Late last year, I moved into my first-ever apartment without a dishwasher, and it quickly became clear that my precious little dish-washing system wasn’t up to the task at hand. Still, I stubbornly resisted buying a countertop dishwasher for months. What, I wondered, could I possibly gain from parking an appliance…
Windows 11 has a stowaway, as Internet Explorer hasn't completely retired from the browser scene. It turns out there's a way to get Microsoft's redundant application running on the latest version of Windows, as it's still lurking within your gaming PC or laptop's operating system.
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Ice Code Games may have called it Hard West 2, but 'round these parts we refer to it as "The Laughing Deer Show". New to town, are ya? Let me clue you in. Laughing Deer is a six-foot man of raw muscle and rage, a native American warrior with shoulders like a pair of yoked oxen and a personality best described as "barely contained". Unlike the rest of his posse, which includes a cowboy without a shadow, a woman with ties to the occult, and one very stubborn corpse, Laughing Deer doesn't really "do" guns. While his compatriots are all crouched behind crates, ricocheting bullets off buckets and wheelbarrows to hit enemies from behind, Laughing Deer is getting in their faces (shortly before his club gets significantly further into their faces).
Now, bringing a club to a gunfight might not seem like the smartest idea. But while pistols require two of a gunslinger's action points to shoot, and rifles take all three, it only takes one action point to whack some neckerchief-wearing bandit with a big ol' stick. And Laughing Deer whacks a whole point of damage harder than normal, meaning he can rush foes and nail them into the ground with a couple of hard swings before they can pull the trigger. Better yet, killing an enemy completely refills a character's action points in Hard West, meaning that, when set up right, Laughing Deer can ping around the battlefield like a weaponised pinball.
To grill is human, but to smoke is dad-like. Smoke is the so-called “third leg” of BBQ. It adds flavor, and helps build that sought after bark, and is what makes BBQ taste like BBQ. To make smoke, you need to burn some wood (or pellets), and nearly every smoking tutorial will tell you that the wood chips or chunks…
What's the worst thing that can happen over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend? Maybe your flights got delayed. Perhaps, the football game you were excited about ended in disappointment. A few awkward dinner conversations or a less-than satisfying meal may have made the holiday evening a little bit uncomfortable for your tastes. However, that can't compare with the truly nightmarish events that take place in Denis Villeneuve's 2013 thriller "Prisoners."
There aren't a lot of quintessential "Thanksgiving movies," but "Prisoners" is about as different from "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" as you can get. Set in Pennsylvania, the film follows two families celebrating Thanksgiving dinner together. In the hours before the table is set, the two young girls Anna Dover (Erin Gerasimovich) and Joy Birch (Kyla-Drew Simmons) go missing. This leads to chaos within the household, and after a frantic search, the two families are unable to locate the children. The police dispatch Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) to investigate the girls' disappearance, and he discovers that there might be much more to the case than he had expected.
If you loved "Prisoners," you owe it to yourself to check out these great films as well.
One of the most disturbing storylines in "Prisoners" is Keller Dover's (Hugh Jackman) fascination with a mysterious man, Alex Jones (Paul Dano), whom he believes is involved in his daughter's kidnapping. Although Loki tells Dover that they can't arrest Jones without evidence, this only makes Dover more angry; he insists that the law isn't going far enough, and decides to take matters into his own hands.
The question of whether "good" people are capable of doing heinous things is the premise of another excellent crime film, 2018's "American Animals." The film is told in a quasi-narrative, quasi-documentary style. It centers on the story of four students at Transylvania University, who decide to rob their school library in order to steal a priceless artifact. Intertwined with real interviews with these young men are dramatic interpretations of how Warren Lipka (Evan Peters), Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan), Chas Allen III (Blake Jenner), and Eric Borsuk (Jared Abrahamson) pulled off their scheme. While they aren't motivated by greed, these four young men believe that there is something missing in their lives, and that robbing the library may satisfy them.
To a character like Dover, love means plunging in head-first to save your children, regardless of your familiarity with the situation or your qualifications to do so. Dover views himself as more than just the patriarch of his family: He believes that it is his duty to protect them no matter what, and he's willing to put his life on the line to do so.
If you're interested in another claustrophobic mystery about the perils of modern fatherhood, Tom McCarthy's underrated thriller "Stillwater" deserves another look. The film looks at the extent that a man will go to in order to protect his children from legal persecution, even when he's unclear about the details of the case itself.
Matt Damon gives one of the best performances of his career as the Oklahoma roughneck Bill Baker, whose daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) is imprisoned in France for killing her girlfriend. Baker knows nothing about legal procedures or the French justice system. Facing no alternatives, he heads to the foreign country to begin Allison's defense. As he pries deeper into the case, Baker realizes that Allison has been hiding things from him.
Just one moment of violence or panic can reveal a deeper truth about someone's identity. In "Prisoners," both Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard) and Dover show their true colors when they investigate Jones. While Dover is unwilling to see Jones free until he has found his daughter safe and sound, Birch admits that the entire situation has made him very uncomfortable.
True identity is revealed within a critical moment in David Cronenberg's 2005 masterpiece "A History of Violence." The film stars Viggo Mortensen as Tom Stall, a kind-hearted bartender at a small diner in Indiana. In a shocking moment, Tom's diner is robbed by two criminals who harass and threaten his staff. Fearing that things could get worse, Tom kills the two men. He is celebrated as a hero by his community, but Tom's family begins to have doubts about what he could be keeping secret. If Tom was able to easily dispatch with these two low-level criminals, what else is he hiding from them?
In "Prisoners," Dover decides to take the law into his own hands. He finds himself irritated by Loki's lack of progress, and feels that the formal procedural strategies that the cops are using are only slowing things down. While "Prisoners" isn't necessarily a "vigilante" movie, it deals with the nature of untraditional justice.
Scott Cooper's highly underrated 2013 film "Out of the Furnace" explores a similar theme of desperation. Like "Prisoners," the film is set within a small Pennsylvania town that feels isolated from the larger world. Russell Baze (Christian Bale) is looking forward to reuniting with his brother, Rodney (Casey Affleck), who served in the military and suffers from extreme post-traumatic stress disorder. Rodney's reckless and illegal activities put him in a dangerous position, and Russell is forced to enter his brother's world. He cares very deeply for Rodney, and doesn't want to see him face the consequences for his rash actions.
At what point are criminal actions justified if they seemingly serve the "greater good" of the community? This is a controversial moral debate that "Prisoners" tackles head-on. Dover sees his potentially malicious actions as necessary; he's willing to do what no one else would do in order to ensure the safety of those who are innocent.
These questions of who has the right to enact justice are at the heart of Cory Finley's dazzling 2018 directorial debut "Thoroughbreds," which combines heady philosophical debates with teenage anxiety. The black-comedy thriller follows two very different girls who are drawn together in a crime storyline: Amanda (Olivia Cooke), a loner struggling in school, and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is bright and popular. Lily agrees to help tutor Amanda, and as they begin to bond, both girls grow irritated by Lily's obnoxious stepfather, Mark (Paul Sparks).
The two plot a murder scheme, but they're forced to question the aftermath of their planned crime. What will Mark's murder solve, and if they are ever caught, who should have to bear the consequences?
Part of the reason that "Prisoners" was so thrilling was that it wasn't a crime movie that centered on the perspective of law enforcement. These characters aren't experienced and they don't know the first thing about putting together an investigation. Although Dover is obviously a force to be reckoned with given his hunting experience, he finds that he's bitten off more than he can chew when he attempts to solve his daughter's disappearance.
Clint Eastwood has a long history of playing cops, detectives, and secret agents. However, in his 2018 film "The Mule," Eastwood doesn't play a character with any of those skills. In this incredible true story, Eastwood stars as Earl Stone, a kindly horticulturalist who has dedicated his life to work. Stone is constantly concerned about money, and misses family functions out of embarrassment. When he attends his granddaughter Ginny's (Taissa Farmiga) wedding rehearsal, he connects with members of the drug cartel. Earl agrees to become a drug runner, also known as a "mule," as he thinks that no one would suspect him of smuggling cocaine. Although "The Mule" is a little bit more idiosyncratic and optimistic than "Prisoners" is, it explores similar characters that take on dangerous responsibilities in order to do what they think is best for their families.
"Prisoners" has very strong paternal themes. During the beginning of the film, Dover and his son, Ralph (Dylan Minnette), drive to attend the Thanksgiving dinner. Dover shares his bleak worldview with his son, and they struggle to connect emotionally. Dover wants to forge the perfect life for both of his children, but in many ways, he doesn't really know much about them as individuals.
These themes of contorted paternal love are at the heart of Sam Mendes' riveting 2002 drama "Road to Perdition." Based on the graphic novel of the same name by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner, the film follows a critical series of decisions made by the violent gangster Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks). Sullivan has been mentored by his employer, the mob boss John Rooney (Paul Newman). Rooney has come to think of Sullivan to be like a son to him; Rooney's actual son, Conor (Daniel Craig), is violent and unpredictable. As a result, Conor detests Michael. Meanwhile, Sullivan wants to escape from the world of crime and provide a better, more hopeful future for his own son, Michael Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin).
After Michael Jr. witnesses a murder, Sullivan is forced to flee with his son, and the trip gives them a chance to connect with each other on an emotional level. It's a story gripping story of loyalty, betrayal, and retribution — and it's a must-see for any fans of Depression-era mob movies.
Generational trauma and grief are common themes in crime films; fittingly, "Prisoners" explores how certain events can cause such pain and suffering in the future. Yet, sometimes a story is more powerful when you already know the conclusion. On its own, the 2021 crime thriller "The Many Saints of Newark" is a riveting character drama about DiMeo crime family soldier Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) spiralling into violent and self-destructive behavior. "The Many Saints of Newark" is a prequel to the acclaimed HBO series "The Sopranos," so going in, the viewer already knows that they are seeing the story of a young Tony Soprano (Michael Gandolfini). The events that take place in "The Many Saints of Newark" are Tony's origin story: although he does so inadvertently, Dickie sends his mentee on a dark and tragic path.
The film works as a character-based crime drama with familial themes. "The Sopranos" fans know that this young boy, who is mistreated and out of place within his community, will grow up to become a crime boss. Those who have never seen the show simply see a tragic figure that is doomed to a life of crime and violence.
Just one bad decision can lead to a lifetime of pain and suffering. These are the consequences that the characters in "Prisoners" are forced to consider. What if Holly (Melissa Leo) had been kinder to Alex? What if Dover had shared everything that he learned with Loki? What if Birch had stood up for himself? What if these two families had never agreed to spend the holiday together? While it can be depressing to think about all the different scenarios that emerge from "what if" questions, the characters in "Prisoners" contemplate how different things may have been if they had made other choices.
The 1987 crime thriller "Street Smart" explores a character who is forced to face the consequences of just one misdeed. The magazine reporter Jonathan Fisher (Christopher Reeve) is in a difficult period within his career, and fears for his job. He simply is not able to land pitches anymore. Out of desperation, Fisher falsifies a profile story about a street pimp named Leo Smalls, also known as "Fast Black." The story becomes an overnight success. Unfortunately, there is also a real "Leo Smalls" (Morgan Freeman) in the area, and he's not too pleased when he hears about the story. Fisher is thrust into the world of crime as a result of his false writing.
As you probably guessed, "Bad Boys" — Michael Bay's buddy cop movie starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence — isn't exactly the type of "elevated crime thriller" that you could compare to "Prisoners." That being said, the 1983 film that shares its title is a much more intimate crime drama. It's unfortunate that it's been overshadowed by the action franchise because 1983's "Bad Boys" actually contains one of the best performances of Sean Penn's career.
Like "Prisoners," "Bad Boys" explores nuanced characters who are forced to make difficult decisions based on the circumstances that they are in. Penn stars as Mick O'Brien, a Chicago teenager who is involved in small-time crimes. Mick is imprisoned after he accidentally kills a child during the getaway of a heist. Naturally, Mick is wracked with guilt — particularly because he has just lost his best friend, Carl Brennan (Alan Ruck) and he feels that he is responsible for Carl's death. The coming-of-age crime drama is tense, gripping, and compelling, thanks largely to Penn's performance.
"Prisoners" has many surprising plot twists. While the events of the film initially all appear to be coincidental, Villeneuve reveals at the very end that things were linked in ways that the audience did not expect. This is an effective storytelling technique to keep the viewers engaged; the obvious draw within the story is the location of the children, but a plot twist involving Holly's role in their disappearance ends up making the ending even more powerful.
Paul Thomas Anderson delivered an incredible plot twist in his highly underrated directorial debut, the 1997 film "Hard Eight." "Hard Eight" follows an unusual friendship that emerges between the veteran gambler Sydney Brown (Phillip Baker Hall) and the homeless young man John Finnegan (John C Reilly). Sydney becomes John's mentor, and they venture out to Las Vegas so that they can begin a gambling spree. John becomes indoctrinated in Sydney's world, but he's unaware of his mentor's dark past.
"Prisoners" questions who has the right to solve a crime, particularly one that involves the safety of an entire community. If the lives of innocent children are in danger, shouldn't everyone work together to keep them safe? The 1931 classic German film "M" explores this premise by putting together an unusual group of protagonists.
After several children are murdered in Berlin, the police begin putting together an investigation to find the elusive serial killer Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre). However, the criminal underworld begins to pool their resources together at the same time to solve the crime. It's interesting to see how these two different procedures proceed, and how they share a common goal.
Like Villeneuve, "M" director Fritz Lang knew the importance of setting a grim atmosphere. The opening moments that use the song "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg are absolutely haunting, and Lorre's demented performance as Hans is one of the most terrifying villains in screen history.
"Prisoners" forces its characters to reveal their darker aspects when they are under desperate circumstances. The line between good and evil is something that Clint Eastwood also explored in his riveting 2003 drama "Mystic River." Based on Dennis Lehane's novel of the same name, the film follows three childhood friends in Boston who are united by a childhood tragedy. In the years that have passed, Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn), Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon), and Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins) have all gone their separate ways.
Jimmy is now a well-known troublemaker within their community, Sean is a detective on the police force, and Dave is a caring family man. However, these three are united again by another tragedy when Jimmy's daughter, Katie (Emmy Rossum), is found murdered. As Sean begins a formal investigation, Jimmy begins to suspect that the killer may be someone he knows.
Greed and maliciousness have their consequences. "Prisoners" deals with how the characters' mistakes begin to affect their lives, their relationships with their families, and their futures. These ideas are critical to Billy Wilder's 1944 noir classic "Double Indemnity." Both "Prisoners" and "Double Indemnity" are enthralling mysteries that engage their viewers with their morally ambiguous characters.
Based on the crime novel of the same name by James M. Cain, "Double Indemnity" follows an unusual relationship that emerges between the shady insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and the independent housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck). Phyllis wants to kill her husband (Tom Powers) in order to reap the benefits of his accidental death. Walter has begun to fall in love with Phyllis, and becomes intertwined within her schemes. "Double Indemnity" has been cited as one of the classic films within the noir genre, and had a huge impact on the genre.
"Prisoners" is a challenging piece of filmmaking that asks the audience to question the supposedly "heroic" characters' motivations and goals. Can anyone in "Prisoners" be truly defined as the protagonist? There is a moral ambiguity to the film that makes it more interesting, but Villeneuve is hardly the first filmmaker to tackle this type of difficult subject material.
Orson Welles frequently cast himself as untraditional protagonists in the films that he directed. While he's best known for "Citizen Kane," Welles had a fondness for crime films as well. His 1947 masterpiece "The Lady From Shanghai" is a dark morality tale, inspired by the novel "If I Die Before I Wake" by Sherwood King. Welles stars as Michael O'Hara, an Irish sailor who finds himself accused of murder after getting involved with a dangerous woman (Rita Hayworth). If you can deal with Welles' shaky accent, then "The Lady From Shanghai" is a real gem!
Read this next: 13 Box Office Bombs That Are Truly Worth A Watch
The post 15 Movies Like Prisoners That You Need to See appeared first on /Film.
Starz has given official confirmation that the "Outlander" prequel series is happening, according to Variety. "Outlander: Blood of My Blood" will focus on the story of original series main character Jamie Fraser's (Sam Heughan) parents, Ellen MacKenzie and Brian Fraser.
"Outlander" is based on the novels by Diana Gabaldon, and has proved to be one of Starz's most successful TV shows. It's the story of Claire (Caitríona Balfe), a married WWII nurse who visits some standing stones in Scotland and finds herself transported back in time to 1743, where she meets and falls in love with Scotsman Jamie Fraser. The show aired its sixth season in spring 2022 and is currently filming a seventh season comprised of 16 episodes, based on the book "An Echo in the Bone."
Prequels can be tricky, particularly because fans (and the "Outlander" fans are devoted ones) already know the story and outcome for Ellen and Brian. That said, book readers, myself included, knew what was likely to happen in the series, and that didn't stop it from being really wonderful. Let's take a look at everything we know so far about "Outlander: Blood of My Blood."
As stated earlier, this will be the story of Ellen MacKenzie and her eventual husband Brian Fraser, the memories of whom often loom large in the current story. Ellen was a young woman who grew up in the Scottish Highlands in Castle Leoch. Her father wasn't willing to force her to marry someone she didn't love. She was close to one of her brothers, Colum, who was ill, and their relationship gave her access to occasionally be part of some of the clan decisions. When her father died, her brothers tried to get her into a political marriage, but she insulted the man and ran off with Brian Fraser. They stayed away until she was visibly pregnant, and her clan was forced to accept their marriage.
Likely (and this is my own speculation), "Outlander: Blood of My Blood" will explore their budding romance, the political maneuverings, and the beginnings of their new family. That means we'll probably get to see a very young Jenny and Jamie. Gabaldon has said that she's working on a prequel novel about Jamie's parents, so that may steer the story along.
We don't have any announced cast members yet. Ellen was never seen in the current series, though Brian, played by actor Andrew Whipp, did appear in flashbacks in season 1. Whipp's appearance came when Jamie was an adult, so it's probably unlikely that we'll see him return as a younger Brian.
We do know about the people behind the series though, and that information should make fans happy. "Outlander" executive producer and showrunner Matthew B. Roberts will serve in the same capacity for "Blood of My Blood," and a writers room was created for the prequel earlier this year. In addition to Roberts, we also have Gabaldon attached as consulting producer. Ronald D. Moore, who developed the first series, will executive produce with Maril Davis (also on the original series) through their Tall Ship Productions, in collaboration with Sony Pictures Television.
Kathryn Busby, president of original programming at Starz, told Variety:
"'Outlander' is a riveting show that from season to season has captured the hearts of its fans around the world. We are excited to peel back the layers of this vibrant world to bring our audience the origin of where it all began. Matthew, Maril and Ronald will continue to bring their excellent vision and creativity to this new iteration, and we can't wait to see what happens next."
There is no release date yet for "Outlander: Blood of My Blood," but we'll keep you updated as more information becomes available.
Read this next: The 15 Best Historical Romance Movies Ranked
The post Outlander: Blood of My Blood: Everything We Know So Far About the Prequel Series appeared first on /Film.
Who doesn't love a good video game sidekick? I've been playing through some of the old Ratchet & Clank games with a friend, and while A Crack in Time is one of the best of the series, my biggest gripe is that we don't get enough Ratchet and Clank quality time. Maybe I'm just too sentimental, but I really love seeing best buddy characters in my games, and Clank makes just about the best sidekick a girl could ask for.
He's got it all — an adorable personality, quippy dialogue, useful game mechanics, he never gets in the way, and his gameplay sections break things up and provide some cool puzzle mechanics. Clank is so awesome, he got me thinking about some other great — and not so great — sidekicks in video games.
The most classic example is Ashley from Resident Evil 4, and one of the most tedious, awful escort missions in the history of gaming. I haven't played any of the Resident Evil games because I'm too much of a wimp, and even I know about this trainwreck. Players have used Ashley as the prime example of annoying sidekick characters and escort missions for years now, to the point that her name is evoked at game studios when discussing what not to do. She's whiny, she gets in the way, and requires help to do basic tasks like using a ladder, which then triggers a long animation you have to wait through.
Ashley is less of a sidekick and more of a walking embodiment of frustrating game mechanics. Having another character around to bounce off of both narratively and in gameplay can be a huge asset, but when buddy AI is bad, it's really, really bad.
Then we have characters like Elizabeth from BioShock Infinite or Ellie from The Last of Us, who feel like direct answers to the Ashleys of the world. They don't get in the way, they help you out in combat and restock your ammo, and they play a big part in the story as well-written, complex characters. Ellie still needs help crossing any body of water because she can't swim, but I find that small annoyance pretty forgivable considering she's one of the best video game characters of all time.
Luigi is another character who always makes the best sidekicks lists, which isn't surprising considering he was pretty much the first famous sidekick out there. He's so iconic he even graduated to the main character of his own games, which is more than most other characters on this list.
Then there are the characters like Navi, Cortana, or Ghost who serve as a utility as well as side characters, which is a pretty good way to do things when you want the player to have ultimate freedom, but still convey important information to them in an interesting way.
B-12 from the recent release Stray is another great example of a sidekick character who is super helpful in gameplay, but also adds a ton to the narrative. Plus, even sidekicks like these that don't get a ton of screen time are still beloved by fans because they're well-written (maybe with the exception of Navi on this one) and add to the game's overall narrative experience.
With single-player games seemingly on the decline these days, the sidekicks are fewer and further between, so this is my plea for developers to put more adorable, funny, interesting side characters in our games. In the past, they may have hurt the experience more than they've helped it, but the more recent sidekicks have come away being one of the best parts of their respective game's experience. Just gimme a little buddy, and I'll be happy.
Who is your favorite video game sidekick?
Story Beat is a weekly column discussing anything and everything to do with storytelling in video games.
The post There’s nothing better than a good video game sidekick appeared first on Destructoid.
In the prior blog entry, I worked to document the titles, credits and logos affixed to the theatrical releases of the Godzilla series. Not all those films were given a wide theatrical release and as the blog entry covering theatrical releases was rather long, I decided to talk about the films which did not have theatrical releases in this entry.
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Today is a beautiful day: the "Beavis and Butt-Head" revival is now streaming on Paramount+. The animated series about the misadventures of two of the world's stupidest high-schoolers comes after the streaming service released "Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe," a feature-length film that explained how the boys made it to 2022 without aging a bit. (It involves space travel and wormholes... huh huh... holes.) Now the boys are back, and just as boneheaded as ever, and that means that creator Mike Judge had to come up with some fun new trouble for the duo to get into.
One thing fans won't see these 2-D doofuses do is sing, however, and there's one very good reason: "South Park." That's right, the other cartoon about foul-mouthed, immature boys already did the musical thing in their 1999 movie, "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut," and Judge wasn't about to try to top the musical madness of that movie.
Judge shared his excitement about the series release with The Hollywood Reporter, and revealed that while we might not get a musical episode, there is a fun musical moment in at least one episode of the new "Beavis and Butt-Head." It's just not something you can dance to.
In the interview, Judge explained that someone pitched a musical episode, but he thought "South Park" had already done that "better than anybody ever." So instead they went with a story where Beavis has a conversation with a literal dumpster fire:
"One of the ideas in that was that fire would be a character. Then [writer] Lew Morton and I just started kicking that idea around that the fire is not telling him to do anything bad. It was so fun to write. Actually, back in the '90s, there was still that lingering thing from the late '80s about how metal albums were accused of putting in backward messaging. And I actually had a couple of cases where Beavis starts talking backward, and if you played that backward, he's saying, 'Stay in school and go to college.' I knew if I put him talking backward, somebody's going to go after the show, and that's what they discovered."
In the late '80s, parents were worried about "backmasking," in which audio that sounds like jibberish is actually dialogue played in reverse. There are stories of parents playing their kids' records backward and discovering prayers to Satan and dangerous instructions, so having Beavis speak backwards and give kids good instructions is pretty darn funny. At least no one will ever get confused by a "huh huh," because that's the same backwards and forwards!
"Beavis and Butt-Head" is now streaming on Paramount+.
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The post You Can Blame South Park for Beavis and Butt-Head Not Getting a Musical Episode appeared first on /Film.
Depending on who you ask, "South Park" is the edgiest or most problematic show on television. The show's legacy is heavily debated, with many finding it to be one of the last vestiges of envelope-pushing content available for mass audiences, and others believing it to be responsible for the boom of alt-right terrorists. I'm not here to proselytize anyone into worshiping at the altar of creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, nor am I foolish enough to believe "South Park" is protected from criticism for its history of problematic content and casual bigotry. Talking about "South Park" is not a black-and-white issue, and their approach to comedy forces audiences to explore the moral gray area. Whether or not audiences actually understand the message beneath the satire is an entirely different conversation.
People often say, "I can't believe 'South Park' is still on the air," or bemoan that the show hasn't been canceled yet. But the longevity of the series, in my opinion, is proof positive that one of the biggest criticisms thrown at the show is incorrect. "South Park" can, does, and already has evolved with the changing social landscape. Revisiting all 25 seasons of the series in time for the show's anniversary was eye-opening in a multitude of ways, but one of the biggest revelations was noticing the way "South Park" actively retconned some of their own problematic history, right under our noses, without any pomp and circumstance. "South Park" is still on TV because the show is constantly evolving as it does in nature — completely undetected until compared to the origins, something more comedies could benefit from trying. Here are some of the most prominent ways "South Park" has grown over the last two-and-a-half decades.
Liane Cartman was named after the ex-fiance of Trey Parker, who had apparently cheated on him when they were together, which is likely why the early seasons of "South Park" are so relentlessly cruel toward the character (the horse in "Cannibal! The Musical" has the same name for the same reason). Liane Cartman is presented as an immoral character deserving of mistreatment because she's posed for "Crack Whore Magazine" and appeared in German scheisse films, and she's punished for these actions by having to be the parent of the bigoted sociopath better known as Eric Cartman. Liane is noticeably one of the only single parents in "South Park," and the identity of Cartman's father was the center of the season 1 cliffhanger finale. The entire town is invested in who could be the father, because it's implied that Liane has slept with every man in town, as well as the entire Denver Broncos football team.
The season 2 episode "Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Sl*t" gives us the answer, revealing Eric's father to be Liane, and that she was born intersex. First of all, they don't correctly identify her as intersex, they call her a "hermaphrodite," which is an offensive term to the intersex community. The reveal also inspires most of the men in South Park to start projectile vomiting like in "The Crying Game" or "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective," playing into offensive transphobic tropes.
In the highly controversial episodes "200" and "201," "South Park" stopped treating Liane Cartman as the punchline for Cartman's parental lineage and instead correctly reframed the reveal to be an insult to the person who deserves it most: Eric Cartman. Back in season 5, Cartman orchestrated the murder of Jack and Mrs. Tenorman, the parents of Cartman's nemesis, Scott Tenorman. Once the two were killed, Cartman used the meat from their corpses for a chili recipe and managed to trick Scott into eating his own parents. This was the defining moment that solidified Cartman as being so much worse than "Archie Bunker as a child," and identified him as truly irredeemable.
In episode "201," it's revealed that Cartman's real father was Jack Tenorman, and the lie regarding Liane's biological sex was concocted to protect the reputation of the Denver Broncos, as he was playing right tackle at the time of Eric's conception. This reveal immediately pivoted the joke from "Ha ha, Cartman sucks because his mom is intersex" to "Ha ha, Cartman sucks because he killed his own father and fed him to his half-brother." Obviously the joke is bleak as hell, but it was a fantastic way to remedy one of their most unnecessarily offensive long-running jokes. As of today? Liane Cartman is currently undergoing a complete character overhaul — and finally standing up for herself.
Timmy Burch, Big Gay Al, Pip, and Officer Barbrady are some of the most memorable characters in "South Park" history, but we don't see a lot of them in recent seasons, and with good reason. Timmy was introduced in the fourth season, and according to the show's commentary track, Comedy Central didn't want him to be a part of the show at all, fearful that it would be too controversial to have a character with a mental disability. Stone and Parker fought for the inclusion of Timmy, citing that the children treat him as an equal and part of the group. The show has no desire to mock Timmy for his disability, but instead to draw attention to how uncomfortable adults are with his existence.
Big Gay Al was often used to discuss LGBTQIA+ issues, with his introductory episode "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride" being nominated for an Emmy and a GLAAD award. In season 5, Big Gay Al has another prominent role as the South Park scout troop leader, who is fired from his job for being gay as the parents offensively equate his homosexuality with child abuse. Pip is straight-up a parody of the character from "Great Expectations," and Officer Barbrady is the stereotype of every bumbling idiot small-town cop. Despite their immeasurable contributions to the success of the show during its early years, they've all been slowly written out of the spotlight (or killed off, in the case of Pip).
Timmy has essentially been replaced by Jimmy Valmer as the go-to disabled character on "South Park," often alternating with Butters and Tolkien as the unofficial "fifth member" of the core group of boys. Jimmy doesn't have the limited vocabulary Timmy does, which allows him to make statements on disability rights that are more accessible through the animated, comedy medium. Timmy does still show up from time to time, even shown walking with a cane in the "Post Covid" special. Big Gay Al and Mr. Slave are shown to be happily married, with "South Park" no longer relying on stereotypes to make commentary on LGBTQIA+ issues. Instead, Tweek and Craig fill this role. Pip was killed in episode "201" because the joke of his existence had run dry, and Officer Barbrady has been replaced by the Park County police force as a whole.
In some instances, the one-note jokes just weren't working anymore, and it was time for "South Park" to leave their stereotypical portrayals in the past. In terms of Officer Barbrady, it's clear Parker and Stone recognized their tackling of the criminal justice system required a much bigger scope and could no longer be relegated to "one bad cop." If something doesn't work anymore, it's time to let it go. As much as I will forever hold a nostalgic place in my heart for Big Gay Al, I hope he's enjoying his married life away from the show's high jinks.
For a very long time, Steve, Linda, and Tolkien Black were the only Black family in the entire town of South Park, with Tolkien's name originally introduced to parody the idea of "the token Black character" trope in entertainment to showcase diversity for the sake of diversity. Tolkien has consistently been one of the most well-adjusted kids on the show, and the Black family was introduced to defy racial stereotypes, as they're also the most wealthy and successful family in town. The longer the show has been on the air, the more prominent a role Tolkien has played in the adventures of the South Park Elementary students. That he was still using a name that was meant to be a way to minimize the importance of a character's representation wasn't in line with how the show was genuinely including him.
In season 25's best episode, "The Big Fix," Parker and Stone remedied the poor name choice in the most "South Park" way possible. Stan learns that Tolkien is named after fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien and realizes he's been mistakenly believing him to be named "Token" for years. He panics, understanding how racist this makes him appear, and is horrified when he discovers that everyone in school knew his name was Tolkien, including Cartman, who only made "Token's Life Matters" shirts with the name spelled wrong because he's an idiot. Impressively, Parker and Stone also had all of the closed-captioning and online information (like Wikipedia, etc.) updated to reflect the change, essentially gaslighting fans as a means to acknowledging the problematic name while offering some great commentary on white fragility.
In another move to affirm the Black family, Trey Parker relinquished his position as the voice of Tolkien's dad Steve, passing the torch to Adrien Beard, who voices Tolkien and also serves as the art director and lead storyboarder on the show. Beard originally voiced the character when he was introduced, but Parker had been voicing him for most of the other episodes. Of course, because "South Park" is "South Park," there was no way in hell Parker was going to make a big announcement regarding the role change the way shows like "Central Park" and "Big Mouth" did in 2020, nor would they outright apologize for having a white man voice the character for decades.
Instead, they included the voice change as a canonical story plot, with Steve Black leaning into his Black identity to compete as an "authentic" weed farmer against Randy Marsh, who was himself trying to tokenize Steve to add legitimacy to his own weed operation. Stephone Davis provided the voice of Steve Black in "Credigree Weed St. Patrick's Day Special" and "The Big Fix," with Beard taking over for "The Streaming Wars." All signs point to the Black family having a much bigger role as "South Park" moves into its 26th year and season, and the show will be better because of it.
The closest thing we're ever going to get to Parker and Stone saying "we f***** up" is the way they have handled their contributions to climate change denial and the delegitimizing of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." First introduced in the sixth season, ManBearPig is a cryptid monster Al Gore tries to warn everyone about, but is mocked relentlessly and the seriousness of the situation is ignored in favor of B-plot nonsense. "ManBearPig" became synonymous with Gore, and the absurdity of the creature made it easy for people to disregard the real-life Al Gore's warnings. Of course, implying that Parker and Stone are somehow responsible for climate change is absolutely ridiculous (the real villain was capitalism and corporate greed all along!), but as the years went on, they knew they made a serious mistake.
In an attempt to make amends for "ManBearPig," Parker and Stone wrote "Time to Get Cereal" and "Nobody Got Cereal?" in the 22nd season, acknowledging the reality (and severity) of ManBearPig, giving Al Gore a medal for having been right all along, and even enlisted the help of Satan to try and stop the beast. The character of ManBearPig also popped up during the two-parter of "South Park: The Streaming Wars," revealed to be responsible for the issues with water supply, as well as having a wife named PigBearGirl and a child named Chuck Chuck. It's unclear whether or not ManBearPig will be a continued threat in future seasons or what PigBearGirl and Chuck Chuck are supposed to represent as climate change metaphors, but Parker and Stone's apology for ignoring climate change is a super cereal step in the right direction.
In 2017, a documentary was released titled "The Problem with Apu," analyzing Apu Nahasapeemapetilon's inclusion on "The Simpsons." In response, Hank Azaria announced he would no longer voice the character, and Apu was effectively written out of the show. The decision was met with conflicting reception. Some praised the action, while many Indian fans of the show expressed disappointment seeing him written off rather than given more equitable treatment.
In "The Problem with a Poo," Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo is shown to be a problematic bigot, putting Kyle in a difficult position. He initially stands by his old friend, but Kyle gets Mr. Hankey's stink on him and ultimately decides to join the town in exiling him from their community. Kyle doesn't deliver his usual moralizing speech, knowing Mr. Hankey is no better than Roseanne Barr or Brett Kavanaugh (both parodied in this episode), who will skirt accountability until they've lost it all. The episode is complicated because "The Problem with a Poo" tries to tackle too many conflicting stories of "cancel culture," presenting the constantly crying PC Babies as both an extreme reaction as well as having been in the right the whole time. Mr. Hankey is eventually sent to a place where his behavior is still permitted, showing up in the fictional town of Springfield and being greeted by Apu.
"South Park" is well aware of its problematic past and has spent the last few seasons coming to terms with its own legacy. They're definitely still trying to find their footing in a more socially conscious culture, but the message is clear: Canonical problems call for creative, canonical solutions.
Read this next: Every South Park Season Ranked
The post The Biggest Lesson More Comedies Need to Take From South Park appeared first on /Film.
It's no secret that Quentin Tarantino is a cinephile first and a director second. A real love for the art of moviemaking is present throughout his films; his latest film from 2019, "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," is a love letter to the movies, from Italian spaghetti Westerns to campy revenge thrillers. Even if you aren't a fan of his directing style, you can't deny that he clearly doesn't love the evolution and art form of film.
This obvious love is why he often contributes his opinions on film throughout different mediums, particularly podcasts. Most recently, he appeared on the ReelBlend podcast alongside frequent collaborator Roger Avary to discuss their latest venture, The Video Archives Podcast. When asked on the ReelBlend podcast what they consider to be the best movie of all time, Tarantino gave an answer that many are sure to both agree and disagree with:
"I think Jaws is the greatest movie ever made. Maybe not the greatest film. But it's the greatest movie ever made. And then there are other movies that can get in its rarefied air. But as far as a movie, there's no making it better than Jaws. There's no 'better' than Jaws. It is the best movie ever made. And it shows how badly timed most movies made before Jaws were."
While "Jaws" is a wonderful movie and often considered one of the greatest of all time, its classification as a "movie" rather than a "film" might rub people the wrong way. After all, there doesn't really seem to be a difference between the two. However, Tarantino doesn't feel the same way, and his classification of "Jaws" as a movie and not a film shouldn't underscore how much he loves Steven Spielberg's classic.
"What I meant by that, to one degree or another, is that Spielberg and a lot of his cohorts grew up seeing those kinds of movies in the theater," Tarantino explained, referring to the acclaimed director's youth in the 1950s and 1960s. He argues that, while movies like "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "Fantastic Voyage" are hallmarks of moviemaking, they certainly could've been directed better.
"They were assignments given to journeyman directors who did their best with them," he continued. "As opposed to a Spielberg, who was like, no, this is exactly the kind of movie he likes. This is exactly the kind of movie he was put on Earth to make. And he's going to make it, within an inch of his life, as effective as it possibly can be."
Well, you can't argue with that. To hear more of Tarantino and Avary's appearance on the ReelBlend podcast, look no further.
Read this next: The 20 Best Westerns Of All Time
The post Quentin Tarantino Says This Steven Spielberg Classic Is 'The Greatest Movie Ever Made' appeared first on /Film.
The goal of security automation is to accelerate detection and response, but you’ll waste a lot of time if you try to eat the elephant all at once
The news of "Batgirl" being canceled and shelved was horrible for the cast and crew of the film, and a shock to the entire film industry. Warner Bros. Discovery has been making unprecedented moves this week that has the industry on their toes, and for DC fans, the news and changes don't stop there.
As we speculated this week, this seems to be a move to streamline the DCEU, one that can have huge consequences for superhero movies going forward as Warner Bros. Discovery reassesses what they consider to be cinematic events. And in a smaller scale, we're already seeing how the cancellation of "Batgirl" is having repercussions across the DCEU, many revolving around Michael Keaton's Batman.
Keaton, who played Batman back in 1989 was set to appear in the upcoming "The Flash" movie, before having a prominent role in "Batgirl. There were reports that Keaton was going to act as a mentor to several heroes in a sort of analog to Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury in the MCU, as an older and more experienced hero.
Well, that may all be changing.
Last week, Jason Momoa surprisingly announced that Ben Affleck would make an appearance as Batman in "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom." At the time, that looked like just a cool nod to the character, and perhaps a sign that Affleck was coming to terms with his time to the role and perhaps maybe even enjoying it in a new way.
Well, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Keaton had already filmed his own scene for "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" in all his nutty Batman glory. But it seems test audiences were confused by Keaton's appearance in this universe, which is somewhat understandable — but no one batted an eye during those cameos in "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness," so what is the problem here? Making things stranger is the fact that "Aquaman 2" is set to be released before "The Flash," which is supposed to explain how Keaton is in this universe.
In any case, the report implies that Affleck's return is not a cool cameo, but a course correction meant to replace Keaton's Bruce Wayne. If that's the case, how long until Keaton throws down the glove and demands satisfaction? What does this mean for the future of the DC universe? More importantly, will Topo the drumming octopus return?
"Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" releases on March 17, 2023.
Read this next: Every DC Movie Made Prior To The DCEU Ranked From Worst To Best
The post Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Reportedly Swapped Out Michael Keaton's Batman for Ben Affleck's appeared first on /Film.
David Leitch has spent years and years studying Jackie Chan's work. "When it comes to fight scenes, there's no one better in the history of fights than Jackie Chan," Leitch once told us. "If you really breakdown his style of action, especially his fights, he's very precise. The angle is working specifically for the three moves, and then he cuts. It's not traditional Western cinema where they put five cameras on it and then everybody does the fights and then the editor cuts it up." With Leitch's latest action movie, "Bullet Train," he pays more homage than ever to one of his idols.
For starters, the fights are more comedic than the set pieces in the director's previous movies, including "Atomic Blonde" and "John Wick." There's more slapstick in the Brad Pitt-led ensemble film, in which luck is almost as important as skill. The set pieces are mostly confined to the titular setting, which was a challenge Leith and his producer, 87North co-founder Kelly McCormick, recently told us about during an interview all about action, Jackie Chan, and Pitt's eccentric performance.
The movie started off a little darker, right? How did the tone get crazier and more comedic along the way?
Leitch: Well, the line for craziness was pretty high, for sure. I think it was infectious. We were making this during the height of the pandemic. We were having so much fun on set and you could feel the energy be lifted with all these crazy moments that were happening in front of our eyes. And so we started to lean into them more and more, and it was really knowing that we could modulate it if we had to, but we were having so much fun and we knew it could translate.
McCormick: I have this theory that because of Covid and the train ... there was the train as the set, and then there were the LED walls, which were like floor to ceiling all the way around the train. To get in and out of the train was so hard that basically the whole crew, which normally is standing around and watching and waiting for their moment and stuff, was really removed from the pod of where the filmmaking was happening. It was almost like, because they were behind closed doors, [the actors] went so gonzo. Nobody was watching, really. It was more ridiculous and bolder and wilder every day, kind of a runaway train -- pun intended -- but in a really good way.
Ladybug is a weird action hero. Did Brad Pitt always want to strike that tone with his performance?
Leitch: It was early on. We had the conversations of what we wanted to do, tonally -- Brad, Kelly, and I. I don't know if the rest of the crew had as detailed conversations as I had with Brad. He was like, "Let's swing for the fences, lean into the comedy, lean into the physical comedy, go for laughs." That's what the world needs right now. That's the tonic of our times. We want to make people laugh and he was bringing it from the beginning, in terms of even his outfit.
McCormick: I think he wanted to come in as an underdog and it was his idea to wear the bucket hat and glasses. Thank God, because we probably wouldn't have been able to get it through. Seriously, you're going to do that to Brad Pitt? The studio even said, "What are you thinking?"
Leitch: The studio was like, "What?"
McCormick: But Brad wanted it. In our opinion, perfect. It was not at all what we had thought of originally when we were like, "Oh my God, we're going to do a Brad Pitt movie." How smart he made that choice, because he can disappear in that and feel more relatable. This character, for me, is so exciting as a protagonist for a commercial film because he's basically a complete pacifist in the middle of an action movie -- and an unreliable narrator, let's be honest -- but also somebody who doesn't really arc. He's going through his own sh*t to the point where, let's be honest, you can go through all the therapy you want, but in the end, you're kind of the same. You never get to explore that because you always want these sweeping arcs of these characters that go from A to B, and this guy goes back to fart jokes in the end. How lucky. Nobody gets to do that.
David, leaning more into the comedy, especially in the action, did you feel like this is the closest you've gotten to Jackie Chan's approach to action?
Leitch: Yeah, leaning into the comedy aspect of what we were trying to do, make it as fun and irreverent as possible. When you look at Jackie and a lot of those characters that he's had where he is sort of the underdog and he's trying to survive and he's using the props in this fun Buster Keaton-esque way, it was a no-brainer to lean into that and the homage to Jackie's choreography. And so, we were full-on mining from Jackie's playbook, for sure.
McCormick: Just the notion that he is a pacifist in the middle of action who does the most damage of anyone on the train is just like a playground for you to be able to play in all the fun ways. I mean, I think Brad got so obsessed with Jackie that he's like, "There's not enough documentaries about the guy." He became a huge fan, for sure. Maybe he was already.
Leitch: Yeah, I think he was, but he leaned into it and we got more and more into him through this process.
The stunts back in Jackie Chan's prime were, really, the wild, wild west. Even going back 25 years, David, how do you think stunt performing has changed and evolved to today?
Leitch: It's changed dramatically. With visual effects getting more and more sophisticated, you can do a lot more things safely than you could before. I think there was that era in the '80s that was the pinnacle of stunts, the Hal Needham days, and then Jackie in the '80s as well and his Hong Kong movies. And then into the '90s, the things that he was doing for real, without safety wires and without enhancements were pretty daunting and special. That was the beginning of my career. I think we were there sort of at the stage of the advent of using a lot of wires for safety, and obviously, the "Matrix" movies where visual effects were hugely important. And it's really evolved, and for the better, I think. We can still do crazy, provocative scenes, but we can put people in the action safer and we can put stunt people in the action safer.
How was it planning all the stunts and the action, obviously, in such a contained space?
McCormick: I think that was one of David's biggest concerns about entering the film at all was, "How do I entertain these people, the audience? When we're stuck on a train for two hours, what is the action really going to be able to be because of the confines of the set?" By the way, we shot everything on a stage because of Covid, so we couldn't go anywhere. Sony actually had availability because the TV shows had shutdown. There were all these stages available on the Sony lot. They hadn't shot a movie there since "Mr. & Mrs. Smith."
We took over two-and-a-half stages and we had very few actual cars that the poor set decorating department had to keep changing out, because there are 13 cars on our train. A lot of times it's only a piece of another car or it's the same car that's been changed. Like the numbers changed, a screen has changed here and there overnight, and you're now on that train. Then there was one first class car and then the conductor car where the Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brad fight happens, which served as the front and the back of the car. The lounge car was a separate piece, and we only had one platform. So each of those platforms were converting into a wholly different platform when we needed to shoot it again.
So the scheduling of that, plus all of the cameos that came in and out was an absolute nightmare. We wouldn't have been able to do it without such an amazing production staff -- especially with our AD Paul Berry, who's the best in the world.
With regards to the stunts, the cars don't really have flyaway walls. They are only about 10% bigger than a normal Shinkansen train. The way in which they shot it required all of that in mind, which I think makes for a really exciting and innovative fight, because of the camera work that is required for that tiny space as well.
Leitch: I really wanted to lean into those flashback sequences where we got to escape the train. So you have all the stakes you're building up. They've got to find the case. And then we boom out for a good four-minute sequence of the Wolf (Michael Shannon) telling his story. Now you're in Mexico. There's a kid. You're giving the audience a chance to have a breath. You're learning about a character in depth, and then you pop right back on the train ... normally, the instinct is to make those flashbacks really short, but my instincts were, "No, let's make them escapes from this confined space and give some scope to the movie and then bring us back." So it was fun. It was a fun device.
For you both, what makes certain actors so adept and skilled at action? What common traits do these actors, like Brad Pitt or Charlize Theron, share?
McCormick: I think the team also sets them up to win, with regards to both great, great training, but also finding the things that they naturally do well and creating the action around those tools for the specific character. It allows for them to get up to speed really quickly, because they're grabbing onto the things that they do naturally really well.
Leitch: Usually, it's work ethic. And also, performance is performance. When someone is really good at acting and accessing that talent that they have, they can physically manifest it, not only with their voice or with their face, but they can physically manifest it. To be able to mimic motion or to copy motion is generally in the wheelhouse of good actors. And the discipline of wanting to deliver the character on all levels. They usually come in and work their a**es off.
"Bullet Train" opens in theaters August 5, 2022.
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The post Bullet Train Director David Leitch and Producer Kelly McCormick Were 'Full-On Mining From Jackie Chan's Playbook' [Interview] appeared first on /Film.
In the opening scenes of John Huston's 1948 Academy Award winning film "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," Fred Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) is down on his luck. He's in Mexico looking for work in 1925, and can't seem to find any. He's reduced to asking for pesos in the street, and approaches a tall American man in a white suit and hat. The American gives him a coin. Dobbs can buy a meal and a lottery ticket. He'll be fine for maybe 12 hours.
"The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" eventually follows Dobbs into the wilderness -- to the mountain of the title -- with a pair of compatriots (Tim Holt and Walter Huston, the director's father). While sealed off from humanity, the trio strike gold, assuring wealth to the end of their days. Striking gold, however, drives Dobbs to the brink of his sanity, and it won't be long before both he and the Holt character are seriously considering murder as a means of getting a larger share. Earlier in the film, Dobbs claims that this very thing will never happen to him, all but assuring that it will. The film is a combination Western and episode of "Tales from the Crypt."
The action of "Sierra Madre" is kicked off by that tall American in white who gives Dobbs some money. A few days later, Dobbs unwittingly asks the same man for money. On the third try, the tall American speaks: "This is the very last you'll get from me. From now on, you have to make your way through life without my assistance."
This is a funny line, considering that it comes from director John Huston himself, acting in a cameo.
The cameo in "Sierra Madre" was Huston's on-screen debut. He would go on to play notable roles in a few other films as well, often playing a version of himself. Even his corrupt magnate in "Chinatown" and his voice work as Gandalf in the animated take on "The Hobbit" take great advantage of Huston's natural authority and reputation as a filmmaker. His finest role likely came in the finally-completed-in-2018 Netflix drama "The Other Side of the Wind" directed by Orson Welles. In that film, he plays a very Welles-like director who bristles at the emerging trends in New Hollywood, hating films like Michelangelo Antonioni's "Zabriskie Point," a sweaty, ennui-ridden sex film that was popular at the time.
In "Sierra Madre," Huston appears to be giving Bogart direction on camera. Huston and Bogart had worked together before on two previous hits, "The Maltese Falcon" -- Huston's debut -- and "Across the Pacific." Huston was lucky to pair with Bogart, as he was in the midst of establishing himself as a prolific movie star. Huston would give Bogart another boost toward superstardom, and after "The Maltese Falcon," there was no stopping Bogart.
Huston's and Bogart's interaction in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" was a wink from director to actor. In 1948, Bogart had "Casablanca" behind him. As a Warner Bros. contract player, he no longer needed any kind of "leg up." Funny, then, that Huston should turn to him -- after boosting Bogart's profile with "Maltese" -- and say to his face that he's not going to give him a handout. Bogart was going to have to make his way through life without Huston's assistance.
The two would go on to make "Key Largo," "The African Queen," and "Beat the Devil" together.
In Stefan Kanfer's 2012 book "Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart," Kanfer stages the interaction between Bogart and Huston in terms of Huston's talents as a writer. Huston also served as screenwriter on "Sierra Madre," basing it on the 1927 adventure novel by B. Travern. In that book, Bogart is said to like Dobbs as a character, but understood that good dialogue would be required to more effectively communicate the character; Dobbs couldn't be a mere man corrupted by greed. He needed to be a whole person.
Bogart, in his "Sierra Madre" scene, seemed to be asking not for a peso, but for good dialogue. The very screenwriter gives him a little dram of writing and tells him to figure it out. An actor, after all, requires a good screenplay to look good. This goes to an unsubstantiated quote from Bette Davis, who once had to explain to a director that if she spoke bad dialogue, the audience wouldn't think to blame the screenwriter, choosing instead to blame her.
Huston is playfully flipping Bogart a coin. You'll only look good in this movie, he is saying, if you read my dialogue.
In a film as harrowing and as intense as "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," such an interaction adds a wonderful note of playful levity. Huston does not appear in the rest of the film, but his generosity allowed Dobbs to live as both a character and as a fictional construct.
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The post John Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre Cameo Was One Big Humphrey Bogart In-Joke appeared first on /Film.
After the historic run of "Breaking Bad" ended in 2014, many considered the show one of the greatest of all time. Audiences wouldn't soon forget the story of Walter White and his rise to power. So, when "Better Call Saul," a spin-off/prequel show set before the events of "Breaking Bad," was announced, the skepticism was well warranted. How would Peter Gould, the creator of Saul Goodman, and Vince Gilligan, creator of "Breaking Bad," follow up on such a compelling landmark of television? The answer is a multi-layered one, as "Better Call Saul" would elevate the character of Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) in multiple ways, giving the wisecracking lawyer from "Breaking Bad" a profoundly tragic origin of his own.
The well-written character dynamics between Jimmy, Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian), and a plethora of other characters would help "Better Call Saul" differentiate itself from its predecessor. Besides the incredible performances, the technical aspect of "Better Call Saul" is entirely different than what is expected from television today. The editing, sound design, and cinematography of "Better Call Saul" are all about detail. Specifically, the montages sprinkled throughout "Better Call Saul" stand out in the show, with the editing and perfect music choices of these montages giving the mundane a magical and engaging feel.
We here at /Film love a good montage, especially in "Better Call Saul." So, we've compiled a list of the eight best montages in the series. Yes, the wavy tube guys are on this list.
THE SONG: Henry Mancini - "Banzai Pipeline"
Featured in the season 1 finale episode "Marco," this montage follows Jimmy and Marco running scams like the old days. The montage paints what a sensible person would usually see as a scummy low-life scam into something hilarious, alluring, and just a fun time. The editing features different point-of-view shots that sell you on the allure of a con. Viewers at one point are face to face with Jimmy, selling you an absurd story as money falls from the sky in the background and the neon signs of the various bars that the montage is set in light on and off in the background.
This dream-like sequence both entertains and tells a deeper tragic story. Throughout season 1 of "Better Call Saul," Jimmy McGill desperately tried to walk the straight and narrow. Turning down a quick buck at (almost) every turn, Jimmy tried to make the right choice every time until the revelation his brother, Chuck (Michael McKean), never believed in him to begin with. In a wave of panicked anger, Jimmy returns to Cicero and goes on a "Slippin' Jimmy" binge with his old cohort Marco. The week of cons in Cicero ends tragically with the death of Marco, which begins a recurring pattern in "Better Call Saul." The more Jimmy gives in to his toxic behaviors; the more people get hurt. The montage is a perfect balance of style and substance.
THE SONG: Randy Crawford - "Street Life"
Jimmy beings to get his taste of what it would be like to have a large and seedy clientele with this montage. Featured in season 4, episode 5 titled "Quite a Ride," we see the same rinse and repeat process of Jimmy being bored with a good thing and choosing to turn it into a scam. "Better Call Saul" has remained so engaging throughout its six seasons by making these repeated mistakes made by Jimmy into something so dramatically different every time. Case in point: Jimmy reselling pre-paid cell phones for a profit on the streets of Albuquerque.
The neon sign of "The Dog House," an outside restaurant, sets the stage for this cool and collected montage. It's Jimmy doing what he does best, replacing his usual suit and tie in favor of a tracksuit and some sneakers. The montage shows that Jimmy will find a way to exploit the system and make a quick buck off it, whether it's the law or some other business endeavor. The repetitive POV shot of Jimmy opening up his car trunk to a variety of customers sells us on Jimmy as a salesman, and Randy Crawford's "Street Life" just ties this everything together to give "Better Call Saul" a montage with a lot more style than usual.
THE SONG: Todd Terje - "Alfonso Muskedunder"
Kim Wexler is the spotlight of this montage, in a quick cut and dramatically edited sequence that feels like it was pulled out of a '70s cop show. The only difference is that the everyday mundanity of getting ready for work is what's on display here, rather than a gunfight or car chase.
"Better Call Saul" loves to emphasize the mundane, the unseen chores that come with getting up in the morning and managing your hectic everyday life. Featured in season 3 episode 3, "Sunk Costs," the repetitive nature of the montage helps to get viewers into the mindset of Kim Wexler, who, at that point in the series begins to become overworked due to her two large clients. The efficiency of her daily routine is magnified through the montage, and also serves as a reminder of Kim's consistency and determination.
THE SONG: Fink - "Cold Feet"
We're now getting into the territory of more intense montages in the world of "Better Call Saul." This one reaches more into the "Breaking Bad" side of things, featured in the season 3 episode 8 "Slip." The character at the center of this montage is Nacho (Michael Mando), who decides to poison Hector Salamanca out of concern for his father's safety and their business. Story moments like these make the worlds of "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" feel incredibly cohesive, with references to its predecessor not just being tongue-in-cheek Easter eggs but instead actual story points with meaning for the characters present in "Better Call Saul."
This montage also highlights the level of detail that the show's writers strive for when telling their stories. In any other crime drama, preparing the poison and practicing how to slip it would be done off-screen, if even mentioned at all. "Better Call Saul" goes beyond the line of duty in storytelling, showing the intricate process of all of the characters, and this montage is no exception. We watch Nacho intricately prepare each pill, followed by setting up a chair with a jacket hung over it, as he walks by it countless times to perfect his throw of the pill bottle into the jacket pocket. If Nacho is even slightly off in his throw, he and his father are dead. It's an intense montage that raises the stakes in all the right ways.
THE SONG: Dennis Coffey - "Scorpio"
Jimmy embracing the inner Saul Goodman that he doesn't know is in there yet is just one small part of what makes this montage so satisfying. Following his employment at the prestigious law firm Davis and Main, Jimmy's resentment and bitterness toward his brother begin to reach a boiling point. Uncomfortable with the big firm job that he had always dreamed of and learning that he would have to repay his signing bonus if he quits, Jimmy opts to run another one of his long cons instead. A hilarious multi-panel montage follows that sees Jimmy embracing his more exuberant side. Featured in season 2, episode 7, aptly titled "Inflatable," this montage has it all: colorful suits, Jimmy hijinks, and inflatable wavy tube men flailing in the air to the beat of the music.
This con doesn't harm anyone except Jimmy, and therein lies the tragic undertone that viewers can find throughout "Better Call Saul." The series does an excellent job of layering the dark comedy, showing that a character's mental state isn't exactly in the best of conditions. Otherwise, Jimmy wouldn't have been leaving the toilet unflushed or playing the bagpipes so loud the lawyers at the firms can't properly speak with their clients. As tragic as it is, viewers can still appreciate the striking and hilarious imagery of Jimmy getting his various colorful suits ready, intercut with dancing wavy tube men that look a little too much like him.
THE SONGS: The Big Rock Candy Mountain - "Something Stupid," Lola Marsh - "Something Stupid"
While this could be considered cheating because these are two different montages, I'm going to pull a slippin' Jimmy and get off on the technicality that both montages use the same song and essentially serve the same purpose. One is from the season 4 episode "Something Stupid" and the other from the season 5 episode "Bad Choice Road." Both are edited to show Jimmy and Kim's separate lives and the radically different things both are going through in each respective season. While the artists in the songs are different, they are both covers of the same song and illustrate how wildly different Kim and Jimmy are. It's especially evident in "Bad Choice Road," which sees Jimmy trekking through the desert, forced to drink his urine while Kim goes through her day in court proceedings and meetings, all while she is worried for Jimmy's safety.
The screen is literally split in half for both montages, even when the two are together in the season 4 montage that uses the song. The visual storytelling that "Better Call Saul" uses greatly helps viewers understand the separation between characters without a single line of dialogue. Using two separate montages from two seasons as a narrative device to tell a singular story about one relationship is extremely impressive, making for one of the best sets of montages in "Better Call Saul."
THE SONG: Lalo Schifrin - "Jim on the Move"
Jimmy McGill. Saul Goodman. Gene Takovic. A man of many names, Jimmy seems unable to help himself when running a good con. We've seen the character run a scam as both Jimmy McGill and Saul Goodman, but his time as Gene Takovic has scarcely seen any action. The black and white flash-forwards, which have been few and far between up until the show's final season, only featured Gene as a shell of his former self. It isn't until he's recognized and bullied into saying "Better call Saul" that Gene begins to show signs of his former self. In season 6, episode 10, "Nippy," Gene decides to pull off a scheme with the people who recognized him so he can blackmail them into secrecy. To do so, Gene gets friendly with mall security so he can distract them when the time comes for the robbery.
Enter: the Cinnabon montage.
Using his line of work as a manager of a Cinnabon, Gene begins to make the delectable treats for the security guards, befriending and timing how long it takes for the guard watching the camera to eat the cinnabon. The montage shows us Gene slipping back into his Saul Goodman ways. Set to a lovely tune from the original "Mission Impossible" TV soundtrack, the montage is edited differently than what's shown in the flash-forwards before this, indicating that Gene is turning back into Saul through the quick edits and style.
THE SONG: Little Barrie - "Why Don't You Do It"
The meticulous attention to detail comes into play with this montage, featured in season 2, episode 8, titled "Fifi." Hoping to help Kim, Jimmy goes to great lengths to forge documents to throw his brother Chuck into disarray when dealing with a large legal case. The montage shows viewers the hard work Jimmy would put himself through to deceive someone so he can benefit himself or someone he cares about. This montage is thorough, from the quick cuts showing the forged documents nearly identical to the authentic ones to the time-lapse of his activity in the printing store. Every important detail is delivered to the viewers, leaving no room for debate about whether or not someone would be able to pull this off in real life.
"Better Call Saul" uses its montages in various ways, both as an entertaining segue into the next big story point or even to tell a story itself. The art of the montage is something the team behind "Better Call Saul" has mastered, delivering a masterclass in character work, and storytelling. This show has no wasted space, and every incredibly edited, stylized, and entertaining montage has a purpose.
Read this next: The 15 Best Better Call Saul Episodes Ranked
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Ryan Gosling has had a long career that stretches back to 1993 when he was only 12 and joined the cast of "The Mickey Mouse Club" alongside Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake. From 1998 to1999, he starred in the television series "Young Hercules." After this, Gosling gradually started transitioning to Hollywood movies, but apart from the 2004 hit romance movie, "The Notebook," he mostly stuck to indies.
With the double whammies of the critically acclaimed hits "Drive" and Crazy Stupid Love," 2011 was Gosling's breakout year. He received his second best actor Oscar nomination for the charming musical "La La Land" in 2016. In 2018, after the release of "First Man," Gosling took a break from acting. He has now returned with the action movie "The Gray Man" for the Russo brothers, and will soon be seen playing Ken in "Barbie" directed by Greta Gerwig.
Gosling has two, equally successful, modes: He is a gifted comedian, as can be seen in "Crazy Stupid Love," "The Big Short," and "The Nice Guys," or he can play extremely minimalist and stoic in "Drive," "Only God Forgives," "Blade Runner 2049," and "First Man." Join us as we take you through 11 of his most underrated films.
Gosling's first post-"Young Hercules" movie role came with a formidable acting mentor. Who better than Denzel Washington to usher in a young actor's transition to (slightly) more grown-up movies? Still under the Disney umbrella, "Remember the Titans" is based on the true story of the first integrated football team at a high school in Virginia in 1971. Washington plays the new head coach, and initially, there are obvious tensions with the former coach, Bill Yoast (Will Patton), who eventually agrees to become his assistant.
Other actors who play members of the team include Wood Harris ("The Wire"), Donald Faison ("Scrubs"), and Ethan Suplee ("My Name is Earl"). A 10-year-old Hayden Panettiere plays Yoast's daughter, who is obsessed with football and is a pretty good coach herself. Gosling's role is small. He plays a joker who helps ease the fraught atmosphere at the training camp that the team attends near the start of the movie. He also gets a small moment of heroism in the climatic game when he tells the coach to put Faison's character in instead of him because he's better.
Considering how sentimental "Remember the Titans" could have been, it mostly stays refreshingly schmaltz-free, although the tragic ending may wring out a tear or two. The cocky charm and charisma that got Gosling through his Mickey Mouse Club days are still on display here.
After "Remember the Titans," Ryan Gosling pivoted hard by playing a Jewish neo-Nazi in 2001's "The Believer." He then played a series of murderers in what seems like a clear attempt to shed his clean-cut Disney-era image. "Murder by Numbers" stars Gosling and Michael Pitt as a pair of high school students who believe they can commit the perfect murder. Sandra Bullock and Ben Chaplin costar as the detectives who pursue them. Pitt would go on to star in the similarly themed 2007 remake of "Funny Games," and both movies were influenced by the real-life case of Leopold and Loeb.
Gosling once again plays the more cocky and confident of the pair, his character, Richard, is wealthy and popular and appears to take the lead in wanting to carry out the murder. Pitt's Justin is the brains behind the operation and the one who plans the forensic evidence they will leave on the body to throw the detectives off their scent. Bullock's Cassie is given a tragic backstory that explains her motivations as a prickly loner who struggles to get along with her professional partners.
If you have an interest in crime procedurals, you'll be fascinated by how murder can be planned to perfection and the various ways in which the perpetrators can be caught. It's also interesting to see the dynamics between Richard and Justin, who are partners-in-crime, and between Cassie and Chaplin's Sam, who are police partners.
After starring in the Nicholas Sparks romance "The Notebook," Gosling returned to the dark side with yet another murderer role. In "Stay," written by "Game of Thrones" co-creator David Benioff and directed by Marc Forster, it's not entirely clear what is happening at any point in the film. Gosling plays troubled college student Henry who visits psychiatrist Sam (Ewan McGregor) when his regular psychiatrist, Beth (Janeane Garofalo), is on leave. He hears voices and also seems to be able to predict the future.
Henry claims to have killed both his parents and has also planned his suicide. When he sees Sam playing chess with his mentor, Leon (Bob Hoskins), Henry is shocked and scared because he thinks Leon is his father. Sam later meets Henry's mother in an empty house, and she starts bleeding from the head. Although the phrase "Lynchian" is over-used, there are occasional glimpses that are reminiscent of David Lynch's surreal style, like when the narrative appears to reset itself and when characters repeat earlier phrases. Naomi Watts (who has her own experience with Lynch) plays Sam's girlfriend.
The film is well-directed by Forster, with interesting visual clues in the editing and structure designed to disorient the viewer and perhaps replicate some of the things Henry is experiencing. Despite the star-studded cast and a favorable Roger Ebert review, "Stay" was a box office failure. Still, it's an interesting experiment, and Gosling gives an impressive performance.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Having played high school students as recently as 2003 and a college kid in 2005, Ryan Gosling graduated to a role as a teacher in 2006. This was a significant shift from teen to adult roles, and he gained his first nomination for best actor. At age 26, Ryan Gosling is among the 10 youngest Oscar nominees for best actor of all time.
In "Half Nelson," Gosling plays Dan, a young middle school history teacher who has a secret drug addiction. He becomes close with one of his students, Drey (an impressive Shareeka Epps), and he gives her rides to and from school. Drey's brother is in prison for dealing drugs, and she tries to avoid pressure from Frank (Anthony Mackie), the local dealer, to become embroiled in that world. Drey knows Dan's secret because she once caught him freebasing at school. A story about a white teacher who has mostly Black students could have gone down the "inspirational" route seen in "Dangerous Minds," but director Ryan Fleck mostly avoids clichés.
The film is pretty downbeat, and Gosling's performance is subtle. It's surprising that it caught the eye of the academy, as there are no histrionics or grand speeches. There's also no redemptive arc, with no evidence that Dan is really in a better place at the end of the movie.
After "Half Nelson," Ryan Gosling found himself in a legal thriller, but he was on the right side of the law for once. "Fracture" sees him in a battle-of-wills with Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins), a wealthy man who shoots his adulterous wife and is caught red-handed by a cop named Nunally (Billy Burke). Nunally is the one who was having the affair with Crawford's wife, and his testimony is inadmissible. Gosling plays William Beachum, a young district attorney who is determined to bring Crawford to justice.
Hopkins deliciously chews the scenery as he goads Beachum by calling him "Willy" and generally outsmarts him in most of their interactions. Beachum believes it's an open-and-shut case, as Crawford confesses, but he stays one step ahead and keeps pulling the rug out from under Beachum. Courtroom thrillers are always entertaining and "Fracture" is no exception.
While the convoluted legal loopholes stretch plausibility, the real joy is seeing Gosling and Hopkins go head-to-head. Hopkins uses his eyes masterfully to hold court (literally) and wield the upper hand. Gosling has frequently emphasized arrogance in his performances, but the pleasure "Half Nelson" comes from knowing he's in the right — but he keeps getting thwarted anyway.
Before "I, Tonya" and "Cruella," Craig Gillespie directed "Lars and the Real Girl, one of the best films about grief and loneliness. Gus (Paul Schneider) and Karin (Emily Mortimer) are a couple who live in Wisconsin, and Gus' brother, Lars (Ryan Gosling), lives in their garage. Lars prefers to be alone and doesn't like to be touched. He is still coming to terms with the fact that his mother died while giving birth to him. He is always seen wearing the baby blanket she knitted for him as a scarf.
One day, he brings his new girlfriend, a mail-order sex doll named Bianca, to dinner. Lars talks to her and believes she is real. Gus quickly takes Lars to their doctor, Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson). The relationship between Lars and Dagmar is one of the film's greatest strengths, as she subtly questions him without him realizing that he's in therapy. Bianca ends up being embraced by their small town.
Gosling gives one of his best performances as Lars. There is no winking or nodding — just utter sincerity and genuine emotion. Loneliness is not just explored via Lars but also through his co-workers in his depressing gray office, who have their own crutches such as teddy bears and action figures. The music is lovely, and the costumes and production design create a fully believable Midwestern small town.
One of the most romantic, sexy, and also utterly bleak and heartbreaking films of all time, "Blue Valentine" marked the first time Ryan Gosling collaborated with director Derek Cianfrance. An unusually structured love story, "Blue Valentine" is divided into two halves: the beginnings of a relationship between Gosling's Dean and Michelle Williams' Cindy, and then five years later, when their marriage is strained and crumbling.
The film is an acting showcase for both Gosling and Williams, who lived together for a month to prepare to play a convincing married couple. One of the best but hardest to watch sequences is when they go to a motel in a last-ditch attempt to resurrect their relationship. Cindy is at the point where she cannot bear to be touched by Dean. Both Gosling and Williams are extraordinary as they perform the dance of being drawn to one another and wanting to make the relationship work but are simultaneously repelled.
Gosling plays a charming romantic (he even writes and performs a song for Cindy), which Dean very much is in the first section, but then he becomes bitter, dejected, angry, and even violent. "Blue Valentine" is an exceptional independent drama, and the acting elevates it to such a level of realism that it feels almost uncomfortable to be watching such intimate and emotionally raw moments between this couple.
2011 was Ryan Gosling's breakthrough year. He had three movies come out very close together, and there was some concern about overexposure and backlash. He followed this up by reuniting with Derek Cianfrance on "The Place Beyond the Pines," another movie that is unusually structured and traverses time. In this case, a span of 15 years.
Gosling plays Luke, a motorcycle stuntman and bank robber, who wants to reconcile with Romina (Eva Mendes), the mother of his baby. The second half of the movie centers on Avery (Bradley Cooper), a cop whose life becomes entwined with Luke's, and their two sons Jason (Dane DeHaan) and AJ (Emory Cohen). Gosling has great chemistry with Mendes. The cast also includes Mahershala Ali as Romina's boyfriend, Ben Mendelsohn as Luke's boss, and Ray Liotta as a corrupt cop. Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt makes uses innovative hand-held camera techniques in thrilling scenes, including one in which a police car chases Ryan Gosling's motorcycle through a cemetery.
While Gosling's section of the movie is more successful than Cooper's, "The Place Beyond the Pines" is still an interesting examination of masculinity across generations, and however much we may want to escape our legacies, they inevitably catch up to us.
Of all the movies on this list, Ryan Gosling's second collaboration with Nicolas Winding Refn after "Drive" provokes the most extreme love-it-or-hate-it reactions. "Only God Forgives" takes "Drive" to the extreme. Gosling has even less dialogue, it's more violent, and it's even more soaked in neon. In this thriller, Gosling plays Julian, who with his brother Billy (Tom Burke), runs a boxing club in Bangkok that is a front for their real business of drug dealing.
The best aspect of "Only God Forgives" is Kristin Scott Thomas as the brothers' mother, Crystal, who arrives in Bangkok seeking vengeance after Billy is murdered (which itself was an act of revenge). She is in the mode of the unflinching Mafia matriarch, and there are highly Oedipal things going on, possibly with both of her sons. When Julian spares Billy's killer, she is disgusted and belittles him. As vengeance is meted out on both sides, things predictably escalate into ever more extreme violence.
"Only God Forgives" is not for everyone, but the cinematography of Larry Smith (who worked on "Eyes Wide Shut") means it is stunning to look at with its atmospheric use of light and shadow. Almost every frame is drenched in color. Gosling's most still and silent role (and that's saying something) showcases his range and ability to emote while seemingly doing very little.
Shane Black's detective comedy may stretch the definition of underrated because everyone who has seen it, loves it. Still, "The Nice Guys" is certainly underseen and should have been a much bigger hit that could have launched a whole series of March and Healy movies. Ryan Gosling's gift for physical comedy has never been showcased better, and he has fantastic chemistry with both Russell Crowe and Angourie Rice, who plays his daughter.
Set in Los Angeles in the late 1970s, "The Nice Guys" has brilliantly atmospheric production and costume design. Kim Basinger gets another juicy LA neo-noir role as the puppet-master pulling the strings, and Margaret Qualley plays her tough and elusive daughter, Amelia, who is the target of March and Healy's manhunt. Gosling's facial expressions, line deliveries, and a very memorable scream make this probably the funniest comedy of the last decade. Even a still image can make you laugh.
Combining some hilarious slapstick with extremely witty dialogue and great performances, "The Nice Guys" is a worthy successor to Black's "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." It's one of Gosling's best films, and like many of his movies, should have done much better at the box office.
Ryan Gosling reunited with "La La Land" director Damien Chazelle for "First Man," a subdued take on the Apollo 11 moon landing. Gosling plays Neil Armstrong, and the film very much focuses on his grief after his two-year-old daughter, Karen, died in 1962. Claire Foy plays his wife, Janet Armstrong, and the movie combines domestic drama with thrilling sequences of dangerous test flights.
The score and sound design (and occasionally the total lack of both) are two of the strongest aspects of "First Man." The scenes that take place inside planes and spacecraft as they endure tremendous pressures are accompanied by the terrifying sounds of crunching metal. The moon landing is accompanied by Justin Hurwitz's majestic score, which makes the stunning view of the moon (especially if seen on a big screen) all the more wonderous.
Gosling and Foy both deliver restrained (and at times, strained) performances. Foy's Janet is in constant fear that she will lose her husband. Gosling's Armstrong cannot articulate his grief and will not allow himself to give in to any fear, even for a second, because then, he could not do his job. "First Man" deserved much more attention when it was released. It's an astonishing achievement and demonstrates what the big screen is made for.
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Some news surfaced yesterday regarding the best emulators for Nintendo Switch and Playstation 3. According to their teams, Ryujinx now supports the Vulkan API, whereas RPCS3 now supports save states. According to the devs behind Ryujinx, the Vulkan API will benefit mostly AMD and Intel owners. Since their OpenGL drivers are not as good as … Continue reading Nintendo Switch emulator Ryujinx now supports Vulkan, Playstation 3 emulator RPCS3 supports save states →
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WolfETPlayer has released a new version of the RealRTCW overhaul mod for Return To Castle Wolfenstein. According to the modder, Version 4.0 adds new enemies, improves animations, adds the Rewards System for finding Secrets, and introduces AI Reiforcements. In case you weren’t aware, RealRTCW is an overhaul mod that features a new renderer, expands the … Continue reading Real Return To Castle Wolfenstein 4.0 Mod brings new enemies, AI reiforcements, new HUD & more →
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Back when it was first announced, "Better Call Saul" was the perfect cash grab idea for a spin-off show, following in the tradition of such TV spin-offs like "Joey" in taking a fan-favorite comic relief character and making a whole show around them.
The show could have easily been a cheap source of fan service, but instead it became a TV miracle. It quickly redefined what we thought we knew about the world of "Breaking Bad," deepening the characters, expanding on the themes of the original show, making Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) the character we least wanted to see show up, turning Mike into a tragic figure, all while introducing us to the best character on TV: Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn).
Although "Better Call Saul" didn't set off to answer many questions from its predecessor, it still provided some unexpected closure and answers, like the origin of Gus' meth lab, how Hector ended up in a wheelchair, and more. But the latest episode of the show finally gave us an answer to the biggest question we had from "Breaking Bad": What the hell happened to Huell?
When he first appears in "Better Call Saul," Huell Babineaux (Lavell Crawford) is hired by Jimmy to slip a battery into the breast pocket of his brother, Chuck (Michael McKean), to prove his electromagnetic hypersensitivity isn't real. After that, Huell becomes a security guard for Jimmy's burner phone business and other schemes.
But the first time we actually met Huell was on "Breaking Bad," where he got hired by Saul Goodman to be his bodyguard and professional pickpocketer after Mike (Michael McKean) threatened to break Saul's legs to make him reveal Jesse's whereabouts. Huell stuck around and also helped Saul force Ted Beneke (Christopher Cousins) pay the IRS (and accidentally paralyze him) and Walter White (Bryan Cranston) poison a little kid.
In the final season he was manipulated into accepting witness protection and taken to a DEA safe house by Hank (Dean Norris) and Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada), who were hoping to find out what happened to Walt's money. Last we saw him, Hank and Gomez left Huell at said safe house, instructing him not to use his phone or leave the house. But since both agents died an episode later, there was no one to tell poor Huell he could leave, prompting fans everywhere to speculate whether Huell had starved to death to the point that even Vince Gilligan chimed in. Except we finally know what really happened.
The latest episode, the highly anticipated and publicized "Breaking Bad," finally brought back Walt and Jesse (Aaron Paul), but not in the way audiences may have expected. The episode uses the timeline of the original show and Saul's relationship to Walt and contrasts it with what we now know of Jimmy McGill and Gene Takavic for maximum emotional damage. It shows how Jimmy fails to properly deal and tackle his grief and problems and instead falls deeper and deeper into the Saul Goodman persona, like when his brother died, or when Kim left him, and now with a mysterious phone call we didn't get to hear, but know it wasn't good.
But before that, Gene/Saul/Jimmy hears from Francesca (Tina Parker), who he calls to get a recap of where things stand in Albuquerque, and tie off some loose ends and puts theories to bed. First, we learn that Skyler (Anna Gunn) got out of legal trouble and made a deal, presumably with the GPS location of Hank and Gomez' burial site she got from Walt.
Most importantly, however, Gene asks about probably one of the only genuine friends he had over the course of both shows: Huell. Francesca reveals he went back home to Louisiana, free of any legal problems since the DEA held him illegally.
"Better Call Saul," like "Breaking Bad" before it, is a show about consequences. Those who do wrong get their due; those who try to redeem themselves or are just caught up in a bad situation get their recompense. We don't know what will happen to Jimmy, but at least we know the sweet man who saved several lives in his hometown of Coushatta, Louisiana is finally a free man.
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The lovely Erdtree may be the symbol of Elden Ring, but its physical presence in the game is also rather taxing from a performance standpoint. That's why modder k4richard decided to remove it from the game to gain a much smoother frame rate.
Speaking to PC Gamer, he explained:
The closer I got to the Erdtree, the more demanding the game became. The Erdtree and a bunch of particle effects were clearly the root cause of the problem. After removing the tree and a couple of particles, I was able to play at 30 fps on a low-end PC. A whopping 15 frames increased on a GT 1030! This mod practically lowered the graphics card requirements for the game.
Of course, your mileage may vary. The performance benefit is likely less significant with more powerful hardware at your disposal.
Erdtree-related issues notwithstanding, Elden Ring definitely launched with some technical troubles. Francesco De Meo wrote in Wccftech's 10/10 review:
There are some strange visual issues with vegetation's shadows, but they are more or less noticeable depending on what the player is doing. What is apparent, in the PC version of the game at least, are some performance drops in the open areas. They happen mainly in the starting Limgrave area, but thankfully they are not as frequent in other areas and are seemingly absent in dungeons, although they may still occur if both player and enemy start using magic spells. The stuttering issues don't seem to be related to the specs of the system running the game, as I experienced them at every resolution and not just at 4K. The machine used for the test (i7-10700 CPU, RTX 3070, 16 GB RAM) is way above the recommended specs listed by the developer, too.
Elden Ring is even capped at 60 frames per second by default, though there are mods to fix that limitation. Before the game's launch, developer FromSoftware even said it would add ray tracing support at some point in the future. That said, such an addition would only exacerbate performance problems unless the game also received NVIDIA DLSS and/or AMD FSR 2.0 support.
The post Erdtree Removal Elden Ring Mod Comes with Performance Boost by Alessio Palumbo appeared first on Wccftech.
Yo, Mr. White! After weeks of trumpeting the grand returns of meth cook extraordinaire Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and his partner in crime Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), the latest episode of "Better Call Saul" finally made good on those promises and delivered one of the show's best and most entertaining "Breaking Bad" cameos. True to their word, the creators managed to find a clever and unexpected way to bring the troublesome twosome back, taking audiences right back to the original moment that essentially birthed this Saul Goodman-focused spin-off series in the first place.
Even as the tragic story of Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) winds down in these final few episodes, the flashback scenes (from the perspective of Gene Takovic in the post-"Breaking Bad" timeline, at least) returned us to that familiar, rundown RV and the two bickering partners we came to love (and hate!) throughout the original show. In the last episode, they reprised their roles, made their marks, and promptly exited the stage as soon as their narrative purpose was served ... but could there still be more Walt and Jesse scenes left before "Better Call Saul" rides off into the sunset?
For those viewers who aren't ready to say their goodbyes just yet, there may be some good news. To hear Bob Odenkirk tell it, Walt and Jesse's highly-anticipated (but impressively well-handled) cameos may have only been "the start."
First, Walt and Jesse's (in)famous exploits during the events of "Breaking Bad" helped turn the series into one of the greatest television shows to ever air. Then, the fictional characters were immortalized as statues in their old stomping grounds of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Now, we might not even have seen the last of them in "Better Call Saul."
In an interview with THR published after the latest episode, star Bob Odenkirk addressed the surreal experience of getting to work with Cranston and Paul all over again after so many years apart and, intriguingly, revealed that there just might be more of Walt and Jesse to come:
"The truth is, it was just the start. There's more of them. The scenes that come up are powerful. I love that everybody thinks they're gonna show up. Then they see them, they go, 'Great. We did it — we saw them again!' I'm like, 'You never know what's gonna come next on our show.' So don't be sure you've seen the last — I'm telling you, you haven't."
Given how difficult it was to coordinate both of the actors' schedules -- this separate interview with THR sheds much more light on that -- I naturally assumed that this one scene with the old crew back together again was all we could reasonably expect ... especially with the clock ticking down to the final two episodes of "Better Call Saul." But we're seemingly in store for yet another surprise when, somehow, Walt and Jesse once again grace us with their presence in the coming weeks.
The penultimate episode of "Better Call Saul" airs on AMC next Monday, August 8, 2022.
Read this next: The Most Ruthless Jimmy McGill Moments From Better Call Saul
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A GTA 5 mod updates the entirety of Los Santos by transforming the weather, interiors, lighting, textures, and basically every visual element of Rockstar’s crime sandbox to look something closer to GTA 6 – or at least, our personal, giddily optimistic, imagined version of GTA 6.
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One of the best episodes of "Community" is season 5's "Basic Intergluteal Numismatics," a mystery episode parodying detective shows and David Fincher films. It's a spiritual sequel to season 3's "Law and Order" parody episode, except this time the study group isn't trying to figure out who killed their yam; they're trying to figure out the identity of the infamous Ass Crack Bandit.
That's right: there's a guy going around Greendale dropping coins in people's butts, and the episode treats his crimes with the seriousness a real-life serial killer would invoke. Whereas season 3's yam killer mystery was solved as more of a team effort, the case of the Ass Crack Bandit is mainly taken up by Annie (Allison Brie) and Jeff (Joel McHale), and the case is never solved. Annie and Jeff are about to catch the bandit when Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) shows up and breaks the tragic news: Pierce (Chevy Chase) has just died.
The show ends with no clear answer given, and even if that fabled "Community" movie ever gets made, it's not likely to contain an answer. That's because showrunner Dan Harmon never had a specific character in mind. When asked who the bandit was, he answered: "It was my job to make sure it could have been anybody, so I don't know."
Despite this, most fans' primary suspect is Annie, due to her suspicious behavior at the end of the episode, as well as her even more suspicious behavior in the series finale. However, there's a case to be made that any member of the study group could potentially be the culprit. Yes, even Troy. If you're willing to reopen this cold case with me, let's take another look at the evidence and see if we can solve this mystery once and for all.
One piece of evidence against Annie is her final line in the episode. Jeff says, "I have a feeling he'll be back." Annie responds, "Or her." Then she freezes up a little, as if she just accidentally let something major slip. She and Jeff share a look that could be interpreted as Annie being scared Jeff will figure out she's the bandit, and Jeff suspecting her for the first time. It's not a great moment for those who insist Annie's innocent, but it's not exactly hard evidence.
The main piece of evidence comes in the series finale, when someone brings up the Ass Crack Bandit and Annie acts perhaps a little too dismissively. "Could've been anybody," she says with a nervous, evasive laugh. Jeff looks at her suspiciously yet again, but the moment's brushed aside.
But the key argument against Annie comes in the scene with her, Jeff, and the Dean, where the Dean demands to know what's actually going on between her and Jeff. The Dean gives his theory: Annie and Jeff are using this mystery as an excuse to channel their romantic feelings for each other into a socially acceptable outlet. As long as there's a mystery to be solved, Annie has an excuse to spend time alone with Jeff, where all sort of things can happen.
Maybe the bandit was in fact Annie all along. She's got the motive, after all. Her big theory in the beginning is that the bandit must be a teacher because the time frame in which the bandit pulled off a coin-spree required a shortcut, but we know from later episodes that she herself is capable of going in and out of the teachers' lounge without much pushback. Annie's not off the hook yet, as far as I'm concerned.
Let's propose another interpretation of the episode's final scene. When Annie says "or her," maybe she looks back at Jeff because she suspects him? After all, there's technically no way of knowing the bandit is a he, so why would Jeff make that assumption unless he knew something everyone else didn't? Instead of looking at this moment as Annie letting herself slip, maybe this was the moment where Jeff slipped?
Jeff's motive would be the same as Annie: he wants an excuse to spend more time with her alone. Yes, he acts like he's reluctantly going along with Annie in the beginning, but we've known Jeff long enough at this point to know that's just a front. He always pretends to be a reluctant participant because he thinks it makes him look cool and aloof, but secretly he longs to get in on the action.
Another piece of evidence: Jeff is a teacher, which means that he has unfettered access to the teachers' lounge. If it weren't for the fact that Annie trusts Jeff and has feelings for him, she probably would've placed him at the top of her suspects list for this reason alone. There's not enough evidence yet to convict Jeff in a court of law, but if he was in the room with you right now, would you really feel safe enough to bend down and tie your shoes?
Although Britta isn't treated like a suspect throughout the episode, we see her at the end writing what looks like a psych report on the bandit. She accidentally writes "Britta" instead of "bandit," then quickly erases it. Was this simply a case of her "britta"-ing something yet again? Or could it have been a Freudian slip?
Like everyone else in the study group, Britta has multiple potential motives. Perhaps she's trying to make some sort of political statement; we know from previous episodes that she has a tendency of going about her activism in questionable, often counterproductive ways. Maybe the coin is supposed to be a metaphor for the government invading our civil liberties.
A more likely motive is that Britta is frustrated by the fact that no one takes her seriously like they used to. Season 1 Britta was the group's voice of reason, whereas by season 5 Jeff described her as "the group's airhead." In a season 6 episode where the group's trying to figure out if a dog got a degree at Greendale, Britta wishes the rumor will turn out to be true. "They all treat me like I'm a joke," she says, "But if a dog got a degree, that means we're all a joke."
Perhaps years of humiliation have turned Britta into a spiteful person, someone who would stoop to any lengths to humiliate Greendale. And what could be more embarrassing for the school than being the home of the Ass Crack Bandit?
The closing montage provides us with a clear motive for Shirley being the bandit: change being banned from Greendale means she makes more money from her sandwich business. However, let's consider the more damning piece of evidence: Jeff and Annie are chasing the bandit down an empty corridor and who do they find? Shirley, exactly where the bandit would've been. "The hallway led to a dead end," Annie says later in the episode. "We might've had him."
When they find Shirley there, she tells them Pierce has died, which instantly makes them forget about their pursuit of the bandit. How ... convenient. If Shirley hadn't hit them with that game-changer news, they probably would've started suspecting her.
Now, I'm not saying for sure that Shirley murdered Pierce to throw Annie and Jeff off the trail; I'm just saying that we never actually figure out how Pierce died, and Pierce's will does state that in the event of his death, every member of the study group is a potential murderer. We also know that Shirley and Pierce have never particularly gotten along. We also know from the later episode "VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing" that Shirley has the capacity to act like a cold, calculated criminal when it meets her needs.
We also know from "App Development and Condiments" that she's absurdly concerned about her image, not afraid to engage in sociopathic behaviors to keep her five-star rating intact. With that in mind, it makes sense that she would resort to extreme lengths to prevent the truth of her bandit crimes from coming to light, as it would forever destroy her beloved reputation.
Abed's love of film and TV -- and his occasional inability to distinguish them from reality -- has gotten him into trouble sometimes. In season 1 he wanted to make his life a mafia movie, which resulted in him creating a whole criminal empire. In season 2, he believed everyone in the world was made up of claymation, and he made Britta cry when she tried to snap him out of this. In season 3 he tried to cut off Jeff's arm.
Abed isn't inherently evil, but we know he's capable of harming people without realizing it. It's possible that Abed was trying to live out his own David Fincher movie, and creating a quasi-serial killer was the best way for him to live the fantasy out.
We also know that Abed is surprisingly athletic; in season 1 he was able to beat former high school quarterback Troy in every physical competition, most notably running. Maybe Abed doesn't have easy access to the teacher's lounge like Jeff, but he may be the only member of the study group fast enough to pull the coin spree off without using that shortcut.
Lastly, we know that Evil Abed exists, and he's capable of taking over Abed's body at nearly any point. The Abed we see throughout the episode may not act guilty in any way, but maybe this wasn't the version of Abed in control at the time of the bandit's crimes.
Pierce (Chevy Chase) tends to be excluded from the list of suspects because, well, he wasn't in the episode. By that point, he had already been replaced by Buzz Hickey (Jonathan Banks), the only main character who we can safely assume is not the bandit. (You can't convince me that Hickey would ever muster up enough energy to even bother with this sort of crime.) Then of course there's the fact Pierce dies at some point in the episode (potentially by Shirley's hands?).
Then again, consider this point: after Pierce dies, the Ass Crack Bandit never strikes again. Isn't that a little strange? If the bandit was never caught, what would stop them from striking a few months down the line? Surely it can't be a coincidence that the bandit's crimes died along with Pierce, right?
The motives for Pierce are endless. At the time of his death he was banned from campus, and seemingly estranged from the rest of the study group. We know from the next episode, "Cooperative Polygraphy," that Pierce is still capable of being just as petty and conniving as he was during his villain arc in season 2. Until new evidence comes to light, Pierce is still on the suspect list.
At first glance, Troy seems like the last person you'd suspect. He is, after all, an early victim of the bandit's heinous crime. He spends the episode a shell of his former self, having to be taken everywhere in a wheelchair, wrapped in Abed's comfort blankets. Troy seems deeply traumatized by what happened to him, from beginning to end. But there's just one problem with this: Troy is famously a big fan of butt stuff.
In season 1 when Annie asks Troy to join a psych experiment, Troy asks "Do they do stuff to your butt?" When Annie says no, a mildly disappointed Troy says, "It's fine, I'll do it." When he's coming on to Annie in "Romantic Expressionism," he tells her excitedly, "I think you know I have a thing for butt stuff." In "Contemporary American Poultry," Abed makes a board with everyone in the study group's likes and needs, information Abed uses to bend the group to his will. Right up on the top of Troy's list of likes is "butt stuff." In "Cooperative Calligraphy," Troy gets excited over the idea of being excited by a potential cavity search. Obviously consent is a major factor here, but based on Troy's behavior throughout his five seasons of the show, does his reaction in this episode not feel a little ... suspicious?
There is one major piece of evidence that seemingly excludes Troy from the suspect list, however: we saw the mysterious bandit standing in the same room as him. We know for a fact that he was legitimately cracked. So how, in that case, could Troy have been the bandit?
Fans of the "Scream" franchise and certain Agatha Christie novels are aware of the concept of a two killer reveal. It's a good plot twist because it takes pieces of evidence that would seemingly exonerate a specific suspect and casts it in a whole new light. A character being away from the scene of the crime is now no longer enough to exclude them from the suspect list.
Likewise, the existence of two bandits working together ties together a lot of threads that don't quite add up here. How could Pierce be the killer if Professor Duncan got cracked right before Shirley broke the news of his death? Because maybe he and Shirley were working together, and Shirley killed Pierce prior to her final heist. Why was Professor Duncan acting so suspicious with Annie if he wasn't the bandit? Well, maybe because he was one of the bandits, and whoever cracked Duncan did so as part of their plan to take the heat off him. (After all, Duncan's excuse for needing to tie his shoes was questionable to say the least.)
If there are two bandits, which I believe there are, that makes pretty much every member of the study group still on the table as a potential suspect. It does, however, erase certain pairings.
We know that the bandits can't be Jeff and Annie, because there'd be no reason for them to both play dumb while they're alone together. We also know it can't be Jeff and the Dean, or Annie and the Dean, because the three were in the same room together when the bandit called them. Likewise, a pairing of any character in the bleacher scene is off the table now. Any combination of the Dean, Troy, Vicky, or Garrett isn't possible. Annie and Professor Duncan (John Oliver) also can't be working together, because then their scene near the end wouldn't make sense.
In fact, the scene with Annie and Duncan actually exonerates Annie completely. Because if she was the killer, or working with the killer, there'd be no reason for her to be so scared of Duncan. There's no one else in the room with her to witness her behavior, so it's not like she'd have to fake suspicion for someone like Jeff's sake.
In the end, I think it's pretty clear that whoever the two bandits are, Duncan is one of them. Throughout the episode he plays the same roles as Billy Loomis in the first "Scream," seeming so obvious a pick for the culprit that you'd assume he'd have to be a red herring. We find out early in the episode that the bandit went on a hiatus during the same period Duncan was away, we find out Duncan's also a Dave Matthews fan, and he was acting incredibly suspicious in his scene with Annie. The only hard piece of evidence exonerating him was him getting cracked at the end, but the two bandit theory renders that evidence irrelevant. So if Duncan is bandit #1, who's Bandit #2?
One explanation is that Britta and Duncan were working together. Bonded by their interest in psychology, they created their own legendary figure so they could make money writing a paper about him, which we see Britta starting in the final montage. This doesn't quite work though, because we've seen throughout the rest of season 5 that he and Britta are never particularly familiar with each other, despite Duncan's desire to seduce her.
Another explanation is Pierce and Duncan. Pierce has been a student at Greendale for over a decade, so it's certainly possible the two characters have a history with each other the audience hasn't been privy to. However, because Pierce was dead (or pretending to be dead) at the time Duncan gets cracked, this pairing isn't likely. Jeff and Duncan also doesn't work, because Jeff was with Annie during the final scene too.
There's also the Dean, but I'm not buying it. He may have been against Annie and Jeff's investigations, but that was part of his larger motivation of trying to avoid any more bad press. As much as his stonewalling inadvertently helped the bandit, there's simply no real motivation for the Dean to take part in these scandalous crimes.
That leaves Troy, Shirley, and Abed as potential second bandits. But at this point, Troy's still expected to be in a wheelchair, so it would be difficult for him to pull off the final crack. There's no technical reason why Shirley couldn't be the killer, but she lacks a strong motive. We know she doesn't have any unique relationship with Duncan, and it's not clear how taking part in this scheme would improve her popularity, which we know is more important to her than money. That leaves only one suspect left.
Ask yourself which member of the study group knows Troy best. Who would know exactly which stuffed animal to leave on the floor that would incite Troy to pick it up? Who would best know exactly when Troy would be alone in the study room? Why'd he have all those blankets already on hand to comfort Troy in the aftermath?
Nearly every time "Community" has a special episode parodying some genre of TV/film, Abed's at the center of it. Even when another character's the center of the episode, like with Jeff's "G.I. Joe" hallucination later in season 5, Abed still serves as a vital character connecting Jeff back to the real world. The last time "Community" did a detective-themed episode, Abed was smack dab in the middle of the investigation. Here, he's strangely absent, seemingly uninterested. It might seem out of character until you realize that it's all an act. He's the real mastermind behind everything that happens.
He's the only character with both the motive and the means to pull everything off with Professor Duncan. He's someone who knows his friends so well he can predict their every move, and someone with a history of forgoing ethics in the name of creating a good story, be it in real life or as part of a film he's making. "It's not called friend business," Abed once said early in season 1, when Britta called him out on manipulating his friends' emotions. "It's called show business."
For the sake of the poor, traumatized victims of the Ass Crack Bandit over the years, we should've listened sooner. We can only hope he'll be caught in the possible, eventual movie. The devastation he and Duncan wreaked can never be undone, but maybe justice can still prevail.
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The post Dan Harmon Doesn't Have An Answer To Community's Biggest Question appeared first on /Film.
