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"Justified: City Primeval," FX's upcoming "Justified" limited-series revival starring Timothy Olyphant, has added eight new cast members, including Boyd Holbrook ("Logan") and Aunjanue Ellis, the latter of whom received an Academy Award nomination this year for her performance in "King Richard." And though Quentin Tarantino was in talks to direct one or more episodes of the series, there's no mention of him in the latest trade reports.

"Justified: City Primeval" is gearing up to begin shooting in Chicago this week, and in late April, the Chicago-based Screen Magazine indicated that, according to its sources, Tarantino was no longer attached to the project and "Justified" alum Michael Dinner would be directing the pilot instead. Now, a new Variety report with fresh cast details would seem to confirm that Dinner is directing, though the report doesn't specify which episodes he will helm.

Dinner and Dave Andron will act as writers, showrunners, and executive producers on "Justified: City Primeval." Andron is a showrunner on FX's "Snowfall," which just wrapped up its fifth season last month. Both he and Dinner served as executive producers on the original "Justified" series, with Dinner also directing the series premiere, the season 2 finale, and the 3rd through 6th season premieres, along with a couple of other episodes throughout the show's six-season run.

In addition to Holbrook and Ellis, "Justified: City Primeval" will costar Marin Ireland ("The Dark and the Wicked") and Vondie Curtis Hall ("Daredevil," "The Night House") along with Adelaide Clemens, Norbert Leo Butz, Victor Williams, and Olyphant's own daughter, Vivian Olyphant. "Justified" creator Graham Yost will co-executive produce with co-writers Taylor Elmore and Chris Provenzano, among others.

'A Walking Anachronism'

Tarantino already helmed one Elmore Leonard adaptation, "Jackie Brown," and he worked with Olyphant in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," so he seemed like a natural fit for "Justified: City Primeval." If he really has stepped away from the project, that's a bummer, but it's always possible, given the relative vagueness of the Variety report, that he could still be circling the project, though Screen Magazine's sources would appear to indicate otherwise.

"Justified: City Primeval," is adapted from the Leonard novel "City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit," with Olyphant's character, Raylan Givens, substituting for the book's original protagonist, Detective Raymond Cruz. Holbrook will play Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman, with Ellis playing Carolyn Wilder and Vivian Olyphant playing Given's daughter. Here's the synopsis:

Having left the hollers of Kentucky eight years ago, Raylan Givens now lives in Miami, a walking anachronism balancing his life as a U.S. Marshal and part-time father of a 14-year-old girl. His hair is grayer, his hat is dirtier, and the road in front of him is suddenly a lot shorter than the road behind.

A chance encounter on a desolate Florida highway sends him to Detroit. There he crosses paths with Clement Mansell, aka The Oklahoma Wildman, a violent, sociopathic desperado who's already slipped through the fingers of Detroit's finest once and aims to do so again. Mansell's lawyer, formidable Motor City native Carolyn Wilder, has every intention of representing her client, even as she finds herself caught in between cop and criminal, with her own game afoot as well. These three characters set out on a collision course in classic Elmore Leonard fashion, to see who makes it out of the City Primeval alive.

"Justified: City Primeval" does not have a release date yet, but production will reportedly last through September. We'll keep you posted.

Read this next: The 20 Best Westerns Of All Time

The post Justified: City Primeval Sets Cast, Confirms Quentin Tarantino Not Directing Pilot appeared first on /Film.

MythBusters: The First Experiment is now available on Steam, offering a free sample of this first-person simulator based on the MythBusters television series. The full game is expected on June 8th,...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: The pig heart transplanted into an American patient earlier this year in a landmark operation carried a porcine virus that may have derailed the experiment and contributed to his death two months later, say transplant specialists. [...] In a statement released by the university in March, a spokesperson said there was "no obvious cause identified at the time of his death" and that a full report was pending. Now MIT Technology Review has learned that Bennett's heart was affected by porcine cytomegalovirus, a preventable infection that is linked to devastating effects on transplants. The presence of the pig virus and the desperate efforts to defeat it were described by Griffith during a webinar streamed online by the American Society of Transplantation on April 20. The issue is now a subject of wide discussion among specialists, who think the infection was a potential contributor to Bennett's death and a possible reason why the heart did not last longer. The heart swap in Maryland was a major test of xenotransplantation, the process of moving tissues between species. But because the special pigs raised to provide organs are supposed to be virus-free, it now appears that the experiment was compromised by an unforced error. The biotechnology company that raised and engineered the pigs, Revivicor, declined to comment and has made no public statement about the virus. "It was surprising. That pig is supposed to be clean of all pig pathogens, and this is a significant one," says Mike Curtis, CEO of eGenesis, a competing company that is also breeding pigs for transplant organs. "Without the virus, would Mr. Bennett have lived? We don't know, but the infection didn't help. It likely contributed to the failure."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I like video games, but I love Breath of the Wild. I’m a fan of everything: the story, the music, the open world exploration. Many of my play sessions involve aimlessly riding a horse around the map, or climbing random mountains to see what’s at the top. After five years of adventuring around Hyrule, I’m desperate…

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One day, a mind-bending device called the gravity telescope might bring us visceral pictures of exoplanets far beyond our solar system.

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

The Movie: "A Chinese Ghost Story"

Where You Can Stream It: Amazon Prime Video

The Pitch: Take the exciting action and romance of a Chinese wuxia film, like "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" or "Dragon Inn." Mix with it the horror schlock and Looney Tunes hijinx of a later "Evil Dead" movie. Add a touch of "Monty Python" style absurdism, and you have "A Chinese Ghost Story," directed by Ching Siu-Tung and produced by Hong Kong film industry legend Tsui Hark.

Our hero is Ning Choi-san, a hapless debt collector. Fresh out of money and desperate for a place to stay, he seeks out an abandoned temple in the woods to squat in. There he finds Nip Siu-sin, a beautiful young woman who wants to sleep with him. Choi-san is so lacking in social graces that he misses all of Siu-sin's cues, which is fortunate for him because Siu-sin is a treacherous ghost. Siu-sin finds herself falling for Choi-san's earnest ways, which is unfortunate for her because a vicious nearby tree spirit literally owns her bones. Do Choi-san and Siu-sin have a future together? It'll take Choi-san's strong will, Siu-sin's quick thinking and the help of a friendly Daoist monk to get them out of this mess.

Why It's Essential Viewing

Wuxia was dead to begin with, by the time "A Chinese Ghost Story" rolled into theaters in 1987. The golden age of directors King Hu ("Come Drink With Me") and Chang Cheh ("One-Armed Swordsman") had long since passed. The new wave of Hong Kong martial arts films were mysteries ("The Butterfly Murders,") comedies ("Encounters of the Spooky Kind"), and gangster films ("A Better Tomorrow"). To return to the genre meant either to knowingly do homage or to do something completely different. "A Chinese Ghost Story" splits the difference. One half of the film takes inspiration from the classic ghost story collection "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio," a favorite of Chinese film directors including wuxia master King Hu. The other is a bizarre horror comedy with a rapping Daoist monk, camera tricks lifted from Sam Raimi films, and non-stop skewering of wuxia conventions.

The genius of "A Chinese Ghost Story" lies in its dual effectiveness as romantic adventure and uproarious spoof. The role of Choi-san is played by legendary Hong Kong superstar Leslie Chung, the modern equivalent of having Beyonce play the put-upon lead in your movie. But his relationship with Siu-sin (played by a young Joey Wang) is treated sincerely, and given a tragic ending in keeping with Chinese wuxia tradition. The film's action strikes a similar balance between comedy and seriousness, keeping fights convincingly dangerous even as the finale goes over the top and then some. Across the ocean in 1987, fellow cult classic "The Princess Bride" similarly found a happy medium between winking pastiche and sincere delivery. "A Chinese Ghost Story" does much the same for its chosen stomping ground, Hong Kong cinema.

The Evil Dead

Of course, "A Chinese Ghost Story" doesn't just feature great actors, exciting action, and a love that conquers death. It has ghosts! Producer Tsui Hark and his team had collaborated with Hollywood to create exciting special effects for his earlier extravaganza, "Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain." "A Chinese Ghost Story" tells a more down-to-earth tale, but features its share of memorable creatures including lurking zombies, an underworld lord whose cloak hides hungry severed heads, and a terrifying tree spirit. The tree spirit especially represents the gonzo exuberance of the project. Their initial form is intimidating enough, an enormous tongue that wraps people up and swallows them whole. But then the tongue splits open, revealing an even larger fanged maw inside of the tongue with its own set of horrible tendrils!

To sell its vision of goofy horror, "A Chinese Ghost Story" borrows heavily from Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" films. The early appearances of the Tree Demon, heralded by a switch to first-person perspective as they hunt whichever hapless man is bedding Siu-sin, is a trick lifted from the very first "Evil Dead." The tree spirit itself animates surrounding branches to bind its prey, yet another riff on "The Evil Dead." Some of the funniest scenes in the movie split the difference between comedy and shlock horror, just as Raimi once did. As the hapless Choi-san wanders the forest temple, a posse of zombies reach from the ceiling and the floors. The scene whips from fear (is Choi-san a goner?) to hilarity (Choi-san keeps unknowingly evading their clutches) to absurdity (how is he still alive!?) without missing a beat.

Love, Death, And Rebirth

The goofiness and maximalism of "A Chinese Ghost Story" means that it isn't precisely scary. For nasty thrills, you're better off seeking Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell." But the special effects of "A Chinese Ghost Story" are lovingly detailed and still hold up. The temple skeletons and vengeful tree spirit remain impressive, and our heroes remain believably outmatched until the end despite coming into their own as fighters. According to Lisa Morton's "The Cinema of Tsui Hark," director Ching Siu-Tung and producer Tsui Hark were reportedly divided on whether to emphasize horror or romance. But I can't imagine the film without both.

"A Chinese Ghost Story" won a cult following not only in Hong Kong but also on the Chinese mainland. It would go on to spawn two sequels, an animated series, and a reboot. There's even a multiplayer Chinese RPG called "A Chinese Ghost Story," and if your franchise spawns one of those in China then you really have it made. The sequels have their charms, and continue to push the boundaries of special effects in Hong Kong cinema. But the original was a genuine lightning-in-a-bottle film, the kind you could swear was an accident if the crew weren't so skilled. While I'd recommend a viewer new to wuxia seek out "Dragon Inn" and "A Touch of Zen" for the best of the best, "A Chinese Ghost Story" just may be more fun.

Read this next: The 20 Best '80s Horror Movies Ranked

The post The Daily Stream: A Chinese Ghost Story is Hilarious, Horrifying, and Heartfelt appeared first on /Film.

The reason director Tobe Hooper's 1974 horror film "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" still possesses its unique terrifying power is simple: Filth. "Massacre" is a grimy, gross-looking film presented in oily browns, lard-colored yellows, and congealed reds. "Massacre" may have been photographed by cinematographer Daniel Pearl (who would also shoot the film's 2003 remake), but it looks milky, worn, tattered. It looks as if the film stock had been stored in a slaughterhouse. The visual grime of "Massacre" makes it look like its cannibal characters were the ones making it. There are moments in it where you feel like you're watching a snuff film. 

It's often considered one of the best horror movies ever made. 

The film's low budget made for a pretty desperate shoot. Filmed outside Round Rock, Texas, the filmmakers -- in order to stay on schedule -- had to insist on 16-hour work days in the middle of some pretty humid weather; the heat and sweat on screen is not faked. The 16mm cameras used on "Massacre" were NPR Eclair 16mm camerettes (the same kind used for many French New Wave films in the 1960s), which required a lot more light than traditional 35mm cameras, leading to a high grain, and stark, icky lighting that felt all too natural. The grossest budget-saving measure of all was that the filmmakers would often use real blood (not human, don't worry) to supplement the fake blood they had make. On the "Texas Chain Saw" commentary track, Hooper admits that the blood tube needed for a scene wherein actress Marilyn Burns has her finger slit wasn't working properly, so they just sliced Burns' finger open with a razor. 

Gunnar Hansen played the simpleton, chainsaw-wielding brute Leatherface in "Massacre," so named because of his mask made of human skin. Hansen hadn't acted prior to playing Leatherface, and his career after would be a long string of horror movies, usually made by filmmakers who likely hired him for his connection to one of the best horror movies of all time. In 1987, Hansen wrote an article for Yankee Magazine about his experiences on the "Chainsaw" set, and how smelly things really got. 

'It Was Too Much Of A Risk To Get Them Washed'

After Hansen's death in 2015, New England Today reprinted Hansen's Yankee Magazine article from years previous, wherein he detailed just how awful things got on the set of such a grimy movie. There wasn't a lot of time, evidently, and the actors were forced to wear their unwashed costumes for days in a row. With the sweltering heat and the sometimes-not-fake blood, it made for some discomfort, and some pretty severe body odor: 

"It was filmed in Texas where it gets pretty hot -- and sometimes shooting sessions dragged on for more than 26 hours. Since we all had only one set of clothes for the movie, it was too much of a risk to get them washed; the colors might change. So after a few weeks of shooting, it was a little more than 'fright' that made us keep our distance from each other."

The heat also left the kitchen pretty rank; the food was not fake, and leaving it out of the fridge in sweltering heat caused it to become pungent. Hansen also recalls a dangerous moment where his mask nearly caused a fatal accident: 

"Kitchen scenes were pretty tough; all that food in the Texas heat, under movie lights, drew our undivided attention as well as some flies. And peering out from underneath my leather mask was practically impossible during one scene I stumbled and fell, pitching the chain saw up over my head. I covered my head and waited. It landed next to me, still running."

Nonsense And Low-Budget Chicanery

Hansen has no regrets, and was astonished to find the film being as successful as it was. By 1987, the film already had one sequel, and it was vaunted in horror and cult film circles. Hansen was aware of its place in the pop culture firmament, and even pointed to Rex Reed's positive review. He also admits that, despite its reputation and financial success, he still didn't see much profit from it: 

"But for all the nonsense and low-budget chicanery, the film did well -- Rex Reed loved it. The movie became a cult hit. Current estimates put the film's gross in these past 13 years somewhere around $50 million. It was one of the hottest-selling tapes when it was released for home video. So naturally, those of us who owned a percentage of Chainsaw's profits thought we would see some substantial folding money -- but alas, my complete 'take' to this day couldn't pay for a week in Disneyland."

Hansen also admits that the effectiveness and filth of the movie seems to have stymied any abilities he may have had to bank on his popularity. Who, after all, would hire Leatherface to hawk their products? He also seems to have frightened the people in his neighborhood as well:

"I can't even cash in on my notoriety  -- nobody will touch me. I mean, what would I do? A commercial for McCulloch with me in my backyard grunting about all the nice lawn furniture I made with my Mini-Mac? .. Nope. I guess I should have gotten a better contract. But now it's not the money that I think about; there's a much unkinder cut. This will be my 13th Halloween in Maine, and each year I have to buy less candy. Nobody comes — maybe they saw the movie."

Hansen passed away in 2015 of pancreatic cancer, but his life is celebrated every time a new horror fan or gorehound discovers the blood, sweat, and filth of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" for the first time. It will never be easy to watch, and that's a glorious thing. 

Read this next: The 15 Best Final Girls In Horror Movies Ranked

The post Making The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Was a Nightmare appeared first on /Film.

Reply from Laaca, 05.05.2022, 20:56:

Few weeks ago I announced a update of my tool ACPITOOL.
The new feature is the detection and access to the modern ACPI timer running at frequency 3,5MHz
http://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum_entry.php?...p;page=0&category=all&order=last_answer

Another May the 4 has come and gone, and with it, no concrete news of a Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order sequel. However, some fans are now wondering if protagonist Cal Kestis’ sophomore act may be coming sooner than they first thought.

Ewan McGregor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequel trilogy and will reprise the role in the eponymous Disney+ series, set tongues wagging during a recent interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Guest host Mike Birbiglia asks McGregor about the actor’s reaction when fans start quizzing him about Star Wars facts, with McGregor answering that it's difficult to keep up with the universe now that it’s expanded into books, comics, cartoons, and “computer games". He also praises director Deborah Chow's Star Wars knowledge as “all of the storylines have to match up” because you "can't have some fact in a videogame that doesn't match up to the movie".

The conversation then moves on to other topics without mentioning Star Wars games again, but it was enough for eager Star Wars fans to start speculating on Resetera. “We know the Inquisitors are in the show and we know the temple from [Jedi: Fallen Order] also pops up and we've already seen a BD-1 droid pop up in Boba Fett,” The_Iceman2288, the original poster, says.

RELATED LINKS: How long is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order?, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order review, Play Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

When I was a younger man and surviving on budget liquors and hot dogs, getting a “nice” bottle of liquor was a pretty big deal. My natural instinct was to save these gifts; after a sample, I would reverently put the bottle on a high shelf and limit my interactions to gazing lovingly at it and breaking it out for…

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Wherein we discuss everything wrong with our dumb podcast, Disneyland and COVID-19, Higgins' latest burgling, Elon Musk vs. Twitter, Marvel's weird toothlessness, our weird 14 years of podcasting, and Severance. Starring Ryan Scott, Justin Haywald, and Ryan Higgins, with special guest Ben Burkhalter.

Summer has arrived in South Asia WAY too early. A punishing heat wave has pushed temperatures past 120F (50C) in some areas. Some schools have closed early for the summer. Dozens of people have died of heatstroke. From a report: The region is already hard-hit by climate change. Extreme heat is common in May. But not in April and March, both of which were the hottest across much of India for more than a century. "It's smoldering hot! It's also humid, which is making it very difficult," Chrisell Rebello, 37, told NPR in line outside a Mumbai ice cream parlor at 11 p.m. "We need a lot of cold drinks, air conditioning -- and multiple baths a day." Only a fraction of Indians -- mostly, the wealthy -- have air conditioning. Instead people soak rags in water and hang them in doors and windows. Still, electric fans and AC have pushed India's electricity demand to a record high. The problem is that 70% of India's electricity comes from coal. So the government is converting passenger trains to cargo service, to rush coal supplies to beleaguered power plants, and also importing more coal from abroad. And rolling blackouts are hurting industrial output. In the short term, experts say India has no choice but to burn coal to keep fans and ACs on. But in the long term, it must transition to renewables, to avoid a vicious circle of warming, says Ulka Kelkar, a Bengaluru-based economist and climate change expert with the World Resources Institute. "[With] heat plus humidity, at some stage [it] becomes almost impossible for the human body's organs to function normally," Kelkar explains. "Basically the body just cannot cool itself, and a large fraction of our population in India still works outside in the fields, on building construction, in factories which are not cooled." More than a billion people are at risk of heat-related illness across South Asia. Hospitals are preparing special wards. Further reading: India's Heatwaves Are Testing the Limits of Human Survival.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This article contains spoilers for "Moon Knight" season 1.

Did the events of "Moon Knight" season 1 take place entirely in the mind of Marc Spector/Steven Grant /Jake Lockley or not? That's the question the season finale raised in its last scene, taking us back to Marc/Steven discussing the nature of reality with Dr. Harrow in his office. You could probably make a solid argument for either case, based on what we were shown in previous episodes. But in the end, what matters is Marc/Steven choose to live in harmony with one another in what they believe to be the real world, rather than allowing others (like Harrow) to define their existence for them.

In that sense, season 1 has more in common thematically with a film like "Inception" than any other Marvel Cinematic Universe project to date (even if the season finale was mostly your typical MCU ending, i.e. one long action scene). That was by design, too, as director Mohamed Diab — who helmed all but episodes 2 and 4 of "Moon Knight" — told Variety, when asked if the show gives a "definitive" answer to how much of season 1 took place in Marc/Steven's mind:

"My answer is this is a show that needs to be watched once and twice and three times. There's so many clues. It's not clear what's real and what's not. For example, we saw his brother drawing a fish. So if this is the reality, then how come that Steven had a fish with one fin, too? What inspired what? It's a loop. And I think a lot of clues are like that."

What If The MCU Itself Didn't Exist?

Perhaps the biggest "clue" that "Moon Knight" is completely imagined by its unreliable hero is the lack of connections to any other characters or events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The season 1 finale reaffirms superheroes are a thing people are aware of on the show, with a young girl asking the Scarlet Scarab (a transformed Layla El-Faouly) if she's an Egyptian superhero at one point. But does that mean costumed vigilantes exist in more than just the pages of comic books in this world?

As it turns out, Mohamed Diab initially pitched a pretty wild twist ending to Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige, touching on that very matter:

"I always wanted it to be open. This is funny: I always told Kevin Feige, I want to have an ending when we discover the whole MCU is in [Marc/Steven's] head. So it's an open question."

Obviously, these questions could soon be moot, should Marvel announce "Moon Knight" season 2 or the title character's return in a new MCU project (which the season 1 finale's post-credits scene certainly hints at). But in the meantime, it's fun to have a corner of this ever-growing franchise that favors ambiguity and invites a rewatch (or two or more, as Diab would prefer) over immediately shifting its attention to what comes next.

"Moon Knight" season 1 is now streaming on Disney+.

Read this next: 11 Marvel Comics Villains We Really Want To See In The MCU

The post Moon Knight Director Mohamed Diab Pitched a Wild Twist Ending to Kevin Feige appeared first on /Film.

AMD is reportedly working on a new technology known as Smart Access Storage or SAS which will make its debut within Corsair's Voyager laptop, reports Videocardz.

AMD Smart Access Storage Technology 'SAS' In The Works, Coming To Corsair's Voyager Laptop in June

According to the report, the AMD Smart Access Storage will be similar to Smart Access Memory but work specifically with the storage hardware onboard PCs. There's little that we actually know about this technology but it could be a variation of the Microsoft DirectStorage API that has made its way to the PC gaming segment in March and brings a substantial improvement to loading times with a 'Console-Like' storage API solution.

By switching to DirectStorage API, users can get up to 20-40% CPU savings and developers of the Forespoken game, Luminous Productions, have already shared their first demo of the game that was run on AMD's PC hardware. Do note that this technology has, for a while, only been available on Microsoft's Xbox Series consoles and there is still work going on around the API to feature it on next-gen AAA titles.

As for the platform where we are expected to see AMD's Smart Access Storage solution, the Corsair Voyager is going to be one of the first laptops to feature this tech. Corsair has been trying to get in the laptop space for a while and their 'Xenomorph' laptop platform was leaked a while ago with a range of powerful specifications including an AMD Radeon 9 6900HX CPU and Radeon RX 6800M GPU. It definitely sounds like an AMD 'ADVANTAGE' solution with an all-AMD design and it would be a perfect showcase for the new technology.

Now you must be thinking why AMD just didn't go with the Microsoft DirectStorage name? That's because it's the API itself that is named that way. As for the tech itself, NVIDIA, Intel and AMD may end up calling it something different but that remains to be seen. Furthermore, we can't exactly with 100% assurity if this technology will be an extension of DirectStorage API or something that is different. The Corsair Voyager laptop is expected to debut in June so it's likely that we will hear more about SAS during AMD's Computex 2022 keynote which was also recently announced for the 23rd of May.

The post AMD Reportedly Working on Smart Access Storage ‘SAS’ Technology, Debuting Within Corsair’s Voyager Laptop In June by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

Code hosting platform GitHub on Wednesday said it would make it mandatory for software developers to use at least one form of two-factor authentication (2FA) by the end of 2023.

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"Jurassic World: Dominion" is poised to be one of the biggest movies of the summer. Dinosaurs always find a way to break box office records. However, the real reason why the third installment of the "Jurassic World" series is going to be a massive success is because of the return of Ian Malcolm, played by the ever lovable Jeff Goldblum. Sure it'll be pretty neat to see Sam Neill and Laura Dern return to their iconic "Jurassic Park" roles too, but bringing back the chaotician we all know and love means infusing a charm this series has been lacking in recent years.

Of course, this won't be the first time Goldblum has returned to the world of "Jurassic Park," having been promoted to the lead role in "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," and popping in for a lackluster cameo in "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom." The extent of his role in "Dominion" is unknown, but everything points to a more substantial involvement in the dinosaur mayhem this time around. If there's one thing we can definitely count on, it's an array of Goldblum-isms manifested by the man himself. When interviewed by Empire, a giddy Goldblum couldn't contain his excitement, pulling out a little book filled with substitute dialogue he thought would perfectly fit with the humorous sensibilities of Ian Malcolm in the new sequel. Goldblum revealed:

"Oh boy, I have a ton of them...I'll just tell you one... We're on a computer trying to fix something or other, and somebody says, 'Uh-oh, it's started flashing Error 99.' And before Mamoudou [Athie]'s character comes in and explains, I was gonna slip in, very quickly, the line, 'Error 99? Is it Barbara Feldon?' Now, Barbara Feldon was an agent in Get Smart, a television series from 1962 or something, who played Agent 99. So a lot of my ideas have to do with references that are totally irrelevant and of no interest or amusement to anybody who could possibly be watching a movie, and inappropriate to the scene. But it tickled me."

Goldblum, Uh, Finds A Way

Director Colin Trevorrow further explains in that Empire piece how deeply Goldblum is connected to this character:

"He would always bring extra things in his book that, yes, were often references to 1940s musicals, but he's both hilarious and very powerful...it's not just a comedy role. It's the power of his presence in this movie that I love the most."

Goldblum has transformed his quirky personality into a brand unto itself. He even has his own show on Disney+ ("The World According to Jeff Goldblum"), which features the "Thor: Ragnarok" actor exploring whatever the hell he wants. I'm not the biggest fan of improvisational dialogue taking over a movie, but the beauty of Goldblum is that almost everything he has to say, whether on the screen or in interviews, is either funny and/or weird enough to put a smile on my face. This definitely applies to the character of Ian, who's consistently remained the voice of reason throughout all of the "Jurassic Park" films. "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should," is undoubtedly this series' mantra.

When we first meet the chaotician in "Jurassic Park," he wastes no time flirting with Dr. Sattler, ribbing John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), and being a generally smarmy individual who knows he's right, and that's before we even get to the island. Ian is one of the series' most beloved characters for a reason. For as much as he revels in knowing he's right, at the end of the day, he has a heart where it counts, and he's still willing to attempt a rescue of the people caught in the path of dino destruction. Now that the world has been inhabited by the perversion of evolution at the end of "Fallen Kingdom," it'll be exciting to see how far Ian has come.

The original "Jurassic Park" trilogy is currently streaming on HBO Max.

Read this next: War Of The Gargantuas: The Entire Godzilla Series Ranked From Worst To Best

The post Jeff Goldblum Had No Shortage of Suggestions For His Jurassic World: Dominion Dialogue appeared first on /Film.

2022 is setting out to be an excellent year for those who love unique takes on the Old West setting, thanks to the release of games such as Weird West, an action role-playing game enriched by simulation elements that combine a traditional Old West setting with supernatural elements like zombies, magic and so on.

Those looking to see yet another unique take on the Old West setting but with a different gameplay experience should keep an eye on Hard West 2, a turn-based tactical role-playing game in development by Ice Code Game that aims to take everything that makes the original a solid title and improves on it to deliver a better experience. If the developer will manage to do so successfully remains to be seen, but the first two hours of the game made me think they will succeed indeed, as Hard West 2 manages to be incredibly compelling right from the start, despite the tactical combat system feeling a little uninspired.

Despite the game still being in a beta state, it's clear how Ice Code Games has a pretty good idea of how Hard West 2 will play, as their turn-based game works great right from the get-go. Sure, it does seem to lack a little bit when it comes to innovation, as it features the same turn-based combat mechanics we have seen in other games like Phantom Doctrine and Wasteland 3. There is an AP System that governs how far a character can move or how many times they can act, a cover system that makes positioning extremely important, different weapons with different AP usage costs and effects and a somewhat interactive environment that allows for things like ricochet shots, but the way these mechanics are presented and enhanced make for a very engaging experience right from the start.

Battlefields, for example, are highly dynamic, such as the first battle where you will have to make Gin and his posse board a train and use horses to your advantage. Combat also feels quite dynamic, as major battles can also feature some unique gimmicks, such as the battle against the mysterious Mammon who attempts to confuse the outlaws by turning hellspawns into his clones. The Bravado mechanics, which fully restore a unit's AP after killing an enemy, open up some exciting combat options and make combat pacing extremely fast, which is quite welcome in a tactical role-playing game.

Hard West 2 seems like it will deliver when it comes to other role-playing game mechanics. The setting and story, although not original, feel gripping from the start, and the customization possibilities offered by the Haunt Cards system feel extensive enough. This system is what sets the game apart from other similar titles, as Hard West 2 doesn't feature a traditional experience points system, and the only way to improve a character's stats is by equipping these cards. Depending on their combination, it is possible to unlock special abilities that are very useful. Given that Gin Carter is a hopeless gambler, this system ties nicely with some story elements and doesn't feel arbitrary.

I was hooked after trying out the first couple of hours of Hard West 2. I'm definitely looking forward to experiencing more of it. It won't be a revolutionary game, in all likelihood, but it will have no trouble carving out its space with its interesting setting and characters and solid, although a little uninspired, tactical RPG gameplay.

Hard West 2 launches on PC on a yet to be confirmed 2022 release date.

The post Hard West 2 Hands-On Preview – Robbing Ghost Trains Isn’t a Smart Idea by Francesco De Meo appeared first on Wccftech.

When the crew of the Enterprise on "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" was announced, fans might have been shocked to see the name of the ship's chief of security: La'an Noonien Singh. Played by Christina Chong, the character shares her name with one of the franchise's most infamous villains. While the exact connection between La'an Noonien Singh and Khan Noonien Singh is still a mystery, it's guaranteed that having such a controversial surname is going to cause some problems for the franchise's newest security chief. Khan was Captain Kirk's (William Shatner) greatest foe, a genetically-engineered superhuman who at one point ruled over nearly a quarter of Earth's population. 

Casual fans recognize Khan best from the 1982 film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," in which Ricardo Montalbán, who also played Khan on the original series, seeks revenge on his nemesis. Kirk infamously screams his name in rage in one of the franchises' most memeable moments, with Shatner's face contorted into an angry grimace, his fists shaking. So how, exactly, does a character who is a member of Starfleet end up with the name of one of the worst war criminals in the universe? 

Star Trek: The Original Series

It's important to realize just how big of an impact Khan had on humanity in the "Star Trek" timeline. He was part of a eugenics program that was intended to create a race of superhumans, and 1993 (remember, "Trek" was originally produced in the '60s), these genetically-engineered people took over more than 40 nations, and Khan himself became absolute ruler of about one-quarter of the planet. Despite being an authoritarian dictator, Khan's rule was relatively peaceful, though he kept his citizens on a tight leash. The superhumans, called Augments, began to fight amongst themselves before involving other nations. The Eugenics Wars ended with most of the dictators overthrown or killed, but Khan found himself and 84 of his most devout followers exiled on a ship named the SS Botany Bay, after the Australian penal colony. The escapees were put into stasis and the ship set off for an unknown destination, eventually being discovered by Captain Kirk and the USS Enterprise in 2267, an event we see firsthand in the original series episode "Space Speed." Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) rescues Khan from stasis, and the crew of the Enterprise chooses to leave the remaining inhabitants undisturbed.

It doesn't take too long for Khan to take advantage of Kirk and the rest of the crew, reawakening many of his followers and taking over the Enterprise. When the crew fights back and his plan is foiled, Khan tries to explode the Enterprise's warp core ... though Kirk is able to defeat him by smacking him with a large metal rod. Kirk offers Khan and his followers two options: face the Federation's justice or try to start a new colony on the nearby planet Ceti Alpha V, which is habitable, though definitely not a paradise. Khan and the followers choose the colony and Kirk gives them some basic supplies to start their new lives. Unfortunately, there is a massive environmental disaster on the planet only six months after the Enterprise leaves, leaving only the colonists and indigenous, horrifying Ceti eels alive. Many of the Botany Bay colonists die slow, horrible deaths as the eels' young invaded their brains ... including Khan's wife.

Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Kahn

22 years later, the USS Reliant sends members of its crew down to the planet, which they believed to be uninhabited, as a part of a project tied to terraforming. Commander Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), formerly of the Enterprise, and his captain, Clark Terrell (Paul Winfield) are captured by Khan, who uses some Ceti eels to take over their minds and discover Kirk's location. He sets a course for his revenge, growing more obsessive as time goes on. He seems to get his revenge, at least in part, when he maroons Kirk and his away team inside of the planetoid Regula I, much like Kirk had marooned him on Ceti Alpha V. But the Enterprise rescues Kirk and the away team, as they always do, and head off to battle with Khan and the commandeered Reliant. In a final act of desperation, Khan activates the experimental Genesis device that was intended for Ceti Alpha V, hoping to take the Enterprise out with him. Instead, the Enterprise zips off at warp, leaving Khan to die alone. 

Khan and the other Augments were considered so potentially dangerous that genetic engineering was outlawed by the Federation in the late 24th century, though scientists continued researching it in secret and it was possible to get black market genetic engineering to enhance traits, which we saw with Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." His parents had illegally paid someone to augment their son, to make him smarter and stronger, and though Bashir never demonstrated any of Khan's narcissistic or tyrannical tendencies, he did struggle with his genetically altered status for much of his life.

Who Is La'an?

That's everything there really is to know about Khan Noonien Singh, but what about the woman on "Strange New Worlds" who bears his name? We know that she is related to Khan in some way, though the series' co-showrunner Akiva Goldsman was very dodgy about how, exactly: 

"She's related to Khan, for sure, and, uh, and the deal will unfold ... We don't want to bring folks into the show to be splashy. We want to dig deeply into characters that are part of our ensemble and then, obviously, we're open to getting our arms ... but right now, what you see is what you get."

Having a character that's related to Khan is an interesting way to approach the character, though I hope they don't try to actually bring him back. "Strange New Worlds" is a prequel series to the original series, which means it's possible for Khan to be woken up at some point during this show. Theoretically. Khan is just such an emotionally charged character for everyone involved, from the fans who love him in "Star Trek II" to those who would rather forget the Kelvin timeline version (where he was played by a forgettable Benedict Cumberbatch). 

As far as La'an's concerned, she will have to reconcile sharing a name with one of history's greatest villains. From what we've seen so far, she seems like a tough, no-nonsense security officer, but could that be a way to protect herself from any cruelty she might experience on account of her name and heritage? Many of the characters on "Strange New Worlds" have ties to other "Trek" characters and stories, but hers might be the most complicated, with potential to explore what it means to have the blood of a monster inside you. 

Read this next: The 20 Greatest James Bond Villains Ever

The post You've Heard That Name Before: The Name 'Noonien Singh' Explained appeared first on /Film.

From the beginning, "Moon Knight" was marketed with the main attraction of Oscar Isaac embodying multiple different identities of the same character and, essentially, acting against himself in several big moments throughout the series. To nobody's surprise, the actor rose to the occasion and then some, serving as the centerpiece of some of the absolute best sequences in "Moon Knight" and carrying much of the storyline on his shoulders. But among many other surprises, the season finale came with one last unexpected twist for viewers. Not only did May Calamawy's Lalya El-Faouly finally receive the superhero treatment that many fans have been waiting for, but she even got in on the action by (briefly) portraying multiple characters within the same body.

With Marc Spector shot dead at the hands of Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) and both Spector and Steven Grant seemingly lost forever to the Egyptian afterlife, the task falls to Layla to find a way to release the Khonshu and prevent Harrow from unleashing destruction through the goddess Ammit. As it turns out, this necessitates becoming an avatar of the gods in the same way that Marc pledged himself to Khonshu. In this instance, however, Layla (temporarily!) agrees to become the human vessel for the far more mild-mannered Tawaret, giving her the powers (and extremely cool outfit) of Scarlet Scarab.

As far as acting challenges go, the scene where Calamawy has to portray Tawaret speaking through her and holding a conversation with Layla perhaps wasn't as intensive as what Isaac went through ... but fans may not have known that this wasn't the original plan, after all. While speaking to Marvel.com, the Egyptian actor revealed that the voice and motion capture performer for Tawaret, Antonia Salib, was going to embody Tawaret, as usual. Then director Mohamed Diab had other ideas. As Calamawy explained,

"Mohamed came to me 30 minutes before we started filming, and [said], 'I actually want you to embody Taweret.' And I was like, 'What?' I had to stand in front of a mirror next to Antonia, and have her choreograph me into the moment. Honestly, it's better that it happened that way, because I think if he had told me days in advance, I would have overprepared."

'It's A Bit Of A Weird Sensation'

Who says Oscar Isaac's the only one allowed to have some acting fun? May Calamawy's breakthrough role in "Moon Knight" quickly made her a fan-favorite among those who may not have been familiar with her work beforehand. Her performance as Layla allowed her to express a whole range of emotions as she never became boxed into the label of merely a love interest or sidekick to the main hero. The cherry on top of it all, for one quick moment at least, happened to be the scene where Layla allowed Tawaret to turn her into her own avatar ... even if that only came together at the very last minute. As Calamawy further explains in the interview, 

"It was just a testament to throwing yourself in and not putting too much thought. I had seen bits of Oscar going through that performance with Khonshu, and I realized it's a weird sensation. And that's what one of the gods said. It's a bit of a weird sensation, it can be painful, but you get used to it. And Layla had just gone through so much so, I was like, 'What's a really intense way to show this happening?' Because she's also someone who's resisting it. This is someone who's experiencing what being an avatar entails for the first time; not someone who's used to the process."

Luckily, actor Antonia Salib was right there on set to help Calamawy through the experience. According to the Tawaret actor,

"She was frantically trying to copy what I was doing, so I acted out the scene as how I would play Tawaret. She mimicked my gestures, and my intonation, and really did her best to bring my performance to life. Then, when we were filming these scenes, she had an earpiece while I was on the mic, feeding her the lines. Then we just took all that away, allowing her to do her own thing. It was great; it was an amalgamation of both of our performances."

Viewers may not have expected the "Moon Knight" finale to even have enough room for quietly amusing little moments like this, but nobody likely had any complaints about May Calamawy getting another fun acting moment in a series full of them.

All 6 episodes of "Moon Knight" are currently streaming on Disney+.

Read this next: The Best Movies Of 2021

The post May Calamawy Didn't Know She Was Embodying the Hippo God Taweret Until Just Before Cameras Rolled appeared first on /Film.

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Arm China said on Thursday its former CEO Allen Wu was refusing to relinquish his role despite being fired last week and that it would overhaul its communication system to protect against its misuse by Wu and his supporters. From a report: Wu, Arm China and its British parent Arm Ltd have been embroiled in a two-year-long dispute and the latest development shows a resolution is not imminent. At stake is a stock market listing for Arm Ltd, the chip designer that is owned by Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp. Arm announced on April 29 that Wu was ousted as Arm China's CEO and was replaced by two new Co-CEOs. He was also removed as its legal representative. Wu's ouster was opposed by some staff at the unit. Arm China, a Shanghai-based joint venture between the British company and Chinese private equity firm Hopu Investment, first tried to oust Wu in 2020, citing "conflicts of interest."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Before the Supreme Court has even had a chance to officially overturn Roe V. Wade, Republicans in Louisiana advanced a bill to reclassify abortion as murder, a crime in which the mother ending the pregnancy could be criminally charged, according to the Lafayette Daily Advertiser. — Read the rest

As a dedicated reader of readme files, I am delighted to learn of a Morrowind modder who added the family cat to comfort their children, who were afraid of mudcrabs. Stripes the cat arrives in Bethesda's fantasy RPG as a fierce protector to help fight those horrible creatures, and assure everyone that everything is okay. What a lovely little tale, and a lovely little cat. I downloaded the mod and took Stripes along on my own adventure, have a look.

Read more

Microsoft Teams is a popular team collaboration and meeting software. It is mainly known for its group calling facilities. However, you might sometimes notice Microsoft Teams consuming a lot of CPU processing power.

One of the most beguiling aspects of 1993's "Groundhog Day" is the way Phil Connors (Bill Murray) becomes trapped inside a time loop, the rules of which are never entirely explained. While the film works brilliantly as a comedy and character study of the arrogant and self-centered Connors learning how to be a better man, Phil learns those lessons by literally being left to his own devices, struggling through trial and error to stop living through February 2 over and over again.

Part of the conceit of the film is that Phil is trapped in the same day for long enough to not only be able to change his ways but also learn how to do things like play the piano, sculpt ice, and memorize the movements (and other details) of the people around him in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. His ability to do all this naturally makes us wonder: Exactly how long did Phil stay in that time loop for? It's a mystery the film leaves deliberately unanswered, but this isn't a case of director Harold Ramis and writer Danny Rubin holding information back. The answer never existed.

It's Gonna Be Cold, It's Gonna Be Gray And It's Gonna Last Him For The Rest Of His Life...approximately

As Rubin explained to The Ringer in 2017, the time loop in "Groundhog Day" was never intended to be concrete or easily defined, but rather "an experiment to see what would happen if a person had more than one lifetime. Would that be enough for them to grow up?" While that notion seems to imply a story about someone becoming immortal, Rubin conceived the plight of Phil Connors as "having an infinity of days in a circle, as opposed to in a line," and that allowed the writer to realize that Phil's transformation "didn't have to actually have a specific number of days."

When Ramis came on board to work on the script with Rubin and present the concept to the studio, Columbia Pictures, the people at the top apparently "couldn't hack this length of time" idea. Thinking audiences would become too confused and frustrated if the timeline were left vague, the studio demanded that Rubin and Ramis establish the events of the movie taking place over approximately two weeks. The co-writers were firmly against the idea, stating that "there's no way it's a credible adventure in two weeks."

In the end, Ramis solved the problem in the most elegant way possible: avoiding it altogether. He removed any and all references to how long Phil repeats Groundhog Day, making it "so that anyone can use their imagination," as Rubin put it.

'Anything Different Is Good'

Just because Rubin and Ramis never made a point of stating the exact length of time it takes Phil to advance toward February 3 doesn't mean they didn't have their own perspectives on the matter. As Rubin recalled, "Harold gauged it at about 10 years," while Rubin himself simply believed that "it needed to be more than one lifetime." However, the writer emphasizes that the life span of the dharma as found in Buddhism, about 10,000 years, "would be too long."

Yet the question is still debated in numerous corners of the internet, and Ramis himself even re-thought his initial answer of 10 years. Speaking to Heeb Magazine in response to this blog (which claimed Phil's time loop lasted 8 years, 8 months and 16 days), Ramis said he thought, "The 10-year estimate is too short. It takes at least 10 years to get good at anything, and allotting for the down time and misguided years he spent, it had to be more like 30 or 40 years."

Of course, Ramis summed it all up by observing that "people have way too much time on their hands. They could be learning to play the piano or speak French or sculpt ice..." Phil Connors was eventually freed from his plight by learning to accept all that he couldn't control and didn't know, and fans of "Groundhog Day" would do well to learn that lesson.

Read this next: The 15 Best '90s Comedies Ranked

The post Groundhog Day's Biggest Mystery Never Had An Answer appeared first on /Film.

Right from the first scene of 1995's "The Quick and the Dead," director Sam Raimi makes it clear that he's playfully toying with his audience.

We open on a quintessential Western image: a lone figure atop a horse, galloping through a barren landscape towards the distant camera. The title card "Russell Crowe" floats just underneath the approaching rider, tacitly implying that the actor (who would later go on to make even more use of his rugged, gunslinger looks in "3:10 to Yuma") and the cowboy in the shot are one and the same. As the lens continues to pull back, our focus shifts to the frantic digger in the foreground, searching for apparently misplaced gold. Once alerted by the neighing of the horse, Tobin Bell's disheveled outlaw Dog Kelly comically springs into view, sets the unwanted intruder in his gunsights, and promptly pulls the trigger. By now, we know exactly what's coming. He carefully prods the fallen body, goes to turn over the face of his vanquished foe, and gets an incapacitating rifle butt to the face for his trouble.

Framed from below with the blistering high noon sun behind (and a pinprick of light streaming through the visible bullet hole — a clean miss — in the brim of the hat), we get our first good look at the assailant looming over her would-be killer: Sharon Stone's Ellen, who simply goes by the title "Lady" for much of the runtime.

In the span of just a little over 3 minutes, Raimi (from a script by Simon Moore) packs these opening moments with several of his usual trademarks: an ever-roving camera drinking in its surroundings, extreme close-ups putting us uncomfortably close to his characters, and a winking sense of humor that doesn't so much as "elevate" this nifty little Western, but seamlessly fits in among the ranks of classics that the filmmaker undoubtedly grew up watching. Sam Raimi may be making his grand return to the superhero scene with "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" this week, but "The Quick and the Dead" sets itself apart as living proof of just how well he operates under one of cinema's greatest-ever genres: the Western.

A Flair For The Dramatic

Sam Raimi spells it out for us (quite literally) from the start. Ellen purposefully strides past a ramshackle fence bearing the name of the dilapidated town that serves as the setting for the film and the chief inner conflict for our main heroes: Redemption, the kind of town that's "full of people who'll kill you for your bootlaces." Not too dissimilar from the showy, card-hustling cowboy Ace (Lance Henriksen) that Ellen encounters soon after, Raimi never shies away from laying all his cards on the table in "The Quick and the Dead."

Even with such gloriously on-the-nose visuals, what's truly impressive is how much we get to know about Sharon Stone's brooding and vengeance-driven cowboy in the early going through a steely gaze or the set of her jaw alone, without any dialogue. Well, almost no dialogue. After knocking out Dog Kelly and leaving him chained to a wagon axle, she trudges away and casually spits out a parting shot of "A**hole" ... probably in response to mistaking her for a man, just as much as for shooting her off her horse. Otherwise, Raimi lets quiet moments do all the talking, such as her mournful gazing at the wreckage of the Marshal's office on the outskirts of town (a detail that will become much more meaningful later on) or an insightful window into Ellen when she's able to let her guard down in the safety of her own hotel room, briefly sequestered from the exhausting outside world that's dominated by aggressive men and their expectations for her.

Even so, Ellen's decidedly not a role model and soon makes that clear to the barmaid's hero-worshipping daughter, awestruck by the idea of a woman wielding a gun. Later on, after successfully holding her own in the shootout competition that drives the bulk of the film, Ellen answers the young girl's adoring praise of "I think you're great!" with a brusque "Grow up." It's nothing personal and without any real malice (the two share some brief bonding moments elsewhere), unlike the nature of her incredibly personal motivations to make up for her own past failings by taking down the fear-mongering, power-hungry villain of the picture: Gene Hackman's John Herod.

Style As Substance

The scene that (re)introduces Ellen to Herod (along with the rest of the film's ensemble) serves as yet another representative example of everything Raimi brings to the table.

Other than her begrudgingly charmed reaction to Fee "The Kid" Herod's (Leonardo DiCaprio) cocky attempts to get in her pants (which eventually works, amusingly enough!), Ellen is content to sit far away from the spotlight and quietly observe a saloon full of obnoxious cowboys tripping over themselves to prove their machismo with the deadly shootout game — that is, until Herod arrives and drags in the outlaw-turned-preacher Cort (Crowe) in chains. Here, Raimi and cinematographer Dante Spinotti let their inventive camerawork tell the story: a whizzing point-of-view angle of Herod throwing a glass of water at Cort's face, a split diopter shot (one of many judiciously sprinkled throughout the film) holding both Ellen and Cort in focus within the same frame as the latter is strung up to hang, and one impeccably choreographed sequence that gives the illusion of the camera whip-panning from Herod's gun barrel to Cort's face, down to his feet grasping for purchase on a wobbly chair, back to Herod's pistol again, and neatly racking focus to a horrified Ellen watching this unfold in the background. She finally joins the action by shooting the hangman's rope and saving Cort to prove her marksmanship — another key detail that will take on new meaning later.

By the time we get to the classic Raimi dolly-zooms and close-ups prevalent in the thrilling shootout scenes, the visual language of "The Quick and the Dead" has been firmly established as one that purposefully brings a spotlight to the artifice. Those wishing to lose themselves in the plot and characters are forcefully reminded at every turn that they're watching a gleefully self-aware movie — not in the same insufferable vein as "Deadpool," but spiritually akin to similar genre pictures like Martin Campbell's "The Mask of Zorro" or even Brian de Palma's "Femme Fatale." With Ellen, Cort, and even the dastardly Herod all boasting operatic, larger-than-life backstories that drive each of them on their own quests for redemption (or, in Herod's case, more exercises in cruelty), then why not reflect that in the actual filmmaking itself?

Form follows function in "The Quick and the Dead," even as our main characters barrel towards their inevitable conclusion.

The Woman Comes Around

Sharon Stone's crucial involvement in helping to put "The Quick and the Dead" in the best possible position to succeed is the stuff of legend, paying out of her own pocket to provide Leonardo DiCaprio's salary in the role of Herod's disappointing son and even using her producer credit to help Sam Raimi get the job in the first place. Her character in the film is no less a force to be reckoned with, from the moment she first swings through the saloon doors until she rides out of town in a blaze of glory, having accomplished everything she set out to do.

As we learn through Ellen's tortured childhood flashbacks, a young Herod once strung up her father in a hangman's noose to make an example of him as the town's Marshal (Gary Sinise), the only lawman around. Ellen watches all this in horror until Herod goads her into a perverse little game of shooting her father down from the rope to save his life. She misses and accidentally kills him, setting herself on the traumatized path that ultimately leads her back to Redemption as a cold and hardened adult.

Yet Ellen is far from Herod's only victim. Cort details his own backstory when he used to ride with the outlaw and look up to him. That all changed once he was also forced into an impossible situation: after a bank heist gone wrong, Cort is ordered to kill the priest who sheltered them from the authorities. In a desperate search for atonement, Cort retreats to a life as a humble preacher — though this doesn't last long, as Herod sends his men to burn down his mission and haul him back to face Herod's final judgment.

As these interweaving threads crescendo in the film's show-stopping shootout sequences, ultimately ending with the Kid tragically killed at his father's hand and Ellen's shootout with Cort ending in her seeming death, Raimi has one more trick left up his sleeve. Ellen's "resurrection" (which plays into the Biblical origins of the movie's title, as well as the name of its antagonist) ends Herod's reign of terror in fire and brimstone ... and one last duel that concludes with his gloriously over-the-top death.

Marvel fans who are about to get reacquainted with Raimi's superhero showmanship would be well-served to check out the Western that did it all first.

Read this next: 12 Shows Like Stranger Things You Definitely Need To Stream

The post Sam Raimi's Western F****** Rules appeared first on /Film.

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" reaches deep into "Trek" canon. You don't need to know about the Eugenics Wars and World War III to enjoy the mostly standalone show, but ... has a little extra knowledge never hurt? Especially when the first episode of the new Paramount+ series references these past events so heavily.

When "Star Trek" was first conceived in the mid-1960s, the '90s still seemed like a far way off. It was far away enough that the writers of "Trek" felt completely comfortable extrapolating a future history that would begin as early as 1992. "Star Trek" did not predict Boyz II Men's "The End of the Road" being the biggest album that year, but they did predict the eventual rise of Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically enhanced ruler who would, thanks to his ambition, enhanced intellect, and increased strength, take over the world. 

Although none of the extant "Star Trek" canon has depicted it directly, there are two major world conflicts in the "Star Trek" timeline that were necessary to bring about Gene Roddenberry's peaceful vision of the future: The Eugenics Wars and World War III. Roddenberry, after all, created "Trek" in the mid-1960s, a time when he could look out his window and see a great amount of turbulence that likely didn't leave him feeling hopeful. Racial segregation was on the books, greed was corrupting the world, and the Vietnam War was raging. It was not an optimistic time. Roddenberry seems to have sensed -- or at least feared -- that a collapse was imminent. That is, if the future built into the history of the "Star Trek" universe is any indicator of Roddenberry's attitudes. 

As such, the world -- to Roddenberry's eyes -- would need the Etch-A-Sketch treatment before a better future could begin. Shake up the whole planet, erase the picture, and begin drawing again. Humanity, by Roddenberry's assumed estimation, needed to nearly collapse under its own destructive hubris before it realized that looking up to the stars was preferable to killing one another en masse. 

While the timeline has shifted around a lot as the decades have passed (the latest season of "Star Trek: Picard" takes place in 2024, and the Eugenics Wars are not in full swing), they still seem to hang heavily over the near-future of "Star Trek." Indeed, genetic engineering is a large part of the second season of "Picard," one of the main villains being Dr. Adam Soong (Brent Spiner) a geneticist who wants to enhance humanity for the better ... and for the worse. 

The Eugenics Wars

The first time audiences heard of The Eugenics Wars was the during the "Star Trek: The Original Series" episode "Space Seed," which first aired on February 16, 1967. In it, the Enterprise discovers a seemingly deactivated "sleeper ship," the S.S. Botany Bay, wherein a small group of human beings have been in cryogenic sleep for 200 years. Of the 84 people frozen, 72 are still alive. The Enterprise rescues and resurrects their leader, finding him to be none other than Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán), the onetime dictator of Earth. "Space Seed" offers a good deal of exposition regarding Trek history: In the 1990s, humans were subjected to breeding experiments, resulting in arrogant and powerful superbeings who took over much of the world. 

Although "Star Trek" is ultimately a show centered on pacifism, there is a lot of dialogue in "Space Seed" to describe how awesome Khan is as a warlord. Several characters describe him as a benevolent dictator -- reminiscent of Plato's philosopher kings -- who didn't engage in genocide and who didn't start a war until he was attacked. The episode's writers, Gene L. Coon and Carey Wilbur, seem torn between writing a show that touts a philosophy of pacifism, and their own Nietzsche-like admiration of a powerfully willed man. 

The actual catalytic event that kicked off the Eugenics wars has never been made explicit in "Star Trek," although from "Space Seed" we know that augmented human beings were taking over the world as despots. Khan wasn't as despotic as others of his generation, but he was still a dictator. Indeed, Khan eventually tries to take over the Enterprise. Kirk convinces him that a greater challenge would be to begin society fresh on an uninhabited planet. Khan accepts the challenge, and he -- along with all the other augmented people -- are dropped off on a planet called Ceti Alpha V. Anyone who has seen "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" knows that a major environmental disaster left Khan stuck on a planet that had become a desert. He was stranded there for 20 years. Hence his titular wrath. 

Borderland, Cold Station 12, And The Augments

Additional ex post facto details about the Eugenics Wars were filled in during the fourth season of "Star Trek: Enterprise." In a three-part episode ("Borderland," "Cold Station 12," and "The Augments"), audiences were introduced to Dr. Arik Soong (Spiner again), who was on the run for developing a race of generically enhanced people, a few of which were running amok among the Klingon Empire. Recall that "Enterprise" takes place nearly a century before the events of the original "Star Trek," so this was long before Khan was resurrected. 

The Augments in this three-parter talk about how Khan was considered their grandfather. There is also a lot of dialogue devoted to the long-held ban of genetic enhancements in the world of "Star Trek." The ban is mentioned multiple times throughout "Star Trek: The Next Generation," and it will be considered something of a scandal when one of the main cast members of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" was secretly an augment since the start. The idea of shaping human history via genetic manipulation has largely been taboo in Trek, seeing as it draws from similar evil ideas of genetic purity often parroted by white supremacists throughout history. Two different Soongs will be responsible for carrying this idea forward: Arik and Adam from "Enterprise" and "Picard."

The three-part episode ends with a cute twist: Arik, having been apprehended, is convinced that genetics is not the path to making perfect people. But maybe cybernetics is. He says to himself that he could likely create a realistic humanoid android, provided he pass the project down a few generations. Boom. This is how we got Data on "Next Generation."

World War III

The details of World War III are often left vague by canonical dialogue. Here's what Trekkies do know:

That World War III was fought from 2026 to 2053. That the war was kicked off by arguments about genetic manipulation left over from the Eugenics Wars, very much the way much of the damage left by World War I led frighteningly directly into World War II. We know from the original series episode "The Savage Curtain" -- an episode that sees the resurrection of one Colonel Phillip Green (Phillip Pine), one of WWIII's nastiest dictators -- that World War III will involve nuclear attacks, and the utter waste of the Earth's surface. The nuclear apocalypse was also alluded to in "The Next Generation," as well as an episode of "Star Trek: Discovery," wherein a character describes how bombs were being dropped as late as 2053, leading to the devastation that cause all sides to lose. According to dialogue in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint," World Ward III's ancillary conflicts would continue to rage until the 2070s. 

Viewers also know from "Encounter at Farpoint" that soldiers were controlled by addictive drugs -- we see Q (John De Lancie) wearing the uniform of a World War III soldier -- and that deliberate acts of eco-terrorism were par for the course. Humanity was bombing one another to no end and deliberately destroying the planet, all while high on drugs. Additionally, humanity would be overrun by brutal, miniature dictatorships, overseen by medieval-style kangaroo courts wherein people would be judged and executed with very little evidence; Q would also put on the garb of the judge seen in these courts. What a pleasant time.

This was the Etch-A-Sketch moment, Roddenberry seemed to feel, that humanity required. In the 1996 film "Star Trek: First Contact," the crew of the Enterprise-E were sucked back to the year 2063, after the bulk of Earth's carnage had ended, and our species was struggling to survive. It was during this time that Zefram Cochran (James Cromwell) would invent the world's first faster-than-light engine. While testing the engine, it would attract the attention of a passing Vulcan vessel, giving them license to come visit. Making First Contact with the Vulcans was a wake-up call for all humanity, and people began to unify, realizing that we weren't doing so well on our own, but might improve if we see ourselves as neighbors in a broad, cosmic community. 

Humanity may be in a dark tunnel now, but there will always be a light at the end.

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The post The Eugenics War and World War III in the Star Trek Universe, Explained appeared first on /Film.

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