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Just like the 21st century, in the Roman Empire pants were considered a bad thing [Interesting]
Man Vs. Bee Trailer: Rowan Atkinson Returns To Slapstick In A Very Literal Netflix Series
Rowan Atkinson is back in another slapstick comedy, "Man vs. Bee." The trailer for the Netflix comedy series confirms that the title for the show is quite literal, as it is exclusively about a man named Trevor (Atkinson) battling it out with a bee, who seems hell-bent on disrupting his life.
The premise immediately reminds me of S. S. Rajamouli's "Eega," also known as "The Fly," in which a man avenges his death after being reincarnated as a fly. While "Eega" has serious undertones, for the most part, it is also delightfully bonkers — for instance, the fly manages to write "I will kill you" on the windshield of his murderer. Pretty crazy stuff.
Netflix's "Man vs. Bee" obviously takes a more comedic route, wherein the fly seems to be more than, well, a fly, as it deliberately wreaks havoc in Trevor's life. Check out the trailer below.
Bee-Hold, An Unlikely Nemesis
The trailer begins with Trevor being charged with various counts of borderline-criminal behavior, including dangerous driving and (accidental) destruction of property. The tense vibe inside the courtroom is punctuated when Trevor speaks up, saying that a bee is responsible for everything that occurred.
After getting a job as a house sitter in a fancy mansion, Trevor is plagued by a bee, whose actions seem ... shady, to say the least. Despite Trevor's determined attempts to shoo it away or squash it, the bee manages to persevere and makes Trevor slowly lose his sanity, forcing him to accidentally wreck the house he is responsible for looking after.
"Man vs. Bee" is directed by David Kerr ("Johnny English Strikes Again," Insider No. 9"), and has been created by Atkinson and Will Davies. The comedy series also stars Jing Lusi, Claudie Blakley, Tom Basden, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Greg McHugh, and India Fowler.
The trailer indicates that Atkinson is back in his element, as he is known best for his hilarious physical comedy, and the plot for "Man vs. Bee" certainly demands that. Things are accidentally set on fire, many bee-swatting sequences lead to Trevor hurting himself or falling down in dramatic ways, and there is even a scene in which the bee tries to wiggle up Trevor's leg as a police officer asks him questions.
Check out the official synopsis below:
Bumbling dad Trevor tries to get the best of a cunning bee while house-sitting a posh mansion — but only unleashes more chaos in this comedy series.
"Man vs. Bee" is set to premiere on June 24, 2022, on Netflix.
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The post Man vs. Bee Trailer: Rowan Atkinson Returns to Slapstick in a Very Literal Netflix Series appeared first on /Film.
Dwayne Johnson Waged A Secret War On Jason Statham While Shooting Hobbs And Shaw
It doesn't take more than a brief glance at the "Fast & Furious" films to see how much testosterone is packed into every frame. Fast cars, giant explosions, bulging muscles, scantily-clad women -- the franchise is saturated with so much "dudes rock" energy that it can barely be contained on the screen.
So it comes as no surprise that the stars of the films bring their competitive natures to their off-camera antics in addition to their posturing on-camera. While actual animosity between the actors can certainly happen (and has), that competitiveness can manifest itself in other, more entertaining ways. That's exactly what occurred on the set of 2019's "Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw," the franchise's first (and, to date, only) spin-off entry starring Dwayne Johnson as Luke Hobbs and Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw.
Where the film itself sees Hobbs and Shaw in a perpetual state of annoyance with each other in the style of many a mismatched comedy duo, Johnson sought to maintain a different kind of one-upmanship with Statham in real life, waging a secret war on his co-star that had one particular goal: make Statham laugh as much as possible.
Johnson Knows Conflict Keeps A Comedy Duo Lively
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is no stranger to pranking his co-stars; his relationship with Kevin Hart through the years has been positively Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis-esque, with the former wrestler constantly razzing the diminutive comedian every chance he gets. For instance, while making "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle," he tortured Hart — who has a fear of spiders — by placing a big fake spider on him right before a take.
Of course, Hart understands the nature of his relationship with Johnson isn't a one-way street. He gives as good as he gets, such as dressing up for one Halloween in Johnson's infamous fanny-pack-and-chain look and posting a photoshopped pic of himself and Johnson where Johnson is the smaller of the two for a change.
'The Rock' Tries To Make Statham Crack — On A Daily Basis
While picking on a fellow actor not known for their physical prowess may be one thing, Johnson had no qualms about continuing his penchant for pranks and teasing when faced with a co-star very well known for kicking ass and taking names, Jason Statham. While the characters of Hobbs and Shaw began as bitter antagonists in the "Fast & Furious" films, beginning with Deckard's first appearance in "Furious 7," their reluctant team-up in "The Fate of the Furious" saw their relationship morph from enemies to frenemies, which is where they begin in "Hobbs & Shaw."
Thus, Johnson wanted to keep things playful while still maintaining a rivalry. As "Hobbs & Shaw" producer, Hiram Garcia, recalled upon the film's release:
"Dwayne had a specific goal in every one of their scenes. And that was to make Jason crack. There were always the lines that were scripted, that were gonna be hilarious. But then Dwayne had a specific goal every day of 'What can I say that is just gonna mess Jason up?' Jason's tough, but once you get really under there and pushing Jason's buttons, he starts cracking every time."
Statham — And Director David Leitch — Have Good Senses Of Humor
Johnson's secret war to break up Statham may have backfired if either the actor or "Hobbs & Shaw" director David Leitch didn't have good senses of humor. Fortunately, the two men have a decent history of not taking their work — or themselves — too seriously.
In Leitch's case, he made "Hobbs & Shaw" right after helming "Deadpool 2," which featured a similar blend of unhinged comedy and outsized action. Thus, Leitch was well versed in maintaining control over a film's tone and production while his actors pranked each other, realizing the dynamic would only make the final movie that much more entertaining.
For Statham's part, his turn as Rick Ford in Paul Feig's 2015 action-comedy "Spy" proved to the world that he was more than just a gravel-voiced action hero. While he doesn't play himself in the movie, the character of Rick is clearly intended as a thinly-veiled riff on the macho characters Statham usually portrays, and the fact that Statham sends up both that archetype and his screen persona so winningly proves he's not so self-serious.
For all these reasons, "Hobbs & Shaw" ended up being the funniest "Fast & Furious" movie so far, proving that the franchise had a sense of humor along with its stars. While the film left a few plot threads dangling that have not been addressed in the main "Fast" series yet (and may not be, if Johnson has anything to say about it), hopefully we haven't seen the last of Johnson and Statham as an on-screen action comedy duo.
Read this next: The 18 Best Action Movie Actors Ranked
The post Dwayne Johnson Waged A Secret War On Jason Statham While Shooting Hobbs And Shaw appeared first on /Film.
Dances With Wolves Ending Explained: The New Old West
Kevin Costner's 1990 directorial debut, "Dances With Wolves," creates a new Western legend with majesty and sophistication, even as it reinforces some familiar stereotypes. It also resurrected the Western, which had been buried for over a decade. The release of Michael Cimino's 1980 immigrant saga "Heaven's Gate" — notoriously long, expensive, and demanding — had effectively killed the genre for real. According to the LA Times, industry insiders had a nickname "Dances With Wolves" prior to its release: "Kevin's Gate." With its classic status now well-established, industry skepticism around "Dances With Wolves" sounds ludicrous. But it was a gamble for Costner, who'd turned down a plum role in "The Hunt For Red October" to ensure he could produce, direct, and play the lead of this movie.
Costner made the most of the role, and turned the gamble into a massive hit. We're introduced to John Dunbar (Costner) as a wounded Union soldier on a Civil War battlefield. When he chooses a suicide run against Confederates over having his leg amputated, he strikes a messianic figure with his arms spread wide as he bounces on his horse. He survives and his battalion gains ground. As a reward, he gets the choice to be reassigned wherever he likes. He picks the frontier, as he wants to see it before it's all gone.
Duty-Bound And Ready To Die
Dunbar's journals form the basis of a voiceover that's necessary for the man, who's quiet and taciturn, hardly willing to speak to anybody, let alone provisioner Timmons (Robert Pastorelli), Dunbar's guide and "the foulest man" he's ever met. We get a sense immediately of why Dunbar wanted to go to the frontier, as cinematographer Dean Semler crafts painterly, golden-hour images of the plains that gives the movie its spectacle. It makes the most of its widescreen imagery, just as much as Raoul Walsh's John Wayne Western "The Big Trail" did 60 years earlier.
While the film is largely quiet and intimate, the grandeur of its landscapes, with figures small on the horizon, is one of its major treasures. As if to undercut that, Timmons farts at bonfires and bugs Dunbar constantly. The two arrive at Fort Sedgwick, wrecked and abandoned, and Timmons takes off. It's not long before he's shot to death by Pawnee arrows.
Meanwhile, Dunbar takes on the arduous task of rebuilding the fort, plank by plank, slowly but surely drawing the attention of the local Sioux. They observe him from a distance and discuss him over their fires. Wind In His Hair (Rodney A. Grant) is a young, hotblooded warrior who dismisses Dunbar as a lost "fool." The tribe's holy man, Kicking Bird (Graham Greene), thinks differently, that this newly-arrived white man may be the key to their problems.
The Buffalo Hunt
One of the joys of "Dances With Wolves" is its easy, unhurried pace, which patiently emphasizes the difficulties of cultural exchange. If Dunbar really wants to help the Sioux and learn their ways, he needs to listen. The tribe struggles with the threat of incoming whites, the Pawnee, and a lack of buffalo. Their dialogue with Dunbar is nonverbal but generous, as he makes them bad coffee and they all try to find a common word for buffalo. Another joy is how much of the dialogue is subtitled: the actors are speaking the Lakota language, although according to Notes From the Frontier, it was incorrectly gendered.
As he arrives at their camp, Dunbar sees Stands With a Fist (Mary McDonell), a white Sioux who was taken in as a young orphan, her family killed by Pawnee. Her long-lost English is necessary, according to Kicking Bird — it will give her the chance to be an interpreter to Dunbar. Of course, they have a hard time nevertheless.
He notifies them of a buffalo herd. The buildup to and demonstration of the buffalo hunt is filmed wonderfully. A long journey, filled with disappointment and challenge, rewards the tribe once they finally find the buffalo and descend. It's epic, immersive filmmaking, and the pride on Dunbar's face shows he feels comfortable. The film may not have rewritten the rules of filmmaking like Sergio Leone's Westerns, but it cherishes its people, and the sense of community they forge. It represents a fantastical ideal of what could have been.
Nothing I've Been Told About These People Is True
The young people in the tribe take to calling Dunbar "Loo ten tant," but the adults have their own name for him: "Dances With Wolves," after the close bond he's formed with a wolf called Two Socks. Dunbar's journal says that "the only word that came to mind was harmony," reflecting the same arc that James Cameron borrowed for his 2009 sci-fi take on the story, "Avatar." Dunbar falls in love with Stands With a Fist, and their love scene is interrupted by threats of Pawnee.
Dunbar's rifles give the Sioux the upper hand on the Pawnee in the big battle scene. While the film is notable for its compassionate and complex view of Natives as people, scenes like this, which linger on the white man's heroic murder of "bad" Indians feel passé, nor do they fight the allegations that the movie was a white savior piece.
Dunbar's heroism gives him the chance to marry Stand With a Fist. As the tribe talks of moving to their winter camp, he realizes that he needs to pick up his journal from Fort Sedgwick, or it'll leave a trail for the U.S. to follow. Dressed in Sioux wear, Dunbar's thought to be an Indian when he returns to a newly-populated Fort Sedgwick. The cavalrymen, shot at grotesque low angles, look nearly inhuman. He's beaten as he watches crows pick apart his horse, and is hardly able to defend himself.
Western Reversal
In classic Hollywood, the arrival of the cavalry was signaled with bugles as they saved the day. Here, they're brutal, stupid, and ready to kill a Civil War hero. The arrival of the Sioux to rescue Dunbar is a reversal of expectations — when they emerge suddenly around the pond where Dunbar is kept, the staging is similar to the arrival of cavalry in older Wanesterns. The day is saved in the nick of time, but by Natives, who are fighting for their own.
"I don't like them, because they don't feel organic, or witty enough," said Costner of the Western genre while promoting his 2004 film "Open Range." It's easy to see why something like "Dances With Wolves" would appeal to him by comparison — its gentle pace and complex characterization of (some of) its Native characters marked it as a fundamental shift. On a $19 million budget, it made nearly $200 million domestically, showing that audiences were ready for a movie like this as well. It might not have made our Top 20 Westerns, but it succeeded financially by demonstrating heroism as well as complexity, and a bittersweet ending.
It ends not with Dunbar's rescue by Sioux, but with him volunteering to leave the tribe so as not to turn them into targets of the U.S. Army. As the epilogue notes, his plans would have been in vain anyway. In 12 years, the "last band of free Sioux submitted to white authority."
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No Sudden Move Was A Reminder Of What Ray Liotta Did Best
Words can hardly do proper justice in the wake of a sudden passing, especially when it comes to memorializing one of the select few individuals who qualify as outright legends in the movie business. Ray Liotta was just that. The late actor, who just passed away at the age of 67, was responsible for many memorable performances, including his most famous, star-making turn -- fearlessly leading the charge alongside a murderer's row of talent in Martin Scorsese's 1990 classic "Goodfellas." Just that one role alone would've been enough to usher the grizzled actor into movie star immortality, but Liotta wasn't content to sit back and let just a single production forever define his contributions to the medium.
From "Field of Dreams" to "Heartbreakers" to "Killing Them Softly" to "The Many Saints of Newark," Ray Liotta poured everything he had into every one of his performances over his brilliant career -- either playing surprisingly against type or purposefully leaning into his own rugged features that made him such a shoe-in for mobsters, hitmen, cops, and other unsavory characters.
But one recent film perhaps best displayed everything that the charismatic performer was capable of on screen. Steven Soderbergh's "No Sudden Move" represented a breath of fresh air upon release last year, serving as yet another example of a vintage Soderbergh caper while providing enough of a gut punch to stick with viewers long after the fact. As much as the film belongs to Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, and especially a scene-stealing Brendan Fraser, Ray Liotta makes his formidable presence felt as the dangerous mob boss Frank Capelli. As much as the film itself feels like a throwback to crime thrillers of yesteryear, Liotta's performance also serves as a perfect reminder of everything the actor did best.
A Towering Presence
A brief flicker of annoyance. Bald-faced lies told with a completely straight face. Barely constrained fury steadily rising underneath his chiseled profile and the square set of his jaw. Much of Liotta's acting in his early scenes in "No Sudden Move" almost seems to work against the actor's strengths. Ed Solomon's script does a tremendous job of unearthing the interiority and private thoughts of many of its characters, but one doesn't cast Ray Liotta for a restrained and minimalist performance. Yet much like the film itself, everything snaps into place the longer we watch.
Frank Capelli is spoken of by other characters in hushed tones, raising the bar of expectations to an almost insurmountable level before we ever even see Liotta's face. It only takes one pivotal scene, however, to appreciate his inspired casting. A quiet dinner room becomes the setting for a tense confrontation between Goynes, Russo, and the treacherous Capelli. The specific details of their exchange are less important than the way Liotta immediately commands the room, even at a (supposed) moment of triumph for our protagonists. Here, his acting works in perfect tandem with the script as he suddenly gains the upper hand and never relinquishes it ... even after the sequence ends in furious rage and a hail of bullets.
Equally as comfortable biting off clipped dialogue in the heat of the moment as he is squeezing the trigger of his gun, Liotta's Capelli can't help but bring to mind his transformation over the course of "Goodfellas." His mob boss is far from sympathetic and commits some heinous acts along the way, but few others could've brought a sense of outraged dignity to such a role, as if he can hardly even believe some of the nonsense he has to deal with. In the suddenness of his passing, I find myself remembering him through his beguiling turn in "No Sudden Move."
Read this next: The Goodfellas Scene You Might Not Know Was Improvised
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Celia Rose Gooding Had Plenty Of History With Uhura Before Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Lieutenant Uhura was an indisputable win for Black women in science fiction — and a total cornerstone for Black female fans of the genre. As a sci-fi lover myself (and the daughter of a devout Trekkie) it's difficult to remember a time when I wasn't at least subtly aware of Nichelle Nichols' stately communications officer. The Uhura of the original series has always commanded a distant sort of reverence, but it was Zoe Saldaña's iteration of the character from the "Star Trek" reboot that crystalized that reverence for many a Millennial "Star Trek" fan — Celia Rose Gooding included.
Gooding is the third actor to portray Lt. Uhura after Saldaña, but she was a fan of the character long before dawning her iconic red shirt and go-go boots. "My first introduction to her as a character is from my mom, who is a huge Trekkie," Gooding told TrekMovie. "She used to take my sister and me to watch the new movies. And I remember running to the front row and watching it by myself and craning my neck up to look at Zoe [Saldaña]."
Saldaña brought an inherent competence to her take on Uhura, and it was a huge appeal to Gooding:
"She knew how brilliant she was. It wasn't something that she had to make a spectacle of. It was just something that when she needed to be that capable, brilliant person she was [able] to be just that."
Minding The Gap
Gooding also really admired the "grace" and "glamour" that Nichols brought to the character. The two prior iterations of Uhura certainly possess the same kind of certitude — it's what made Uhura such an empowering character in the first place — but since Gooding is playing a younger version of Uhura in "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," they're approaching that confidence a little differently:
"I think that that's the thing that I'm trying to carry in this very young version of her. This understanding that she knows even more than she probably thinks she knows. And she is much smarter than I think she assumes of herself. But the newness and the unsurety is something that I am weaving through this character, as we get to know her season to season. We know where she ends up. And we know who she ends up being. But we don't really know how she got there. And it's my job to sort of take that and use it to influence her growth."
Bridging the gap between the person Uhura was and the person she becomes in the original "Trek" would be a daunting task for anyone, but Gooding is taking it all in stride. It's a great way to bring more insight to one of the franchise's oldest characters, especially one so beloved (but simultaneously underserved). More Uhura-centered stories have certainly been a long time coming for the character's strongest supporters, so watching her develop over time is going to be a major treat. "That is something that I'm excited for the audience to sort of mark through the first season," Gooding remarked. "And of course, in the seasons to come."
"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" airs Thursdays on Paramount+.
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The post Celia Rose Gooding Had Plenty of History With Uhura Before Star Trek: Strange New Worlds appeared first on /Film.
Jurassic World Dominion Featurette: Women Inherit The Earth
The final film in the second "Jurassic Park" trilogy is almost in theaters. With the return of original trilogy cast members Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Sam Neill in "Jurassic World Dominion," fans have been looking back at the groundbreaking first film. We all remember Goldblum's Dr. Ian Malcolm saying, "Life ... uh ... finds a way" and his chaos theory, but for me, the best line has always been Dern's Ellie Sattler saying, "Woman inherits the earth." When that film came out, I was little, but seeing a character like Ellie, a scientist and a physically strong woman, was really pivotal for me. I'm certainly not alone.
Today Universal Pictures has put out a featurette for "Jurassic World Dominion" that features the women of the new film, including Dern, Bryce Dallas Howard, DeWanda Wise, and Isabella Sermon, talking about that line, what Ellie meant to them, and the powerful characters we're going to see. The most interesting part of all of this is Howard discussing how all of these women in the new film are strong, but that they're all different. Ellie is a smart, thoughtful woman. Isabella is brave and clever. DeWanda Wise's new character Kayla should be cast as the next Indiana Jones-type character, going by that first shot of her in the trailer, and Claire Dearing is resilient, but very flawed in her past decisions.
Powerful Women
In the video, Dern speaks about what they did with the first film, saying, "When we made the first 'Jurassic Park' movie, I was aware that we were creating a character that was unusual in an action film. It was important to Steven [Spielberg] and myself that Ellie was a feminist female action character." Howard points out that, when the films started, all the dinosaurs were female. Wise says that she's honored to join a cast like this, and that her character has "development and depth."
Here's the synopsis for "Jurassic World Dominion."
"Jurassic World Dominion" takes place four years after Isla Nublar has been destroyed. Dinosaurs now live—and hunt—alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators on a planet they now share with history's most fearsome creatures.
"Jurassic World Dominion" stars Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Pratt, Isabella Sermon, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill, DeWanda Wise, Campbell Scott, Omar Sy, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, Mamoudou Athie, Dichen Lachman, and BD Wong. Director Colin Trevorrow co-wrote the screenplay with Emily Carmichael ("Pacific Rim: Uprising").
"Jurassic World Dominion" will hit theaters on June 10, 2022.
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The post Jurassic World Dominion Featurette: Women Inherit the Earth appeared first on /Film.
How to Create a Bootable USB From an ISO: 6 Useful Tools
Creating a bootable USB from an ISO file is easy with the right tools. Whether you're looking to install a new operating system or need a rescue disk, a bootable USB is a versatile tool to have in your tech arsenal. Here's how to make a bootable flash drive from an ISO file.
5 Brilliant Ray Liotta Movies And Where You Can Watch Them
It came as quite a surprise when the news broke of the death of actor Ray Liotta. He was only 67 years old and was in the middle of something of a career resurgence as an elder statesman character actor. Just last year, he turned two tremendous performances in "No Sudden Move" and "The Many Saints of Newark." His career had been thriving in the last few years, both in showcasing the livewire energy that made him a star in his younger years and occasionally eschewing that for some lovely, controlled performances. Nobody else on screen had a face like his, and he was always such a compelling figure to watch, even if the movie surrounding him wasn't up to the level of his performance.
In the wake of his passing, let's celebrate some of the man's finest work. While he certainly had a career valley there for a little while, he made so many great films over the course of his decades-long career that deserve first, second, fifth, and twentieth watches. While there could be a dozen films to put on this list, let's just start with five you absolutely have to watch. This evening, throw on one of these great films starring Ray Liotta and marvel at what a lightning bolt of an actor he was.
Something Wild (1986)
Jonathan Demme's 1986 comedy "Something Wild" was just Ray Liotta's second film, and in it, you can truly see the birth of a movie star. The film follows a hapless Manhattan yuppie (Jeff Daniels) who winds up in a spur of the moment road trip with a woman he just met named Lulu (Melanie Griffith) to New Jersey for her high school reunion. About 50 minutes into the movie, Ray Liotta shows up and completely transforms the entire tenor of the picture. What had been a quirky, fun romantic comedy turns incredibly dangerous. The laughs keep coming, but you are also gripping your seat at the same time. Liotta plays the ex-boyfriend of Lulu, and he has not gotten over her in the slightest.
Even his entrance demonstrates what a force this guy is. The lighting of the scene completely changes, as if Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith have entered a hell they cannot escape. Liotta walks that fine line of sinister and irresistible perfectly, and because he was essentially an unknown actor at the time of the film's release, all someone could do was believe that there was no character there. He was just this man. The character's name is even Ray. "Something Wild" may have been incredibly early in Ray Liotta's career, but it remains one of his greatest triumphs.
"Something Wild" is available to stream on Criterion Channel.
Field Of Dreams (1989)
While "Field of Dreams" has obviously become of the most beloved sports films of all time, Ray Liotta's name is rarely ever mentioned alongside it. Kevin Costner is an all-consuming force when it comes to baseball movies that the rest almost falls away for everyone else. But Liotta is key to what makes "Field of Dreams" as powerful as it is to all that dads out there and beyond. He plays the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson, the Chicago Black Sox legend who inspires Costner's Ray Kinsella to build the titular baseball field.
Liotta was so often called upon to play tough guys. Cops and criminals were his forte. It is the fate of so many actors after appearing in a beloved gangster movie. Seeing him with such a light touch in "Field of Dreams" shows how much more there was to him as an actor, and how we didn't get to see this side often enough. His Shoeless Joe doesn't need that hard edge that made his "Something Wild" performance so electric, and Liotta knew how to compartmentalize that when necessary. You have all seen "Field of Dreams" probably more times than you can count on cable, but on your next rewatch, pay extra attention to Ray Liotta's lovely performance.
"Field of Dreams" is available to stream on Prime Video.
Goodfellas (1990)
This is the one Ray Liotta will be remembered for. After all, it's the movie most people involved with it will be remembered for. "Goodfellas" is one of the greatest films of all time. Not just of its genre or era. Ever. And right smack dab in the center of it is Ray Liotta. His track record as a leading man is not nearly as sterling as his supporting work, but when you have a film as excellent as "Goodfellas" in your quiver, the rest basically evens out. His performance as gangster Henry Hill was so magnetic that even director Martin Scorsese has attempted to recreate it a few different times in subsequent films like "Casino" and "The Wolf of Wall Street." As a narrator alone, his voice carries you through that movie with vibrant energy.
"Goodfellas" takes all that mania from "Something Wild" and puts it inside a character who is a true human being rather than a force. He's intimidating, funny, pathetic, and off his rocker, and I can't think of anyone else who could have played that part. It will forever remain a mystery how he didn't even get nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in "Goodfellas," let alone didn't win. On every obituary for Ray Liotta you see today, it will read "Goodfellas star" in the headline, and it is with good reason. For that film to be the masterpiece that it is, it needed Ray Liotta.
"Goodfellas" is available to stream on HBO Max.
Cop Land (1997)
In the cavalcade of cop and criminal roles that Ray Liotta received after the success of "Goodfellas," the best one is probably in James Mangold's 1997 sophomore feature "Cop Land." He plays a cop named Figgis (great name), who is one of a group of dirty cops who work for the NYPD but have found a loophole to actually live in Garrison, New Jersey. "Cop Land" is stuffed with big name talent, including Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, and Harvey Keitel, but for my money, the performance of the film comes from Ray Liotta.
Figgis is the character who gets to really have an arc over the course of the film, going from dirty cop to someone frantically trying to escape his situation to informant. He brings his trademark intensity and uses it to great effect. "Cop Land" is not the greatest crime film you will ever see, but it is a strong outing from a solid director like Mangold and includes a very committed Sylvester Stallone performance. Ray Liotta, though, is the standout.
"Cop Land" is available to stream on HBO Max.
Marriage Story (2019)
The era of the great older character actor phase of Ray Liotta's career began with Noah Baumbach's fantastic divorce dramedy "Marriage Story." Laura Dern may have won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Scarlett Johansson's lawyer, but Liotta is every bit as magnetic as Dern across the courtroom as Adam Driver's lawyer. He absolutely nails this slick, no nonsense Los Angeles lawyer right on the head. They don't even need to show you a television commercial for this guy's services to know what that commercial would look like. He may be intense, which is why Driver's character is initially hesitant to choose him as his divorce attorney (and goes to the equally fantastic Alan Alda), but deep down, he knows this guy can get him what he wants.
Seeing Ray Liotta in "Marriage Story" sent a collective, "Oh, right. I love Ray Liotta," thought through everyone's head, and I think it is directly responsible for why he was starting to get a bunch of good roles afterwards. Thankfully, we were at least able to get a couple of them, but it is incredibly sad that we won't get another few decades of this phase of Liotta's career. He was a singular actor, and finding someone to fill that void will be nigh impossible.
"Marriage Story" is available to stream on Netflix.
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The post 5 Brilliant Ray Liotta Movies And Where You Can Watch Them appeared first on /Film.
Heartbreakers Lets Ray Liotta Shine As A Goofy Wise Guy
The first time I ever saw "Goodfellas," my dad had put it on in our living room while he helped my mom clean up for Thanksgiving. I must have been eight or nine-years-old at the time, so two and a half hour mafia movies weren't really my thing yet. I remember saying, "What are you watching?" only for my dad to exclaim, "I HAVEN'T SHOWN YOU 'GOODFELLAS' YET?!"
I had no idea what to expect, but the bad guy from "Home Alone" was there, which meant as my dad dusted the array of tchotchkes my mom kept on the shelves around the bulky CRTV, he quoted everything Tommy DeVito said with absolute precision. My dad looks and sounds an awful lot like Joe Pesci, which meant his movies got a lot of play in my house growing up, but none more so than "Goodfellas." "Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut" was basically a Colangelo family motto.
As I got older and my taste in movies began to develop outside of stuff my parents liked, it got harder to convince my dad to step outside of his comfort zone and watch something that was far more my speed than his. But there existed a failsafe -- I could get my dad to watch just about anything from any genre as long as someone from "Goodfellas" was in a starring role. This is exactly how I convinced my Italian, working-class Midwestern dad to watch "Heartbreakers," the mother-daughter rom-com con movie starring Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jason Lee, Gene Hackman, and the late, great, Ray Liotta.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels With A Feminine Twist
Despite debuting at #1 at the box office and receiving 3 out of 4 stars from Roger Ebert, "Heartbreakers" hasn't exactly become a comedy classic. Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt play a team of mother-daughter con artists who make their cash by having Weaver marry a rich schmuck only for Hewitt to seduce them just as Weaver walks in, giving her a reason to file for divorce and take half his fortune. The film was directed by David Mirkin of "The Simpsons" and "Romy & Michele's High School Reunion" fame, and featured Gene Hackman and Ray Liotta as two of the women's marks. Liotta plays Dean Cumanno, the owner of an auto body shop and part-time crook. There's only one problem: Even after their con succeeds, Dean tracks down his "ex-wife" to make amends, having sincerely fallen in love with her, only to realize that he's been conned.
Now Dean, being a crook himself, isn't about to get law enforcement involved, and instead strikes up a deal for a cut of their criminal empire in exchange for his silence, which means he sometimes has to participate in the cons himself. Ray Liotta is synonymous in the minds of most as Henry Hill in "Goodfellas," and in "Heartbreakers," he's essentially playing Henry Hill if he was a lovable, aging himbo. The movie is an absolute camp delight, and by golly, Ray Liotta's performance got my stubborn dad totally on board.
Heartbreakers Is One Of Liotta's Favorites
No shade to Weaver, Hewitt, Lee, or Hackman who are all fantastic in this flick, but Liotta absolutely steals it. At one point he's pretending to be a guy named Vinny Staggliano at a wedding, and the groom's mother asks what he does. "College professor," he replies. "Oh! Uh, what do you teach?" she asks. "College stuff. What are you, a f****** cop?" he retorts back. In a movie like "Goodfellas," this moment would feel like a threat. In "Heartbreakers," it's comedic gold. Liotta has played a lot of bad guys and wiseguys over the years, but "Heartbreakers" allowed him to showcase his comedy chops and play something a little sillier.
"Sometimes I get to play goofy guys!" he said in a Facebook post about his time in "Heartbreakers." Liotta described the film as one of his favorites, and cited watching Gene Hackman work as being what made the movie feel "extra special" for him. "I didn't have any scenes with him, but I'd stay or come early just to watch him work," he said. "And not for nothing, but it's a really, really funny movie .. .as you can tell I loved doing this movie and I dare you not to laugh!" Actors who are known for specific "types" of characters frequently express regret or embarrassment when they step outside of their wheelhouse, but Liotta clearly loved getting the chance to do something a little different.
A Motto For Life
The first thing I did when I heard about Liotta's passing was text my dad. He's not the most technologically savvy dude, and if he was going to hear about it from anyone, I wanted it to be me. He was bummed out, as to be expected, but we both immediately began sharing our memories of watching him on screen. I reminded him of us sitting on the basement couch, absolutely roaring with laughter throughout the "Heartbreakers." He loved Liotta's character, he loved Hackman playing against type, and he loved Sigourney Weaver pulling one over on a bunch of men. The rom-com storyline with Hewitt and Lee he couldn't care less about, but the film's message, as delivered by Liotta, was heard loud and clear.
"Love is pain! Life is pain! You can't protect anybody from it. It's always gonna get you. But sometimes, life could also be good. But you gotta be open. You gotta take chances. You gotta let go!"
My dad elbowed me in the way that Italian dads love to do to their kids, making sure that I didn't miss the moment. "You hear that? Pay attention. He's speaking the truth about life, kid." Never in my wildest imagination would an offbeat comedy from the early aughts have such an impact on my father and I's relationship, but it's a moment I've never forgotten.
And it's all thanks to Ray Liotta's brilliantly comedic delivery.
Read this next: The Goodfellas Scene You Might Not Know Was Improvised
The post Heartbreakers Lets Ray Liotta Shine as a Goofy Wise Guy appeared first on /Film.
Testing Everyday Carry Folding Knives
Got a tip to share? Tool to recommend? Tall shop tale to tell? A tip to bust? Please share with the class.
Testing Everyday Carry Folding Knives
In this Project Farm video, Todd tests out 15 brands of everyday carry (EDC) folding knives from Fallkniven, Benchmade, Gerber, Victorinox, Kershaw, Cold Steel, Kizer, CRKT Fossil, Leatherman Skeletool, Milwaukee, DeWalt, COAST, Kingmax, Vulcan, Master USA. In the end, the expensive Benchmade ($170) performed best, but the Kizer ($69) and Kershaw ($87) also showed impressive results. The surprise was the Kingmax (at only $13). It performed decently and includes useful features, like a window breaker and seatbelt cutter.
On the Make: Podcast Talking About My Book
A few weeks ago, Dale Dougherty of Make: and I had a fun chat about my latest book, Tips and Tales from the Workshop, Vol. 2.
DIY lifer Gareth Branwyn has compiled a new volume of his series, Tips and Tales of the Workshop, Volume 2. He joins Dale Dougherty to talk about how he collects tips — asking a person directly to share a tip is not very productive. He shares some of his favorite tips he has found. He talks about the aspirational quality of tips, how picking up an idea from someone can help us become better. Learn more about Frankenstein prototyping, that things aren’t perfect in the vaults of Gothic cathedrals, and that details layer one on top of the other.
Listen here.
Adam Savage on Retirement and Idea-Vulnerability
In a recent Q&A, Adam Savage was asked if he shares his project ideas with family and friends. His sincere answer touches on the vulnerability of an idea and how you want to be careful with whom you entrust those ideas to. His answer reminded me a little bit of Stephen King who was asked about whether he shares his work-in-progress books with anyone. His answer is no, NEVER, because of the vulnerability of the idea. King doesn’t let anyone read a word until he’s finished. His first reader is always his wife, Tabitha, because he knows she knows about idea-vulnerability. King says to have one reader, someone who understands what you’re doing and knows how to navigate the precarious nature of your creative process. Similarly, Adam suggests figuring out who the people are who you can talk to “safely” and only share your ideas with them.
Answering the question on will he ever retire, Adam struggles to even wrap his mind around the concept. He says: “Retirement for me means spending a lot more time passing on my knowledge…I’m never going to stop making stuff. I’m never going to cease collecting objects, stories, and ideas…My hobby is my living, my living is my hobby. I’m always going to be doing that.“ He’s aware enough to recognize the great privilege he enjoys (as do I) of being able to do what you truly love for a living and getting paid for it. And because he’s doing what he loves, he never plans to stop, he just might start getting paid less and less for it.
Making a Portable Weight for Surface Mount Soldering
While going through some old makezine.com content, I happened upon this little gem, a simple tool for holding surface mount (SMT) electronic components in place. This could be useful for holding any small objects. The link to the project is dead, but here it is via the Wayback Machine.
Using Toothbrush Travel Cases to Store Bits, Blades, Etc.
From the latest issue of Family Handyman comes this idea for using cheap translucent toothbrush travel cases to store bits, blades, and other small tools and components.
Resin Printer Settings Spreadsheet
By way of Donald Bell‘s Maker Update comes this really useful tool. As someone relatively new to resin printing, I’ve come to realize just how important printer settings are for successful prints. Layer height, exposure time, base exposure time, and light-off times can all impact your print success. And all of these values can be different for different resin brands. This spreadsheet on Maker Trainer shows the optimal settings for all the common (and not so common) resin brands.
Maker’s Muse
Think of the thing that’s so obvious that no one is going there. Go there.
Shop Talk
Reader Foster Schucker sent in this tip (which I included in my first tips volume):
“I recently saw the tip about the hanging bags and thought I’d share my tip for what I use to hold all of Raspberry Pi parts. It’s a jewelry bag with 36 compartments on both sides. It was inexpensive and it’s been nice to be able to see the parts at a glance.”
***
On the question raised by reader Gary Shell on the Amazon prices almost always being higher than Todd at Project Farm lists them as in his videos, Raoul Miller writes:
“Answering Gary’s question – Amazon does dynamic pricing. When a web site features an item that is somewhat obscure and interest in it rises substantially, then they raise their prices. You just need to wait a week or two for the traffic to it to die down and the price will go back to where it was.”
[Gareth’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales is published by Cool Tools Lab. To receive the newsletter a week early, sign up here.]
No Man’s Sky’s Leviathan update will trap you in a roguelike time loop
Hello Games’ intergalactic wandering simulator No Man’s Sky has gone roguelike for its seventh free expedition update, Leviathan. With a name like that you’d expect something pretty big and, lo, the space whales have arrived. You’ll be able to recruit these leviathans for your capital ship’s frigate fleet, and even keep a baby version as a pet inside your base. Witness them in the trailer below.
Broadcom To Acquire VMware in Massive $61 Billion Deal
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Opens Up Chrome and Chrome OS To Enterprise Security, Control Integrations
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Low Budget Sci-Fi Movies That Made Millions
Big-budget science fiction is a pretty new development. Our original blockbusters, "2001: A Space Odyssey," and "Star Wars: A New Hope," only had budgets of around $10 million. In comparison, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" got to work with roughly $300 million. With the larger budget comes fancier effects, bigger casts, and an amplified "Wow!" factor. That much fun is hard to pass up.
Science fiction is a genre that rewards the imagination, and that's as true for the creators that make our favorite films as it is for the audience. Sometimes, that imagination does its best work while keeping an eye on the bottom line. It's always been possible to make terrific science fiction classics on the cheap. What we're about to highlight are some of those cost-savvy movies and their big returns at the box office. Bearing in mind a lot of boring economic factors, any movie made within the last 30 years is considered low budget if they cost about $20 million bucks to make. There's one exception, and it's a good one. The lesson here is simple: Bigger doesn't guarantee better.
Mad Max
George Miller went from medical school to "Mad Max," crafting his apocalyptic sci-fi road warrior for about $200,000. His star was a then-unknown Mel Gibson, who took home a $15,000 paycheck for his role as Max Rockatansky. The worldwide return was $99,750,000. Decades later, we're still in love with Miller's vision of a ruined world where our humanity still matters.
As we'll find with most films on this list, that slim budget is almost entirely present on the screen. Besides Max, the quiet but furious avenger, and a small cast of baddies that includes Hugh Keays-Byrne as the Toecutter, the cars and crashes of "Mad Max" take the spotlight. Miller filmed his high-octane scenes on streets his crew secretly closed off — without permission from officials. The sheer coolness of what he was doing led the local police to help him with road safety. The results are unforgettable. Gibson became a star, and Miller still makes movies his way — or the highway.
The Ice Pirates
Director Stewart Raffill has a wild career that includes some of the most memetic moments in film. He's the guy that made the godawful kid's movie "Mac and Me," best known as the source of Paul Rudd's infamous running gag. But Raffill has a gift for adventure movies, and in 1984, MGM pulled him in to take over a troubled sci-fi adventure with a result that out-"Spaceballs" Mel Brooks himself.
"The Ice Pirates" was built from the scraps of a script for a project called "The Water Planet," and a $9 million budget. From Angelica Huston to Ron Perlman, the cast is a who's who of today's best oddballs. Pulling in over $13 million worldwide and drawing the ire of critics still high on the promise of serious sci-fi, its real blockbuster success is becoming zanier and funnier with time. A deliberate swerve around "Star Wars" and its serious intergalactic war, "The Ice Pirates" is a swashbuckler in space. The jokes are on the level of the Zucker Brothers, skirting the line of bad taste with effortless glee. You don't need money to be funny in space.
Scanners
David Cronenberg isn't a big-budget kind of guy. The body horror films that he's most famous for rarely cost more than $15 million, and that includes his version of "The Fly." The 1981 film "Scanners" put Cronenberg on the map for mainstream audiences, a delightfully icky cult classic that was designed to make heads explode.
Made for about $4 million Canadian, the worldwide return was a cool $14 million. That was the jolt Cronenberg's profile needed in the industry, and he was even offered a gig directing "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi." With "Scanners" focusing on a rebellious group of psychics fighting to take down some evil corporate masterminds armed with psychics of their own, it's easy to see how Cronenberg got on George Lucas' list. However, Cronenberg preferred to keep doing things his way. His next film would be the equally cheap but harder-to-sell "Videodrome." Cronenberg's films rarely do big numbers at the box office, but they definitely take hold of our minds.
Death Race 2000
Never underestimate the power of a good car crash. Four years before Max Rockatansky sped down Australia's apocalyptic freeways, our favorite cheesy movie king, Roger Corman, produced "Death Race 2000." Directed by Paul Bartel and given a budget of about $300,000, the film features a collection of surprising '70s stars like Sylvester Stallone and David Carradine. A glorious mess that puts aside most of its social commentary for silly shocks, "Death Race" brought home over $5 million worldwide and parked itself in our hearts.
This dystopian predecessor to "The Cannonball Run" is gleeful in its violence. There's a corny resistance plot based on the American Revolution going on while race car drivers with wrestler personas tear across the United States. What we see of the new US makes it pretty clear the rebellion is needed. Pedestrians are disposable, martial law is in effect, and the gory gladiator race is the regime's idea of bread and circuses.
The Terminator
When you think of "The Terminator," you might think of Arnold Schwarzenegger walking in the scariest, most intense way possible. You probably think of a chrome skull becoming visible under bloody gore and lots of guns. With a blockbuster sequel that pioneered new CGI special effects, it's also easy to think that "The Terminator" has always been a big-budget king, but that's not the truth.
Rewatching the original "Terminator" reminds us that it's a tightly-paced movie that feels so much bigger than it is. Made for just $6.4 million, James Cameron puts it all into intense scenes and terrifying stop motion animation that brings the skeletal T-100 to life. Seen in both Kyle Reese's glimpses of the future and the final showdown in a steel factory, the animation was just one part of how Schwarzenegger, effects expert Stan Winston, and James Cameron made this cyborg into one of the coolest villains of the last century. "The Terminator" made $78 million worldwide. It also made pop culture history.
Hardware
Director Richard Stanley briefly clawed his way back into prominence with the scarily good Lovecraft movie "The Color out of Space" in 2020. Derailed by the infamously bad "The Island of Dr. Moreau," his filmography is both limited and strange. His debut is a forgotten science fiction classic. "Hardware," released in 199o, is a film that pops up randomly on streaming services every few months, the sort of thing that goes half-watched on a sleepless night until you realize it's better than it deserves to be.
Made on a tight $1.5 million and returning $5.7 million in its theatrical release, "Hardware" is a true cult movie. A scrapper finds a trashed robot and brings him back to sell for parts. Unfortunately, the pile of junk is a top-of-the-line murder robot, and this dystopian future is a version of Judge Dredd's lawless Mega-Cities — but without any judges. The budget goes into an almost limitless amount of gore and violence that overshadows a theme about mindlessly buying into an authoritarian society.
The Butterfly Effect
Time travel stories can be a sneaky way to explore some big topics on a limited budget. By sticking with certain periods, there are no worries about prop-heavy sets. It worked for "Quantum Leap." "The Butterfly Effect" is as frugal as that classic series with how its time travel operates but with a plot that's like a depressing version of the sci-fi romance, "Somewhere in Time."
Ashton Kutcher plays Evan, a man who realizes he can go back into his past by reading his old journals. He turns his life into a game of "Choose Your Own Adventure," only the more he changes things up, the more he damages his mental stability. It's probably the darkest movie Kutcher's ever done. With a $13 million budget and few special effects, "The Butterfly Effect" returned almost $97 million at the box office. This dreary but effective thriller won a second life with its home video release and a director's cut ending that's even darker.
Monsters
Nature can be the perfect backdrop for a film. Full of beautiful color and with enough shadow to help a smart director imply anything, the forests and jungles of our world are perfect for everything from thrillers to horror movies. For 2010's "Monsters," director Gareth Edwards, his two-person cast of Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able, and a shoestring film crew roamed Central America's wilderness for three weeks. When the shoot wrapped, Edwards went home and worked by himself to piece together the visual effects his story needed.
"Monsters" cost only $500,000 to make. The worldwide box office return was a cool $5 million. For Gareth Edwards, his reward would also include helming the cross-culture MonsterVerse reboot of "Godzilla." But before the king of the monsters retook the world, Edwards' story of two people traversing the wildest quarantined zone since "Stalker" stole our hearts. It's proof that a great film can still be made with basic resources.
Chronicle
"Black Panther" star Michal B. Jordan wasn't yet a big name in 2012 and neither was director Josh Trank. Together, with newcomers Dane DeHaan and Alex Russell and a sleek budget of $12 million, they made the surprise sci-fi hit, "Chronicle." A found-footage-styled film about some tough topics, it's the best homage to the classic "Akira" that a Western director has made so far. Audiences agreed. The film raked in a box office take of $126 million.
Like "Akira," the real roots of the new superpowers these kids discover are pretty vague. For "Chronicle," it's probably aliens, but the real meat here is how these kids adapt to their new powers. There are some hard looks at what abuse can do to a young mind. It's hard to blame DeHaan's Andrew for feeling the way he does, but that can't excuse what he unleashes on innocent people. A deceptively upbeat film that turns grim and thoughtful in its last act, "Chronicle" uses its budget for some neat effects and a perfect cast.
District 9
With a budget of $30 million, "District 9" pushes the boundaries of what can reasonably be called a small-budget film, but this South African production with a little-known director, a cast of unknowns, and an effects studio that had yet to work on anything on this scale blew up expectations worldwide. It made $210 million, became a viral sensation, and etched a call for the parental alien Christopher Johnson to return home into its audience's hearts.
Neill Blomkamp buffs up his six-minute film "Alive in Joburg" into a feature that's just shy of two hours. With that comes a brutal exploration of racism, bigotry, and private militarization. Like the short film, "District 9" is presented as a documentary that follows the day's work of relocating Johannesburg's destitute alien population into what's advertised as a slightly nicer prison camp. Sharlto Copley, as the wimpy Wikus van de Merwe, is gruesomely forced to realize what it's like to be on the other side of the fence. This movie still looks fantastic for its budget, with its alien protagonists feeling more real and empathetic than the mercenaries that hunt them.
Moon
"Moon" isn't shot in black and white, but it's so minimalist that it might as well have been. The premier outing for director Duncan Jones, this $5 million movie was the film in which actor Sam Rockwell revealed he could be much more than an excellent ensemble actor. With the bulk of this hour-and-a-half-long movie spent focused on the lonely Sam Bell, Sam Rockwell carries the movie with sorrow and dignity.
With a box office return of $9.7 million, "Moon" may not qualify as a blockbuster, but its cold lunar setting, achieved with studio sets, models, and budget effects studios, is a testament to how creative effort is more valuable than money. "Moon" is also a NASA favorite, touching on some neat stuff the space agency is still working on. It's a movie that's going to stay on a lot of science fiction best-of lists for years to come and all for a reasonable price.
Ex Machina
Alex Garland is sci-fi's new John Carpenter. He doesn't need a blockbuster budget to make a film that audiences can't forget. His directorial debut, "Ex Machina," proved that with a budget of a mere $15 million. Without the use of greenscreen, Alicia Vikander becomes Ava, a female robot designed to push the limits of artificial intelligence and artificial emotions. Domnhall Gleeson, as Caleb, is sort of her personal Turing test. He's an engineer invited to a reclusive genius' retreat, and that genius, Nathan, is played by our hot new fave, Oscar Isaac.
"Ex Machina" earned just shy of $37 million, becoming one of A24's first big success stories. It also helped boost A24's presence at the 2016 Academy Awards, picking up a win for best visual effects and a nomination for Alex Garland's original screenplay. As for Oscar Isaac, who puts in a creepy good show as an insulated billionaire who treats women like machines? It sure seems like he's been doing pretty well for himself ever since.
Safety Not Guaranteed
Memes are a huge part of Internet culture, and they've been thriving since well before Caturday became an unofficial international holiday. In the '90s and early 2000s, one, in particular, gripped everyone from FARK to Jay Leno. It was a gag ad that read, in part: "Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke." It ended with the ominous words "Safety not guaranteed."
Colin Trevorrow may be the director behind the new era of "Jurassic Park," but his writer is his friend Derek Connolly. Connolly is also the man who tracked down the magazine employee who wrote that strange ad and built a script around it. "Safety Not Guaranteed" is a sweet and strange comedy about a pair of journalists who are equally enthralled by the ad. The answers about who's trying to go back in time and why have some timely entanglements. Made for only $750,000, it brought in over $4 million at the box office. There are only a few special effects but a priceless amount of heart in this movie.
10 Cloverfield Lane
The "Cloverfield" franchise is an attempt to build a connected world from one great monster movie and a couple of independent scripts that got reworked to tie in. It's a concept that allows for some really neat ideas, and with that comes "10 Cloverfield Lane." The feature film debut of "Prey" director Dan Trachtenberg, this tightly-paced thriller was built from a script called "The Cellar," which was passed around Hollywood as one of the hottest scripts of 2012.
With a budget of around $13 million, this movie spends most of its time up close and personal with a three-person cast stuck in an underground shelter. Something terrible is happening outside, but John Goodman, in his scariest role ever as the doomsday prepper Howard, won't let anyone out to figure out the truth — or let anyone in to help them survive. With a controversial twist that's as good as anything "The Twilight Zone" has to offer, "10 Cloverfield Lane" brought $110 million back home to its creepy concrete bunker.
Read this next: The Horror Movies We Can't Wait To See In 2022
The post Low Budget Sci-Fi Movies That Made Millions appeared first on /Film.
Tim Sweeney Casts Doubt on Metaverse's Use for Work, Saying Stripping Entertainment Aspect Leaves You With 'Super Creepy Version of AOL Chat Rooms'
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Detecting and preventing privilege escalation attacks leveraging Kerberos relaying (KrbRelayUp)
On April 24, 2022, a privilege escalation hacking tool, KrbRelayUp, was publicly disclosed on GitHub by security researcher Mor Davidovich. KrbRelayUp is a wrapper that can streamline the use of some features in Rubeus, KrbRelay, SCMUACBypass, PowerMad/SharpMad, Whisker, and ADCSPwn tools in attacks.
Although this attack won’t function for Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) joined devices, hybrid joined devices with on-premises domain controllers remain vulnerable. Microsoft Defender for Identity detects activity from the early stages of the attack chain by monitoring anomalous behavior as seen by the domain controller. In addition, signals from Defender for Identity also feed into Microsoft 365 Defender, providing organizations with a comprehensive solution that detects and blocks suspicious network activities, malicious files, and other related components of this attack. Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects this attack tool as the malware family HackTool:MSIL/KrbUpRly.
Microsoft encourages customers to update Domain Controller: LDAP server signing requirements to Require signing as detailed in this advisory and enable Extended Protection for Authentication (EPA) as detailed in this blog.
Originally, KrbRelayUp supported only one method that’s based on taking advantage of resource-based constrained delegation (RBCD); it later added several additional attack methods. In this blog, we discuss RBCD to provide further insights into how the initial KrbRelayUp attack method works. We also detail the stages that make up the said attack. Finally, we provide recommendations and guidelines that can help organizations strengthen their device configurations and defend their networks from attacks that use this tool.
Understanding the attack: What is resource-based constrained delegation?
Resource-based constrained delegation (RBCD) represents the key to this attack method, enabling the tool to impersonate an administrator and eventually run a code as the SYSTEM account of a compromised device.
Authentication protocol basics
An authentication protocol verifies the legitimacy of a resource or identity. When a user signs into a website, that website uses a methodology to confirm the authenticity of the resource requesting access. In simpler terms, the authentication process involves signing in with a password—made possible by the user knowing the password anticipated by the website. The Kerberos protocol serves as the main authentication framework for this process in on-premises Active Directory.
Delegation
Sometimes, however, a resource needs to request access to another resource on behalf of a different identity. A common example of this is mail delegation, wherein executives often give delegation rights to their executive assistants to send and receive emails on their behalf without providing the assistant with the executive’s password. The executive assistant isn’t authenticating as the executive; the executive has just allowed the assistant’s account to “pretend” that they are.
Resource-based constrained delegation
Initially, only users with the SeEnableDelegation role could configure delegation, typically domain admins. These domain admins can manage resources and dictate which identities can act on behalf of a different resource. They achieve this by updating the msDS-AllowedToDelegateTo property of a user account or device. This property contains a list of all the unique identifiers (service principal names, or SPNs) to which this object can delegate or act on behalf of.
However, as organizations expanded, administrators struggled to manage all the delegation requirements, raising the need for a new type of delegation: resource-based. For instance, in an organization with several file servers that all trust a web server for delegation, an admin would have to change the msDS-AllowedToDelegateTo priority in all of the different file servers to introduce a second web server. With resource-based delegation, the list of trusted computers is held on the receiving end. Thus, in our example, only the newly created server would require a change of settings.
Unsigned LDAP and relay attacks
For the RBCD method of the KrbRelayUp tool to work, the LDAP protocol must not use signing to communicate between LDAP clients and domain controllers. While this setting is still the default on Windows, as of 2019 Microsoft recommends configuring LDAP to use LDAP channel binding and signing.
LDAP is one of the main protocols that directory services tools, such as Active Directory, use to query and access directory information. By default, LDAP is vulnerable to credential relaying attacks. For example, in a credential relaying attack, a web server requesting a password to sign in would have its request relayed by an attacker to an authorized client. The attacker then relays the client reply containing the correct password back to the server, thus signing in. Once the attacker is signed in, they have the same permissions as the user whose credentials were relayed.
If LDAP signing is required, each request to the server needs to be cryptographically signed. In this case, the attacker would still be able to relay the sign-in request and reply, but all further requests from the attacker would be disregarded because each request must be signed, and the attacker doesn’t have the proper keys to do the signing.
Ms-DS-MachineAccountQuota
The final key concept behind the RBCD method of KrbRelayUp tool is the ms-DS-MachineAccountQuota attribute, which all User Active Directory objects have. This attribute is set to 10 by default, which means that any user in Active Directory can create up to 10 computer accounts associated with them. The legitimate usage of this attribute is to allow users to have multiple devices on a network that belong to them that they can then manage. However, if a compromised user doesn’t have 10 actual devices associated with their account, an attacker can create an account for a non-existing device that will be an object in Active Directory. This fake computer account isn’t associated with a real device but can perform Active Directory authentication requests as if it were.
Initially, the ability to obtain such an account was a prerequisite for this attack method, but since the release of the tool, other security researchers found ways to get around this requirement.
KrbRelayUp attack flow
To launch an attack using the RBCD method of KrbRelayUp, an attacker performs four main steps:
Step 1: Acquisition of a suitable resource
The attacker first obtains a resource suitable to be the source of an RBCD. There are several ways to obtain such a resource; the most straightforward way is to create a new computer account as discussed above.
Step 2: Modification of the msDS-AllowedToActOnBehalfOfOtherIdentity attribute
Next, the attacker adds their resource to the current device’s list of trusted resources. To do this, the attacker starts an LDAP session and relays the credentials of the current device to the LDAP server.
The new KrbRelayUp tool implements this step with these two smaller consecutive actions:
- Authenticates to the LDAP service by triggering and performing a Kerberos relay attack
- Edits the msDS-AllowedToActOnBehalfOfOtherIdentity attribute to add the attacker’s resource to the list of entities permitted to delegate the target device.
Step 3: Privileged ticket acquisition
Here, the attacker leverages their control over their resource gained through the first step with the trust for their resource gained through the second step. As such, the local device trusts the attacker’s resource to request a ticket addressed to the host SPN as the domain administrator. The request is made by first pretending to be the attacker’s resource and consists of three requests:
- AS-Req – A request to generate a Ticket Granting Ticket (TGT) for the attacker’s impersonated resource.
- S4U2self – A request to generate a Ticket Granting Service (TGS) ticket from an administrator to the resource.
- S4U2proxy – A request to generate a TGS ticket for the host SPN as an administrator delegating their access via the impersonated resource.
After this step, the attacker has a valid ticket for the local device that allows the administrator to be impersonated.
Step 4: Privileged ticket leverage
The last step leverages the attacker’s newly acquired ticket to run code on the device. In the attack, as it’s published online, the Service Control Manager (SCM) is asked to create a new service with SYSTEM permissions.
Protecting against KrbRelayUp attacks through coordinated threat defense
It’s important to note that KrbRelayUp cannot be used in attacks against organizations that are only using Azure AD. However, in hybrid identity environments where organizations synchronize their domain controllers with Azure AD, if an attacker compromises an Azure virtual machine using a synchronized account, they’ll receive SYSTEM privileges on the virtual machine.
To reduce the impact of this threat, organizations should apply the mitigations below. Microsoft 365 Defender customers can check the recommendations card for the deployment status of monitored mitigations.
- Microsoft has provided guidance for enabling LDAP channel binding and LDAP signing. Microsoft recommends that administrators configure LDAP signing and LDAP channel binding as recommended in the said advisory and described in detail in 2020 LDAP channel binding and LDAP signing requirements for Windows (KB4520412).
- Organizations should also consider setting the ms-DS-MachineAccountQuota attribute to 0 to make it more difficult for an attacker to leverage the attribute for attacks. Setting the attribute to 0 stops non-admin users from adding new devices to the domain, blocking the most effective method to carry out the attack’s first step and forcing attackers to choose more complex methods to acquire a suitable resource.
Detection details
Organizations should also deploy a comprehensive security solution like Microsoft 365 Defender to detect and block this threat across the stages of the attack chain. Microsoft 365 Defender has multiple layers of dynamic protection technologies, including machine learning-based protection, and correlates threat data from email, endpoints, identities, and cloud apps to provide in-depth and coordinated threat defense. All of these are backed by threat experts who continuously monitor the threat landscape for new attacker tools and techniques.
Microsoft Defender for Identity detects activity from the first three steps of the attack flow by monitoring anomalous behavior as seen by the domain controller. Starting in version 2.180, Defender for Identity has two detections that raise an alert when this attack is attempted:
- Suspicious Kerberos delegation attempt by a newly created computer.
- Suspicious edit of the Resource Based Constrained Delegation Attribute by a machine account (KrbRelayUp).
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint includes new and enhanced network inspection capabilities to correlate network and endpoint signals and emit high-confidence alerts. Defender for Endpoint leverages these network signals and looks for suspicious LDAP and Kerberos requests to Active Directory domain controllers to accurately detect attacks using KrbRelayUp. Defender for Endpoint also detects suspicious Kerberos sign-ins and service creations.
Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects a threat from the KrbRelayUp tool as the following malware:
- HackTool:MSIL/KrbUpRly.A
- HackTool:MSIL/KrbUpRly.C
- HackTool:MSIL/KrbUpRly.D
Microsoft 365 Defender customers may refer to the threat analytics report to determine if this threat is present in their network and to get additional details and recommendations. Threat analytics enables organizations to assess the impact of a threat to their network, review exposure and resilience, and perform mitigation, recovery, or prevention actions to stop or contain active attacks.
Learn how you can stop attacks through automated, cross-domain security with Microsoft 365 Defender.
Zeev Rabinovich and Ofir Shlomo
Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team
Resources
- A practical guide on executing this attack – KrbRelay with RBCD Privilege Escalation HOWTO.
- GitHub Repo of the KrbRelayUp tool that also includes further references.
- GitHub Repo of the original Kerberos Relay attack tool by cube0x0.
- Learn more about Microsoft Defender for Identity, and begin a trial here.
- Learn about Microsoft Defender for Identity’s new feature, Response Actions.
- Learn more about Kerberos Constrained Delegation Overview here.
The post Detecting and preventing privilege escalation attacks leveraging Kerberos relaying (KrbRelayUp) appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.
Every Single Star Wars Fan Owes Jake Lloyd An Apology
The release of "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" was cause for much ballyhoo in Hollywood. Following the release of "Return of the Jedi" in 1983, "Star Wars" entered something of a low-profile period, releasing only an often-unremarked-upon TV movie in 1984 ("Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure") and a second TV film ("Ewoks: The Battle for Endor") and two animated shows ("Ewoks" and "Droids") in 1985. For over a decade, "Star Wars" was only to be found on VHS, watched repeatedly by young Gen-Xers who only fell more and more deeply in love with the extant chapters. That decade allowed the myth of "Star Wars" to grow; so by 1999, the release of "The Phantom Menace" became perhaps the largest blockbuster event in modern franchise film history. Fans waiting outside theaters for weeks in anticipation.
"The Phantom Menace" was initially adored by fans, and many committed to seeing it multiple times before a consensus opinion began to form: "The Phantom Menace" ... kinda sucks. For one, The plot was strangely staid for a "Star Wars" film, focusing on trade disputes and civics over heroism and villainy. The character of Jar Jar Binks (realized through then-revolutionary CGI, and voiced by Ahmed Best) was widely derided as shrill and useless. Indeed, several critics pointed out how much he resembled a racist caricature. No element of "The Phantom Menace" was more derided, however, than the depiction of a young Anakin Skywalker, the child who would grow up to be Darth Vader.
The Bullying Of Jake Lloyd
Anakin was played by 9-year-old actor Jake Lloyd, a performer who had previously appeared on several episodes of "ER," as well as in the Arnold Schwarzenegger Christmas film "Jingle All the Way." Lloyd was selected to play Anakin for his enthusiasm and energy, a stark contrast from the cloaked supervillain of the 1977 film. Lloyd's youthfulness -- not to mention silly lines of dialogue like "yippee!" -- put off viewers, leading to a harsh and unwarranted online bullying campaign against the young actor. Starring in a film as big -- and as disliked -- as "The Phantom Menace" made him a target. He continued to reprise the role in tie-in "Star Wars" video games, but he never escaped the cruelty the world's most massive film audience. Because of the teasing he received at school, Lloyd retired from acting in 2001, the year he turned 12.
The years weren't kind to "The Phantom Menace," and for at least 15 years following its release, many began to consider it as one of the worst blockbusters ever made. Fanboys wrote crass songs about how George Lucas ruined their childhood, and no one ever came to Lloyd's rescue, continuing to point to his performance as risible and unprofessional. Lloyd, although attempting to leave the movie behind him, was still the object of mockery for many, many years.
Lloyd has said in interviews that he burned his "Star Wars" merchandise, and that he cannot ever watch the movie again, calling it "creepy." He says he learned to hate appearing in front of the movie cameras, and would go on to study film at Columbia College in Chicago.
He dropped out after a semester.
Let The Bad Times Roll
Sadly, Lloyd's woes did not end there. Although he effectively stayed out of the limelight for many years, in 2015, Lloyd's mother Lisa would call the police to handle a violent outburst of his. It was revealed at this time that Lloyd had been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and had gone off his meds during the incident in question. Lisa did not press charges. Later in 2015, Lloyd would have an additional run-in with the police after running a red light in South Carolina. The police chased him, forcing Lloyd to crash his car into a tree. Lloyd was arrested and held in a South Carolina jail for an unreasonably long 10 months before being transferred to a psychiatric facility.
To compound his troubles, Lloyd's younger sister Madison, who also had a bit part in "The Phantom Menace," suddenly and unexpectedly died in her sleep in 2018. She was 26. Following Madison's death, Lloyd moved back in with his family. In 2020, Jake's mother Lisa released a statement, published in Geek News Now, that Jake had finally been officially diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Lisa expressed nothing but affection and support for Lloyd, and was eager to help him through the worst of times.
The statement read:
"We would like to thank everyone for their kind words, their support, and goodwill. Jake has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but unfortunately he also has a symptom called anosognosia which causes a lack of insight into his illness. This only adds to the struggle he faces, which has been very difficult after the tragic loss of his younger sister, Madison. He has moved closer to his family and we are all working hard to help him with this."
How much the bulling eroded Lloyd's mental health can only be a matter of speculation, but it certainly didn't help matters.
Unduly Targeted
Lloyd would not be the only actor bullied by "Star Wars" fans. Ahmed Best, the actor who played Jar Jar Binks, has reported that he considered suicide after the bad reaction audiences had to his character. More recently, actor Kelly Marie Tran was badgered off of social media when fans reacted badly to her portrayal of Rose Tico in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" in 2017. She would eventually write a piece in the New York Times defending herself. Lloyd, only a child at the time of "The Phantom Menace" did not have the wherewithal to write an article, and merely had to bear the brunt of fandom's worst elements.
The character of Anakin Skywalker has also been played by Hayden Christiansen, James Earl Jones, David Prowse, Sebastian Shaw, Matt Lucas, Matt Lanter, Spencer Wilding, Matt Sloane, Phil LaMarr, and several others besides. Lloyd is the only one who was bullied for his performance.
The world owes the man an apology.
Read this next: The 15 Best Star Wars Side Characters
The post Every Single Star Wars Fan Owes Jake Lloyd An Apology appeared first on /Film.
NASA cameras have captured the eruption of Sharkcano, which I guess means there's another one of those damn sequels coming [Interesting]
No Man’s Sky Leviathan adds roguelike mode and space whales
Hello Games has announced its new expedition, No Man’s Sky Leviathan, which turns the space game into a roguelike game and adds, as the name suggests, some giant space whales. The expansion is free and traps travellers inside a time loop with distinct story content dealt out through memory fragments. Players of the survival game can also recruit the titular leviathans as an organic addition to their frigate fleet.
The Leviathan expedition begins today (May 25), and is set to run for approximately six weeks. Players taking on the adventure enter into a time loop with survival mode difficulty settings applied. As expected from the roguelike description, dying will mean a reset of the loop. Players can also explore the mode in co-op by starting a community expedition.
At the end of the adventure, progress is converted to a survival mode save and all of the phase rewards can be redeemed across your save games using the space anomaly’s quicksilver synthesis companion. The rewards on offer include a temporal starship trail, a tiny, chrono-preserved baby leviathan frigate, posters for your space base, and a stylish blue whalestalker cape - as worn by “an ill-fated traveller obsessed with their quest to capture a cosmic leviathan.”
RELATED LINKS: No Man's Sky multiplayer, No Man's Sky update, No Man's Sky VRHere's Why Movie And TV Sex Scenes Are Necessary
(Welcome to The Soapbox, the space where we get loud, feisty, political, and opinionated about anything and everything.)
Three or four times a year, a particular, tired old chestnut arises on social media: Are sex scenes ... necessary to movies? The discussion often follows several, well-worn points about how sex scenes rarely contribute to a film's story, or that they interrupt vital drama or action. On-screen coitus is often argued as being a prurient little intermission in the middle of a film wherein the audience can enjoy (or, as the tone of the argument may dictate, endure) staring at nude bodies for a few moments before the story can pick up again. Sex, in these arguments, is seemingly deadweight. Ballast to pad out a running time. The "yada yada yada" of cinema.
Sex scenes, to put in perfectly bluntly, are not only necessary, but should be welcome with open arms.
The recent movement to eschew sex scenes appears to spring from a bizarre cultural internalization of the PG-13 rating. For the better part of the last 15 years, most of the most popular movies in the world have been bright, effects-heavy, four-quadrant-hitting action blockbusters with superheroes and/or Wookiees. Such films might feature attractive people, flirty looks, or moments of sexual tension, but few of them feature out-and-out sexual contact between characters. Additionally, these films tend to be very plot- and dialogue-heavy, leaving out moments of relaxation or silence in place of unending quips, "important" character moments, or outright exposition. When the plot does slow down, it's to accommodate a 30-minute chase or fight sequence. Readers may immediately note that there aren't movements to eschew fight scenes or chase scenes.
The Sucker Punch Effect
Perhaps it's the breakneck pace of the modern blockbuster that has scared modern audiences away from intimacy. Action heroes are often placed in situations of constant movement. Stopping to boink is anathema to their quest of violence. A savvy filmgoer might have sensed the tide turning in 2011 with the release of Zack Snyder's horrendous action clunker "Sucker Punch," a film about young, exploited strippers who have been forced into sexual slavery by a sputtering would-be pimp (Oscar Isaac). In that film, the lead character Babydoll (Emily Browning) is one of the most erotic dancers to ever live. The audience, however, never sees her dancing, as Snyder cuts from Babydoll's dancing to an internal action dream narrative wherein she is a sword-wielding badass who murders armies of Nazis and androids. The sex is, in that film, literally replaced with fantasy violence. Films seem to have followed that model ever since.
So while it may be understandable why audiences weaned on fantasy violence may expect sex to be deliberately removed from their preferred stories, in doing so, many vital elements of the human condition are being deliberately excised. Audiences have reached a point that mainstream cinematic entertainments are largely sexless, and any tiny crumb of sexuality is savored. And while leaving most characters' sexualities abstract might provide a broader canvas for writers of slash fiction, it is, in many ways, a form of censorship. It also feeds into a widespread fear of sex and sexuality that has been deeply infecting an increasingly conservative discourse at large. Removing sex from movies is, in a vital way, removing it from everyday conversation. If people aren't sexual in movies, then they are only sexual in private. If they are only sexual in private, then they will be encouraged to be silent about sexual issues they may face. If they cannot talk about sexual issue, then sex once again becomes something oblique, shameful, and clandestine. Sex shouldn't be hidden from an adult audience. Human beings are sexual beings. Our art should reflect that.
Yes, Necessary
Here are a few legitimate arguments as to why sex scenes are indeed necessary.
Firstly, it offers a release. Not just for the characters, but for the audience. Screenwriters are typically drawn to tales of sexual tension, but many PG-13 stories will not allow for the release of it beyond a kiss or, more chillingly, a mutual fight. Perhaps a brief moment of emotional vulnerability. A pair of previously uptight characters, seen in bed with each other, will communicate to each other and to the audience how cathartic sex can be. It's a bonding scene that brings characters closer together. In base screenwriting terms, these can be necessary character moments.
Secondly, it's a chance to "correct" porn. Although sex may often be left out of mainstream movies, pornography has only become more and more available online. What is rarely discussed, however, is that porn is often presented as a "perfect" version of human sexual contact. As sex advice columnist Dan Savage once described it, porn is the Kabuki Theater version of sex. In porn, performers are chosen for their perfect bodies or proportions, never have to deal with birth control, don't stop to giggle, don't converse in the middle of sex, don't communicate how a particular act may or may not be working. In depicting a real-world sex scene, a lot of the realities of sexual contact can be de-stigmatized. Audiences will see that it's not all wham-bam-thank-you-sir(s)-and-or-madam(s), but a sophisticated and pleasurable form of communication. A sex scene can have dramatic and humorous moment within it.
Imperfect Sex
Thirdly, commonly seeing men and women experience sexual pleasure will certainly take the shame out of the equation. Sex can find someone at their most vulnerable, sometimes looking their silliest, feeling what might be a profound physical experience. If an audience sees a character in that position, it invites more understanding and more bonding dramatically, but also takes the stigma out of sexual pleasure. It's natural and fun, not something hidden off-camera.
Fourthly, not all sex is perfect, and more sex scenes would allow for a moment of embarrassed vulnerability wherein two partners can openly talk about how what they did might have been awkward or just a bad idea. The author can only call to mind one studio film that has ever had a "that was awkward, but now we can talk about it and still be friends" scene, and it was in Kay Cannon's vastly underrated 2018 sex comedy "Blockers." More positive conversations from negative experiences, please.
Fifthly, if there's no sex in films, then there's no gay sex in films. Queerness has long been a bugaboo of the MPA's rating system, and queer kisses have often received harsher ratings than heteronormative ones. Many companies have skirted the notion of including queer characters in their PG-13-rated entertainments by making everyone more or less sexless (although there are exceptions; America Chavez openly sports a pride pin in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness"). Perhaps this is borne of paranoia, but I personally suspect that many calls to remove sex from feature films are using the argument as a Trojan Horse for homophobia. With all sexless figures, everyone can be imagined as straight, and there's suddenly no queer representation whatsoever. Hiding sex from movies is an aggressive act that forces queer people back into the celluloid closet. If audiences see more queer sex in movies, and it becomes common, fun, zesty, sexy, and playful, then the "curse" is taken off.
Pregnancy, Abortion, Human Bodies
Sixthly, there is an unfortunately growing genre of road trip abortion movies, recently written about in the pages of /Film. This may blow the minds of some readers, but sex is how people become pregnant. Destigmatizing cinematic sex may -- in an ironic twist -- lead to a more open view and less sexualized view of human bodies. Audiences will still, of course, enjoy the base prurience of seeing nude people, but seeing people also deal with every elements of their sexual health can be folded into sexually frank movies. An honest and open depiction of safe sex, of pregnancy, may lead to a more open discussion of abortion, its necessity, and how common it is in the United States. A lot of sexual legislation seems geared toward punishing people for having sex and becoming pregnant. If sex were more openly discussed, if safe sex, pregnancy, and other common factors of everyday uterine health were in movies more, perhaps uptight lawmakers would be less gung-ho about more or less banning sex outside of procreation.
And finally, sex scenes are just fun. There is the simple fact that watching people have sex is a sexy time. It's perhaps telling that a recent linguistic quirk has led to audiences describing movies as "horny" ... and not themselves. The movie is the thing that is getting aroused. At the risk of sounding lascivious, it's okay to be horny. And it's okay to see a movie that makes you feel that way.
Making It Ethically
This essay would not be complete without acknowledging some of the legitimate arguments against sex scenes, however. Apart from arguing against their "necessity," there are additional problems in modern filmmaking that might make filming a sex scene undesirable.
For one, many stories have floated to the surface over the years about how sex scenes are not always filmed ethically. Maria Schneider once talked about how she wasn't given the details of the famous butter scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris." Sharon Stone is on record on a how nude shot in "Basic Instinct" was shot without her consent. Those kinds of stories, especially hear in the post-#MeToo era, have audiences perhaps less comfortable with consuming sex on camera. In order to take the curse off, filmmakers may have to do press expressly talking about how everything was done consensually and ethically.
Celebrity Skin
Another issue is that, thanks to websites like Mr. Skin and other sex scene compilation archives, any and all nude scenes can now be plucked out of their respective movies and be immediately re-contextualized as porn. An actor or actress may be convinced by a script or a filmmaker that the sex scenes in a movie are part of a larger, more complex narrative for a character, and can indeed show them as vulnerable and possessed of sexual agency. But as soon as those scenes are edited down by freelance would-be pornographers, all that context is gone. One might understand why performers would be reluctant to appear nude on camera, knowing that they will also appear on celebrity skin websites within minutes. Actors now have to be comfortable with that. Many aren't.
One last thing to consider is that the depiction of sexless characters in mainstream entertainments may be good representation for asexual people. Asexual people, as the moniker describes, aren't interested in sex, and a character who is also not interested in sex could serve as a reflection of their interests. It would, perhaps, be more useful if an asexual character bothered to describe themselves as such. "Hey, superhero, want to come back to my place for sexual activity?" "No, flirty person, I am asexual. If you want to share some cake, though, I'll be right there."
So, yes. Sex scenes do have issues that can be addressed. But including sex in movies is ultimately healthier, better, and definitely more fun than leaving it out. Indeed, let us no longer whinge and hand-wring about the necessity of nudity and sex. Let's put it back where it belongs: In the multiplex. In conversation. Out in the open. Nothing good comes from hiding it.
Read this next: The Best Movies Of 2021
The post Here's Why Movie and TV Sex Scenes Are Necessary appeared first on /Film.
CAPSULE: MEN (2022)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Alex Garland
FEATURING: Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu
PLOT: Harper rents a remote English manor house to recover after what could euphemistically be called a “bad breakup”; she finds herself haunted by a strange nude stalker, and condescended to by the odd and unsympathetic men of the nearby village.
COMMENTS: Alex Garland does his latest movie no favors by giving it the in-your-face, on-the-nose title Men, provoking accusations of “wokeness” and scolding responses of “not all men…” From the other side of the aisle, it’s simultaneously eliciting complaints that Garland is Men-splaining toxic masculinity. The title frames the film in a way that undoes a great deal of its subtlety and ambiguity; there would surely be less controversy had Garland named it A Question of Guilt or The Haunted Village or The Randy Vicar or somesuch.
Broad message aside, there’s a lot to enjoy about Men, considered strictly from a psychological horror perspective. The acting is top-notch; Buckley ably and sympathetically carries the film, with quiet moments fearfully wandering the woods as well as a few big outbursts of terror and anger. Rory Kinnear is even better in multiple roles, some subtly uncanny (his friendly but increasingly snoopy landlord) and some less subtly so (an uncommonly mannish schoolboy). The cinematography and sound design are superlative, particularly shining in a scene set in a long lonely tunnel with an unnatural echo that allows Harper to perform an unaccompanied a capella symphony—before she’s interrupted by the sight of a stiff silhouette lurking at the tunnel’s far entrance.
That’s all part of the eerie atmosphere Men sets up before Garland launches into bonkers territory for the third act, basically a long home invasion where characters blink in and out of existence and morph into one another, ending in a climax that one-ups Takashi Miike‘s Gozu. The madness rolls on for so long that, by the end, Harper’s attitude switches from terrified to resigned. But even before that resolution arrives, Garland deploys eccentric and fascinating touches. The local chapel with pagan faces carved on its altar. A shot of a dead deer, its eye perfectly hollowed out by maggots. Dandelion seeds hang in the air, and get swallowed. A horny vicar spouts classical allusions. A naked stalker turns into the Green Man, then into a hermaphrodite. All of the imagery and references don’t quite add up at first glance, but they make Men more interesting than the simplistic “gee-don’t-men-behave-badly?” reading suggests.
The evil of Men is supernatural, but, although symbolic and psychological sources are clear, events are never explicitly justified or explained from inside the narrative. It seems Harper suffers from a curse, one that’s enacted as pure metaphor. Men is more interesting as a psychological horror study unfolding from a specific scenario than as a manifesto on gender relations. Those wider implications should have been left to hang in the subtextual background. Alex Garland has said that he may give up directing to focus on writing. I say, stick with both writing and directing—but let other people come up with your titles.
Men is currently in theaters; we’ll let you know when it arrives on streaming and home video.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
No Man's Sky Leviathan Update
PS5 and Xbox Series X/S “Pro” Mid-Gen Upgrades Coming in 2023/24 Teases TV Maker TCL
Often it still feels like the current PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S generation is just barely getting off the ground, but the fact is, the systems are already closing in on two years old. So, could Sony and Microsoft already be thinking about their next hardware? The PS4 Pro and Xbox One X launched in 2016 and 2017 respectively, only three to four years after the launch of the base consoles. So, could mid-gen upgrades be on the way, even though the base PS5 and Xbox Series X remain difficult to find on shelves?
Well, apparently TV manufacturer TCL Technology thinks so. According to Polish tech site PPE, during a showcase of their new TVs, TCL presented a slide showing a timeline of recent console generations. Said timeline included a “Gen 9.5,” which they say will bring us a “PS5 Pro” and “New Xbox Series X/S” sometime in 2023 or 2024. They also mention the new AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, perhaps as a point of comparison in terms of what we can expect power-wise from new mid-gen consoles. It seems TCL expects these updated machines to deliver 8K/60 – 120fps gameplay, likely uprezed from 4K. You can check out a couple snapshots of the slide in question, below.
Now, the big question – how much does TCL actually know about Sony and Microsoft’s possible mid-gen upgrade plans? As the second-largest TV manufacturer in the world, they’d certainly be in a position to get some privileged details on the subject. It would also be very odd for them to mention the PS5 and XSX Pro entirely out of thin air. Perhaps some of what TCL mentions – the specific time frame, the 7700 XT comparison – is speculation, but they must have some basis for putting this out there. That said, take all this with a hearty grain of salt for now.
What do you think? Are PS5 and Xbox Series X Pro models on the way? Would you be interested in such an option if it existed?
The post PS5 and Xbox Series X/S “Pro” Mid-Gen Upgrades Coming in 2023/24 Teases TV Maker TCL by Nathan Birch appeared first on Wccftech.
NASA says "something weird is going on" with the cosmos
In a recent press release containing new images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration said that something weird was going on in outer space. No, really, that's what they said:
— Read the restIn recent years, thanks to data from Hubble and other telescopes, astronomers found another twist: a discrepancy between the expansion rate as measured in the local universe compared to independent observations from right after the big bang, which predict a different expansion value.
Hitman 3 New Comparison Videos Highlight Visual Improvements Brought by Ray Tracing
New Hitman 3 comparison videos have been shared online, showcasing the visual improvements brought by ray tracing.
The new videos, shared on YouTube by Ray Tracing Revolution and MxBenchmarkPC, not only confirm how the improvements are somewhat subtle, mostly due to the game already having great screen space reflections but also highlight how the game's ray tracing features are extremely demanding, as the impact on performance is huge, even on high-end systems and with NVIDIA DLSS.
Hitman 3 is the latest entry in the series by IO Interactive, and an extremely solid stealth game, as highlighted by Nathan in his review.
Hitman 3 is the definitive case for careful refinement over needless reinvention. While not that fundamentally different from its predecessors, Hitman 3 has been polished to a high sheen, offering up fantastic frictionless stealth gameplay and an eye-catching array of unique, exciting stages. At times it's felt like luck was against this trilogy, but Agent 47 would be proud of how IO Interactive’s well-laid plans have come together in the end.
Hitman 3 is now available on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia worldwide
BECOME A PROFESSIONAL ASSASSIN
HITMAN 3 is the dramatic conclusion to the World of Assassination trilogy. Become Agent 47, a legendary assassin and use creativity and improvisation to execute the most ingenious and spectacular eliminations, in sprawling sandbox locations all around the globe.
ELIMINATE THE PARTNERS OF PROVIDENCE
Agent 47 must join forces with his long-lost friend Lucas Grey to eliminate the partners of Providence - but they are forced to adapt as their hunt intensifies. When the dust settles, 47 and the world he inhabits will never be the same again.
TRAVEL THE WORLD
Travel to exotic locations in a globetrotting adventure and experience rich and detailed environments that are packed full of opportunities. From a skyscraper in Dubai to the colourful streets of Chongqing and the vineyards of Mendoza, each HITMAN 3 location has been meticulously crafted with an extremely high level of fidelity. IO Interactive’s award-winning Glacier technology powers HITMAN 3’s tactile and immersive game world to offer unparalleled player choice and replayability.
The post Hitman 3 New Comparison Videos Highlight Visual Improvements Brought by Ray Tracing by Francesco De Meo appeared first on Wccftech.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker releases today
I mentioned the release about a month ago, and also noted the GN staff have been talking about this game for a while, but with the big release day today, Blackbird Interactive and Focus Entertainment have also dropped a release trailer for Hardspace: Shipbreaker as well.
Originally in Early Access on Steam, this full release also sees the game on the Focus Store and Microsoft Store and is 25% off right now. It is also included free with the PC Games Pass from Microsoft.
That Cube Remake Is Still Happening, And Lionsgate Is Looking For A New Direction
Vincenzo Natali's mind-bending cult classic "Cube" is a dark hidden gem. The 1997 film is a relentless, sci-fi-tinged horror story about five strangers trapped in a series of seemingly endless trap-rigged cubes. In 2015, Lionsgate began plotting out a "Cube" remake, but the film never came to fruition. Except, apparently, there's a chance it still might.
Bloody-Disgusting reports today that Lionsgate is still planning another "Cube" movie, but is looking for a new plot. According to the outlet, the studio is scrapping the plans it outlined in 2015 and accepting new pitches for the rebooted take on "Cube."
The earlier, never-realized remake, titled "Cubed," was set to be directed by Saman Kesh, who has helmed music videos for artists like Placebo, Calvin Harris, and Ed Sheeran. Prolific genre producer Roy Lee, whose upcoming slate includes re-imaginings of "Salem's Lot" and "Hellraiser," was set to produce the earlier iteration. Jon Spaihts, who wrote the new "Dune," was also set to produce.
The Original Trap-Based Horror Movie
It's not immediately clear whether any of these names will stay attached to the new version of the project, though Bloody-Disgusting says it's "starting from scratch." According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Lionsgate version briefly outlined in 2015 was pitched as a survival thriller about the digital age, with an artificial intelligence angle. With that idea apparently abandoned, let's hope the new version maintains some of the analog thrills of the original.
Despite being a micro-budget movie ("Cube" cost only $350,000 according to Natali), "Cube" clearly had a big influence on horror. Elements of the film are visible in violent, trap-heavy horror movies like the "Saw" franchise and the "Escape Room" films, which also see a group of strangers solving puzzles to get out of locked rooms that seem designed to kill them. It makes sense that "Cube" would need to be reworked in order to stand out in a horror niche that has already thoroughly replicated it in the decades since its release.
"Cube," with its bleak turns of fate and "The Twilight Zone"-like setup, has also inspired a sequel and prequel, both of which took creative approaches to a similar story. In "Cube 2: Hypercube," the already cerebral cube system took on a new level of difficulty when its occupants had to survive via abstract mathematical concepts. In "Cube Zero," the plot shifted perspective, to two men observing the cube game from the outside. Finally, the film got a stylish Japanese remake distributed by Shochiku just last year.
If Lionsgate can come up with a good enough story, there's definitely room for another "Cube" out there. The untitled "Cube" sequel currently does not have a release date.
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The post That Cube Remake is Still Happening, and Lionsgate is Looking for a New Direction appeared first on /Film.
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