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The X-Men have been one of Marvel Comics' most beloved and enduring properties for decades now. First hitting the stands in 1963, the X-Men have since become a sprawling and complex franchise that fans continue to read today. Perhaps a big part of the X-Men's acclaim is because of the Merry Mutants' status as outcasts in a world that hates and fears them, a theme that will always have relevance in real-life society. What person has never felt like a misfit or been criticized simply for being different?

Over the course of more than a half-century, the X-Men have undergone numerous changes and spun off into countless series under different creative teams. Many characters have received one-shots, limited series, ongoing series, or all of the above. There are also a huge number of secondary teams, including X-Factor, X-Force, Excalibur, and more. Plus, let's not forget all of the crossovers that have taken place in the X-titles. Because of the ever-expanding continuity of the X-Men, it can be difficult for even die-hard fans to keep track of the heroes' complex lore, let alone welcome new readers. Luckily, we've created a guide that lists the 15 best X-Men comic storylines to help get you started.

House Of X / Powers Of X

"House of X" follows Professor X (now going simply as "X") as he establishes Krakoa as a new nation that welcomes all mutants, with Magneto serving as ambassador. However, this bold move by the X-Men catches the attention of Orchis, a group consisting of members of S.H.I.E.L.D., A.I.M., Hydra, and Alpha Flight, who are worried it may signal the coming downfall of homo sapiens. Meanwhile, "Powers of X" reveals secrets of the X-Men's past that have played an important role in their present, chronicling how their present actions will impact the future of mankind and how a key figure in their lives — once thought dead — has to do with these timelines.

The "House of X" and "Power of X" storylines may be the most recent featured on this list, but their importance to the X-Men canon is already solidified. Part of the "Dawn of X" relaunch spearheaded by writer Jonathan Hickman, these stories completely revamp the X-Men and radically update their place in the Marvel Comics universe, serving as the perfect jumping-on point for new readers.

Inferno

N'astirh and S'ym are demonic entities from Limbo, an otherworldly chaos dimension not unlike Hell, who set out to take over Earth with an army of fellow abominations. First, they manipulate Illyana Rasputin/Magik of the New Mutants into embracing her evil side and using her teleportation abilities to open a gateway to Earth. Then, the two demons begin their intrusion in New York City where their infernal troops attack Manhattan, with other heroes like the Fantastic Four, Power Pack, Daredevil, and more joining the fray. Meanwhile, the X-Men and X-Factor join forces against Madelyne Pryor, who has become the malevolent Goblin Queen as part of a deal she made with N'astirh and S'ym to help create a perpetual gateway between Limbo and Earth.

"Inferno" is not only a fun and often terrifying story, but it also had some deeply dramatic moments, like when Madelyne finally got to confront Scott Summers/Cyclops about his leaving her and their baby when he found out Jean Grey was alive, or when Illyana became irrevocably changed after her final sacrifice to save the world from Limbo's invasion.

Mutant Genesis

While Magneto had seemingly reformed and was even serving as a mentor to the New Mutants, his villainous tendencies were beginning to reemerge. However, before he went back to full-on villain, Magneto tried his hand at mutant isolationism, turning his old space base (Asteroid M) into a haven where mutants could live their lives without interference from regular homo sapiens on Earth. However, this move provokes the world's nations to threaten war, and so Magneto ⁠— initially just wanting to be left alone ⁠— aims several nuclear missiles at Earth for its actions against him. The X-Men set out to stop Magneto and beg him one last time to end his war against humanity.

"Mutant Genesis" was legendary writer Chris Claremont's final X-Men story (for a while, at least), and it's a fairly solid one, even if the subplot about Moira MacTaggert having unsuccessfully tried to "cure" Magneto of his evil when he was under care feels a bit contrived. However, this storyline (the first for the second flagship "X-Men" title) features amazing artwork from Jim Lee, with his redesigns inspiring the look of the classic animated series that came out a year later.

Wolverine

Wolverine takes a leave of absence from the X-Men and heads to the Canadian Rockies to live a roughneck lifestyle for a bit. However, Wolverine isn't able to enjoy his sabbatical for long, as the letters that he's mailed to the object of his affection, Mariko Yashida, are sent back to him. He tries calling her but is rebuffed by her family. This provokes Wolvie into heading to Japan to get some answers, but he must contend with Mariko's criminal family, the Yakuza, the Hand, and more on his quest to prove himself worthy enough to marry the woman he loves.

This classic 1982 limited series features terrific work from writer Chris Claremont and artist Frank Miller, who fleshed out Wolverine more than ever before. By focusing less on superpowers and more on character, readers got to see just how complex and layered Wolverine really is. Yes, his feral side is on full display here, but the story also delved deep into his struggle to contain his animal tendencies. "Wolverine" would go on to inspire the mediocre 2013 film, "The Wolverine."

Messiah Complex

A baby mutant, the first born after the "Decimation" storyline, is detected in Alaska. When the X-Men arrive, they discover the corpses of Marauders and Purifiers, but no baby. The X-Men conclude that the fight was over possession of the baby, and set out to find it before it falls into the wrong hands. It turns out that the baby has great importance to numerous sides: The Purifiers want to kill it as part of their longstanding campaign against mutants, Mister Sinister sent the Marauders to kidnap the baby for his own purposes, and Bishop wants to destroy the baby because he believes it will grow up to become a powerful mutant who kills countless innocent people in the future.

"Messiah Complex" deals with the fallout from the previous crossover event, "House of M," in which Scarlet Witch cast a spell that eliminated the powers of all but 198 mutants on Earth. It's a dark crossover with plenty of casualties, but it did end on a hopeful note for the future of mutant-kind when it seemed things were at their worst for them.

Fatal Attractions

Magneto has returned after his seeming death during his previous bout against the X-Men and has a group of powerful followers called the Acolytes. Because he has some malevolent plans in store for Earth (which he intended to carry out from his new space base, Avalon), Magneto invites the X-Men to join him before he launches his attack on the planet. While most of the X-Men rebuff him, Colossus — devastated by his sister's recent death — decides to join Magneto. Professor X, donning a special suit that allows him to walk, puts together a squad of X-Men to go into space and prevent Magneto from laying waste to the Earth.

"Fatal Attractions" was an important event in X-Men history, crossing over into all of the X-titles at the time, including "X-Factor," "X-Force," "Uncanny X-Men," "X-Men," "Wolverine," and "Excalibur." Not only did it bring back Magneto, his infamous fight with Wolverine revealed that underneath Logan's adamantium claws were real claws. It also resulted in Colossus' considerable time away from the X-Men, operating as a morally ambiguous hero. Several other major storylines grew out of "Fatal Attractions," like the X-Men/Avengers crossover "Bloodties" and the massive X-title crossover event "Onslaught."

Giant-Size X-Men #1

Cyclops has barely managed to escape the clutches of the living island, Krakoa, where he and the other X-Men were sent on a mission. Knowing that he and Cyclops aren't enough to save the missing teammates, Professor X travels the world and meets with other mutants he'd been keeping tabs on — Sunfire, Banshee, Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and Thunderbird — and recruits them to go on another mission to Krakoa to rescue the other X-Men. With Krakoa defeated and the X-Men saved, this new team of mutants is made official members of the X-Men.

"Giant-Size X-Men #1" was released when "The X-Men" had essentially been canceled. No new stories were being published, and the series was merely reprinting old issues. The comic ended up being exactly what was needed to revitalize the struggling series and has since become an important and beloved comic since it was first unleashed on readers in 1975. With the inclusion of a whole new cast of diverse characters from around the world, "The X-Men" was able to appeal to a much larger audience than ever before.

Unstoppable

Following a battle with a new incarnation of the Hellfire Club, the X-Men are whisked away by S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient World Observation and Response Department) and end up on Breakworld, the homeworld of the alien mercenary Ord. The leaders of Breakworld are hellbent on destroying Earth with an unstoppable weapon: a massive bullet. While the X-Men are unfortunately unable to prevent the firing of the bullet, Kitty Pryde phases inside the bullet and phases it along with her, rendering it intangible as it harmlessly goes right through Earth.

Joss Whedon's time on "Astonishing X-Men" ended with such a bang that it was tempting to simply put the whole 25-issue run on this list. While not quite as epic in scope as the "Dark Phoenix Saga," Kitty's sacrifice packs almost as much of an emotional punch as Jean Grey's. Because the first arc began with the return of Peter Rasputin/Colossus and the rekindling of his romance with Kitty, it makes her ultimate decision all the more heartbreaking. This story would have lasting ramifications for years, as it kept Kitty hurtling around in space for a good while before finally returning to Earth.

Mutant Massacre

A group of violent mercenaries called the Marauders make their way into the tunnels of New York City and invade the underground community of mutant outcasts known as the Morlocks. The Marauders mercilessly kill countless Morlocks until they're stopped by the X-Men and X-Factor, who are there on separate missions and are unaware of each others' presence. Both teams, while successful in taking down the Marauders, are brutally beaten in the melee. Luckily, Thor and Power Pack are able to join in and lend a hand in the fight. However, even after the battle, the Marauders' Sabretooth makes his way to the X-Mansion to cause even more trouble.

"Mutant Massacre" was the first cross-title X-Men event, with the main story taking place in the pages of "The Uncanny X-Men," "X-Factor," and "The New Mutants," with additional plot elements occurring across "Thor," "Power Pack," and "Daredevil." It left a major impact on the X-Men's universe, including the loss of Warren Worthington III's wings, Kitty Pryde being trapped in her phased form, and planting the seeds for the introduction of longtime villain Mister Sinister.

Age Of Apocalypse

David Haller/Legion, the mentally unstable son of Professor Xavier, went back in time to kill a young Magneto to prevent him from becoming a villain and killing countless people, but accidentally kills Professor X. This new history resulted in an alternate timeline, one in which Apocalypse has taken over North America. Mutants are now the ruling class, with most humans having been annihilated. Because of his complicated relationship with the timestream, Bishop is the only one who remembers the original timeline and must convince the other X-Men of his story to fix and restore the original timeline.

If you thought the alternate timeline of "Days of Future Past" was bleak, wait until you check out the one in "Age of Apocalypse." While previous storylines had established Apocalypse as a formidable villain, it was "Age of Apocalypse" that demonstrated just how powerful and maniacal he was. It was a bold move to completely change every X-title at the time, but it was necessary narratively to pull off such a grand story that paid off.

God Loves, Man Kills

Magneto is on the trail of Reverend William Stryker, who's responsible for the murders of two mutant children. Stryker has recently started a religious campaign against mutants, believing them to be a blight on God's creation. Stryker is so committed to his cause that he even previously killed his newborn baby for being a mutant, and his wife for giving birth to the child. Driven by a deep hatred of mutants, Stryker and his men abduct Professor X with plans of hooking him up to a machine that, powered by his psychic abilities, will kill all mutants on Earth. The X-Men reluctantly team up with Magneto to rescue Professor X and stop Stryker from carrying out his plan.

The fifth installment in Marvel's Graphic Novel series meant that writer Chris Claremont and artist Brent Anderson were able to explore darker, more mature themes about religion and prejudice. While there are plenty of superheroics to be found in this comic, it offers a sobering lesson on the dangers of letting one's beliefs lead to committing atrocities. "God Loves, Man Kills" was the inspiration for the excellent "X2: X-Men United."

Gifted

"Gifted" follows Kitty Pryde as she returns to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and adjusts to life as both an X-Man and mentor to the incoming class of young mutant arrivals. However, prominent geneticist Kavita Rao announces her company's cure for the mutant "condition." Most of the X-Men are suspicious of the cure, believing it to be part of a larger, more sinister plot, but it does pique the interest of Beast, whose blue and furry appearance makes it hard for him to blend with everyone else. Terrible secrets are revealed, however, when the X-Men break into the manufacturing facility for the "cure."

Joss Whedon (of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Avengers" fame) kicked off this "X-Men" comics series, which followed up on Grant Morrison's legendary run on "New X-Men." Whedon's writing of each character and their relationships with one another was pitch-perfect, and (like "New X-Men" before it) wonderfully shook up the status quo of the team with lasting consequences. "Gifted" was such a beloved story that it was even partially adapted in 2006's "X-Men: The Last Stand," which unfortunately failed to live up to the power of its source material.

Days Of Future Past

In the then-distant future of 2013, Sentinels have taken over the United States, and most superheroes are either imprisoned, in hiding, or dead. When the Sentinels decide to set their sights on the remainder of the planet, the handful of surviving X-Men send an aged Kitty Pryde's mind back in time to the then-present of 1980 to her younger self. Once there, she must convince that era's X-Men to stop Mystique and her Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from murdering Senator Robert Kelly, which will lead to renewed interest in cracking down on all mutants, bringing about a dystopian future.

While "Days of Future Past" only took place over two issues, it was still a shocking reminder of what a possible future could look like if hatred for mutants continued down its current path, and was oddly prescient of the "Terminator" franchise, which wouldn't debut until several years after the publication of this story. This storyline is so cherished that it was even the basis for 2014's "X-Men: Days of Future Past," which — while changing numerous aspects from the source material — still perfectly portrayed its themes and high stakes.

E Is For Extinction

A mysterious and powerful woman named Cassandra Nova (who looks suspiciously like Professor X) takes control of an abandoned Sentinel manufacturing plant in an Ecuadorian jungle. However, it's not her assuming command of the leftover mutant-hunting Sentinels that made her such a vile villain, but what she ordered them to do: she directed the Sentinels to attack Genosha, an island nation populated only by mutants, and destroy the population. While Cassandra is ultimately stopped before she could use the X-Men's mutant-detecting device Cerebro to finish her malevolent plan, the storyline ends with a shocking public announcement from Professor X that would change the X-Men's place in the world forever.

Legendary comic book writer Grant Morrison's first story for the flagship "X-Men" series (which he had renamed "New X-Men") was just what the X-titles needed: a swift kick in the continuity. It brought about serious changes to their status quo, gave them startling new conflicts to contend with, introduced fresh concepts to mutant life in the Marvel Comics universe, and generally reimagined the X-Men for the new millennium.

Dark Phoenix Saga

Jean Grey barely survived her rescue of the X-Men on their return to Earth from a mission in space, wherein she was possessed by a powerful celestial force and became Phoenix. This all took place in "Uncanny X-Men" issues #101-108, but it didn't pay off until issues #129-138, which depicted the culmination of the Phoenix force's corruption of Jean. When the Phoenix-possessed Jean destroys a planet for sustenance the Shi'ar empire demands her execution, but her fellow X-Men come to her defense. Of course, they must also contend with the tragic reality that Jean will never be fully in control of her godlike powers, leaving it up to her how she should handle her fate.

The "Dark Phoenix Saga" is quite possibly THE signature X-Men storyline, the one that perfectly embodies the heroes' commitment to doing the right thing even when the world (or galaxy, in this case) hates and fears you. It's a powerfully moving story that Fox tried to adapt twice (in "X-Men: The Last Stand" and "Dark Phoenix"), but now that Marvel Studios has the rights to the X-Men back, here's hoping that we may finally get a proper cinematic adaptation within our lifetime.

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

The post The 15 Best X-Men Comics You Need to Read appeared first on /Film.

The notion of a "zombie apocalypse" has been popular for the past few decades, and the irony is that just such an event has happened within pop culture. After all, zombies are everywhere — books, long-running television shows, board games, video games, action figures, apparel, and, of course, the movies.

Yet this wasn't always the case. In fact, just 40-odd years ago, the zombie was still the near-exclusive purview of the filmmaker who defined the creature with 1968's "Night of the Living Dead," George A. Romero. While a few other, mostly European horror films played with the notion of the dead returning to life and attacking the living (notably 1972's "Tombs of the Blind Dead" and 1974's "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie"), it was Romero who kept the living dead in exclusively modern spaces and adhered to the "rules" of the creature he'd established in "Night."

When Romero's follow-up to "Night," "Dawn of the Dead," was released in Italy in 1978 under the title "Zombi," the Italian film industry took note as it became a box office sensation. Seeing "Zombi's" success, the enterprising (or unscrupulous — take your pick) producer Fabrizio De Angelis took advantage of Italy's loose copyright laws (which allows any film to be advertised as a sequel to another) and decided to put an unofficial sequel into production entitled "Zombi 2." The Lucio Fulci film, while not an actual sequel to "Dawn," would become hugely influential all on its own. With such standout set pieces like the world's grisliest instance of eyeball trauma and a zombie vs. tigershark title fight, "Zombi 2" aka "Zombie" is an entry into the zombie genre that is not just unmissable, but essential.

Zombie Digs Into The Past

Where Romero's "Dead" films were blisteringly modern and immediate, "Zombi 2" looks to the past to hang its narrative on. Screenwriters Dardano Sacchetti and Elisa Briganti fashion the film's story from a mixture of pulp fiction, EC Comics, and "Scooby-Doo"-style mystery, making the movie feel classical and timeless.

Taking a cue from classic zombie films like 1932's "White Zombie" and 1943's "I Walked With a Zombie" (as well as the lore surrounding the creature from traditional voodoo), "Zombi 2" is primarily set on the fictional Caribbean island of Matul, where the shady Dr. David Menard (Richard Johnson) is conducting research into the outbreak of zombified reanimation that's happening on the island. After a rogue abandoned boat from Matul drifts into New York Harbor, the daughter of the boat's owner, Anne (Tisa Farrow), gathers together a journalist (Ian McCulloch), a ship captain (Al Cliver) and the captain's girlfriend (Auretta Gay) to travel to the island and investigate.

The adventure story feel of "Zombi 2" is no accident — according to a 2002 interview with Sachetti, the writer began the script for the film as an homage to the character of Tex Willer, which was "an Italian comic strip in which there's fantastique episodes," including a run where Tex fights off zombies. Thus, "Zombi 2" is a movie which has more in common with classic horror, adventure, and pulp fiction stories than with Romero's films. Except, of course, for the opening and closing scenes set in NYC, which the writer states were added in order to "give the impression that the zombies invading New York are the same [as] those of Romero."

Wood Splinter Vs. Eye, Zombie Vs. Shark: Zombi 2's Unforgettable Match-Ups

Director Lucio Fulci didn't have much experience within the horror genre before making "Zombi 2," but you wouldn't know it given how unforgettably gory and macabre the film is. "Zombi 2" follows Romero's films when it comes to depicting its living dead, of course: shambling, flesh-eating ghouls with sunken faces, bloody wounds and, in one memorable instance, wriggling worms, the fiends dispatched through severe head trauma of some kind. Yet while the film naturally climaxes with a mass of zombies attacking our dwindling group of heroes, it's two earlier scenes that really sets "Zombi 2" apart from its predecessors and earns the movie its own unique place in horror history.

In one, Dr. Menard's wife Paola (Olga Karlatos), is menaced by a zombie at the couple's isolated island home. Attempting to stop the ghoul from shoving open a door into the house, she is apparently successful by mashing the door on the zombie's hand, turning it to a pulp. Not to be deterred, the zombie smashes its other arm through the wooden door, and while Paola tries to bar the door with a dresser, the zombie gets a handful of her hair and pulls her torturously forward toward a loose splinter from the broken wooden door, which her eye is then impaled upon. It's a sequence worthy of both Herschell Gordon Lewis and Alfred Hitchcock all in one swoop, the drawn-out suspense of the latter meeting the in-your-face gore of the former. Being a fiendishly clever exploitation filmmaker, Fulci stages the scene as a riposte to the earlier moments of Paola nude in the shower, punishing the viewer with a different kind of eye-f***ing.

If the eye-gouging scene is Fulci torturing the viewer, the zombie vs. shark scene is the director (and producer Ugo Tucci) offering up pure delicious exploitation cheese. Beginning with a moment featuring Gay's character going diving in the ocean while topless, the woman encounters a nearby tiger shark, only to then be menaced by an underwater zombie! Sure enough, the shark and zombie butt heads, and the scene becomes gloriously outrageous thanks to Ramón Bravo's bravery as a stunt performer (as described in this piece from Little White Lies on the making of the scene) and Fabio Frizzi's electro-pop score.

Zombi 2 Cements The Creature And The Genre's Versatility — And Popularity

Taken as a whole, "Zombi 2" is a film that transcends its roots as a quickie cash-in rip-off of "Dawn of the Dead." While Romero unequivocally deserves credit for creating and establishing the tenets of the zombie and its subgenre, "Zombi 2" is arguably the movie that proved the creature had far more creative gas in the tank than as a vehicle for social commentary or as a stock horror beastie.

"Zombi 2" utilizes Romero's conception of the creature while proving that the zombie could continue to expand beyond the filmmaker's idea of the character. Just a few years after "Zombi 2" made a splash in Italy and in American grindhouse theaters, Dan O'Bannon made "The Return of the Living Dead," a movie that furthered the zombie mythos by establishing the living dead's preference for eating brains. Seventeen years later, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's "28 Days Later" reconfigured Romero's apocalyptic scenario for the post-millennium, with the rage-filled "infected" acting like zombies in everything but name. In a way, 2009's "Zombieland" owes a direct debt to Fulci's "Zombi 2," as the horror-comedy puts an emphasis on increasingly wild and grisly zombie kills.

"Zombi 2" not only furthered the mythology of the zombie and perpetuated the zombie subgenre, it also kicked off Fulci's career in horror films, creating a reputation for the director which still holds. Thanks to all of this, the film may be the most accomplished unofficial sequel in history. In any case, it's a movie not to be missed, one that should become part of your zombie diet as soon as possible.

Read this next: The 20 Best Zombie Movies Of All Time

The post The Unofficial Sequel to Dawn of the Dead You Really Should Watch appeared first on /Film.

As outlined in yesterday's extensive article about NVIDIA's new open-source Linux kernel GPU driver, currently for consumer GeForce RTX GPUs the driver is considered of "alpha quality" while NVIDIA's initial focus has been on data center GPU support. In any event with having lots of Turing/Ampere GPUs around, I've been trying out this new open-source Linux kernel driver on the consumer GPUs. In particular, I've been curious about the performance of using this open-source kernel driver relative to the default, existing closed-source kernel driver. Here are some early benchmarks.

At this point, calling Stephen King the master of horror is a bit of an understatement. At the time of publication, the award-winning author has published 64 novels, 11 short story collections, and five non-fiction books. More than a household name, he has become a brand unto himself, and with his new novel "Fairy Tale" releasing in late 2022, the writer shows no signs of slowing down. King has always specialized in creating strong characters that often seem to leap off the page, so it's no surprise that his work is frequently adapted for the screen, both big and small. Following Brian De Palma's 1976 adaptation of "Carrie," his work has made its way to film more than 40 times, racking up more adaptations than any other living author. 

2022 will see a new adaptation of his 1980 novel "Firestarter," as well as Gary Dauberman's take on "Salem's Lot" releasing this September. King's work has been on a hot streak in recent years, likely due to the success of "It" (2017), which still holds the title of being the highest-grossing horror film of all time. Hollywood is sure to keep pumping out projects based on King's work for the foreseeable future; there's certainly no shortage of source material with many more titles yet to be tackled. The following is a list of King's novels and short stories constant readers have been dying to see on the big screen.

Billy Summers

Stephen King's crime thriller "Billy Summers" pulls an emotional bait and switch. Following a hitman on his last job, Billy's tale gradually morphs into a moving story about the healing powers of fiction and memory. The tonal shift occurs midway through with the introduction of Alice, a young woman Billy rescues from the side of the road. As the unlikely friends grow closer, they cautiously begin to trust each other and slowly find the strength to overcome their past traumas. The tearjerker ending is perhaps King's best conclusion in years, with a bittersweet nod to one of his most famous properties.

"Billy Summers" was well-received by critics and fans alike, making announcements of a planned adaptation a near certainty. With the success of HBO's "Barry," the Hitman with a Heart of Gold trope is back in the zeitgeist. It's difficult not to see star Bill Hader playing King's titular character, especially since he recently appeared in another King property as adult Richie Tozer in "It Chapter Two." But, King reportedly has his eye on Jake Gyllenhaal for the lead role and has reteamed with J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot to bring the deceptive crime caper to life via a limited series. No stranger to the author's work, Bad Robot was also responsible for Hulu's King IP playground series "Castle Rock," as well as the adaptation of "11/22/63." 

The Breathing Method

Within Stephen King's first collection of novellas, "Different Seasons," lies the source material for two of the most popular film adaptations of his work: "The Body" became Rob Reiner's coming of age classic "Stand by Me," while Frank Darabont transformed the collection's lead story, "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption," into the similarly named Oscar-nominated prison drama. The much darker "Apt Pupil" was also adapted into a film starring Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro. Receiving mixed responses from critics, the entry's disturbing content likely kept it from achieving the ubiquity of its more uplifting counterparts.

Despite the overall success of the aforementioned films, King's final novella in the collection, "The Breathing Method," remains untouched. Subtitled "A Winter's Tale," the story is the only one to include supernatural elements and ends the collection on a chilling note. Set in the 1930s, the haunting story follows Sandra, an unmarried woman determined to give birth despite the nearly insurmountable odds. In preparing for labor, she learns a new breathing method and must battle through nightmarish events to put it into practice. Given the current battle for reproductive rights, an adaptation of "The Breathing Method" could prove especially poignant. Its creepy framing device, a mysterious gathering known as The Club where men congregate to drink brandy and tell stories, could easily launch a new connected universe of short story adaptations.

The Talisman

Stephen King's 1984 collaboration with fellow horror scribe Peter Straub is the story of Jack Sawyer, a 12-year-old boy who sets off into a parallel universe called the Territories to save his dying mother. "The Talisman" is a crystal axis connecting all worlds in this multiverse. Jack teams up with a friendly werewolf named Wolf on his journey through the treacherous terrain and attempts to steal the Talisman from the evil clutches of Morgan Sloat, his late father's business partner. This novel sits adjacent to King's masterpiece, "The Dark Tower" series, only joined thematically (though the novel's 2001 sequel "Black House" makes the connection explicit).

"The Talisman" has been in some level of production since before its initial publication. Hollywood powerhouse Steven Spielberg purchased the filming rights in 1982 and has been intermittently trying to make a go of the project for over 35 years. March 2021 brought an interesting development in the journey from page to screen and an exciting partnership. Speilberg will team with Matt and Ross Duffer, the creative team behind "Stranger Things," to adapt the massive novel as a series for Netflix. It's an ideal pairing considering the sibling showrunners' experience with tween-led adventure stories. It's also ideal timing, given rumors that King's upcoming novel "Fairy Tale" is set in a similar world and may hold a key to the long-rumored third entry in "The Talisman" series.

One For The Road

"Night Shift," Stephen King's first short story collection, has many grisly entries, but its penultimate tale, "One for the Road" is far quieter. Framed by two old-timers waiting out a Maine nor'easter, the story follows a naive young family who takes an ill-advised detour through the now deserted town of 'Salem's Lot. The short story was first published in a 1977 edition of Maine Magazine, two years after the release of King's 1975 novel "Salem's Lot," the terrifying tale of vampires in a New England town. Along with "Jerusalem's Lot," the lead entry of the collection, "One for the Road" serves as bookends for one of King's most celebrated early novels.

The Lovecraftian "Jerusalem's Lot" got its own adaptation in 2021 with Epix's "Chapelwaite'' series, starring Adrien Brody and Emily Hampshire. Though the epistolary story is set more than 100 years before "One for the Road," an adaptation of the snowy story would make a wonderful companion to the second season of "Chapelwaite," as well as the James Wan produced remake of "Salem's Lot" releasing in September 2022. The story's strong character development and largely off-screen horror makes it a tempting one for indie filmmakers. The film is a popular Dollar Baby offering, the program through which King sells the rights to selected stories to film students for a single dollar. Still, his constant readers would love an adaptation with the backing of a major studio.

Revival

"Revival" is a deeply upsetting story about death and what lies beyond. Jamie Morton is a young boy when he first meets Charles Jacobs, the new reverend obsessed with harnessing a force he refers to as "secret electricity." At first, seeking to heal others with the mysterious power, a horrific tragedy leaves him disillusioned with his faith. Charles leaves the church and his obsession with the electricity's power grows, determined to discover what lies on the other side of death's cruel doorway. Thematically linked to the terrifying "Pet Sematary," "Revival" is a harrowing story of destruction, death, the different forms of addiction, and all-consuming grief.

The extremely dark ending of "Revival" caught the eye of several filmmakers and plans to adapt have passed hands a few times over the years since publication. Josh Boone first attempted to adapt the disturbing novel, with Samuel L. Jackson in talks to play Charles. The project ultimately fell apart and the option lay dormant for more than three years. In 2020, Mike Flanagan breathed new life into the project by announcing he'd been secretly working on a feature film. Unfortunately, the director later announced via Twitter that he is no longer working on the project. While there are currently no plans to adapt the challenging text, the power of King's novel remains and it's only a matter of time before someone revives it from the ashes of development hell.

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

Gramma

Stephen King's short story collection, "Skeleton Crew," might be a bit more uneven than his iconic "Night Shift," but the terrifying "Gramma" is a definite highlight. The story follows George, a young boy who finds himself home alone with his elderly and infirm grandmother. The peaceful afternoon devolves into a horrific battle for his soul as George slowly uncovers the skeletons in his family tree as well as his Gramma's sinister intentions. Part autobiographical, the story combines two of King's biggest strengths: horror viewed through the lens of a child, and the creeping dread of the unknown.

The story was adapted as a part of CBS' 1985 revival of the classic "The Twilight Zone" series, with impressive talent involved. Harlan Ellison wrote the script, and "Carrie" star Piper Laurie provided the voice of the witch. However, the story seems to lose something in translation from page to screen, likely due to a lack of physical action in the short. A 2014 adaptation renamed "Mercy" attempted to take on the story, making significant changes to the source material. The film falls flat, having been nearly forgotten in the eight years since its release. As one of King's few stories dealing with witches outright, the "Gramma" would make for a fantastic addition to the Blumhouse lineup.

Duma Key

"Duma Key" is another novel that feels semi-autobiographical. Published in 2008, the book follows Edgar Freemenatle as he relocates from Minnesota to the titular Florida beach while recovering from a cataclysmic accident that cost him his right arm and his marriage. Arriving nine years after Stephen King's own near-fatal accident, "Duma Key" chronicles Edgar's physical recovery in unflinching detail, providing King with a much-needed outlet to explore his own rehabilitation. On the beach, Edgar meets two more damaged souls badly in need of healing, along with a nightmarish sea goddess named Perse.

Despite being well-received, "Duma Key" has never been high on the list of upcoming adaptations, perhaps because of its contemplative pacing and heavy mental recovery component. In 2019, "Dolores Claiborne" director Taylor Hackford was rumored to be courting a deal to adapt the novel, but no formal announcement was ever made. This would be an ideal match for the film considering both stories are thematically connected in their depictions of fractured relationships and festering emotional wounds. However, the project has seemingly fallen through and any plans for an adaptation drifted off to sea.

N.

One of Stephen King's scariest short stories, "N." is a Lovecraftian glimpse into a nightmare. The story unfolds through the papers of a doctor preparing to write an academic article about obsessive-compulsive disorder. N. is the doctor's doomed patient, an unfortunate man whose mind is consumed with a mysterious formation of stones he finds while photographing a forgotten hayfield. The well-paced story is a contemplative journey into a mind falling apart as N. details his growing obsession with counting and placing objects. This magical thinking keeps the stones in place and prevents otherworldly monsters from breaking through the portal they surround.

A graphic series containing 25 short videos was released as part of the promotional campaign for the larger collection, "Just After Sunset." In 2017, Deadline confirmed an adaptation in the works to be directed by David F. Sandberg and written by Marvel alums Andrew Barrer and Gabe Ferrari. Renamed "8," the haunting story would feature additions and modifications to the source material in hopes of becoming a sustainable TV series for Gaumont Television. Given horror's recent obsession with folk horror, this would be the perfect time to adapt King's most unsettling story. However, the project seems to have fallen by the wayside, leaving the stunningly beautiful graphic adaptation our only window into Ackerman's Field.

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

From A Buick 8

Not exactly "Christine," Stephen King's other evil car novel, "From a Buick 8," is also known to be the book he was drafting when he endured the devastating car accident that nearly ended his life. When he was hit, King had begun research on a story about Pennsylvania State Troopers guarding an abandoned car that may or may not be a portal to another world. However, the Lovecraftian hook hides the heart of what turns out to be a touching novel about small-town life and the generational passage of secret wisdom.

Published in 2002, various filmmakers have been attempting to bring the otherworldly story to life for the better part of two decades. George A. Romero and later Tobe Hooper were previously attached to the project, but the rights are now in the hands of another King regular, Thomas Jane. No stranger to King's dominion, Jane has had starring roles in "The Mist," "Dreamcatcher," and "1922." Last we heard, the actor will now co-produce the film with his Renegade Entertainment production company, with Jim Mickle of "Stake Land" and "We Are What We Are" set to direct. The movie is currently in pre-production, and could potentially release in 2023 if the project moves forward. 

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Though many fans report discovering Stephen King in their childhood and early teens (as almost any episode of The Kingcast could tell you), the author has rarely written an explicit YA novel. His fantasy adventure "The Eyes of the Dragon," dedicated to his then 13-year-old daughter, and "Charlie the Choo-Choo," an eerie children's story from the world of "The Dark Tower" series and published under the pseudonym Beryl Evans, stand as two notable exceptions. Though marketed to adults, his 1999 novel "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" has a definite YA feel. Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland becomes lost in the Maine wilderness after wandering off the trail to avoid her bickering family. What follows is a harrowing battle for survival as she navigates the unforgiving landscape with only her wits and her walkman on which she listens to Red Sox games starring her hero Tom Gordon to find the will to keep going.

The story consists mostly of internal monologue as Trisha traverses the wilderness alone, making it ideal reading for young adults looking for inspiration in overcoming insurmountable odds. In 2020, word broke that Lynne Ramsay ("We Need to Talk About Kevin," You Were Never Really Here") would be helming an adaptation. Ramsay specializes in depicting complex internal upheaval, making this an ideal pairing. No updates have surfaced since the initial announcement, so for now we will have to make do with the gorgeous pop-up book telling a modified version of the story.

Mrs. Todd's Shortcut

Another fan favorite from "Skeleton Crew," "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut" serves as a precursor to Stephen King's eclipse phase, a stretch of novels in the '90s focused heavily on female characters. The series includes "Gerald's Game" (1992), "Dolores Claiborne" (1993), "Insomnia" (1994), and "Rose Madder" (1995), but was arguably sparked by Ophelia Todd's desire "to drive." Mrs. Todd is a society housewife who distracts herself from an unsatisfying life by cataloging the fastest route between various points on the map. While exploring the backroads of rural Maine, she finds herself drifting into other worlds and finding empowerment not available to her in this one.

Though the story is particularly beloved among King's female fans, it's never been seriously considered for an adaptation. Given mixed reviews for Apple TV+'s 2021 series "Lisey's Story," adapted from the novel with similar themes, there may not be much industry appetite for another story about a woman exploring her place in the universe. If the story does ever get picked up by a studio, Pablo Larraín would be a fantastic choice at the helm. The visionary director has proven to be adept at handling the both mystical and symbolic aspects of King's work. His directorial efforts in "Lisey's Story," adapted by King himself, is a beautiful tapestry of timelines and emotional threads suggesting Larraín's visual palette would be a perfect fit for the wild unknown in which Mrs. Todd explores.

Insomnia

"Insomnia" is "The Dark Tower" adjacent and an early linchpin propelling the final three novels in Stephen King's epic series. Ralph Roberts is a recent widower who finds himself dealing with the titular affliction in the throes of his grief. He begins to notice strange things on his pre-dawn walks through Derry, Maine, including the auras of people he encounters and little bald doctors wielding large scissors who seem to have a cosmic connection to the cycles of life. As he digs deeper into the mystery, he and his neighbor, Lois, find themselves drawn into events that could twist the fabric of reality and threaten the future of King's multiverse.

An oddball of a novel, "Insomnia" is another title not often in the adaptation conversation. It would be a daunting story to take on given the novel's length and the metaphysical elements of the plot. The story's massive length, clocking in at nearly 800 pages, combined with its elderly protagonists is not likely to have Hollywood chomping at the bit. But, the novel's subplot about abortion activists and a lone wolf terrorist driven by misinformation would be especially timely, as would the story of a young mother fleeing an abusive marriage. The central love story is one of King's best, and constant readers would likely flock to theaters just to see the wild conclusion's flying catfish finally brought to life.

The Long Walk

"The Long Walk" is widely regarded as the best Richard Bachman book. Originally published under Stephen King's pseudonym, the story follows a group of 100 boys who set out on a long walk as part of a dystopian game show. Forced to keep a certain pace, they must walk until they literally drop dead from exhaustion or receive the last of three warnings at the end of a soldier's rifle. Rarely supernatural, Bachman's stories are known to be grounded in bleak reality, though "The Long Walk" may be the most sentimental of the seven novels that bear his name. Though the death count is high, King explores humanity through the doomed contestants providing a beautiful examination of life's unexpected turns.

Given the novel's popularity, not to mention the abundance of reality TV competitions, it's a wonder this story has never been translated to the screen. Frank Darabont held the rights for years but was never able to get the project off the ground. In 2019, New Line announced a planned adaptation for "The Long Walk" with André Øvredal at the helm. Fresh off of positive reviews for his other YA horror adaptation, "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark," the Norwegian director may be the perfect fit for this poignant tale of disaffected youth. Though the production was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, in late 2020 Øvredal reported that the adaptation is still walking steadily forward.

The Institute

One of Stephen King's recent novels, "The Institute" also marks a return to form of sorts with a plot reminiscent of the author's early work. A group of kids with powerful psychic abilities are abducted and held captive in the titular government facility. When not the subjects of horrific experiments, they serve as psychic assassins directed at political targets chosen by the shadowy agency. The novel received mostly positive reviews and spent many weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list.

David E. Kelley was so excited by the novel's hook that he reportedly snapped up the rights to the story within 24 hours of its publication. Teaming up with Jack Bender, he announced plans for a limited series in conjunction with Spyglass Media Group. The project is currently in pre-production as Kelly and Bender prepare for another trip into King's dominion. The two previously worked together on the series adaptation "Mr. Mercedes," starring Brendan Gleeson as King's Bill Hodges. Few details have emerged about the specifics of the production, but as of February 2022, the project was still on track. A successful adaptation of "The Institute'' could potentially clear a path for classic King stories like "I Am the Doorway" and "Beachworld."

The Jaunt

"The Jaunt" is easily one of Stephen King's best short stories. First published in a 1981 edition of The Twilight Zone Magazine, the tale chronicles Victor Carune's invention of a teleportation device known as the Jaunt. A father tells his children the story while sitting in an airport-like portal in Schenectady, preparing to teleport to the now colonized surface of Mars. The game-changing technology comes with a dreadful warning: While the technology provides instantaneous travel to any place with a corresponding portal, it can only be traversed while asleep as the liminal space between worlds has been known to drive Jaunters mad. The shocking conclusion, one of King's best endings, presents a haunting question about the limits of time and the boundaries of reality.

With its long stretches of technical flashbacks and cosmic undertones, the phenomenal story has long proved intimidating to filmmakers. After sitting in limbo for six years, Dave Erickson of "Fear the Walking Dead" fame signed on to adapt "The Jaunt'' as part of a larger deal with MRC Television. Though the story itself is relatively short, clocking in under 30 pages in most editions, Erickson plans to convert the story into an open-ended series. While adaptations never happen instantaneously, there is a bitter irony in the journey from page to screen seeming to take forever.

The Dark Tower

"The Dark Tower" series is undeniably Stephen King's magnum opus. With eight formal novels, a handful of adjacent stories, and fingers that weave their way through the author's five-decade career, it is the glue that holds all King worlds together. Though the series is a worldwide best seller with a strong cult following, the story of Roland Deschain traversing the lands of Midworld on his quest to save the Tower has also proved notoriously difficult to adapt. The sheer volume of the story, along with the mind-bending narrative leaps, and metatextual twists are themselves a literary feat without the added complication of visually bringing them to life.

A planned series from Glen Mazzara ("The Walking Dead") and Amazon Studios recently fell apart. The 2017 loose adaptation from Nikolaj Arcel fared only marginally better. Despite the inspired casting of Idris Elba as the iconic Gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey as the devilish Man in Black, the film disappointed both die-hard fans and general audiences alike, earning mostly negative reviews and squashing any chance for related sequels. However, with the recent success of Denis Villeneuve's "Dune," another high-profile adaptation of a beloved but complex text, hopes arise that maybe the white whale of King's chronology will finally find a worthy adaptation.

Read this next: The Horror Movies We Can't Wait To See In 2022

The post The Stephen King Movies Fans Want To See Next appeared first on /Film.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is introducing legislation that would strip the Walt Disney Company of special copyright protections granted to the corporation by Congress, while also limiting the length of new copyrights. From a report: The "Copyright Clause Restoration Act of 2022" would cap the length of copyrights given corporations by Congress to 56 years and retroactively implement this change on companies, including Walt Disney. "The age of Republican handouts to Big Business is over. Thanks to special copyright protections from Congress, woke corporations like Disney have earned billions while increasingly pandering to woke activists. It's time to take away Disney's special privileges and open up a new era of creativity and innovation," Hawley told Fox News Digital in an exclusive statement. According to Hawley's office, Congress has used an old law, also known as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act," in order to extend copyrights to corporations for up to 120 years. Instead of issuing copyright protections to create enough monopoly protection in order to foster innovation, companies are getting handouts from Congress for a much longer period than needed.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's not entirely clear who wrote or spoke the famous quote, "From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step." For all intents and purposes, it may as well have been coined by writer/director John Hughes, who throughout his career displayed a mastery of that very principle.

Hughes had a particular knack for inserting ridiculous elements in his films, letting the surreal creep into scenes with such fluidity that their outrageousness only stands out upon reflection. His most ridiculous film is arguably 1985's "Weird Science," which flirts with disbelief right from its premise: two nerdy social outcast teens, Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), make a spur-of-the-moment decision to create a computer simulation of a girl, which through various shenanigans ends up becoming a flesh-and-blood magic genie of a woman named Lisa (Kelly LeBrock).

As Lisa mentors her creators through the perils of adolescent manhood under the guise of showing them a great time, Hughes takes the opportunity to stage a number of increasingly wild setpieces and moments. One of the most ridiculous — not to mention most hilarious — just happens to be star LeBrock's favorite scene in the movie.

Lisa Has A 'Sudden Impact' On Gary's Parents

When LeBrock was asked about her favorite scene from "Weird Science" in 2019, she was quick to answer:

"Definitely the parents, when I pull a gun on the parents. It's just so naughty and outrageous and ridiculous but it seemed to work for that moment."

LeBrock's assessment of the scene is very astute, as it perfectly demonstrates how well Hughes' heightened ridiculousness works when contrasted with the ordinary. In the scene, Lisa is demanding that Gary's strict parents Al (Britt Leach) and Lucy (Barbara Lang) allow him to attend a debauched party while Gary is frantically attempting to keep Lisa from getting him in deep trouble.

The conflict between Gary's increasingly disturbed parents and Lisa combined with the cross-purposes of Lisa and Gary is an example of what's known in the comedy world as "finding the game," the "game" being the comedic engine of the scene. Hughes "heightens" the scene as secrets about Gary's bathroom habits are revealed and Gary's folks threaten to call the police on Lisa, at which point the scene needs an ending, also known as a "button" — Gary has to get to that party, after all.

Thus, Lisa (presumably using her magic powers) pulls a gun from thin air and aims it at Al, a moment Leach reacts to brilliantly with meek fear in his voice. The ridiculous icing on the cake sees the film intentionally quoting from 1983's Dirty Harry sequel "Sudden Impact," with the added twist that Al finishes the famous quote that Lisa starts, indicating his defeat. 

A few moments later, Hughes provides a button to the button, as Lisa reveals to a still-shaken Gary that the gun she pulled on his father only squirted water. That moment, in turn, becomes a set-up for a later moment where Gary wields the gun to get rid of some mutant party crashers and assumes the gun is still fake, which it turns out not to be. As seen in these interwoven gags alone, Hughes proves his deftness with structure and humor.

'Weird Science' Lives Up To Its Title

In most of his films, Hughes kept his surrealistic, Looney Tunes-like flourishes to a relative minimum, usually deploying them at moments of extreme emotion or incident. For example, the transformation of Del Griffith (John Candy) into a Devil in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" or the wild journey of Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) on a greased-up sled in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation."

"Weird Science," on the other hand, is chock full of such moments. With the title taken from the '50s EC Comics publication of the same name (a connection that producer Joel Silver later used to produce a loose adaptation of another EC Comics title, "Tales From the Crypt"), "Weird Science" features all manner of sci-fi and fantasy-based gags, from giant nuclear missiles turning up in Wyatt's bedroom to the nerdy heroes having to face down the villains from "The Hills Have Eyes" and "Mad Max 2" to Wyatt's nasty brother Chet (Bill Paxton) being turned into a...well, a gross bug-eating thing.

The Eerie, Hilarious Fate Of Gary's Parents

Never one to miss a good running gag, Hughes saves one of the most surreal (and slightly disturbing) jokes for the aftermath of Lisa's run-in with Gary's parents. In order to smooth over the fallout from their encounter, it's revealed that Lisa messed with Al and Lucy's minds: Lucy merely remembers Gary acting odd earlier in the evening, while Al doesn't remember Gary at all. That leads to a comedic game wherein Lucy tries desperately to remind Al that he has a son, an effort Al rebuffs with increasing befuddlement and hostility. The gag is a subversive riff on a teen wishing their parents would just leave them alone, with a dark sci-fi/fantasy undercurrent (for instance, the premise is very close to the episode of "The Twilight Zone" entitled "And When the Sky Was Opened") that the film isn't interested in examining closely.

Of course, "Weird Science" is a movie that Hughes never intended to be examined too closely for believability. Rather, he infuses the film with a lot of fun and heart to back it up. As Anthony Michael Hall observed about Hughes, "there's this wonderful sense of redemption with his films, like everybody kind of winds up a little better off than they started out." "Weird Science" may be ridiculous, but for its cast and its fans, it's also pretty meaningful.

Read this next: Actors Who Died In 2021

The post Kelly Le Brock's Favorite Scene In Weird Science is One of Its Most Ridiculous appeared first on /Film.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says it is investigating reports that hackers gained unauthorized access to an agency portal that taps into 16 different federal law enforcement databases. KrebsOnSecurity has learned the alleged compromise is tied to a cybercrime and online harassment community that routinely impersonates police and government officials to harvest personal information on their targets. On May 8, KrebsOnSecurity received a tip that hackers obtained a username and password for an authorized user of esp.usdoj.gov, which is the Law Enforcement Inquiry and Alerts (LEIA) system managed by the DEA. According to this page at the Justice Department website, LEIA "provides federated search capabilities for both EPIC and external database repositories," including data classified as "law enforcement sensitive" and "mission sensitive" to the DEA. A document published by the Obama administration in May 2016 (PDF) says the DEA's El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) systems in Texas are available for use by federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement, as well as the Department of Defense and intelligence community. EPIC and LEIA also have access to the DEA's National Seizure System (NSS), which the DEA uses to identify property thought to have been purchased with the proceeds of criminal activity (think fancy cars, boats and homes seized from drug kingpins). The screenshots shared with this author indicate the hackers could use EPIC to look up a variety of records, including those for motor vehicles, boats, firearms, aircraft, and even drones. From the standpoint of individuals involved in filing these phony EDRs, access to databases and user accounts within the Department of Justice would be a major coup. But the data in EPIC would probably be far more valuable to organized crime rings or drug cartels, said Nicholas Weaver, a researcher for the International Computer Science Institute at University of California, Berkeley. Weaver said it's clear from the screenshots shared by the hackers that they could use their access not only to view sensitive information, but also submit false records to law enforcement and intelligence agency databases. "I don't think these [people] realize what they got, how much money the cartels would pay for access to this," Weaver said. "Especially because as a cartel you don't search for yourself you search for your enemies, so that even if it's discovered there is no loss to you of putting things ONTO the DEA's radar."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NEON has revealed a brand new poster for the upcoming sci-fi horror film, CRIMES OF THE FUTURE. What do you think of it? I liked how it seems all three are interconnected in some way. Thoughts?

From the mind of David Cronenberg…

As the human species adapts to a synthetic environment, the body undergoes new transformations and mutations. With his partner, Caprice (Léa Seydoux), Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), celebrity performance artist, publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. Timlin (Kristen Stewart), an investigator from the National Organ Registry, obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed… Their mission – to use Saul’s notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE stars Viggo Mortensen (A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, Green Book) Léa Seydoux (No Time to Die, The French Dispatch, Blue is the Warmest Colour) Kristen Stewart (Spencer, Clouds of Sils Maria, Twilight), Scott Speedman (“Grey’s Anatomy”, Barney’s Version, Adoration, Underworld) Welket Bungué (Berlin Alexanderplatz), Don McKellar (Blindness, eXistenZ), Yorgos Pirpassopoulos (Beckett, Monday), Tanaya Beatty (“Yellowstone”, Through Black Spruce), Nadia Litz (Big Muddy, Hotel Congress, Blindness), Lihi Kornowski (Losing Alice) and Denise Capezza (Gomorrah).

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE is written and directed by the legendary David Cronenberg (Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly).

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE will be released in theaters on June 3, 2022.

The post [News] CRIMES OF THE FUTURE Poster – Check It Out! appeared first on Nightmarish Conjurings.

Last month, we learned that researchers excavating North Dakota's Tanis fossil site found an incredibly well-preserved leg of a dinosaur. The creature—and others at the site—were likely killed by the impact of the 12 kilometer-wide Chicxulub asteroid that crashed into the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago and eradicated 80% of Earth's animals. — Read the rest

The seedlings sprouted in the regolith scooped up in the 1960s and ’70s, but astronauts won’t be harvesting lunar spuds anytime soon.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says it is investigating reports that hackers gained unauthorized access to an agency portal that taps into 16 different federal law enforcement databases. KrebsOnSecurity has learned the alleged compromise is tied to a cybercrime and online harassment community that routinely impersonates police and government officials to harvest personal information on their targets.

On May 8, KrebsOnSecurity received a tip that hackers obtained a username and password for an authorized user of esp.usdoj.gov, which is the Law Enforcement Inquiry and Alerts (LEIA) system managed by the DEA.

KrebsOnSecurity shared information about the allegedly hijacked account with the DEA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Justice, which houses both agencies. The DEA declined to comment on the validity of the claims, issuing only a brief statement in response.

“DEA takes cyber security and information of intrusions seriously and investigates all such reports to the fullest extent,” the agency said in a statement shared via email.

According to this page at the Justice Department website, LEIA “provides federated search capabilities for both EPIC and external database repositories,” including data classified as “law enforcement sensitive” and “mission sensitive” to the DEA.

A document published by the Obama administration in May 2016 (PDF) says the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) systems in Texas are available for use by federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement, as well as the Department of Defense and intelligence community.

EPIC and LEIA also have access to the DEA’s National Seizure System (NSS), which the DEA uses to identify property thought to have been purchased with the proceeds of criminal activity (think fancy cars, boats and homes seized from drug kingpins).

“The EPIC System Portal (ESP) enables vetted users to remotely and securely share intelligence, access the National Seizure System, conduct data analytics, and obtain information in support of criminal investigations or law enforcement operations,” the 2016 White House document reads. “Law Enforcement Inquiry and Alerts (LEIA) allows for a federated search of 16 Federal law enforcement databases.”

The screenshots shared with this author indicate the hackers could use EPIC to look up a variety of records, including those for motor vehicles, boats, firearms, aircraft, and even drones.

Claims about the purloined DEA access were shared with this author by “KT,” the current administrator of the Doxbin — a highly toxic online community that provides a forum for digging up personal information on people and posting it publicly.

As KrebsOnSecurity reported earlier this year, the previous owner of the Doxbin has been identified as the leader of LAPSUS$, a data extortion group that hacked into some of the world’s largest tech companies this year — including Microsoft, NVIDIA, Okta, Samsung and T-Mobile.

That reporting also showed how the core members of LAPSUS$ were involved in selling a service offering fraudulent Emergency Data Requests (EDRs), wherein the hackers use compromised police and government email accounts to file warrantless data requests with social media firms, mobile telephony providers and other technology firms, attesting that the information being requested can’t wait for a warrant because it relates to an urgent matter of life and death.

From the standpoint of individuals involved in filing these phony EDRs, access to databases and user accounts within the Department of Justice would be a major coup. But the data in EPIC would probably be far more valuable to organized crime rings or drug cartels, said Nicholas Weaver, a researcher for the International Computer Science Institute at University of California, Berkeley.

Weaver said it’s clear from the screenshots shared by the hackers that they could use their access not only to view sensitive information, but also submit false records to law enforcement and intelligence agency databases.

“I don’t think these [people] realize what they got, how much money the cartels would pay for access to this,” Weaver said. “Especially because as a cartel you don’t search for yourself you search for your enemies, so that even if it’s discovered there is no loss to you of putting things ONTO the DEA’s radar.”

ANALYSIS

The login page for esp.usdoj.gov (above) suggests that authorized users can access the site using a “Personal Identity Verification” or PIV card, which is a fairly strong form of authentication used government-wide to control access to federal facilities and information systems at each user’s appropriate security level.

However, the EPIC portal also appears to accept just a username and password, which would seem to radically diminish the security value of requiring users to present (or prove possession of) an authorized PIV card. Indeed, KT said the hacker who obtained this illicit access was able to log in using the stolen credentials alone, and that at no time did the portal prompt for a second authentication factor.

It’s not clear why there are still sensitive government databases being protected by nothing more than a username and password, but I’m willing to bet big money that this DEA portal is not only offender here. The DEA portal esp.usdoj.gov is listed on Page 87 of a Justice Department “data inventory,” which catalogs all of the data repositories that correspond to DOJ agencies.

There are 3,330 results. Granted, only some of those results are login portals, but that’s just within the Department of Justice.

If we assume for the moment that state-sponsored foreign hacking groups can gain access to sensitive government intelligence in the same way as teenage hacker groups like LAPSUS$, then it is long past time for the U.S. federal government to perform a top-to-bottom review of authentication requirements tied to any government portals that traffic in sensitive or privileged information.

I’ll say it because it needs to be said: The United States government is in urgent need of leadership on cybersecurity at the executive branch level — preferably someone who has the authority and political will to eventually disconnect any federal government agency data portals that fail to enforce strong, multi-factor authentication.

I realize this may be far more complex than it sounds, particularly when it comes to authenticating law enforcement personnel who access these systems without the benefit of a PIV card or government-issued device (state and local authorities, for example). It’s not going to be as simple as just turning on multi-factor authentication for every user, thanks in part to a broad diversity of technologies being used across the law enforcement landscape.

But when hackers can plunder 16 law enforcement databases, arbitrarily send out law enforcement alerts for specific people or vehicles, or potentially disrupt ongoing law enforcement operations — all because someone stole, found or bought a username and password — it’s time for drastic measures.

Researchers at Atos-owned cybersecurity consulting firm SEC Consult analyzed Konica Minolta printers to determine what could be achieved by an attacker who has physical access to a device. The answer: a lot!

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Dragon Age fans, here is something for you today. Dalishious has released a must-have remaster mod for the first Dragon Age game, Dragon Age: Origins. According to the modder, the purpose of this mod is to make Dragon Age Origins look a little less dated, while still maintaining its memorable style and feeling. In order … Continue reading Dragon Age Origins gets a remaster mod, available for download →

The post Dragon Age Origins gets a remaster mod, available for download appeared first on DSOGaming.

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This post contains minor spoilers for episode 2 of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds."

Each "Star Trek" Captain has a different style of leadership, but something that Anson Mount's Captain Christopher Pike does in the second episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" gives us a good idea of what his might be. The captains tend to either be a bit more standoffish and reserved, or they like getting into the thick of it with the entire crew of their ship, from the most junior ensign to visiting senior officers. In the episode 2, "Children of the Comet," Ensign Nyota Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding) discovers some of the traditions on Pike's Enterprise, including a bit of harmless hazing as a part of "Enterprise Bingo" and a dinner with members of the crew in Pike's quarters. Pike cooks for those invited, and helmsman Lt. Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) explains that the captain likes to invite crew from all over the ship to join him along with senior staff in order to better understand everyone's experience on his ship. It brings to mind another Starfleet officer who loved to cook: Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) of the space station Deep Space Nine. 

Pike and Sisko both understand that dining can be an important communal experience, and the act of cooking for the crew allows them to give back to the very people who put their lives at risk on captain's orders. They strive to be a part of the crew as much as they lead it, and it sets them apart from captains like Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and even James T. Kirk (William Shatner), who had to find other ways to connect with their crews. 

Let's take a little look at the captains who cook, because everyone knows the way to the heart is through the stomach. 

The Power Of A Shared Meal

Sharing a meal as a means of bonding is a human ritual that dates back to our earliest recorded history, because a person's gotta eat. What we eat tends to be influenced by a number of things, from available resources to cultural traditions. On "Star Trek," food scarcity is no longer an issue because of replicator technology, but some cooks still enjoy the joys of combining real ingredients to share with their loved ones. Sisko was taught to cook by his father, who owns a Creole restaurant in New Orleans, and he learned to show love through cooking for others. He cooks for his future wife, Kasidy (Penny Johnson Jerald), he cooks for his son Jake (Cirroc Lofton), and he even cooks traditional Ferengi tube grubs for Ensign Nog (Aron Eisenberg). Some of the crew are initially disarmed by Sisko's desire to not only cook for them but have them as guests in his quarters, as it breaks down the barriers between senior leadership and the rest of the crew. But they soon learn of the joys of jambalaya and a good souffle. 

We similarly see Pike cooking for an overnight guest in the first episode of "Strange New Worlds," making pancakes from scratch, and in episode 2 he cooks a big dinner for the gathered crew. Some of the crew even help in the kitchen, including Hemmer (Bruce Horak), who helps cut vegetables for the salad. People from engineering, medical, command, and operations might not do much mingling outside of their teams, and these group dinners help them get to know one another as much as the captains get to know their crew. It's also a lot of fun for the audience at home, who get to see the Federation folks letting their metaphorical hair down and relaxing with one another in a brief moment of respite between adventures. 

The Importance Of Food In Star Trek

Food is heavily affected by culture, and members of Starfleet can use their culinary knowledge to help win over some of their alien acquaintances. Just like Sisko cooking tube grubs for Nog helped the young cadet trust his captain more, a shared understanding of food and food customs can break down barriers. In the fifth season of "Deep Space Nine," Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) serves on a Klingon Bird of Prey alongside her Par'Mach'kai/Klingon boyfriend, Worf (Michael Dorn). When she enters the canteen and immediately comments on the poor quality of the stewed bog rat liver and mentions that bloodwine might make it passable, she ingratiates herself to the generally xenophobic Klingons. To make them like her even more, she reveals that she brought casks of bloodwine onboard before they left DS9, and she intends on sharing with her new comrades. 

Beverages in particular seems to be a point of bonding in Starfleet, and there are as many unusual "Star Trek" drinks as there are kinds of food. Captain Kirk doesn't mind if there's contraband Romulan Ale aboard the Enterprise, for example, and bloodwine is a massive part of Klingon culture. There's also raktajino, a kind of Klingon spiced coffee that becomes the daily beverage of choice for quite a few of the various crew. One of the only times we get to see the crew truly at rest is when they're eating, and these moments provide vital insight into the characters. The crew on "Deep Space Nine" are also afforded the luxury of having several restaurants in the promenade and not just a basic ship's cafeteria. They can have a drink at Quark's, get some gagh at the Klingon restaurant, and then maybe slip into the holodeck for an after-dinner song courtesy of Vic Fontaine.

A Captain Who Cooks

Here's the thing: in a time when you could just replicate everything, taking the time and energy to cook from scratch is even more of an act of love. Sisko and Pike take the time to cook for people because it allows them to connect more deeply than they would otherwise, because they're both deeply damaged individuals who refuse to talk about their feelings. Pike knows his grim future, while Sisko feels distanced from everyone because the Bajoran prophets chose him as their emissary, and neither man knows how to share that alienating knowledge with their loved ones. On top of being the captains of their respective crews, they also both seem to take on a paternal role, offering advice and guidance to everyone who serves under them. 

Picard may have a stellar mind, Kirk may have all of the swagger, and the rest of the captains are fine, I guess, but if I was given a choice of assignment, I would want to serve under Pike or Sisko. Not only do you know that you'll be treated with equal respect and generosity, but you'll also get some great starship-cooked food out of the deal. I, for one, need to try Sisko's chicken paprikash. 

Read this next: Single-Season '80s Sci-Fi And Fantasy Shows That Deserve A Second Shot

The post The Trait Captain Pike Shares With Another Beloved Star Trek Captain appeared first on /Film.

Fly, you fools! Don't waste any time heading over to Bottleneck Gallery's online shop to pick up this stunning new print for "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," the first chapter in Peter Jackson's beloved adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic fantasy trilogy. Artist Jake Kontou has assembled a weathered and worn piece of work that almost feels like it's an old VHS cover that has been sitting in the front window of a video store for a little while. With a visually pleasing assembly of characters, locations, and creatures, this is an absolutely gorgeous tribute to "The Fellowship of the Ring," and you can find out how to snag it below.

'You Shall Be The Fellowship Of The Ring'

There's no shortage of "Lord of the Rings" artwork out there, and that's simply because there's always a hunger from fans who want as much of Middle-earth on their walls as possible. Personally, I thought that I had the definitive tribute to "Lord of the Rings" when Bottleneck Gallery released their triptych trilogy print from Gabz, but assuming Jake Kontou delivers a print like this for "The Two Towers" and "Return of the King," then I just may be tempted to pick this one up.

The good news is that you won't have to scramble to get this "Lord of the Rings" artwork into your hands. Jake Kontou's "Fellowship of the Ring" print is a timed edition, which means it will be available to order for a specific window of time, and as long as you get an order in, you will get a copy. But once the deadline passes, it will be gone forever. 

The print will be available to order for $65 starting tomorrow, May 13, at 12:00 PM ET, and it will remain on sale until Sunday, May 15 at 11:59 PM ET, over at Bottleneck Gallery's online shop. The timed edition of the "Fellowship of the Ring" print is a fine art giclee on Somerset Velvet paper, and it measures 24x36 inches. 

For those interested, there are also two limited edition variants that will be available. A variant version (below left), featuring a stylized border with elements of a map of Middle-earth, with an edition size of 175 will be available for $75 while supplies last. There will also be an even more limited edition of the print available on a 2mm thick aluminum panel (below right), which has an edition size of 75 and will cost $175. You can see the differences between the two variant prints here:

These releases from Bottleneck Gallery are always high quality prints, so if you're a "Lord of the Rings" fans, don't hesitate to grab this one.

Read this next: 13 Fantasy Films That Never Got Sequels

The post Cool Stuff: New Lord of the Rings Poster Brings the Weary Journey of Fellowship of the Ring to Life appeared first on /Film.

Who ever said the '80s were dead and gone for good? Over 35 years since 1986's "Top Gun" swept into theaters with all of its goofy, macho, thrill-seeking charm, we're finally returning to the Danger Zone with Joseph Kosinski's "Top Gun: Maverick." Reviews for the legacy sequel have just begun to fly in, with /Film's Ben Pearson praising the film for its crowd-pleasing and throwback approach to mining something new from the familiar. As he put it:

Like the sleek fighter jets in the film, this movie feels engineered from the ground up for maximum efficiency. But just because it can sometimes feel like you're riding a well-designed roller coaster, that doesn't mean the thrills aren't real. The story is extremely predictable, but it still manages to be one of the most rousing movies of the year thanks to a killer movie star performance from Tom Cruise and some absolutely jaw-dropping aerial action that you have to see to believe. In short, this sequel delivers everything fans have been waiting for.

Tom Cruise, of course, is back in the cockpit as ace fighter pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in the long-awaited sequel, along with Val Kilmer's wingman, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky. But that's where the nostalgia ends -- at least, as far as returning faces from the Tony Scott original are concerned. A few glaring omissions that fans may notice this time around would have to be Meg Ryan's Carole (the wife of Anthony Edwards' "Goose") and, perhaps even more notably, Kelly McGillis' Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood. Fans of the original can't forget how the astrophysicist, instructor, and love interest to Maverick helped make the movie as unabashedly horny as it was and provided a much-needed emotional anchor amid the film's daredevil stunts.

So why wasn't the actor and her character brought back for another go-around? Both Kosinski and McGillis herself have their own perspectives on why that decision was made.

'It Was Important To Introduce Some New Characters'

In an interview with Variety, "Top Gun: Maverick" director Joseph Kosinski ("Tron: Legacy," "Oblivion") acknowledged that there were never plans in the first place to bring Charlie back into the action. Set 30 years after the events of the original, "Maverick" clearly maintains an emphasis on a whole new generation of pilots ... even if the story goes out of its way to bring in old guns like Maverick and Iceman, as well as some important connections to the past through Miles Teller's Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw. According to Kosinski, however, neither Carole nor Charlie's return was ever really in the cards.

"Those weren't stories that we were throwing around. I didn't want every storyline to always be looking backwards. It was important to introduce some new characters."

In a previous interview with Entertainment Tonight in 2019, however, Kelly McGillis herself weighed in on the issue. In her refreshingly candid remarks, the actor shoots straight from the hip about what she feels the real reason was for being pushed off to the sidelines in the sequel.

"I'm old, and I'm fat, and I look age-appropriate for what my age is. And that is not what that whole scene is about. To me, I'd much rather feel absolutely in my skin and who I am at my age as opposed to placing a value on all that other stuff."

At the age of 64, McGillis is only five years older than Cruise and two older than Kilmer, but there's no denying the double standard in Hollywood when it comes to older women getting a share of the spotlight. Whatever the case may be, it's clear that her absence (along with that of Meg Ryan) is clearly felt in the sequel.

Audiences will get a chance to decide for themselves when "Top Gun: Maverick" comes to theaters on May 27, 2022.

Read this next: 14 Sequels That Truly Didn't Need To Happen

The post Why Kelly McGillis Wasn't Asked to Return for Top Gun: Maverick appeared first on /Film.

John Romero, legendary developer and co-creator of PC classics Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein, has announced he’s writing an autobiography entitled 'Doom Guy – Life In First-Person'. The book isn't due to be published until early next year, but does this mean the Doom movie from 2005 starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is technically Romero’s biopic? Did The Rock not want to wear a wig? I’m very confused.

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HP on Wednesday announced the release of patches for two high-severity vulnerabilities that impact the UEFI firmware of more than 200 laptops, workstations, and other products.

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Wanna know what I miss? Mid-budget studio comedies, the sort that filled the gaps in cinema’s annual calendar. The sort of lightweight, low-energy fare you and your friends could watch on a Saturday morning in the multiplex. Often they’d feature a Saturday Night Live alumnus on an initial foray into the movie industry proper, but just as equally not. Sometimes the films did well, but more often not, would underperform until it developed a second life on late-night cable, video rentals or even DVD sales. You know, stuff like So I Married An Axe Murderer.

There aren’t many cinema-released mid-budget comedy movies these days, and for good reason. Comedy is a more subjective artform than, say, action, and doesn’t travel as well around the world as, say, action. There’s no room these days for an unadulterated comedy movie with a budget in the low-double-digit millions given the economics. Hell, even something as flat and awful as Holmes and Watson cost $42 million, and couldn’t recoup that figure at the box office. I'm sure that film, too, will eventually catch on with some future generation of kids and stoners who delight in it as much as I have a soft spot for some of these early '90s comedies I was too young to see in cinemas. 

Of course, these mid-budget comedies have been priced out of cinemas and straight into our homes, thanks to Netflix. Regardless of the quality, films like The Bubble and Don’t Look Up would, in a previous era, would have slotted into a multiplex roster quite easily. But Netflix’s desire to milk as much sitting-on-the-couch-time-as-possible from every piece of IP it owns is a big problem. Mostly because of its insistence of taking ideas that would have made brisk multiplex movies and dragged them out into time-wasting miniseries. There’s a reason that so many Netflix series have pacing problems as a fun 90-minute story is padded out to four, six, eight or twelve hours.

Which is a neat segue into talking about The Pentaverate, Netflix’s latest comedy featuring a depending-on-who-you-ask long overdue return by Mike Myers. On the surface, it’s a comedy about a secret society which has helped shape the course of human history, except they’re (apparently) nice. Myers plays eight characters, given his endless love of prosthetics and desire to be remembered as his generations’ Peter Sellers. He’s joined by Lydia West, Keegan-Michael Key, Debi Mazar, Ryn Alleyne, Neil Mullarchy, Jenifer Saunders and Ken Jeong. And there’s plenty of A-list talent behind the camera too, with Orbital on soundtrack duties and Tim Kirkby directing.

Our star is Ken Scarborough, a retirement-age Toronto-based local TV journalist who is destined to be retired. On the quest for a big story to save his career, he visits the Canadian Conspiracy Convention (CanConCon) and discovers The Pentaverate. From there, his journey is to infiltrate the organization and, with the help of his cameraperson Reilly, try to expose it. Except, of course, Scarborough is walking in on a conspiracy hatched by one of the Pentaverate’s own for reasons that are fairly obvious as soon as you see who’s running the thing.

Myers is a child of the ‘70s, but his British expat parents imbued in him a love of all things British and ‘60s. Much of The Pentaverate is lifted wholesale from legendary ‘60s series The Prisoner and fans of that show will get a kick out of spotting what’s been stolen. Myers’ love for the show even extends to stealing the best joke from the series, albeit the Canadian manages to blow the punchline here. Hell, even the shadowy cabal’s helicopters are the same brand as what was used to fly people in and out of the Village.

(An aside: Are we living in the age of celebrities producing big-budget fanfiction? After all, this The Prisoner riff comes only a few years after Seth MacFarlane was able to launch his own Star Trek series.)

Unfortunately, despite the wealth of talent here, The Pentaverate falls a little flat because it’s clearly in the wrong format. There’s no proof, far as I can see, that the film was originally a screenplay and then expanded out to a TV-friendly three hours, but it sure feels that way. You can feel the narrative stretching, as characters wait around for their plot thread to start back up. Do we need multiple sequences of people riding a “hyperloop” around pulling g-force faces? No, but you can imagine Reed Hastings behind the camera, tapping his watch and insisting the runtime gets as close to three hours as possible.

This stretching also means that every joke in the show’s arsenal gets repeated a little too many times. You know that friend who really got into Austin Powers and just kept shouting lines from the film into your face? Well, buckle in for plenty of jokes about how Canadians are nice, dicks are funny, no, Canadians are really nice, and dicks are really, really funny. Oh and sex jokes, the sort that your pre-teen nephew likes to make, you’ll get some of those, too. The neater, smarter touches, like the fourth-wall breaking Netflix spokesperson who goes back and edits some sequences to “remove” some of the “profanity” also grow tiresome with repetition.

Unfortunately, while the show can be funny, and it’s a delight to see Myers returning to his roots somewhat, the show drags. I’m sure it would have been a breezy, 89-minute movie that would have enabled viewers to forgive its faults. It would be an interesting experiment to hand this over to a talented editor and see if they couldn’t trim this down to something a lot pacier. Until then, however, it’s for Myers and Prisoner diehards only, at least until a whole new generation of kids are old enough to find it in the infinite scroll in twenty years.

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Stephen King first published "Pet Sematary" in 1983, a time when he — by his own description — was battling addiction. In his 2000 book "On Writing," King speaks frankly about his drinking and substance abuse throughout the '80s, and even claimed to not remember writing his 1982 novel "Cujo." His friends eventually staged an intervention, and King eventually became sober sometime in the late 1980s and has remained so to this day. His first novel after getting clean was "Needful Things" in 1991. 

"Pet Sematary" is about a Chicago family — mom, dad, older daughter, younger son, and Church the cat — who move to a remote town in Maine for the dad's job. In the mountains, not terribly far from their new home, is a pet cemetery (misspelled on the handmade sign, hence the misspelled title). The outer part of the cemetery, however, is located on sacred Mi'kmaq land, and when the family cat dies and is buried there, it comes back to life shortly thereafter. As dictated by the tenets of horror stories, the cat is now demonic. When an accident also befalls Gage, the 2-year-old son, dad unwisely uses the cursed cemetery to resurrect him as well. It goes about as well as one might expect. "Pet Sematary" was adapted to film in 1989, and then again in 2019. 

Because of his drinking, King doesn't necessarily have a very warm recollection of the books he wrote at the time, and a lot of his personal demons worked their way into his words. In a 2019 interview with Entertainment Weekly, King tells of how he revisited "Sematary" for the first time in years and how weirdly unnerved he was by the experience. 

This Is Awful

Stephen King immediately addressed unsubstantiated rumors that "Pet Sematary" was considered too scary to publish, but then went on to reveal that it was, in 2019, shocking even for him:

"No, I mean it's true. I listened to it last year when I was down here in Florida walking on the beach with the dog. Michael C. Hall did the audiobook. I was curious about it. You know, I hadn't been near it in 20, 25 years. So I listened to it, and thought, 'My God, this is just awful. It's just as dark as can be.'"

Even in the 1980s, King recalled taking a look at what he just completed and sensing grave implications. "Sematary" was, it turns out, modeled off of King's house, life, and scenario at the time.

"I just had the greatest time writing the book until I was done with it. And I read it over, and I said to myself, 'This is awful. This is really f****** terrible.' Not that it was badly written, necessarily. But all that stuff about the death of kids. It was close to me, because my kids lived on that road ... We moved to this little town called Orrington, because I got a job as writer in residence at the University of Maine. We rented this nice house on the river, and a pet cemetery was in back of it. There was a path that went up there that kids kept mowed."

Poor Smucky

And the parallels didn't stop there. In "Pet Sematary," the road outside the protagonists' home is a death trap, with cars and trucks often hauling by unexpectedly, and often hitting animals — and people — who aren't careful. Stephen King's own home was right next to a similar road, and his son nearly wandered out once, and his daughter lost a cat. In real life, his daughter buried their cat in the nearby pet cemetery. He continued to EW:

"That night, after we buried [the cat, Smucky], we heard [King's daughter] out in the garage. She was jumping up and down on those popper things that they wrap fragile stuff in. She was shouting, "God can't have my cat. That cat is my cat! ... Let him have his own cat.' And I put all that in the book. And yeah, we were in the field, and there really was a busy road there. Everything in the book up to the point of the supernatural stuff is true."

So King took his real-life scenario and added in elements of W.W. Jacob's famed 1910 short story "The Monkey's Paw" to create a dark domestic scenario where characters make bad decisions and toy with death. The introduction of the Mi'kmaq land also gives "Pet Sematary" an anti-colonialist bent. Both the 1989 film and the 2019 film have been praised for how unnerving they are, and how badly things end for everyone (the final shot of the 2019 film is especially bleak). If King managed to scare himself with his novel, then it certainly will work well on the rest of us. 

Read this next: All 59 Stephen King Movies Ranked From Worst To Best

The post Stephen King Has a Complex Relationship With Pet Sematary appeared first on /Film.

"Top Gun" fans have been waiting more than three decades to see a sequel to the high-flying 1980s action classic, and after years of rumors, development, and several Covid-related delays, "Top Gun: Maverick" is finally here — and it was worth the wait. Like the sleek fighter jets in the film, this movie feels engineered from the ground up for maximum efficiency. But just because it can sometimes feel like you're riding a well-designed roller coaster, that doesn't mean the thrills aren't real. The story is extremely predictable, but it still manages to be one of the most rousing movies of the year thanks to a killer movie star performance from Tom Cruise and some absolutely jaw-dropping aerial action that you have to see to believe. In short, this sequel delivers everything fans have been waiting for.

Thirty years after the events of the original film, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Cruise) is working as a test pilot for the Navy, pushing the next generation of planes to their limits above the Mojave Desert. But when he pisses off a hard-nosed admiral (Ed Harris) by pushing a jet a bit too far, it looks like Maverick is about to be grounded for good. Just in the nick of time, though, he receives orders from his former rival/wingman Tom "Iceman" Kazansky (Val Kilmer), now an admiral himself, to report to the Top Gun fighter pilot school and call upon his experiences from the first movie to train an elite squad of recent graduates for a dangerous new mission. One of those recent graduates is Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of Maverick's former flying partner, Goose, who died in the original film. Rooster and Maverick have a complicated history — something Rooster's rival, the cocky "Hangman" (Glen Powell), quickly clocks and tries to use to his advantage.

Finding Comfort In The Familiar

Structurally, this movie is almost exactly the same as the first film: A bunch of talented pilots spends the majority of "Maverick" participating in training exercises, jockeying for power and position, and acquiring the skills they'll need later. The biggest difference is the final mission. In the original, Iceman and Maverick literally get called into action at their graduation ceremony for a mission they didn't know was coming. Here, the mission hangs over the entire movie — everyone knows exactly what is expected of them, and just how impossible it seems. The objective is to destroy a highly guarded, unsanctioned uranium plant before it becomes operational. The pilots must enter enemy airspace, traverse a lengthy canyon flying at a maximum height of 100 feet to avoid appearing on radar, and use missiles to basically pull a "Star Wars" by blowing up a ventilation hatch to an underground bunker and then blasting the plant to smithereens before anyone knows they were even there. 

"Top Gun: Maverick" writers Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie lay this all out like a heist movie, complete with detailed visual breakdowns of the canyon and a practice course that mimics the exact layout. Watching the pilots try again and again to complete this course is one of the oldest tricks in the storytelling book, building suspense and showcasing just how tough this mission's parameters really are. Ultimately, though, you know where this is all heading: If you think Maverick is going to be sitting on the sidelines as a teacher for the whole film, you probably haven't seen a Tom Cruise movie since the original "Top Gun."

Speaking of the original, this sequel's general structure isn't the only way it tries to ape the vibe of the first movie. The opening credits sequence is a modern updating of the memorable intro to the '86 film, with lovingly fetishistic shots of jets preparing for take-off on an aircraft carrier runway and Harold Faltermeyer's epic instrumental theme song grooving in the background. For those who haven't seen the original in a while, it may seem as if this is a shot-for-shot recreation of that sequence. But directors Joseph Kosinski and Tony Scott have very different ideas about the stylistic details of a movie like this. Scott, who was long attached to return to direct a sequel before he died in 2012, drenched his opening sequence in an unreal smoky yellow color, almost as if it were a scene out of "Apocalypse Now." The original "Top Gun" is full of silhouettes and heightened colors to stylize the drama — characters were frequently bathed in purples and reds and neons, and they were soaked in sweat in cockpits or control rooms alike. Kosinski, on the other hand, is more beholden to realism — his is a movie of deep blacks, technology-tinted greens, and dull grays, and he's more interested in capturing clean lines and sleek visuals than heightening situations with flashy colors. This cleaner and more uniform approach fits the precision of the action scenes but leaves the rest of "Top Gun: Maverick" feeling a little sterile by comparison.

The Women Of The Top Gun Franchise

There's also a nagging sense that this sequel hung the women from the original out to dry. While there are plenty of callbacks to the first movie, it's unfortunate that Meg Ryan, who brought a firecracker energy and a soulful sadness to the role of Goose's wife in the first movie, doesn't appear here. A decision made by her character before this film began looms over the relationship between Maverick and Rooster like a specter, and one can easily imagine how this film could have been a big moment for the actress if she were in it. Perhaps she was asked and rejected the opportunity; in 2019, she told The New York Times she was turning down movie roles, so it's possible she just wasn't interested. 

It's a bit harder to swallow, however, that Kelly McGillis, who played Maverick's love interest and civilian instructor Charlie in the first movie, is not mentioned and only appears briefly in recycled footage from the '86 film during a flashback reverie. McGillis says she was not invited to reprise her role in "Top Gun: Maverick," and to some extent, I get it: This movie showcases a different era of Maverick's life, so the idea of shoehorning an ex-girlfriend into the story might not make the most sense. Still, it's just a bit of a bummer that the two significant female characters from the original movie don't have a place in this sequel.

But while the women who actually appeared in "Top Gun" were left on the sidelines this time, one who was only mentioned actually appears here in the flesh. Jennifer Connelly plays Penny Benjamin, the admiral's daughter at whom Maverick made a pass in his younger days. Penny is now the owner of a San Diego bar called The Hard Deck, which serves as the local haunt for all of the pilots attending the Top Gun school. She's a single mom who has a good relationship with her teenage daughter, and despite Penny having had several romantic entanglements with Maverick over the years ending in heartbreak, the two of them can't seem to stay away from each other. Connelly brings a welcome warmth and a grounded sense of humanity to a cast full of larger-than-life characters; a nice date scene on a sailboat proves she has interests and hobbies all her own, and there's plenty Maverick can learn from her.

The Emotional Core

"Top Gun: Maverick" frequently tries to tug at the heartstrings, to varying degrees of success. Kilmer, who has had significant health issues over the past several years (as chronicled in the fascinating documentary "Val"), returns as Iceman, and regardless of whether you find his return effective, manipulative, or a combination of both, it's undeniably powerful to see the actor on screen again in this context. 

Goose's death hangs over this movie in a big way, through lots of old photos and conversations about how Rooster views what happened, and Maverick still says the phrase "Talk to me, Goose" when he's in the air, which may be enough on its own to cue the waterworks for some viewers. Miles Teller does some of the best work of his career here (despite the fact that his character is written somewhat inconsistently), but while Teller and Powell are both charismatic performers, the Rooster vs. Hangman dynamic, which is set up to be this movie's key rivalry, lacks the depth of the Maverick vs. Iceman clashes from the first movie. The rest of the supporting cast (Monica Barbaro, Lewis Pullman, Greg Tarzan Davis, Jay Ellis, and Danny Ramirez), like the supporting players in the original, aren't really given enough screen time to make a significant impact.

Another Satisfying Spin On The Amusement Park Ride

But this is an action movie above all else, and I'm pleased to say the film delivers on that front. Paramount has gone out of its way to underscore how much of the flying scenes were filmed for real, in keeping with Cruise's obsession with doing stunts himself that no other American A-list actor would attempt. There are a few moments that look so dangerous that they feel as if they couldn't possibly have been performed by the main cast, but for the most part, the studio's gambit succeeds here: The action feels alive and thrilling and immersive, and Kosinski excels at making sure the geography is clearly laid out and the audience always knows where each jet is in relation to the others. Since a majority of the movie takes place in the air, it's crucial that the dogfights feel spontaneous and fluid, and they do; the climactic mission, in particular, feels exceptionally designed and executed.

For Cruise, this movie is another opportunity to prove to the world that, coming up on his 60th birthday, he's as vital and important to the Hollywood ecosystem as ever. There are on-the-nose exchanges throughout about aging and remaining relevant in an industry that has seemingly passed you by, which alternately elicited smiles and knowing eye rolls from this viewer. As in the first movie, the enemy country in this sequel is never explicitly named, and the film is more interested in its meta exploration of Cruise's current position than in upsetting any international market and hampering its global reach. "Time is your enemy," Maverick explains to the young squadron of pilots, and considering how integral he becomes in the final act, the movie serves as a Maverick-esque act of rebellion against the very concept of time itself, and a celebration of Cruise's continued commitment to risking his life on screen for our entertainment.

Back in '86, the military set up recruitment exhibits outside some theaters to lure in viewers who were swept up by the original movie's action. "Top Gun: Maverick," which was unquestionably made with military support, also makes the fighter pilot action look exceedingly cool, and is essentially another piece of propaganda (albeit one with a slightly different message, which perhaps we'll dig into in a spoiler review later). There will (and should) be discussions in the coming weeks about this movie's politics, and knowing that the original gave so many people a skewed view of the Navy admittedly makes this film feel a little more potentially sinister than a typical blockbuster. But Cruise once referred to the '86 film as "an amusement park ride ... a joy ride [which] shouldn't be looked at beyond that," and for audiences who can watch "Top Gun: Maverick" through that lens and appreciate it as a piece of propulsive action cinema, this could end up being one of the most crowd-pleasing and satisfying movie experiences of the year.

/Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Read this next: 14 Remakes That Are Better Than The Original

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Recently, Georgia became the 13th state in the country to mandate personal finance education for high school students. According to Next Gen Personal Finance, Georgia joins Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia in requiring teens to…

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AMD will soon be releasing the company's newest super-resolution upscaling technology, FidelityFX Super Resolution or FSR 2.0, an AI-algorithmic-less temporal upscale that will go head-to-head with NVIDIA DLSS with Tensor Core technology. NVIDIA's technology uses AI to enhance the acceleration of the graphics on the user's system. TechPowerUP uploaded their world premiere review of the new AMD upscale technology, and the reviews sound very promising for gamers.

First AMD FSR 'FidelityFX Super Resolution' 2.0 impressions are out, and reviewers cannot tell the difference against DLSS 2.0

The first version of the AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaler incorporated spatial techniques compared to the new 2.0 version, which uses temporal upscaling and integrates motion vectors, among other graphical methods. The benefit of spatial upscaling versus temporal techniques was that the original FSR was easier for game developers to incorporate into their titles. With the new FSR 2.0, the upscaling is more complex and requires developers to note the latest changes, but the company promises the output is worth the time spent.

AMD made sure that the new FSR 2.0 would be open-source that can also work on their competitor's hardware, as shown in the review from TechPowerUP. The website used NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, a seemingly odd choice for an AMD more upscale test, but there was sound reasoning behind the pick.

The game tested was Deathloop — a title that supports both NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR 2.0 upscalers — and produced similar performance numbers for each technology. AMD FSR 2.0 uses performance-enhancing technology instead of improving image quality so that FSR 2.0 can upscale images rendered at fewer resolution ratios.

The reviewer for TechPowerUP is quoted as stating,

"looks amazing, just as good as DLSS 2.0”.

Readers should note that the image quality commented on applies to the Quality mode setting, which can sometimes make AMD's technology shine over DLSS. Performance mode does show an improvement for DLSS in rich textures and cites that AMD is still lacking in that area. With the output of both technologies being incredibly similar, it will probably boil down to the gamer's choice of what they want to use for their games and system.

The most extensive argument regarding temporal upscaling technology is that it tends to cause ghosting of images, which is apparent with the current FSR 2.0 tech. However, it improved NVIDIA's DLSS2 when it was launched. TechPowerUP points out that visual artifacts are more noticeable in DLSS, sometimes taking from the overall gaming experience. Deathloop is the first title to receive the new FSR 2.0 update, but there are another ten games that will see the update in the next few weeks.

Source: TechPowerUP

The post First review of AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution ‘FSR’ 2.0 on GeForce RTX 3060 Shows Comparable Quality To NVIDIA DLSS 2.0 by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.