to reflect on the relationship they once had. As Charles texts his way towards regaining that closeness, this reflection deepens our understanding of what Charles was like as a parent. Self-involved? Sure! But he committed to the role with his whole heart.

Worst: Charles' Father's Tragic Backstory

Season 1 of "Only Murders in the Building" hinted that Charles didn't have a great relationship with his father. In Season 2, we gain a deeper insight into how Charles' father misled him. Narratively, this backstory element works well and is only on this list for how heartwrenching it all is. Charles choosing an acting career because it was something he thought he shared with his father — only to learn that, too, was a lie — is heartbreaking. Yes, Charles can be full of self-importance and takes his "Brazzos" career too seriously. However, these flaws connect to his feelings around abandonment and insatiable need for validation. Having a parent who doesn't see your worth is a very hard wound to heal. 

Knowing this is something Charles struggled with in life adds pathos to the simultaneously arrogant and neurotic character. While Charles learns more about who his father was from Rose Cooper, you can see the wheels turning in his head. Lucy recently reentered his life at a pivotal time. Charles can't change who his father was, but he can use those experiences to evolve into a reliable father figure for Lucy.

Best: Bunny Folger's Standalone Episode

Finally, Bunny Folger takes the stage! When you have a tour-de-force like Tony winner Jayne Houdyshell in a series, there better be some meaty material to bite into, and thankfully, "The Last Day of Bunny Folger" is exactly that. Season 2, Episode 3 of "Only Murders in the Building" takes a bold move in dedicating an entire episode to exploring a day in Bunny's life. However, it stands out now as one of the series' best episodes to date. 

Previously, we only saw Bunny from the perspective of her tenants, painting her as stoic, hard to please, and cold. But in her standalone episode, we see her point of view in and outside of the Arconia. Embodying the Upper West Side aesthetic of old New York, Bunny shows love to her friends with cuss words and speed-walking. While Oliver sees her as stingy, she's a generous tipper. Bunny takes her job to heart, taking the time to learn every detail of her tenants' and workers' lives. 

Mabel, Oliver, and Charles weren't kind to Bunny. All it took for her to offer them the "good champagne" was acknowledgment. All Bunny wanted was for people to appreciate her life's work. Or hear how worried she is about the Arconia's future in a city struggling to preserve its history due to luxury real estate deals. Her reluctance to retire works as a moving metaphor for the real-life preservationists of New York.

Worst: Alice Uses Mabel's Trauma For Performance Art

When Cara Delevingne's Alice popped up in Mabel's DMs shortly after #BloodyMabel went viral, I figured this eventual romance would take a dark turn. While I'm still not 100% convinced that Alice doesn't have a connection to Bunny's murder, I was shocked at how she betrayed Mabel. Merging real-life heartbreak into artwork is common (*insert any Taylor Swift song here*). But it becomes disturbing when someone takes another person's experience and uses it as their muse. When a stolen moment is also a traumatic experience someone entrusted you with, this choice becomes irredeemable.

Thankfully, when Mabel found out that Alice took her experience of witnessing Bunny's death and heartlessly turned it into performance art, she dumped her. That was never Alice's story to tell, and Mabel points this out to her. Sadly, Mabel was starting to experience joy in dating someone who seemed to care about her, her artwork, and her future. Mabel didn't need to have a run-in with another deceptive person, but at least, this time, she walked away.

Best: Mabel's Blackouts Explained

Sometimes "Only Murders in the Building" relies too heavily on writing Mabel as a sardonic character, using her as a way to take Charles and Oliver down a peg or two with deadpan one-liners. Shrouded in mystery, there's a lot we still don't know yet about Mabel. To be fair to Mabel, classic crime-solving characters like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe often conceal key character traits. They've seen enough of the bleakness in the world to be reluctant to share much of themselves.

However, "Flipping the Pieces" gives Selena Gomez material that allows her to show more range and add depth to her ominous character. Additionally, it finds a fitting way to discuss Mabel's blackouts. In this episode, we learn she disassociates whenever things get too painful. Over time, this has created some memory gaps for Mabel. In Mabel's words, she flips over the memory like a puzzle piece so the things that are hard to see won't be. Credit is due to the writers' room as they handled a complicated coping method with empathy.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

Worst: Oliver Ruins Alice's Party

"Only Murders in the Building" spent so much time building up Oliver's ability to read a room that we knew it had to end poorly. Of course, the one time his trick fails is around Mabel's new girlfriend. While Oliver's party trick doesn't pan out how he hoped, he inadvertently leads Alice into confessing some of her lies. Despite how cringeworthy it is (I still feel vicariously embarrassed for Oliver), he's the first person to direct Mabel's attention to Alice's inconsistent nature. Also, he's not wrong. While Mabel won't ever know this, the viewer sees that Alice did have the killer card all along. She hid it earlier in the episode, implying she picked up someone else's card mid-game. Digging a bit deeper, it seems possible that Alice sensed Oliver's dislike of her and, in response, decided to humiliate him.

Story-wise, this beat works, but I enjoyed the show leaning into Oliver's people-reading talents more. He's often the butt of a joke — a failing theater director, a baby-food-like obsession with dips, easily tricked by flattery — that it was nice to see that there is more to Oliver. While that's still true, I wish Mabel could have seen it. Hopefully, Season 2's finale gifts him with a moment to shine as an investigator.

Best: Arconia's Secret Tunnel System Reveal

Of all the mystery tropes brought into the series thus far, I love the hidden tunnel system of the Arconia the most. The secret passageways give the series more visual space to explore and design, rewriting all we think we know about Arconia's layout. Intriguingly, it raises compelling storytelling questions like: if you can travel unseen in the Arconia, what would you do? I'm curious how Arconia's secret passageways connect to Bunny's murder, as it raises the potential that anyone (not just a resident or worker at the Arconia) could have snuck inside to kill her. What else (or who else) lurks inside the walls of the Arconia?

Season 2 also marked the first time the series traveled back in time, showing us an Arconia of decades past. These passages can interweave more of the Arconia's past mysteries into the series. In real life, hidden passageways were used in old buildings for several purposes, like a way for staff members to discreetly and quickly travel, monitoring the safety of VIP guests like the Waldorf Astoria did, protecting endangered humans, and for secret meetings. All of the above gives the show writers plenty of material for future episodes to explore.

Worst: Amy Schumer's Cameo

Despite the delightful cameos we've seen so far in "Only Murders in the Building," Amy Schumer portraying herself is a low point for the series. Tonally, her role doesn't fit into how the show tackles the wackiness of self-serious people. She doesn't have the melancholy of Charles or the (deep down) generous nature of Oliver. Her bit feels like a one-note character who is not bold enough to lean into farce or sincerity. The over-the-top nature of her as a self-aware and demanding force harkens back to the verve Catherine O'Hara gave Moira Rose. Honestly, if the show wanted to have a famous celebrity in its mix to flatter Oliver, it would have been amazing to see O'Hara bring her comedy to the Arconia.

After facing backlash from her insensitive Alec Baldwin joke earlier in 2022, it was a smart move to play a parody of herself. However, she doesn't lean enough into honestly making fun of her flaws and comedic missteps. If she had done that more on screen, this role could have been a positive step forward in her controversial career; showing maybe not evolution, but genuine ownership into who she is as a comedian and who she is becoming.

Read this next: The 15 Best Comedy Duos Of All Time

The post The 7 Best And 7 Worst Moments In Only Murders In The Building Season 2 appeared first on /Film.

22 Aug 20:39

Pillars of Eternity II - Review

Ye Old Entertainment checked out Pillars of Eternity II: Pillars of Eternity 2 Review: Modern day Baldur's Gate 2? Best isometric RPG of the last decade?
22 Aug 20:32

Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 3 Review: The Animated Series Is As Funny And Adventurous As Ever

by Jacob Hall

The beauty of "Star Trek" is that there's so much of it that a certain percentage has to be good by default. Another beauty of "Star Trek" is that there's so much of it that a certain percentage of it has to be bad or weird or inexplicable by default. The final beauty of "Star Trek" is that both of those elements are key to the franchise's longevity — "Star Trek" has been on for so long, and has told so many stories, that you could literally devote a large chunk of your life to talking about it, complaining about it, and dissecting it without ever repeating yourself. "Star Trek" has been great, bad, weird, fun, moving, silly, stupid, profound, and obvious since 1966.

In other words, a love letter/ruthless parody like "Star Trek: Lower Decks" was inevitable, because eventually, people who sat around talking about every single nitty-gritty detail from every single show would eventually have the power to make their own "Star Trek" show. And they would realize that "Star Trek" deserves to be poked as much as it deserves to be celebrated.

"Star Trek: Lower Decks" season 3 finds the animated series, set in the late-"Next Generation" period after the events of "Star Trek: Nemesis," continuing the stride it hit in season 2. The jokes are funnier, the characters continuously on-point, and the storytelling, while certainly goofy, very much in-line with the basic tenets of "Star Trek." Because as much as "Lower Decks" likes to make fun of "Star Trek" minutiae, it loves one thing even more: "Star Trek" itself.

A Mundane Dream Come True

The new season picks up where the season 2 cliffhanger left off, with Captain Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) on trial for war crimes she did not commit, and the overlooked, overworked, under-valued ensigns of the USS Cerritos working to clear her name. But don't expect "Lower Decks" to get serialized on us. It's not long before the season returns to one-off adventures, with Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome), Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), D'Vana Tendi (Noel Wells), and Samanthan Rutherford (Eugene Cordero) once again dealing with the mundane, but still frequently hazardous, roles of lower decks crew members on a Starfleet vessel.

The beauty of the show's structure remains intact — storylines about cosmic entities running amuck and sensitive diplomatic negotiations with alien species intermingle with plots about clashing social circles, inter-ship rivalries, and even the fraught topic of who actually gets to sleep in the nice private rooms on a Starship and who gets left in the public bunks.

In other words, "Lower Decks" keeps lifting the undisturbed rocks of the "Star Trek" universe to wonder about the tiny details another series, one built around a courageous bridge crew, wouldn't have time to explore. The show's wry tone finds a careful balance: Yes, being the lowest-ranked person on a Starship does look like it would be exhausting and painful and boring, but none of these characters would trade it for anything else.

Yep, this is definitely a show produced by people who have been dreaming about "Star Trek" their entire lives. Even the worst job a starship is a dream.

Small Stories, Big Scope

While the entire point of "Lower Decks" is to tell lower-stakes stories about lower-ranked crew members, the show continues to have a special trick up its sleeve: stellar animation. In static screenshots, the series looks no different from contemporaries like "Ricky and Morty" and "Solar Opposites" (the former is where "Lower Decks" series creator and showrunner Mike McMahan cut his teeth, the latter is where he serves as co-showrunner). But in motion, the series is stunning to watch. Grand starships are rendered with love and care, stretches of space look alive with beauty and danger, and action sequences and creatures are realized on a scope that would break the budget of a live-action series, even one as lavish as "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

If a live-action "Trek" series were to do an episode about a mysterious alien weapon that realizes the crew's desires and fears (as we see in season 3), you'd see where the corners get cut. "Lower Decks," the silly comedy show, is able to run wild on a grand scale. There's a lovely irony to the smallest "Trek" show using its medium to its advantage, and telling small stories with enormous scope. And in season 3, "Lower Decks" leans into the animation more than ever, creating vast worlds and strange cultures ... and sometimes rebuilding favorite locations and characters out of digital ink and paint, pulling off what live-action "Trek" can't get away with right now.

On And Off The Beaten Path

While much of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" season 3 is more of the same but better, two episodes, in particular, see the show stretching in opposite, but equally pleasing, directions.

Yes, as teased in the trailer, this season does return to the titular location of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," a nostalgia bomb for any "Trek" fan who desperately misses that seedy location and its deeply wounded cast of characters. However, the episode itself wryly avoids making it all about the guest stars (and yes, two "Deep Space Nine" cast members return to voice their characters), and lets the station serve as the backdrop for a story focused on the core "Lower Decks" cast. The nostalgia, the Easter eggs, the in-jokes, and the hilariously specific references are all there (the crew of the Cerritos loves Deep Space Nine as much as a "Trek" fan does), but it never becomes the point of the episode. "Lower Decks" is smart enough to know we want to return to these incredible locations and their incredible characters, but wise enough to integrate them into the existing show. It's emblematic of what the entire show does so well.

But there's another episode that breaks format in a major way, sidelining nearly every member of the main cast to focus on a minor supporting character and their increasingly strange adventure on an alien planet. It's a big swing, one that evokes "Avatar" and "Wall-E" as much as it does "Star Trek," often sidelining comedy for large portions of the story to focus on painting a touching portrait of an alien world and those who inhabit it (don't worry, there is also a hair-raising recurring gag about interspecies mating). It's bold. It's weird. It's funny. But it's also earnest. It just wants to tell a science fiction story, damn it. It wants to be "Star Trek."

There's a confidence here, a display of the show's writers and animators realizing they can't help themselves. Yes, they're here to make a comedy show. But they're also making "Star Trek." Who can blame them for pressing pause on the gags to indulge in the universe they so clearly love?

"Star Trek: Lower Decks" season 3 premieres August 25 on Paramount+. New episodes arrive weekly. This review is based on the first eight episodes.

Read this next: Every Star Trek Show And Movie In Chronological Order

The post Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 3 Review: The Animated Series is as Funny and Adventurous as Ever appeared first on /Film.

22 Aug 20:30

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Didn't Always Plan To Make Mac Gay

by Marcos Melendez

Although Mac (Rob McElhenney) is now an out and proud gay man, the writers of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" did not always plan for that to be the case. Despite subtle hints towards his sexuality in the early seasons, it was not until a decade after the show's premiere that McElhenney decided to make it official. While those old clues were originally just intended as throwaway jokes, they retroactively allowed for Mac to be developed as a gay character on purpose in later seasons. After years of exuding the uber-masculine stereotype, the series found a way to flip the characterization on its head and still stay true to Mac. 

As one of the most despicable individuals in the series, the reveal of Mac's true sexual orientation had to find the right balance of thoughtfully addressing the moment while keeping up his self-serving attitude (he ultimately comes out of the closet in order to win a lottery scratch card). McElhenney detailed to Rolling Stone how, through trial and error, "It's Always Sunny" was able to seize the situation without breaking the mold of the long-running comedy series.

Realizing Who Mac Always Was

In the interview, McElhenney broke down the thought process behind the major decision, explaining that it already spoke to how he portrayed Mac over the years. "It was actually born more out of his intense, ultraconservative, right-leaning principles," he explained, adding that taking the next step and revealing him to be gay was the show's patented satirization of the "hard Christian conservative" coming out in full force. 

In "It's Always Sunny" season 11 we were confronted with the fact that Mac is actually gay when he and the gang went on a Christian cruise led by a gay couple, who briefly convinced him to come out the closet. However, he returned to the closet by the end of the two-part finale as part of a running gag about Mac being in denial. The intention was not to make fun of the fact he was gay, but it led to a "massive outpouring from our LGBTQ fans, who were really upset," according to McElhenney. He admitted that the show had "an opportunity there, and we screwed it up." 

Later on, however, the show finally let Mac out of the closet for good, changing the status quo for the character indefinitely. McElhenney talked about how it felt finally finding the sweet spot for Mac: 

"It felt good that we were recognizing a part of our audience in a way that was not pandering, that wasn't offensive or upsetting or a caricature. We weren't creating a gay character for comedic effect, that was there just to be gay and to be funny because he was gay, but a very complex, very disturbed, very f*****-up and awful character, who happens to be gay. And we ran with that."

Not only did they run with it, but McElhenney understood that the endeavor meant also upholding Mac's deporable personality. 

Keeping True To Mac

Although "It's Always Sunny" does not evolve its characters beyond minor changes, Mac is the probably the most developed of the gang. The realization of his true self is a retroactive byproduct of his personality, but it did serve as a means of pushing the character forward ever so slightly. This is exemplified in the episode "Mac Finds His Pride," where the show veered off its usual comedic axis and established Mac's inner personal struggle in a contemporary dance that even brought Frank (Danny DeVito) to tears.

However, Mac coming to terms with being an openly gay man did not deter him from being a very bad person. Having fun with awful, self-serving characters is a part of what makes the show special, and McElhenney did not want to lose that with Mac. Entertainment Weekly spoke to McElhenney about revealing Mac's sexuality without making him a better individual in the process:

"...that was something we made a concerted effort on, to make sure we were servicing a very large part of our community, which is the LGBTQ community, and we wanted to make sure that we were having a character who was going to come out in a way that would feel satisfying and be in the tone of 'Sunny,' while also not just all of a sudden dramatically changing Mac's character, because that just wouldn't resonate with 'Sunny.'"

The fact that "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" was able to balance meaningful LGBTQ+ representation with its degrading humor just goes to show how much thought goes into the madness we see every episode. As the show continues its record-breaking run on television, it seems inevitable that McElhenney and crew will continue to impress for years to come.

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

The post It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Didn't Always Plan To Make Mac Gay appeared first on /Film.

22 Aug 20:29

Every Main Character In Amazon's A League Of Their Own Ranked

by Jenn Adams

"Batter up! Hear that call! The time has come for one and all to play ball!"

It's summertime and the Peaches are back to prove once again that there's no crying in baseball! 20 years after the original film ran away with our hearts, the girls of summer return with Amazon's "A League of Their Own," an all-new retelling of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). With the men off to war and a country badly in need of entertainment, women came from far and wide to lace up their cleats and take to the diamonds. Prime Video's mostly fictional story follows two players, Carson Shaw (Abbi Jacobson), catcher for the Rockford Peaches, and Maxine Chapman (Chanté Adams), a Black pitcher barred from trying out for the league because of the racist color barrier.

Helmed by creators Jacobson and Will Graham, the new Peaches play the same positions but have all new stories to tell, this time with a more expansive view of the league's queer diversity. The eight-episode season follows the league's own first season, from tryouts to playoffs as the Peaches fight their way out of last place and find a way to keep the league afloat. With an all-star roster, this season has no shortage of talent. Let's go down the line-up, ranking each key player from least to most valuable.

Dove Porter

Position: Coach

Special Skills: Reliving his glory days, Opportunism

Dove Porter (Nick Offerman) may be a talented pitcher, but he's no peach. Taking on the role of manager for the Rockford Peaches, he impresses the girls with his star power, but quickly shows he doesn't care much about them. In fact, he doesn't take them seriously at all and laughs off this job as a stepping stone on the way to bigger things. The second he gets a more lucrative opportunity, he ditches the girls to take another management position without even saying goodbye. However, this betrayal ends up working out in the Peaches' favor and they soon find themselves with a coach who actually cares about the team's success.

During his short time with the Peaches, Dove manages to stir up long-term trouble. His narcissistic coaching style and obsession with his own trademark forkball nearly blows the arm of his starting pitcher. And how great of a coach can he be if he needs his players to show him how to study plays? With his biggest claim to fame being the poor dove he killed with an errant pitch, Dove Porter is a selfish jerk who thankfully is not around long enough to do any real damage.

Gary

Position: Pitcher

Special Skills: He's a pretty good guy

The new starting pitcher for the Rockford Screws, the local factory baseball team, has a great arm and an even better conscience. After paying his dues on the bench, Gary (Kendall Johnson) is more than ready to step up to the mound and become the new Screws hurler even though it means taking the spot away from his would-be girlfriend Maxine (Chanté Adams). When she bets two weeks of wages that she can outpitch any man on the team, Gary encourages his coach to take her seriously and give her a chance. Let's also not forget he put his own job on the line by getting her the factory position that allows her to try out in the first place by pretending not to know that "Max Chapman" — the name on her application — is actually a woman. He's a good friend, a great dancer, and he'll probably make a great husband someday.

But all this chivalry compensates for a major deficit: he's terrible at reading the signs. When Max makes a surprise visit to his apartment, hoping for some ill-advised intimacy, he gives her approximately 45 seconds of gameplay before crossing home plate and throwing in the towel. Max has barely even stepped up to bat before the ump calls the game for the home team. Hopefully in the off-season, this star pitcher will pay more attention to the signs his teammate is sending to make sure they both hit a home run.

Edgar

Position: Father

Special Skill: Advice

Honor: Position Coach of the Year

Edgar Chapman (Alex Désert) is the glue that holds his family together. As husband to Toni and father to Max, he's managed to make a home with two strong-willed women and knows just how to give them the support they need. Toni could make it on her own, but her tender testimony during the church revival tells us how much better her life has been since she married Edgar. He is content to let his wife be herself and never makes Toni feel like her success is a challenge to his ego.

Edgar's other gift is in his sage advice and fatherly wisdom. He taught Max everything she knows about pitching and is always there with a much-needed word of confidence. They haven't found her nickname yet for the young pitching prodigy, but they're getting closer. Things aren't always smooth sailing in the Chapman household, but Edgar is never too busy to listen and help. He doesn't get much playing time this season, though, leading to his lower ranking, but hopefully he'll get to spend more time out on the field soon.

Shirley Cohen #14

Position: Left Field

Special Skills: Superstition, Stats

The first Peach player to make this list, Shirley (Kate Berlant) is a bit of a nut. The slightly bubble-headed left fielder makes some killer plays from the alley and follows her hips to a much more powerful swing. However, she's afraid of nearly everything and lets her overblown anxiety control her life. On the plus side, her skill at calculating the odds of catastrophe comes in handy when figuring out if the Peaches can still make the playoffs. And her fear of canned goods and botulism (It's real!) is endearing.

Shirley is a good friend and supportive teammate as long as she doesn't suspect you of being one of "them." Most of the Peaches manage to keep their sexuality a secret from Shirley, rightfully fearing she'll turn them in. But she finds out about Carson's affair with Greta (D'Arcy Carden) and turns her back on her closest friend. It's a disappointing turn for a player who previously seemed just a little bit too naive. Shirley thankfully turns it around in the playoffs, diving all in on canned food and accepting Carson for who she is. However, her turn comes with a nonconsensual kiss and it honestly shouldn't have taken that much convincing to begin with. Soft bigotry is still bigotry and while her heart ends up in the right place, it's still a significant slump in an otherwise upbeat season.

Guy

Position: Husband, Soldier

Special Skills: Cooking

There aren't many husbands like Guy (Aaron Jennings). Newly married to Clance Morgan (Gbemisola Ikumelo), he dotes on his wife and is excited to welcome guests into their new home. Guy always knows how to calm his wife down when she gets frazzled and reminds her that their love is all they really need. Guy is also a phenomenal cook from a long line of chefs. In fact, his renowned pork dish is what landed him Clance in the first place. People are still talking about the crab at the Morgans' housewarming party, a perfect complement to Clance's adorable invitations.

Unfortunately, Guy gets some bad news from Uncle Sam midway through the season in the form of a draft notice that takes him away from his new wife. This leads to one of the season's most heartbreaking scenes in which he and Clance have an honest conversation about their deepest fears. Clance is keeping his presence alive with a comic book inspired by his bravery, and his heavily redacted letters prove he's still alive and well overseas. Guy would be much higher on this list if not for the fact that he gets benched before the home stretch. Hopefully, he'll be back next season in time for the birth of his daughter. In the meantime, he's fondly remembered as half of Rockford's sweetest couple.

Esti González #15

Special Skills: Stealing Base

Speedster Esti González (Priscilla Delgado) is the fastest, youngest, and probably the sweetest member of the Peaches. At least we think. As a non-English speaker, most of her teammates can't understand what she's saying and Lupe (Roberta Colindrez) is reluctant to translate. The teenager is kind, considerate, and loves a nice trip to the movies, but she's definitely immature and could use some guidance — not to mention driving lessons.

As the team's two Spanish speakers, Esti and Lupe have an often contentious relationship. But they have a heart-to-heart talk and form a powerful partnership, even pulling off a double steal during the final game of the playoffs. The opposing team (who apparently doesn't know the Spanish language exists) has no idea what hit them. Esti doesn't get a lot of screen time this season, but hopefully she and her teammates can learn how to more effectively communicate with each other next year.

Toni

Position: Entrepreneur

Special Skills: Strength

Miss Toni (Saidah Arrika Ekulona) is a pillar of the Rockford community. An appointment at the salon she owns and operates is a great way to catch up on local gossip and an essential precursor to any special event. She's an inspiring figure and one of the few self-made Black women of the era. She is confident and self-sufficient, though she admits it's easier to fool the local banks if you have a male-sounding name. She is a force to be reckoned with and a tastemaker in the town, able to put even Clance Morgan on her best behavior. But she's also kind and nurturing, taking the newly pregnant woman under her wing while her husband fights overseas.

What Toni makes up for in entrepreneurial spirit, she lacks in understanding. She is close-minded and stubborn, rejecting her family when they make choices she does not approve of. She sends her brother Bertie (Lea Robinson) away for daring to live as his authentic self and turns her back on her daughter Max when she chooses a job at the factory (and hopefully a spot on the factory baseball team) over a partnership in the salon. Toni's heart is in the right place; she only wants to protect her family. Bertie reminds her that her protection comes with judgment and limitations that do more harm than good.

Maybelle Fox #3

Special Skills: Pep Talks

Honors: The Yogi Berra Award

Maybelle Fox (Molly Ephraim) is the most fun-loving and raucous member of the Peaches. Always willing to shake what her mama gave her, she's a fun woman who seems incredibly comfortable with her body and her life. When Shirley finds out her team has been keeping secrets, Maybelle advises the naive outfielder to accept people for who they are and it's clear this is a rule she follows in her own life.

As it turns out, Maybelle has been keeping secrets of her own: the three children she left at home to play baseball. It's a wonder no one noticed given that she's always knitting baby clothes. Maybelle is determined to make the most of this season of freedom and reprieve from the never ending job of motherhood. She loves her children but has a life of her own, a rarity among women of the time period. She's more of a supporting player this season, but hopefully this six-time winner of the Little Miss Corn Chowder competition will have a chance to take center stage in Season 2.

Bertie

Position: Husband, Mentor

Special Skills: Tailoring

In several clutch moves of the season, Uncle Bertie gives his niece Maxine some of the best advice of her life. After years of her mother's estrangement, Maxine shows up on Bertie's doorstep expecting to find her aunt only to realize Bertie is finally living his dreams and dressing as himself. He's also married to a knockout who looks just like Lena Horne. Bertie pulls his niece out of a midseason slump with a haircut, a finely tailored suit, and permission to be herself.

We don't meet Bertie till midway through the season, limiting his time on screen, but he represents an essential turning point for Max. Not only does she find the courage to face her biggest fear (rejection based on her sexuality), but she finds a safe space to explore hitting for the other team. Bertie becomes like a second father to Max and even pleads with Toni to make amends with her daughter. Others receive his guidance as well. Bertie has created a new family filled with people rejected by a bigoted society. It's at one of his house parties that Max meets the mysterious "S" (Andia Winslow) who will go on to change the course of her life.

Jo De Luca #18

Position: Third Base

Special Skills: Power Hitter

Honor: Winner of the Home Run Derby 

Jo "the Bazooka '' De Luca (Melanie Field) is the Peaches' best hitter and Greta's best friend. A pillar of the team, she's funny and supportive, but willing to give honest advice that's sometimes hard to hear. Jo is tragically caught up in a raid at a hidden queer bar (for "friends of Dorothy"), causing an injury and arrest that threatens her place on the Rockford team. This causes a rift between the two friends and Greta blames herself for convincing Jo to go out and then leaving her behind in the chaos.

De Luca makes the most of this trade and embraces the opportunity to stand on her own. Now a power hitter for the competition, Jo hits the winning run in the final game of the playoffs. When her injury flares up again and prevents her from running the bases, the Peaches band together to support their friend, showing that love is more important than the team you happen to play for. They help her around the bases, giving the league a walk-off home run for the ages.

Beverly

Position: Team Chaperone

Special Skills: Empowerment, Compassion

There's a lot more to the militaristic Beverly (Dale Dickey) than meets the eye. The former marine serves as the team's chaperone and her no-nonsense attitude holds the team together after Dove abandons them for the Orioles. Always wearing her uniform, she is professional, fair, and discreet. When newly appointed Coach Carson faces a crisis of confidence, Beverly encourages her to take charge of the team. It takes a while for Carson to find her own style of leadership, but it's Beverly's advice that turns the tide.

Beverly seems more like a mild hindrance in the early season, and if this list were based on the first four episodes, she would place near the bottom. But with a few witty comebacks, her true personality begins to show and she proves to be the silent backbone of the team. Beverly does her best to protect her girls and pays out of her own pocket to keep Jo's arrest out of the papers. Not to mention all the money she's been charging Jess McCready (Kelly McCormack) for the crime of wearing pants winds up back in the shortstop's pockets. After all, the rules only say she has to collect it, and we have to look out for our own.

Jess McCready #6

Position: Shortstop

Special Skills: Intensity

Honor: Golden Glove Award 

If Beverly is the team's silent strength, Jess is its fighting spirit. The aggressive shortstop detests the skirt on her uniform, has no time for makeup, and constantly begs her team to focus on the game! Her intensity provides some of the funniest moments of the season and her screaming pep talk leads the team to victory. Jess demands to be seen as herself and if not for Greta's quick thinking and even faster lipstick application, she may have been kicked off the team before the season began.

Jess is also kind, discreet, and knows how to read a room. She finds out about Greta's affair with Carson but keeps it to herself. In another scene, even though she has everything she needs to fix a flat tire, she excuses herself for supplies (ice cold cokes) giving Lupe and Esti a chance to make amends. Like Maybelle, Jess is mostly a supporting player this season, but with killer moves and a refusal to apologize for who she is, maybe we'll see more from the ferocious player in Season 2.

Greta Gill #9

Position: First Base

Special Skills: Showmanship

The statuesque Greta Gill is one-half of the power corners on the Peaches infield. The tallest member of the team, she is confident and self-assured, always conscious of her image. She knows how to draw attention to herself even though some men complain that she's just a little "too much" on the field. But like the league's Glamor Consultant, we like women who are "too much," and that's why Greta ranks so high on the list. She helps Carson find her confidence multiple times and gives her the courage to pursue true happiness off the field.

Greta is also incredibly smart and protective of those she loves, though her tendency to avoid the boring aspects of life causes her to take risks that put her position in jeopardy. Despite her dedication to excitement, Greta's arc is just a little too vanilla to put her on the podium. She's a great player and teammate, but winds up mostly playing second fiddle to her girlfriend's story of self-discovery. With an exciting new off-season job in New York City and the promise of a relationship with Carson next season, our fingers are crossed Greta will have more chances to shine in the near future.

Lupe García #7

Position: Pitcher

Special Skills: Knowledge of the rule book, Coaching

Honor: Cy Young Award

Lupe's first season with the Peaches is a roller-coaster. As Coach Dove Porter's favorite player, the "Spanish Striker" finds herself on the outs with her team and left out of their secret practices. Dove's subtle gaslighting causes her to ignore her health and she quickly blows out her arm trying to match his patented forkball. She's forced to ride the bench for several games and her feud with Carson leaves her glowering from the dugout. Lupe is in a tough position most of her team can't understand, though. As a Hispanic woman, she's forced to fight tooth and nail for the advantages freely given to her white teammates, and she resents the fact that Carson is named Team Manager over her.

After the mid-game fight between pitcher and catcher, the Peaches seem more divided than ever. However, once Lupe and Carson mend their relationship, the team begins a hot streak that leads them out of last place and into the playoffs. Lupe is a fantastic player and leader who will hopefully continue riding this hot streak into the next season.

Carson Shaw #10

Position: Catcher, Coach

Special Skills: Analytics, Motivation

Honor: Manager of the Year

Carson Shaw is the catcher, coach, and all-around anchor of the Rockford Peaches. In just one season, the shy housewife from Idaho who's not that great at talking manages to find her inner strength and leads her team all the way to the playoffs. After the first day of tryouts, she writes a drunken letter to her husband admitting that she doesn't remember the last time she was truly happy and her greatest accomplishment is in finally allowing herself to go after what she wants.

Carson is a smart player and takes it upon herself to study the game stats of other teams in the league. Her meticulous game cards impress even Dove Porter and make her a natural fit for the position of Team Manager in his absence. Carson is determined to enjoy every second of the season and demands that Dove gives the team a fair shot. Arguably, her biggest strength is her ability to listen. Not the best at rally speeches, she insists that each player make a speech of their own, leaving their individual stamps on the season and the world. Carson doesn't know what her future holds, but if she can hold onto the strength she inspires in her team, she should be just fine.

Max Chapman

Position: Pitcher

Special Skills: Welding

Honor: Rookie of the Year

Max Chapman has a hell of an arm, having grown up practicing against the wall of her mother's salon. She's great at mimicking the pitches of others but gets into trouble when she tries to throw one as herself. A bad case of the yips leads to a midseason slump and a humiliating tryout for the factory team, but the Comeback Kid picks herself up and gets back to work. An unlikely friendship with Carson Shaw helps her confront her biggest fear: admitting who she really is to her friends and family. But a chance meeting with an All-Star pitcher named Esther (Andia Winslow) gives her a new lease on life and the opportunity of a lifetime.

During an exposition game, Max relieves Esther on the mound and plays one of the most exciting innings of the season. She strikes out man after man on the team who rejected her and earns her own spot on the prestigious All-Star team. Now that she finally has a team of her own — not to mention a brand-spanking new uniform — we can't wait to see her take the field next season.

Clance Morgan

Position: Welder, Homemaker

Special Skills: Illustration

Clance Morgan is not only the Most Valuable Player in "A League of Their Own," she's the best friend we all wish we had. The newlywed spends early episodes trying to make the perfect home for her husband Guy and supporting her best friend Max as she starts her new job. Clance demands to be a real character, though, rather than just the best friend. When Max comes over to talk about baseball, Clance is quick to note that her husband has just shipped off to war and she doesn't have support to give at the moment. She's a kind and caring friend who never forgets that her own life matters, too.

Obsessed with comics, Clance is also a gifted illustrator and writer. Making comic books starring her friends and family is practically her love language. But what makes Clance the MVP is her sense of humor and pitch-perfect delivery, not to mention her insistence that Dorothy is actually the enemy of "The Wizard of Oz." With her husband overseas, her best friend on the road, and a baby on the way, Clance is in for some tough days to come. With the help of Toni, there's no doubt she'll prove to be a fantastic mother as well.

Vi

Position: Bar Owner, Tax Preparer

Honor: Hall of Fame Inductee

Vi (Rosie O'Donnell) is an upstanding member of the community and proud partner to a beautiful wife. As the sole returning player, Vi sets the tone for a turning point in the show as multiple characters are faced with bigotry, hate, and violence because of their sexuality. Vi owns a secret bar that is a safe haven for members of the LGBTQ+ community. At one point, Carson follows Lupe into the bar and is shocked to learn that she's not alone. Vi shows Carson a world she never knew existed and gives her a space to be with the woman she loves in public. It's in these moments of happiness that Carson decides she can't go back to her old life.

Penny Marshall's original "A League of Their Own" is a beloved classic, but has been criticized for erasing the queer history of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Having come out as a lesbian in 2002, 10 years after starring as Doris Murphy in the original film, O'Donnell's role as Vi is a testament to how far we've come and a sobering reminder that we're nowhere near the finish line (made clear when Vi is brutally beaten in a police raid of the bar). With its diverse and authentic representation of queer characters, Amazon's "A League of Their Own" is a groundbreaking show that will hopefully pave the way for more inclusivity with the same pioneering spirit as the real-life women it depicts.

If you or a loved one has experienced a hate crime, contact the VictimConnect Hotline by phone at 1-855-4-VICTIM or by chat for more information or assistance in locating services to help. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.

Read this next: The 20 Best Female Friendships In TV History, Ranked

The post Every Main Character In Amazon's A League of Their Own Ranked appeared first on /Film.

22 Aug 20:06

Little Demon Review: This Wild Animated Ride Is One Of 2022's Best

by Barry Levitt

Growing up is never easy. It's been especially tricky for 13-year-old Chrissy (Lucy DeVito). She's never been able to put down roots and establish friends, as she's constantly on the move from place to place. Chrissy has never met her father who died when she was young, and her mom, Laura (Aubrey Plaza), has them jumping from one remote locale to the other. On her first day at yet another new school, Chrissy is feeling optimistic, having struck up a conversation, and friendship, with a sweet young boy named Bennigan (Eugene Cordero). If only Chrissy could stay long enough in her new surroundings, things might finally calm down.

The only problem for Chrissy is that this is "Little Demon," a fantastic and utterly bonkers show that never stops raising the stakes and the feeling of bloody, cacophonic delirium. Within moments of the first episode, Chrissy is bullied by some boys in the bathroom, attempting to humiliate her for getting her period. This is where things start to get weird. Chrissy gets extremely upset (as she should), but instead of just standing there crying or running away as you may expect, she massacres her bullies. Now, I don't mean she says something mean that would have you saying "Oh wow, what a massacre!" on Twitter. I mean her eyes turn black, and she slaughters them. Murders them. They're extremely, utterly dead.

This comes as a huge surprise to Chrissy, but things are only going to get crazier from here. The whole school and entire town start going crazy, and Chrissy's mom appears at school with some startling news: Chrissy is the antichrist. Turns out, her father isn't actually dead. He's just Satan. Yes, her father is literally Satan (a spirited Danny DeVito). This is the reason Chrissy and Laura have been constantly on the move — it's all been in an effort to escape the tracking efforts of the Devil. 

A Bloody Riotous Romp

This all might sound a bit ridiculous, but that's because it is. Co-creators and co-writers Darcy Fowler, Kieran Valla, and Seth Kirschner know that what you're watching is absolutely wild, but what makes "Little Demon" so freaking awesome is the way it leans into the madness at every turn. It's equal parts crazy, disgusting, violent, and hysterical, which makes it one of the more unique offerings on television, which certainly isn't easy when you consider that countless shows are getting released each and every week.

Everything in "Little Demon" works because behind the chaos there's a very solid and familiar story about a young girl just trying to fit in, and two parents battling it out (often literally) for their child's affection. It's every bit as invested in genuine emotional arcs as it is embracing chaos, which is a fine line to tow, but the show pulls it off thanks to some fabulous writing and a go-for-broke attitude that's embraced in every moment.

A creative concept is one thing (and it's something "Little Demon" certainly has), but a show needs great characters to stand the test of time. Thankfully, "Little Demon" has them in spades. The supporting characters are rich. A particular standout is Darlene (Lennon Parham), Laura's oft-divorced new neighbor. Her kids left the house some time ago, and she's all on her own, so you better believe she's going to make Laura's business her own. Her down for whatever attitude is what makes her a comic delight, and one episode finds her teaming up with Laura for an odd-couple pairing that makes for an awful lot of laugh-out-loud moments.

While the supports help keep things running, it's the main characters that propel "Little Demon" to greatness. Chrissy is a lot of fun as she tries to gain a hold of her incredible demonic powers — there's an episode where she discovers the art of possession that deserves to be talked about for a long time. She also has some unexpectedly touching moments underneath the bloodshed as she struggles to connect with her new father while working out the kinks in her relationship with her mother. As Satan, DeVito is positively devilish, carefully balancing his outright undeniable evil with a genuine desire to forge a relationship with his kid.

The character that really makes "Little Demon" such a brilliant time is Aubrey Plaza's Laura. It doesn't take very long into the show for Laura to claim the title of television's most badass mom. She's surprisingly well versed in the demonic arts — or perhaps not so surprisingly, since a tryst with the devil is how this all got started. She's jacked, she's ferocious, she's got no time for nonsense, and most importantly she will do absolutely anything and everything to keep her daughter safe. Watching someone as steely and intense as Laura tries to adjust to the minutiae of suburban life is fascinating. It's an exciting character for Plaza, who is best known for her exceptional deadpan approach to take on something that utilizes aspects of deadpan but takes it up to 11. Plaza has been showing time and time again that she's one of our best working performers, and "Little Demon" is proof that she's also a world-class voice actress.

An Outstanding Animated Series

What's most welcome about "Little Demon" is just how incredibly fun it all is. It never takes itself too seriously, but it also has a genuine emotional core to keep things oh so delicately grounded. That said, it fully leans into the ridiculous at all times. It's like the show creators really took the old adage of "Jump"/"How High" to a sensational new level. You might think you've seen it all, but then comes "Little Demon," which has a scene where a crowd chants "pee pee poo poo," rivers of blood cascade from their mouths, and it all works perfectly.

The animation here is uniformly outstanding. The team at ShadowMachine is firing on all cylinders with "Little Demon," making the gory and gruesome moments (which are very frequent) feel equally grotesque and hilarious. Everything just looks really lovely, and there's a lot of creative work going on when it comes to designing all the gnarly satanic worlds. A lot of the humor comes from the wickedly funny script, but there are tons of visual cues and gags that make every moment of the show a treat to absorb. Colors are vivid and character designs are unique, and "Little Demon" has its own distinct style.

Legitimate adult animation is always exciting. Animation regularly gets stereotyped as kids' stuff, but "Little Demon" is the kind of thing I'd encourage you to not watch with your little ones. It's gory, it's nasty, it's naked, it's foul, and it's unafraid to embrace the worst, which in turn makes it the best. There's a lot of stuff that would make Satan himself blush, but it's all done with so much heart that you'll be laughing through every minute. It may not be for the faint of heart, but it works like gangbusters if you're up for 2022's most chaotic show.

I watch an awful lot of film and television — it's part of the job. It's not always glamorous, of course, as wading through hundreds of hours of mediocre to downright bad stuff can get exhausting. "Little Demon" feels like a delicious tonic: it's miraculous, exciting, and never stops upping the ante in challenging the viewer, but also hitting some welcome familiar story beats in ways you wouldn't expect. What's best of all is I'm not sure there's anything quite like it on TV right now, which is all the more of a grand statement when you consider just how much freaking television there is. Don't miss it.

Little Demon premieres on August 25, 2022 on FXX with back-to-back episodes, streaming the next day on Hulu.

Read this next: The 15 Best Rick And Morty Villains Ranked

The post Little Demon Review: This Wild Animated Ride is One of 2022's Best appeared first on /Film.

22 Aug 20:06

The Judge Dredd Storylines Karl Urban Wants To See On The Big Screen

by Witney Seibold

In comic book form, Judge Dredd — created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra — made his debut in a 1977 issue of the British comic book "2000 A.D." In the future world of Judge Dredd, set in Mega-City One (a satire of the United States), crime has become so bad that street cops have also been given the clout of court officials, arresting suspects and putting them on trial right on the spot. The Judges, as they are called, have every right to execute suspects on a whim, which they do often. Judge Dredd himself is an antihero, serving as a parody of authoritarianism. 

In the 1995 film "Judge Dredd," directed by Danny Cannon, the character was given the blockbuster treatment, with the film sporting a hefty budget of $85 million and Dredd played by Sylvester Stallone. Despite impressive design and makeup effects, "Judge Dredd" was very poorly received, and the character was put on cinematic ice for nearly 20 years. It wouldn't be until 2012 that Pete Travis' "Dredd" would hit theaters, now starring Karl Urban and possessed of less than half the budget.

Urban is on record for how much he enjoyed playing the role, as well as the acting challenges of having only his mouth and chin to perform; Judge Dredd never takes off his signature helmet. While "Dredd" was acclaimed, there will likely be no sequel for a variety of reasons, a fact that leaves Urban a little miffed, and not just because he won't get to play the role again. In a 2022 career rundown with GQ, Urban said that whoever takes up the mantle, there is a great idea for a Dredd movie sequel just waiting to be written: Bring in Judge Death. 

Judge Death

Judge Death first appeared in the 149th issue of "2000 A.D." (January, 1980) as, essentially, an "evil twin" for Judge Dredd. The back story for Judge Death is deliciously twisted: Born in an alternate universe, Sidney De'Ath was raised by a malicious, masochistic dentist father who would torture and mutilate his patients (think of a less amusing version of Dr. Orin Scrivello from "Little Shop of Horrors"). Sidney was so keen to continue his father's work that he would seek out some mystical witches to transform him into a death-obsessed, tooth-forward supernatural ghoul. He also became his dimension's version of a Judge -- Judge Death -- in a dimension where, in his mind, life itself was a crime. He ended up eradicating everyone on his home planet before skipping over to Judge Dredd's and continuing his work there. 

Judge Death, along with Judge Fire, Judge Fear, and Judge Mortis, were some of Judge Dredd's more notorious nemeses. 

Urban would be keen to see him on screen. He said: 

"I certainly would be interested to revisit the character. There's just such a great depth of material there that was written by John Wagner, and various writers over the years. Particularly stories revolving around Judge Death. And a lot of great stories. To me, it doesn't bother me if I get the opportunity to play Dredd again, or if it's someone else. I would just love to see those stories ... That'd be incredible."

The Alex Garland Script

Urban nearly got his wish. 

The 2012 "Dredd" was penned by Alex Garland, the filmmaker behind "Ex Machina," "Annihilation," and the recent "Men." It's also been said in interviews that Garland also might have done a great deal of directing on "Dredd." The entire experience was shabby, and Garland wouldn't want to go back, but that wasn't always the case. According to an interview with Screen Geek with Judge Dredd co-creator John Wagner, Garland once pitched a Judge Death script to the people at Fox. The script was turned down because it was a little too wild. Perhaps wisely, the execs wanted a movie about the actual, physical world of Judge Dredd before the movies went traipsing off to other dimensions. As Wagner put it: 

"That was actually the first script that Alex Garland did was a Judge Death script. But Fox, who they were dealing with at the time, turned it down. They wanted more nuts and bolts before they went into the [metaphysical]."

So there was talk of a Judge Death script. It may still happen, although it seems that Judge Dredd may be currently back on ice. It took 18 years to make the first Dredd film after his creation. It took another 17 to make a second film.  If that timeline holds, audiences may see an additional Judge Dredd film by 2028. So, not too far off in the broad scheme.

Read this next: Horror Roles That Changed Actors Forever

The post The Judge Dredd Storylines Karl Urban Wants To See On The Big Screen appeared first on /Film.

22 Aug 19:12

The future of this site and an update:

by Heather

For those who don’t realize, Shamus passed on Jun 15, 2022 due to Cardiac arrest. You can read about it here. You can view the showing here (skip to 1:47 for actual content).

I know this site and community are important to many of you and we, his family, hope to honor that. The site is complicated to deal with due to Shamus’ preference for hardcoding and bespoke design over using the built in WordPress features but I am working my way through the backend of the site using my own years of experience hosting and designing WordPress sites. It’s slow going as I am also working full time, taking care of financials and other real life aspects of the death of a spouse, and helping the kids. We are very grateful for your patience as we work through all he left behind and prepare the site for future content uploads.

Our current plan:

I have set up a separate category and tab for posthumous content. All future content will show under Epilogue (in the menu) instead of on the front page. This was the best way we could find to separate the original content from that posted after his death. It does show in the RSS feed but will not show here on the front page. If you visit infrequently I would suggest bookmarking the epilogue tab for future check ins. Epilogue will include uploads of the Deus Ex series (I will check it but know that it will not meet his normal standards as he regularly reread and changed content as well as added appropriate images). At the moment the Epilogue page shows just the titles of posts (or in this instance, a single post). Due to more pressing matters I haven’t had time to fix it. It is in the list, I promise.

Paul plans to post most of Shamus’ code as opensource content. As this is posted, a link will also be added in the Epilogue tab.

Peter plans to upload Shamus music to Youtube as copyright free music for creators. It may also be uploaded elsewhere once we work out what will work best.

The kids are also preparing a separate subdomain for a podcast among other things. Sadly life is currently in the way as you will see in the life update below.

There is a possibility that we will release Pseudoku as a proper game, though that is still up in the air.

We have had several offers of potential projects based on Shamus’ work which we will share as things move forward. One of these is an offer of a forum for readers to use should they be interested. It is, apparently, run in a similar manner to this site and would offer a place for the community to continue. We are looking into this as a possibility.

There are other ideas but as you will see in the update below, it is all slow going due to things going on outside of the internet.

Family update:

We, his family, are very grateful at how patient you all have been as we take time to process and get things in order.  You, his readers, have been incredibly generous. You have paid completely for his funeral expenses and the kids moving expenses. This was an immeasurable blessing and relief. Between that and my nanny family giving me as much paid time off as I needed (or willing to take) we were able to just focus on doing what needed done instead of also worrying about finances.

You also provided for the kids, replacing many things they lost in the tornado prior to the previous move, as well as the items they lost this move due to mold in their air conditioners (so much mold.) The sheer number of packages over the weeks following his death was amazing (I felt bad for the post man). Food products, household items, paper products, cat toys, games and puzzles. Its been such an amazing blessing in the midst of our loss. Bay especially was blessed by it, who, while unable to help with other things, was able to open packages and divvy them out. Having something to do in the midst of things was very helpful.

We also had a semi-local reader come and help us with some yard work. She was such an amazing blessing and we were so grateful to meet her and have had her help. Thank you again.

The kids and I are doing all right. There has been a lot of processing and a lot to get done.  If you are interested here is an overly verbose telling of what has been happening behind the scenes (I apologize in advance, no one has ever accused me of being concise.)

The day before Shamus passed the family I nanny for added another member. The little one was born almost 24 hours before Shamus passed. This meant that there was plenty of family around waiting and allowed me to take the time off I needed to focus on family and getting the kids moved back home. (It also meant I got to go back to work to a new baby, which is wonderful).

I spent the next few days dealing with funeral stuff then driving 6 hours to help the kids pack their place in 2 days instead of the month we had originally planned. We packed as much as possible, they and I drove the 6 hours back with a full load of stuff, the wheelchair, and 3 cats. The cats are not good travelers and were very expressive in their unhappiness over their treatment. The next day Bay (who was the only one who knew what needed packed and where everything needed to go) and I drove back to Indiana with my brother-in-law and a friend who would help us finish packing and bring the rest of their household contents back. We picked up the truck (they gave us the wrong location which took us an extra hour out of our way), and started loading. It took longer than we had planned so Bay and I headed back to PA while Dan and Craig packed the truck and drove back. We got in at 2 am. They got in at 6am the next morning.  My dad and sister-in-law helped unload on our end and we got the kids all settled here in our house.

We dealt with more funeral stuff plus getting move related stuff dealt with.

A week and a half after his passing I went back to work. My nanny family was also in the process of moving and had the big final move planned for the day I returned. I helped them move while helping with the, now 3, boys. They moved from a small 3 bedroom to a place significantly larger (and closer). That was a very interesting (and exhausting) experience.

We dealt with more move related stuff and started dealing with Shamus’ computer and website. We realized that there was a lot more on the computer than we realized as Shamus often didn’t speak about his projects. So we spent a lot of the time figuring out what was what and his organization system. I started tracking down the hardcoded bits that made it so I couldn’t make the needed changes on the site.

A few weeks in and the kids were to move to their new apartment. We went to the walk through. Despite multiple reminders about the wheelchair, the apartment managed to pick the only one of 2 apartments that had steps to the front door. So….no move in. Management quickly jumped through some hoops and found a more suitable apartment that they could move into the next week.

While waiting for the move Bay was having more and more pain. Due to the specific movement needed for transfers there were concerns of an ACL tear in the good knee. We had been trying to get insurance set up but had to wait for the lease to go through for proof of residency. We attempted a trip to a Fastercare. No use. They couldn’t do anything other than tell us there wasn’t a break. A few days before the move but after the first lease went through (so insurance would cover it), they went to the ER due to significant, sudden pain. There they got steroids and a referral to an ortho. The steroids made a world of difference. (Why they were off their Rheumatoid meds and ended up in the wheelchair in the first place is another horribly long story that includes a tornado, a move across the country, and a whole lot more. I’ll let Bay tell that one when and if they are ready.) The ortho then prescribed an anti-inflammatory and scheduled Bay an appointment with an awesome doctor who they see at the end of September.

We moved the kids into their new apartment in a single day. Everything is wheelchair accessible unlike the one they had been supposed to be in, which, even without the stairs was just the best option at the time, but not accessible by any stretch. This apartment could not be more suited to their needs. In the meantime, when I am not at work or giving kids rides (1 car + 4 adults) or working out death related stuff and finances or backend stuff on the site, I have been working on getting the house back in order and rearranging things to suit our current needs, including a new fridge as our 1986 fridge is on deaths door.

In the meantime Peter applied for and got a new job at the post office (after years with Dollar General). This meant him needing rides to work as well as to orientation out of town (though the new job is much closer and more suits his needs.)

And here we are.

 

22 Aug 19:10

Mel Brooks Wanted Gene Wilder To Cut An All-Time Classic Young Frankenstein Scene

by Anya Stanley

You know him as Willy Wonka, the Waco Kid, a Frankenstein heir, and perhaps Skip Donahue. Whatever the role, Gene Wilder had a knack for burrowing into the hearts of audiences all over the world. Over several decades, the Milwaukee-born multi-hyphenate endeared scores of fans to his work in now-classic films like "The Producers," "Silver Streak," "Young Frankenstein," and "Blazing Saddles," each time lighting up the screen with natural absurdity and poignant emotional warmth.

Wilder's longtime collaboration with Mel Brooks began with the filmmaker's directorial debut, the 1967 comedy "The Producers," wherein Wilder plays neurotic accountant Leo Bloom and earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his performance. His most iconic role, as eccentric candyman Willy Wonka, came in 1971, just a few years before teaming up with Brooks again for his 1974 comedy-western "Blazing Saddles," filling the role of the boozy Waco Kid.

It was during the final weeks of shooting "Saddles" that Wilder and Brooks sat down "somewhere in Antelope Valley" and, armed with hot tea and biscuits, hammered out a story that would eventually become "Young Frankenstein." Speaking with Conan O'Brien on his late-night talk show, the "Stir Crazy" star talked at length about the comedy-horror and the only argument he ever had with Mel Brooks during its development:

"One night he came over, he looks at the pages and he says, 'You tap dance to Irving Berlin... in top hat and tails... with the monster?' He said, 'Are you crazy? It's frivolous.'"

"Young Frankenstein" follows Frederick Frankenstein as he claims some inherited family property in Transylvania. In addition to co-writing with Brooks, Wilder starred in the lead role of physician Frederick Frankenstein who tries to distance himself from his grandfather, the infamous mad scientist Mary Shelley wrote about.

It's Pronounced 'Fronkensteen.

The "frivolous" scene that Brooks objected to was the absurd culmination of Dr. Frankenstein's inner struggle to connect with his ancestry. The doctor, who had spent the movie correcting everyone who associated him with his grandfather, had finally embraced the Frankenstein name and built upon his grandad's experiments, and had ambitions to show high society that not only did he belong there, but so did his creation (played by Peter Boyle). The scene begins relatively straight like its referential predecessors "Frankenstein," "Bride of," "Son of," etc. (the film is filled with reverent love for the source material it clowns on) but then takes a turn for the ludicrous as both scientist and creation perform a lively version of Berlin's "Puttin' on the Ritz," complete with a tap break. It all goes well until a stage light explodes, launching the creature into survival mode (compounded by the crowd throwing rotten produce at the stage). Naturally, Brooks had a hard time seeing the merit of such a scene, but Wilder tells Conan:

"I started to argue and I argued for about twenty minutes– til I was at least red in the face, I think it may have been blue– and all of a sudden [Brooks said], 'Okay, it's in.' I said, 'Why did you put me though this?' He said, 'Because I wasn't sure if it was right or not. And if you didn't argue for it, I knew it would be wrong. But if you really argued, I'd know it was right.'"

WIlder's insistence on the scene's inclusion ensured its survival to the final cut. The rest, as they say, is history.

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

The post Mel Brooks Wanted Gene Wilder To Cut An All-Time Classic Young Frankenstein Scene appeared first on /Film.

22 Aug 19:10

American History X Ending Explained: Racism Begins At Home

by Anthony Crislip

Is "American History X" empty provocation? Is it apologia for white supremacist gang culture? Is it a profoundly sad document of the tensions dominating '90s Los Angeles? The movie continues to be shocking and troubling as the years pass, from its shootout opening to its brutal, contradictory ending. Tony Kaye's 1998 film (which he would attempt to disown in very public confrontations with New Line Cinema) deals directly with racism and the environment that powers it. Focusing on prejudice from the perspective of racists in the crucible of gang violence was an inspired choice.

The movie's mood is set up by its opening titles, with Anne Dudley's score (sounding like doom; she used strings and a boy's choir to emphasize the neo-Nazis) over grainy, black-and-white images of Venice Beach. There's a suggestion of faded majesty, which point-of-view character Danny Vinyard (Edward Furlong) alludes to in voiceover, claiming "this used to be a good neighborhood." He heard that from his dad, a firefighter killed by gangs.

Danny's the perspective character, but his brother, Derek (Edward Norton, in one of his best roles) is the movie's center -- in flashbacks, an electrifying firebrand capable of driving masses of neo-Nazis to great violence, and in the present day, a contemplative, reflective figure who's seen the error of his ways.

The Child Is Confused

For young Danny, Derek is a hero. The movie casts his recollections in high contrast black-and-white – beginning with him spotting Derek's car getting broken into by "two Black guys." Derek's response is to shoot at them, eventually curbstomping one of them in a horrifically authentic scene. It's an unsettling sight, with Edward Norton uncharacteristically buff, a large swastika tattoo on his chest. He faces the camera with a glimmer in his eye, as if this chance to commit violence is some kind of wish fulfillment.

Derek has been in jail since then, and in his absence, Danny has fallen in with the Disciples of Christ (D.O.C.), the white supremacist gang that his brother used to run with mentor Cameron Alexander (Stacy Keach). Danny's teachers, the Black Dr. Sweeney (Avery Brooks) and the Jewish Murray (Elliot Gould), discuss his latest provocation, a book report on "Mein Kampf." Sweeney gives Danny a new assignment: an essay on his brother. Danny has spent three years remembering his brother as a hero of the neo-Nazi cause, but he doesn't recognize the man he sees coming out of jail later that day.

Meanwhile, Danny upholds the D.O.C. ideals, antagonizing a group of Black students that are bullying a white kid in the school restroom. He returns home, reuniting with his brother.

Reunions And Memories

Derek has hair now, and Danny hates it. So does Seth (Ethan Suplee), Derek's former best friend, a white supremacist cartoon who drives to the Vinyard home blasting a racist parody of "Battle Hymn of the Republic." The women in Derek's life are happy he's seemingly past the neo-Nazi phase. The men are disappointed.

The real story of the movie (and many of its most haunting scenes) comes as Danny writes his paper. Reflecting on Derek's life, he remembers the moments that made him look up to his brother: Derek winning a game of basketball against a Black gang (his eventual victims), Derek mobilizing the D.O.C. to destroy a Korean grocery store, Derek arguing at a family dinner about Rodney King and the L.A. riots. Dudley's score swells at climactic moments, suggesting a twisted heroism. In voiceover, Danny comments that Derek was "protecting white people" from non-white gangs. Danny's been indoctrinated. But Derek wants nothing of that life anymore.

Edward Norton's deep commitment to "American History X" went beyond acting. Despite being opposed to the casting at first, director Tony Kaye came to respect Norton as a collaborator, using his instincts for improvisation to rework the script. Norton's never better than in the movie's intimate family scenes, his subtle disappointments in the present and his unchecked anger in the past.

The Chickenhawk And The Jailbird

Edward Norton might have wanted audiences to perceive David Fincher's "Fight Club" as a comedy to keep a certain sense of distance from that material's harder edge, but "American History X" has no comedy. The tensions at its center come to a head as Derek reunites with his old cohort.

Cameron, the D.O.C. leader, wanted Derek to be his messenger who would mobilize disaffected white youth, and his imprisonment sealed the deal. But when Derek arrives at the D.O.C. party, he barges in on Cameron grooming Danny to be his next leader. Derek tells Danny to leave, and punches out Cameron. The neo-Nazis turn on him. Even his oldest friend Seth pulls a gun on him. The hero worship was conditional.

Derek confesses to Danny how his prison experience changed him. Flashbacks to jail time show his attempts to befriend the Aryan Brotherhood, and how he wants out when he sees that their values came second to drugs. Years spent working with Black inmate Lamont (Guy Torry) in the prison laundry soften his racism, and he abandons it completely after being violently sexually assaulted by members of the Aryan Brotherhood.

It's Dr. Sweeney, his old Black high school teacher, who visits him in the hospital. The D.O.C. never does.

He gives Derek a new perspective on how to navigate life. Derek sits alone at lunch, protected for the next couple years by his only true friend, Lamont. This is his big lesson to his brother, who tears the Nazi memorabilia off his bedroom wall.

Racism Begins At Home

Danny finishes his essay, recalling what their dad (William Russ) was like. Far from the noble firefighter to whom they've alluded, he was an out-and-out racist. Russ brings the warm sitcom dad energy honed from years of "Boy Meets World," making it all the more shocking when he uses slurs. Danny realizes the seeds of his brother's bigotry were planted a lot earlier than when he joined the D.O.C.

The next day, as both of the brothers prepare to turn over a new leaf, Danny gets shot in the bathroom, by the same Black teen he fought with the day before. Derek soon arrives to hold Danny's corpse.

For a movie with such a profoundly realized anti-racist message, this endnote feels egregious. The tragedy is self-conscious, a way to keep the movie's hard edge after such a sentimental resolution. It complicates the movie's tolerance message, and in turn we reflect on how one-dimensional the movie's Black characters have been. While the performances are excellent, Lamont and Sweeney both exist solely for Derek's journey towards tolerance.

Much of "American History X" resembles the '90s work of Spike Lee, which makes sense given how much star Edward Norton was impacted by the director. It has Lee's direct address, and his willingness to seriously consider racism at all levels. But its shock and edge take precedence over the nuance it purports to have. For all of its visceral impact, the movie's contradictory nature feels more scattered than intentionally complicated.

Read this next: The 14 Best Film Acting Debuts Of All Time

The post American History X Ending Explained: Racism Begins at Home appeared first on /Film.

22 Aug 19:06

Encrypting Facebook Messenger Could Be a 'Grotesque Betrayal', Says Top UK Politician

by msmash
Facebook's parent company Meta is heading into another political battle over the planned introduction of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in its Messenger chat platform. From a report: The UK's home secretary, Priti Patel, makes this clear in an op-ed for Tory mouthpiece The Telegraph this week, saying it would be a "grotesque betrayal" if the company didn't consider issues of child safety while introducing E2EE. Similar arguments are likely to be raised in the US, too. Meta has been working on adding E2EE to Messenger for years, and recently confirmed that it aims to encrypt all chats and calls on the platform by default next year. (It currently only offers default E2EE on its other big chat platform, WhatsApp, though users can opt-in to E2EE on Messenger on a chat-by-chat basis.) The move is reigniting decades-old debates in politics and tech about the right way to balance user privacy and safety. In the US, these arguments have been heightened by the potential for police to issues search warrants for user chats in order to enforce new abortion laws after the overturn of Roe v. Wade. In the UK, arguments over encryption tend to focus on child safety and the dissemination of of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM. "A great many child predators use social media platforms such as Facebook to discover, target and sexually abuse children," writes Patel in her op-ed. "It is vital that law enforcement have access to the information they need to identify the children in these images and safeguard them from vile predators."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

22 Aug 19:06

An Old Medicine Grows New Hair for Pennies a Day, Doctors Say

by msmash
Several readers have shared a report: The ads are everywhere -1 and so are the inflated claims: Special shampoos and treatments, sometimes costing thousands of dollars, will make hair grow. But many dermatologists who specialize in hair loss say that most of these products don't work. [...] But there is a cheap treatment, he and other dermatologists say, costing pennies a day, that restores hair in many patients. It is minoxidil, an old and well-known hair-loss treatment drug used in a very different way. Rather than being applied directly to the scalp, it is being prescribed in very low-dose pills. Although a growing group of dermatologists is offering low-dose minoxidil pills, the treatment remains relatively unknown to most patients and many doctors. It has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for this purpose and so is prescribed off-label -- a common practice in dermatology. "I call us the off-label bandits -- a title I am proud to bear," said Dr. Adam Friedman, professor and chair of dermatology at George Washington University. He explained that dermatologists have been trained to understand how medicines work, which allows them to try drugs off-label.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

22 Aug 13:00

Can Targaryens See The Future In House Of The Dragon? Dragon Dreams Explained

by Shania Russell

In "Game of Thrones," Daenerys Targaryen was a marvel: as the Mother of Dragons and the last-known descendant of Westeros' conquerors, it's no wonder she commanded armies and ruled over cities. She was one-of-a-kind, with her distinctive silver hair and inability to be burned by fire. But on "House of the Dragon," Kings Landing is basically overrun with Targaryens. And don't even get me started on all the dragons. When the prequel series begins, the royal family is at the height of their power, ruling the seven kingdoms uncontested by anyone except each other. So what exactly is it that makes the Targaryens so special?

The world of Westeros certainly has a guess. In the series premiere, Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) points out that their family is worshipped by commonfolk, who consider them "closer to Gods than to men." But she also argues that it has more to do with their dragons than with the Targaryens themselves.

She makes a solid point — their dragon prowess is quite literally how they came to forge the Iron Throne. But it goes a little deeper than just having the bravery to saddle up the fire-breathing beasts. Having descended from the Dragonriders of Old Valyria, the Targaryens are connected to their dragons in a way that no one else can mimic. And being able to ride dragons is just one of their bloodline perks: evidently, another perk is the Targaryen's ability to see the future.

Prophecies, Visions, And Dragon Dreams, Oh My

First thing's first — this isn't our first time encountering prophecies in the world of Westeros. "Game of Thrones" featured several characters who could peek into the future, including greenseers like Jojen Reed, Bran Stark, and The Three Eyed Raven. We also brushed up against a witch (who predicted the death of Cersei's children), the mysterious Quaithe (who gave Jorah some vague riddles about Daenerys future), and of course, there was Melisandre (whose hobbies include staring into the fire, birthing demons, and burning children).

Most notably is Daenerys' brief stroll through the House of the Undying, where she saw a vision of the charred remains of the Red Keep. Though we didn't know it at the time, that quiet scene foretold her inevitable fate to never actually sit the Iron Throne, despite being close enough to finally seize it. So yes, even in Westeros, fantasy fortune tellers are a dime a dozen, but for the Targaryens, it usually looks a little different.

What Are Dragon Dreams?

The Targaryen's particular brand of premonitions have been dubbed dragon dreams. As the "blood of the dragon," some Targaryens possess the ability to see prophecies in their dreams. King Viserys (Paddy Considine) references this in the series premiere of "House of the Dragon," calling back to his ancestor, Daenys Targaryen, who had a dream about the destruction of Valyria. Trusting that vision, her father Lord Aenar Targaryen moved their entire family to Dragonstone, which would eventually become the ancestral seat of the Targaryens. When The Doom of Valyria came 12 years later, Daenys was proven right.

If you're wondering why Daenerys never got prophetic dreams of her own, then simply turn to the books. Though it's not included in the series, Daenerys gets plenty of vague glimpses at the future in George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Fire and Ice." Before her wedding to Drogo, she sees visions of a black dragon saving her from her abusive brother, Viserys. Before she conquers Slavers Bay, she dreamt of defeating an army clad in ice. So obviously these dreams do come with an irritating drawback: they're vague and open to interpretation. A dragon doesn't actually arrive to save Dany from her brother; it's when her own inner dragon awakens that Viserys meets his downfall. And as for the army of ice, Dany assumes she will later defeat the armies of Westeros but more likely, the dream represents her battle against the Night King.

Did King Viserys Have A Dragon Dream?

While "Game of Thrones" decided to ignore the Targaryen's prophetic tendencies, "House Of The Dragon" has clearly opted to embrace them. To be fair, it's a lot harder to ignore such a significant ability when there are many more Targaryens milling around. But it also makes for an ominous addition to the story. In the first episode alone, two different dreams are referenced. The first comes from King Viserys himself, who is quite literally distracted by his dreams of having a son. While Aemma (​​ Sian Brooke) awaits labor after a long and painful pregnancy, she tries to temper her husband's expectations — reminding him that they can't know the sex of the child until after it's born. But Viserys claims that he knows she'll give birth to a son because he saw it in a dream.

"The dream was clearer than a memory. Our son was born wearing Aegon's iron crown. And I heard the sound of thundering hooves, splintering shields, and ringing swords. And I placed our son upon the Iron Throne as the bells of the grand sept tolled. And all the dragons roared as one."

Here's the problem: not all Targaryen dreams are prophetic. Viserys, dude, sometimes they're just dreams.

Sadly, Viserys learns not to put so much stock in his nighttime fantasies by the end of the episode — and he learns that the hard way. While Aemma did in fact give birth to a son, the fact that he didn't live long enough to sit the Iron Throne really kills the joy. Maybe Viserys' dreams are never prophetic or maybe this was just a regular dream. Or maybe he was on to something after all.

Aegon's Dream Of Conquest

Interpretation is everything. Just because things didn't go as Viserys assumed they would, doesn't mean his dream was insignificant. Splintering shields and ringing swords? Based on all the tension festering within this family, it's quite possible that all of this will come to pass in a way he didn't expect. Or maybe it already has.

King Viserys is also the one to share the second dragon dream of the episode, but this one is credited to Aegon the Conqueror. Thanks to a dream that the conqueror dubbed A Song of Fire And Ice, the Targaryens knew about the Long Night decades before the Others began their assault on the North. "Ambition alone is not what drove [Aegon] to conquest," Viserys tells Rhaenyra. "It was a dream."

"Just as Daenys foresaw the end of Valyria, Aegon foresaw the end of the world of men. It is to begin with a terrible winter, gusting out of the distant north. Aegon saw absolute darkness riding on those winds. And whatever dwells within will destroy the world of the living."

The weight of this prophecy was so powerful that it drove Aegon to conquer a kingdom. Passed down from one ruler to the next, it has continued to drive the Targeryens to rule Westeros — little do they know that this apocalyptic scenario is 200 years away from happening. While Aegon's prophecy won't be proven within their lifetime, we know his dream to be true. If anything, this is just proof that we should pay razor-sharp attention to any other prophecies that these Targaryens dream up.

Read this next: The Best TV Shows And Movies Coming To HBO Max In August 2022

The post Can Targaryens See The Future in House of The Dragon? Dragon Dreams Explained appeared first on /Film.

22 Aug 01:09

Employers are Tracking Employees' 'Productivity' - Sometimes Badly

by EditorDavid
Here's an interesting statistic spotted by Fortune. "Eight out of the 10 largest private employers in the U.S. are tracking productivity metrics for their employees, according to an examination from The New York Times." "Some of this software measures active time, watches for keyboard pauses, and even silently counts keystrokes." J.P. Morgan, Barclays Bank, and UnitedHealth Group all track employees, The Times reported, seeing everything from how long it takes to write an email to keyboard activity. There are repercussions if workers aren't meeting expectations: a prodding note, a skipped bonus, or a work-from-home day taken away, to name a few. For employers surrendering in the fight to return to the office, such surveillance is a way to maintain a sense of control. As Paul Wartenberg, who installs monitor systems, told The Times, "If we're going to give up on bringing people back to the office, we're not going to give up on managing productivity.... But tracking these remote workers' every move doesn't seem to be telling employers much. "We're in this era of measurement but we don't know what we should be measuring," Ryan Fuller, former vice president for workplace intelligence at Microsoft, told the Times. From the New York Times' article. (Alternate URLs here, here, and here.) In lower-paying jobs, the monitoring is already ubiquitous: not just at Amazon, where the second-by-second measurements became notorious, but also for Kroger cashiers, UPS drivers and millions of others.... Now digital productivity monitoring is also spreading among white-collar jobs and roles that require graduate degrees. Many employees, whether working remotely or in person, are subject to trackers, scores, "idle" buttons, or just quiet, constantly accumulating records. Pauses can lead to penalties, from lost pay to lost jobs. Some radiologists see scoreboards showing their "inactivity" time and how their productivity stacks up against their colleagues'.... Public servants are tracked, too: In June, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority told engineers and other employees they could work remotely one day a week if they agreed to full-time productivity monitoring. Architects, academic administrators, doctors, nursing home workers and lawyers described growing electronic surveillance over every minute of their workday. They echoed complaints that employees in many lower-paid positions have voiced for years: that their jobs are relentless, that they don't have control — and in some cases, that they don't even have enough time to use the bathroom. In interviews and in hundreds of written submissions to The Times, white-collar workers described being tracked as "demoralizing," "humiliating" and "toxic." Micromanagement is becoming standard, they said. But the most urgent complaint, spanning industries and incomes, is that the working world's new clocks are just wrong: inept at capturing offline activity, unreliable at assessing hard-to-quantify tasks and prone to undermining the work itself.... But many employers, along with makers of the tracking technology, say that even if the details need refining, the practice has become valuable — and perhaps inevitable. Tracking, they say, allows them to manage with newfound clarity, fairness and insight. Derelict workers can be rooted out. Industrious ones can be rewarded. "It's a way to really just focus on the results," rather than impressions, said Marisa Goldenberg, [who] said she used the tools in moderation... [I]n-person workplaces have embraced the tools as well. Tommy Weir, whose company, Enaible, provides group productivity scores to Fortune 500 companies, aims to eventually use individual scores to calibrate pay.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

21 Aug 22:57

The Daily Stream: A Goofy Movie Is Unique, Touching, And Downright Legendary

by Lex Briscuso

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "A Goofy Movie" (1995)

Where You Can Stream It: Disney+

The Pitch: Taking place a few years after the "Goof Troop" series, Goofy all but forces his now-high schooler son, Max, to embark on a road trip with probably the worst timing for any teenager: right after Max asked his crush Roxanne to the school dance. To make matters worse, the teen makes her a promise he is pretty sure he won't be able to keep before he leaves on the pilgrimage he can't avoid. With fresh vitriol for his eccentric father, Max rebels hard throughout the trip, and bonds are tested as father and son struggle through trial after tribulation on their way to a better relationship — and to fulfill Max's larger-than-life promise to Roxanne.

Why It's Essential Viewing

"A Goofy Movie" is probably the most unexpected Disney film to have ever garnered cult classic status. It made a major impression on '90s babies like myself, and it continues to loom large in our brains for its unique world, touching storyline, and legendary — yes, legendary — music.

First off, the movie takes place in a world full of Goofy-style dogs, and maybe because it's not a cartoon world we typically see, but it's automatically really interesting and fun. You want to explore it and get to know the universe Mickey's best pal lives in. After all, supporting characters don't always get the full treatment, so it's cool to take a look at what that looks like, not only with this film but also with the "Goof Troop" series. 

The best part of the Goofy world, though, is the pop star whose presence and aura is the bedrock of the film: Powerline. He's Max's favorite artist, and his peers feel similarly about the singer. And then you start to understand why. The music — just two songs, but they pack a punch — is impeccably catchy and vibrant, and makes for a memorable addition to the film's canon.

This movie also proves that Disney doesn't have to kill its parental figures in order to make a good feature. Sorry not sorry about being so blunt. Disney films throughout the company's history have relied on that tactic to mine emotional connections with the audience, but the plot of "A Goofy Movie" is just as effective without that trauma inflicted on the characters. It's still a tearjerker, and it still gives you the catharsis you want from a family comedy about two characters who (pun intended) don't see eye to eye. If you haven't seen it yet, you owe it to yourself to experience its unexpected brilliance.

Read this next: The Best Animated Film Of Each Decade

The post The Daily Stream: A Goofy Movie Is Unique, Touching, and Downright Legendary appeared first on /Film.

21 Aug 22:56

How to Make a Bed With 'Hospital Corners'

by Elizabeth Yuko

In addition to favoring mattress of a certain firmness, and sheets made from some materials but not others, most people also have a preference when it comes to how a bed is made. To put it in Seinfeldian terms: A “tuck” or a “no tuck.”

Read more...

21 Aug 22:38

Dad Photographs Son for Doctor. Google Flags Him as Criminal, Notifies Police

by EditorDavid
"The nurse said to send photos so the doctor could review them in advance," the New York Times reports, decribing how an ordeal began in February of 2021 for a software engineer named Mark who had a sick son: Mark's wife grabbed her husband's phone and texted a few high-quality close-ups of their son's groin area to her iPhone so she could upload them to the health care provider's messaging system. In one, Mark's hand was visible, helping to better display the swelling. Mark and his wife gave no thought to the tech giants that made this quick capture and exchange of digital data possible, or what those giants might think of the images. With help from the photos, the doctor diagnosed the issue and prescribed antibiotics, which quickly cleared it up.... Two days after taking the photos of his son, Mark's phone made a blooping notification noise: His account had been disabled because of "harmful content" that was "a severe violation of Google's policies and might be illegal." A "learn more" link led to a list of possible reasons, including "child sexual abuse & exploitation...." He filled out a form requesting a review of Google's decision, explaining his son's infection. At the same time, he discovered the domino effect of Google's rejection. Not only did he lose emails, contact information for friends and former colleagues, and documentation of his son's first years of life, his Google Fi account shut down, meaning he had to get a new phone number with another carrier. Without access to his old phone number and email address, he couldn't get the security codes he needed to sign in to other internet accounts, locking him out of much of his digital life.... A few days after Mark filed the appeal, Google responded that it would not reinstate the account, with no further explanation. Mark didn't know it, but Google's review team had also flagged a video he made and the San Francisco Police Department had already started to investigate him.... In December 2021, Mark received a manila envelope in the mail from the San Francisco Police Department. It contained a letter informing him that he had been investigated as well as copies of the search warrants served on Google and his internet service provider. An investigator, whose contact information was provided, had asked for everything in Mark's Google account: his internet searches, his location history, his messages and any document, photo and video he'd stored with the company. The search, related to "child exploitation videos," had taken place in February, within a week of his taking the photos of his son. Mark called the investigator, Nicholas Hillard, who said the case was closed. Mr. Hillard had tried to get in touch with Mark but his phone number and email address hadn't worked.... Mark appealed his case to Google again, providing the police report, but to no avail.... A Google spokeswoman said the company stands by its decisions... "The day after Mark's troubles started, the same scenario was playing out in Texas," the Times notes, quoting a technologist at the EFF who speculates other people experiencing the same thing may not want to publicize it. "There could be tens, hundreds, thousands more of these." Reached for a comment on the incident, Google told the newspaper that "Child sexual abuse material is abhorrent and we're committed to preventing the spread of it on our platforms."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

21 Aug 06:07

The Problem of Nuclear Waste Disposal - and How Finland Solved It

by EditorDavid
"Even if all nuclear power plants were shut down today, there's a mountain of radioactive waste waiting to be disposed of," reports Ars Technica. "Yet only Finland has an approved solution for nuclear waste disposal, while projects in the US, UK, and Germany have failed for decades, and progress is also slow in other countries." So how did Finland construct a safe nuclear waste repository? Ars Technica asked Antti Mustonen, who's a research manager with Posiva, the organization in charge of the Finnish repository: Finland has a lot of hard crystalline bedrock and many places that are potentially suitable for a repository. The country eventually chose an island on the Baltic coast for its Onkalo repository, and it hopes to seal off the first tunnel of nuclear waste sometime around 2025.... Even after it has cooled in ponds for decades, spent nuclear fuel gives out heat by radioactive decay, raising the temperature near the waste canisters. This heat could potentially corrode the canisters, compromise the bentonite, or even crack the rock face. Therefore, the Finnish and Swedish designs separate individual waste canisters in their own disposal shafts to avoid excessive heat buildup.... Posiva is currently conducting a long-term, full-sized demonstration using heaters in dummy canisters surrounded by bentonite and temperature probes. After three years, the temperature at the canister boundary is about 70Â C, Mustonen said. A similar test in Switzerland lasted 18 years and found that bentonite "remains suitable as a sealing material" up to at least 100 degrees C.... But to project how the rock and groundwater will affect humans living near the site in future millennia, the scientists must model that numerically using the tests and data as the starting point. "We have modeled to that million years... with different scenarios and what the likely releases [are], and it seems that the releases are acceptable," Mustonen told me.... Scientists then project what will happen to the waste over the next million years, assuming everything works as planned. They also model for several "what if" scenarios. This projection includes looking at the stresses and groundwater pressures caused by possibilities like being buried deep under a future ice sheet and then having that ice sheet melt away, sea level changes, changes in groundwater chemistry, and failures of canisters. At Onkalo, even in the worst case, scientists calculate that the maximum dose released to humans would be one-tenth of the regulatory limit, which itself is about a hundredth of the normal dose that Finns receive every year. But the article also asks what Finland's experience can teach other countries. One person who worked on America's unsuccessful Yucca Mountain project was Dr. Jane Long, former associate director for energy and environment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Long tells the site that "They should have set requirements for an inherently safe site and then investigated whether the site met the requirements instead of choosing the site for political reasons and then trying to show the site was suitable." And they seem to agree in Finland: "More than the geology, I think it's socio-economic aspects" that determine if a project can go ahead, Mustonen told me. A key lesson is that the top-down designation of sites for nuclear waste disposal has generally failed. The UK failed in 1987, 1997, and 2013. In the US, politicians campaigned against the Yucca Mountain project, characterizing its authorization as the "Screw Nevada Bill...." Yucca Mountain's wasted $15 billion pales in comparison to the roughly $50 billion in damages that American taxpayers have had to pay to nuclear utilities because the government was unable to honor its commitment to receive nuclear waste by 1998. Meanwhile, more waste is piling up. Thanks to Slashdot reader atcclears for submitting the story.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

21 Aug 03:05

Why Nora Ephron Was 'A Very Significant Figure' In Natasha Lyonne's Story

by Sandy Schaefer

Even to this day, there are few powerhouse women in the film industry quite like the late Nora Ephron. The prolific filmmaker and playwright was the queen of the rom-com in her time, writing classics such as "When Harry Met Sally..." and directing crowd-pleasing hits like "Sleepless in Seattle," "Michael," and "You've Got Mail." Her influence can be felt in the works of others, not least of whom is Natasha Lyonne, a fellow New York City-born Jewish multi-talent with a knack for crafting witty, heightened comedies-of-manner that speak to her personal roots.

In an interview with W Magazine (via IndieWire), the "Orange is the New Black" alum and "Russian Doll" creator/star recalled how her first acting gig came when she was a child in the film "Heartburn." Director Mike Nichols' 1986 dramedy was written by Ephron and is based on her 1983 novel of the same name, itself directly inspired by her real-life marriage to the famed investigative journalist Carl Bernstein. To quote Lyonne:

"Nora Ephron was a very significant figure in my story. My very first acting gig was as a glorified extra in her film 'Heartburn.' ... I was five years old and I am sleeping on some guy's lap at a wedding. And then when I was coming back in my phase two, post-junkie dump, I auditioned for Nora again."

'I See This As A Free Therapy Session'

After starring in future cult movies like "Slums of Beverly Hills" and the touchstone queer comedy "But I'm a Cheerleader" in the late 1990s, Natasha Lyonne went through a much-publicized struggle with drug addiction in the early aughts. She would once again cross paths with Nora Ephron again while auditioning for Ephron's 2008 play "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" (an adaptation of Ilene Beckerman's book of the same name). Said Lyonne:

"I wanted a part in her play, but I was having a really hard time with a boyfriend, and I said, 'While I have you — if you could just give me a little advice here. It doesn't matter if I get the job; I see this as a free therapy session.' That's really what I'm doing in showbiz; I've gained access to people who are tremendous thinkers and I'm trying to crack this case."

Far from a one-off encounter, Lyonne said Ephron was "always looking out for me" as she continued on her journey to sobriety. That included making sure Lyonne had "the best room at Columbia-Presbyterian and the greatest surgeon" when she underwent emergency open-heart surgery and joining Lyonne's future "Russian Doll" co-star Chloë Sevigny in helping to "see me through this thing." Lyonne added:

"And then Nora gave me my first gig back. She had me stay at her house in Los Angeles, and I was like, 'Are you crazy?' And she said, 'Everybody has problems.' She really helped me understand that I was OK."

For all her many professional achievements, it's something like Ephron's unwavering support and assistance to Lyonne that speaks the most to what made her admirable as a person.

Read this next: The Best Movies Of 2022 So Far

The post Why Nora Ephron Was 'A Very Significant Figure' In Natasha Lyonne's Story appeared first on /Film.

21 Aug 01:13

Notes: SSD+RAID Recovery – Samsung 870 EVO Not To Be Trusted!

by lui_gough

Recovering data from failing hard drives is something I find myself doing from time to time for others. Recovering data from SSDs – now that’s something new. In this case, I’ll be recovering data from SSDs which aren’t even one year old, after a seemingly successful migration from hard drives, under a very tight timeline that necessitated a bit of exploration and ingenuity as well. It’s not the best way to do things, but it’s the only way given the constraints.

The Lead-Up

This job was an emergency call-out to attend a computer that controls an expensive piece of equipment. It turns out the expensive piece of equipment had developed a fault and the technician was called out to repair it, but as the controlling computer began to malfunction, the technician would not perform repairs until the computer was fixed. The technician had already been scheduled to return in two days time – so I had two days (at the most) to fix it, but they were also reluctant for me to spend all that much time on it because of concerns about cost to them.

The machine itself was an HP pre-built machine with a Windows 7 installation qualified by the manufacturer. The drive configuration was originally a 4 x 500GB Seagate Hard Disk set-up in RAID10 through Intel “FakeRAID”, but had one drive dropped out for an unknown length of time. It was previously (less than a year ago) migrated to 4 x 500GB Samsung 870 EVO SSDs by rebuilding the RAID one drive at a time, seemingly operating fine for a while.

At the time of call-out though, things apparently went downhill quickly. At first, one drive was seen to have dropped out of the array and a rebuild was initiated by their staff. This rebuild was apparently not successful, instead resulting in the machine locking up. Afterward, they found the machine unbootable and performed some SMART self-tests through the BIOS which reported failures (which I was not too convinced about, as the BIOS may not be compatible with all types of drives). They were desperate to boot the machine and retrieve data, so one of the staff members broke the RAID by removing another drive, leading to the RAID10 operating in a RAID0-like state, to which they were able to now boot but were unable to copy data as it would lock up. They decided to try setting up a network share and pull the data off using another machine … when they finally got me into the picture.

Lesson 0: Keep an eye on your drive health – regardless of the type of drive. While SSDs are usually reliable, they are not infallible!

Lesson 1: Do not rebuild a RAID as a knee-jerk reaction until you know the health of the remaining drives. Check the SMART data first – if the drives are bad and rebuild seems unlikely, it may be best to go straight to recovery.

Lesson 2: Do not forcibly break a RAID – there is not much to be gained but more to be lost as now you have even less redundancy and more “out-of-sync” copies.

Lesson 3: Just because it boots doesn’t mean you’re any closer to fixing the problem. In fact, the process of booting the existing OS is going to cause writes to the disk that will cause further data inconsistencies and potential harm, so have a rescue OS on-hand (e.g. a live Linux) to do your diagnosis with.

Lesson 4: Listen to recommendations to backup your data. It’s never the wrong thing to do!

Samsung 870 EVO – Not to be trusted?

Now that I’ve managed to take a two-hour trip to get on-site, I get the machine booted into Knoppix and the signs are not good – smartctl gives the following attributes for the four SSDs:

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   PO--CK   097   097   010    -    16
  9 Power_On_Hours          -O--CK   098   098   000    -    5344
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O--CK   099   099   000    -    47
177 Wear_Leveling_Count     PO--C-   099   099   000    -    2
179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot   PO--C-   097   097   010    -    16
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  -O--CK   100   100   010    -    0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total  -O--CK   100   100   010    -    0
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       PO--C-   097   097   010    -    16
187 Reported_Uncorrect      -O--CK   099   099   000    -    76
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel -O--CK   064   056   000    -    36
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  -O-RC-   199   199   000    -    76
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -OSRCK   100   100   000    -    0
235 Unknown_Attribute       -O--C-   099   099   000    -    39
241 Total_LBAs_Written      -O--CK   099   099   000    -    1488494234

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   PO--CK   083   083   010    -    97
  9 Power_On_Hours          -O--CK   098   098   000    -    5306
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O--CK   099   099   000    -    47
177 Wear_Leveling_Count     PO--C-   099   099   000    -    3
179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot   PO--C-   083   083   010    -    97
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  -O--CK   100   100   010    -    0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total  -O--CK   100   100   010    -    0
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       PO--C-   083   083   010    -    97
187 Reported_Uncorrect      -O--CK   099   099   000    -    1
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel -O--CK   075   056   000    -    25
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  -O-RC-   199   199   000    -    1
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -OSRCK   099   099   000    -    7
235 Unknown_Attribute       -O--C-   099   099   000    -    34
241 Total_LBAs_Written      -O--CK   099   099   000    -    2390896270

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   PO--CK   081   081   010    -    114
  9 Power_On_Hours          -O--CK   098   098   000    -    5321
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O--CK   099   099   000    -    42
177 Wear_Leveling_Count     PO--C-   099   099   000    -    2
179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot   PO--C-   081   081   010    -    114
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  -O--CK   100   100   010    -    0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total  -O--CK   100   100   010    -    0
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       PO--C-   081   081   010    -    114
187 Reported_Uncorrect      -O--CK   099   099   000    -    506
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel -O--CK   066   059   000    -    34
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  -O-RC-   199   199   000    -    506
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -OSRCK   100   100   000    -    0
235 Unknown_Attribute       -O--C-   099   099   000    -    35
241 Total_LBAs_Written      -O--CK   099   099   000    -    1437217408

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAGS    VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   PO--CK   096   096   010    -    24
  9 Power_On_Hours          -O--CK   098   098   000    -    5256
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       -O--CK   099   099   000    -    47
177 Wear_Leveling_Count     PO--C-   099   099   000    -    2
179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot   PO--C-   096   096   010    -    24
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total  -O--CK   100   100   010    -    0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total  -O--CK   100   100   010    -    0
183 Runtime_Bad_Block       PO--C-   096   096   010    -    24
187 Reported_Uncorrect      -O--CK   099   099   000    -    12
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel -O--CK   074   059   000    -    26
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered  -O-RC-   199   199   000    -    12
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    -OSRCK   099   099   000    -    6
235 Unknown_Attribute       -O--C-   099   099   000    -    38
241 Total_LBAs_Written      -O--CK   099   099   000    -    1482576913

Looking at the reallocated sector counts on even just the first disk shows that it outnumbers the total reallocated sector counts on my fleet of SSDs which now number more than 20. The drives have been reporting unrecovered read errors which is the likely cause of the freezes, noting that all the failed blocks are developed as Runtime Bad Block, rather than program/erase failures. Judging from the SMART data, the 2nd drive is the one that dropped out of the array and was rebuilt – seemingly close to completion by the looks of it. It reports a non-zero CRC error count, as does the fourth drive, which suggests to me that the SATA controller or cabling on the unit may be a bit borderline – two of the cables seem to be bent quite a bit to fit, where a right-angled cable would have fit better, possibly contributing to that.

As much as I thought it couldn’t be the SSD … the evidence was staring me in the face – it was the SSDs. Could it be something in common (e.g. a bad power supply) causing the issue? Perhaps … but that hypothesis went out the window when I discovered others having the same problem months after these units were purchased. The earliest seems to be a deleted post at the tail-end of November 2020.

Lesson 5: Just because your experience with other models from a manufacturer is good, and they may have advantages over other manufacturers such as vertical integration, does not mean that everything they produce will be good.

Learning this, my heart sank. I had recommended these drives based on experience with past models (e.g. 840 PRO, 850 EVO, 960 EVO) which have never skipped a beat. I am an honest guy – I really don’t want to be called out to fix things which is why I suggested they migrate from hard drives with >50k hours on the clock to SSDs … but now …

… there are a stack of potential time-bombs, of which I have not been given the time to check. I had recommended the staff take the time to check the SMART data, perform backups and migrations as necessary. But whether this will be done is up to them.

The one thing that did come out was a firmware update with no known changelog. Perhaps it improves the issue and avoids further premature failures – Samsung had made a misstep with the 840 EVO in the past and patched over it with firmware, so perhaps this one is doing a similar thing. I have advised the staff to update the firmware of all drives that are still running in the hopes it will avoid further problems.

For a drive with five years limited warranty, it is quite shocking to see it fail in under a year. Is this a sign of the perils of a supply-chain issue, a victim of the chip shortage? Is lower-grade NAND making its way into SSDs due to pricing pressures? We may all remember what happened during the Thailand floods which caused issues with the hard drive supply chain – drives coming out around that time in my experience show notably degraded reliability.

FakeRAID Fun

Ideally, one should always image the drives and work from images. But in this case, time was very short – I had two days to work on the machine which includes diagnosis, recovery, restoration and repair and a “budget” of about eight hours of work. Imaging the drives and reassembling them from images would not have been able to be completed in time, given that I had to travel to site with only whatever that could fit into a backpack.

The array was still “intact” in the sense it was degraded but not offline. Knoppix with its mdraid managed to mount the RAID as a single block device, so I decided to run ddrescue against that to an external USB 3.0 SSD in the interests of speed.

After three-and-a-half hours, we were down to about 20MB remaining to recover, so the majority had been read out but concerningly, the errors appeared to be stubborn. Occasionally a retry would go through and you’d get a blip of data here and there, but whether the data was still intact or whether it was just corrupted was not something I could check at this time.

An hour passes, and there is some progress, but it is very slow. All hopes of finishing for the day are dashed – I’ve decided to let it run overnight and left the site to return and complete it tomorrow.

On my return, I found about 10MB remaining to recover, but no progress had been made for several hours. Figuring I had squeezed practically everything out of the existing pair of drives, I decided it was time for an all-or-nothing kamikaze mission with the remaining pair of drives.

The other pair of drives were out-of-sync as one had naturally dropped out and the other was forcibly removed by the lab staff. But given that we have a lot of “holes” in our image, I felt it was better that we fill them with data even if they are from out-of-sync pairs, as it’s better than just filling them with zeroes. Who knows, one can hope the other drives don’t have bad sectors in the same areas.

The first issue was that the other pair of drives are part of a broken array, so they won’t reassemble just by plugging them in. To avoid further damage to the pair that’s still working, both are removed and the two others are connected. I list the RAID information of the broken pair with dmraid -r and note down important information such as the size, start sector and stripe sizes. Seeing the partition table on one drive and not the other, I know which one is the first drive and which is the second, so I go and remove the RAID metadata using dmraid -x [devicename] and then create a corresponding RAID metadata containing the same parameters but as a RAID0 instead, using a command similar to dmraid -f isw -C Raid0 –type 0 –strip 64k –disk “/dev/sda /dev/sdb”. The device size can be optional, if the start sectors are zero – you will just end up with a potentially-larger device with unused sectors at the end.

Lesson 6: Deleting and re-creating the RAID in the BIOS is never a good idea. If anything, I’ve seen it mangle the partition table, as others will then recommend the use of testdisk to recover lost partitions. However, if you do it with dmraid, it seems that doesn’t happen – it’s actually a lot safer this way as you can also backup and restore RAID metadata!

Trying to mount the devices using dmraid -ay gave an error that the RAID set is already active, even though it was not, and this was because mdraid was busy with the devices. One could stop and remove the mdraid device, or in my case, I was lazy and just rebooted the machine to let mdraid pick up the new RAID. As I got the parameters right, the partition table and device size looked right, and mounting read-only allowed me to see subfolders and more.

Restarting ddrescue with the same logfile, we were able to push from 9747kB of lost data down to 297,472 bytes, although we may have suffered some data inconsistency in the process due to mixing the broken RAID disks into the mix.

To validate the solution and check whether it was workable at this level of error, I zeroed the remaining unrecovered sectors in the clone and then cloned just the first partition onto a 2.5″ SSD in a USB 3.0 cradle. The clone was then plugged into the PC, where it successfully booted into Windows and chkdsk gave it a clean bill of health – so the filesystem metadata seemed to make sense. There will still be silent data corruption, so I advised them to reinstall any important software to ensure integrity.

When the Target Becomes the Patient

The next step came to resize the data partition to become smaller so that the whole 1TB disk can be written to a single 500GB spare SSD (yes, another Samsung 870 EVO, but one I had performed a full-surface test on and upgraded the firmware). During this process, however, the drive containing the recovered image decided to spew errors too …

It was at this point I was really frustrated. So close, yet so far … and I have VAVA to thank for this one. Thankfully, as I cloned the first partition to a second SSD, I cloned the full partition back over the error, which did not lead to a reallocation, resized the partition then cloned the result to the target 870 EVO.

Lesson 7: You can suffer a failure of the target medium during a recovery procedure. When things seem to be going well, they can also go badly. Having a copy of the copy can save your bacon!

The result was now a working system, with only minor filesystem inconsistencies in the data partition. I had advised them of the possibility of silent data rot, but did not track down which files were affected. I had also advised them to back-up the result ASAP, as that was the only real “guaranteed” copy.

In the end, I ended up with nine hours for this job, which was done in-time for the technician’s return visit. But in turn, I incurred about six hours of travel time across two days to make it happen … this is why I don’t like having to do these jobs and if anything, my advise is always to try and avoid having to be called out for emergencies.

Conclusion

Samsung SSDs were a no-brainer recommendation for me – vertical integration, large volumes, excellent performance and solid warranties were just what we needed. It’s no surprise they have the largest share in the SSD market. However, after this experience, I cannot make a blanket recommendation of Samsung SSDs any more. Four drives in a RAID, all suffering failures resulting in actual data loss, with reallocated sector counts much higher than I’ve ever seen before and more failures potentially to surface in the future. I am not the only one to have suffered and the silence around the firmware update doesn’t help either. Does it fix the issue or not? Who knows.

Such an incident has been a blow to my reputation – to recommend these drives is perhaps one of my biggest mistakes and I can only offer my apologies. But worse still, it has cost me time and frustration in trying to salvage whatever is left – in part due to the failure and in part due to a failure of the staff to follow recommendations to maintain backups and vigilance around the drive’s health status. I really don’t want to be called out to attend these issues as I’ve always got more important things to do – but when I am called out, I know it’s because there’s no other option and I still care enough about them to rescue them from the situation as best as I can. Their own IT team don’t want anything to do with legacy systems.

The experience has ended up with me learning a bit about using dmraid under Linux to get out of sticky RAID situations. I generally dislike FakeRAIDs, but now that I know such tools can be used to do some metadata mangling, I’m less afraid of being confronted by broken arrays. I also learned (the hard way) that the recovery medium itself can fail – in this case, another SSD which had been pre-qualified and I did not expect to cause issues. Is it a sign that modern SSDs may not be as reliable as older SSDs due to supply-chain issues or a race-to-the-bottom that prioritises price and profit over reliability?

21 Aug 01:02

What You Need To Remember Before The Handmaid's Tale Season 5

by Fatemeh Mirjalili

It has been nearly a year since "The Handmaid's Tale" season 4 ended with the most shocking cliffhanger of all time, surprising viewers with its jaw-dropping conclusion. The series is based on author Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel of the same name and is the first production from Hulu to win significant accolades, including being the first series on a streaming service to win an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series. "The Handmaid's Tale" has been lauded for its addition of seemingly real-life metaphors and has become synonymous with the unsettling political climate in the United States. The show has come a long way since season 1. It depicts dystopia at its most tragic state, unraveling the story of Gilead, a totalitarian patriarchal society with rigid systemic beliefs that take away women's rights and treat them, basically, as baby-making machines.

Season 4 concluded a while ago, and it was the show's most noteworthy season yet. A lot happened that spells uncertainty for June's (Elisabeth Moss) future, so here's a reminder of all you need to remember before the show's fifth season hits the streaming service on September 14, 2022.

Fred Waterford Is Gone

Despite being stuck in Canada, Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) rose to power and managed to cut a deal for freedom in exchange for his intelligence on Gilead's laws and regulations. He was very close to succeeding with his plans, but at the right time, Commander Lawrence's (Bradley Whitford) assistance helps June push back. As her slow-bubbling vengeance rose to the surface, June orchestrates her revenge, so her abuser could get what he deserved. 

Along with her fellow Handmaid refugees, June chases after Fred in No Man's Land. What ensued next is the most suspenseful sequence the series has seen yet: Fred runs for his life as he is chased after, beaten up, and brutally murdered. In the end, we see his decapitated body hanging on the wall. Fred's gone — and this won't sit well with Gilead's population, or even Canada (since June sought asylum there), and she'll have to face the music for what she's done. Fred was a central character, so the ripple effect of his death is sure to be seen in season 5. It's an important event to remember before watching the new season!

Serena Doesn't Know What's Coming

Last we saw Serena (Yvonne Strahovski), she was pregnant, not a big fan of her husband, and trying to stir up something with Mark Tuello (Sam Jaeger), a representative of the U.S. Government-in-Exile. After June murdered her husband, she mailed Serena his ring and severed finger — a show of power as if to threaten her about who's in charge.

While season 4 doesn't suggest Serena has learned of her new status as a widower yet, the trailer for the fifth season hints she's not going to take it well. Her husband had captured the attention of the Gilead government for revealing their system's secrets, and now that he's dead, and Serena's widowed and pregnant, there's a possibility of her repenting for her husband's betrayal. She could be forced to become a handmaid upon her return to Gilead. It's uncertain how brutally the government of Canada will treat Serena — and even if she's awarded freedom, it won't be easy for her to live in peace, knowing her husband's murderer is on a vengeful rampage and could come for her next.

Commander Lawrence Supports June ... For Now

If we've learned anything from "The Handmaid's Tale" season 4, Commander Joseph Lawrence appears to be on June's side for some reason. We've already witnessed that Lawrence is well known as the architect of Gilead's closed economy and had a hand in forming the severe colonies. So why would he help June and save 22 women from their fate of oppression in exchange for Fred?

Whether this resulted from his indifference toward Fred or his desire to help June remains to be seen. The storyline for season 5 explains that Commander Lawrence will be working with Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) to "reform Gilead and rise in power." Whatever path that takes, we'll have to wait and see. But for now, it's safe to say it is possible Commander Lawrence may aid June in her quest to save her daughter Hannah, who has been living in Gilead since the beginning of the series.

In The Eyes Of The Law, June Is A Criminal

There's simply no way June can get away with murder — it feels impossible that Gilead won't do anything about it. Their sentiments toward Fred Waterford might be nonexistent, but the patriarchal society will not sit by and watch a woman take matters into her own hands. As Gilead's influence creeps into Canada, June will have to face the aftermath of what she's done.

The end of season 4 had the show's biggest cliffhanger yet: June returns home, bloodied from the events of Fred's murder, and cradles baby Nichole in her arms. When her husband, Luke (O-T Fagbenle), witnesses the scene, a realization hits him — there's no going back from the choice June has made for herself. June then informes Luke she would be leaving home soon, she just needed five minutes to bid her daughter goodbye. This signals that June knows she needs to disappear before her crime catches up to her, but whether it leads her back to Gilead is yet to be seen. The plot for season 5 has suggested June will continue fighting Gilead "from a distance" as she embarks on a mission to reunite with and save her daughter Hannah, so maybe there's some hope for her after all.

June Has Chosen Nick Over Luke

June made some big decisions in "The Handmaid's Tale" season 4 finale — not just about life and death, but also about her love life. Her romantic life has long represented the split in her narrative: Nick represents her present, and her husband, Luke, represents her past — and maybe a safer future. The only disparity is Luke cannot see June for who she has become, and her thirst for revenge is pretty off-putting to him.

Nick might not know who June used to be, but he knows and understands her now, which is something she desperately needs. She doesn't need a reminder of her past life — nor does she have the strength to think about a bright future unless she gets what she wants: to save her daughter from the clutches of Gilead. It's not like Nick and June can have a life together, either — he's married now (we saw him wearing a wedding ring, remember?) and lives in Gilead, and cannot do much but support her from there. The season 4 finale ended by illustrating a rift between June and Luke, so they may need to put some distance between each other and figure things out on their own for now.

Janine Is Doing What It Takes To Survive

Janine's (Madeline Brewer) season 4 journey ended with her cozying up to Aunt Lydia (who, by the way, has a strange soft spot for her) and doing what it takes to survive in Gilead. She's taken Esther (McKenna Grace), a former wife-turned-handmaid, under her wing, and there's something mysterious going on there. Janine hasn't forgiven Aunt Lydia for her crimes against her; she has lost two children (and an eye) to Gilead, and there must be some reason for her increasingly close association with Aunt Lydia.

There's always been a rebellion in Gilead — albeit hidden from the eyes of those who might harm them. Seeing Janine and Esther lead a revolution of their own in season 5 would be very interesting. We've already seen what Esther is capable of, and for Janine, well, anger is a great motivation. It's also essential to note that nobody's nice to Aunt Lydia unless they have an agenda of their own.

"The Handmaid's Tale" season 5 will premiere its first two episodes on Hulu on September 14, 2022.

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The post What You Need to Remember Before The Handmaid's Tale Season 5 appeared first on /Film.