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"Mystery Science Theater 3000" started in the mind of show creator Joel Hodgson before debuting on KTMA in Minnesota in 1988, with the show eventually moving to The Comedy Channel (later Comedy Central) for several lucrative seasons, and then shunting over to the Sci-Fi Channel (later SyFy) to wrap up its run, before returning on Netflix (still Netflix) for two additional seasons. Now, "MST3K" has been rescued once again, this time by Kickstarter backers, so that it may make its debut on its very own streaming service called The Gizmoplex. 

The Gizmoplex is debuting the first new episode on May 6, 2022, which will feature the "MST3K" cast from its two Netflix years -- most notably Jonah Ray and Felicia Day, reprising their roles as Jonah Heston and Dr. Kinga Forrester, respectively. It will also feature the cast of comedians that toured the country to perform live shows, including Emily Marsh, previously seen during marathons and riff-along YouTube specials. 

Backed by Kickstarter money, and broadcasting on its very own streaming service, "Mystery Science Theater 3000" is coming back to its homemade comedy roots, allowing for an environment wherein the actors and writers can feel a little bit more free and relaxed. /Film sat down with Felicia Day and Jonah Ray to talk about the differences between working on a large-scale production vs. a more personal one, as well as the fineries of acting and comedy.  

'A Scared, Hairy Boy'

"Mystery Science Theater" started in 1988. It had gone through many, many seasons. It had gone through several iterations. You came in late in the game. Was joining a legacy like this at all threatening?

Felicia Day: I was super nervous. And being a Mad ... When I told my brother ... My brother is hardcore. It was the one thing that unified us, me and my brother, watching "MST3K." Otherwise, we hated each other and hit each other and fought to constantly. But "MST3K" was the one thing that we'd be like, "Let's sit down and watch this together." And it really formed our sense of humor and the core part of our relationship. So when I told him I'm going to be a Mad, he was like, "What?" I could not have been cooler.

But it was intimidating. And the funny thing is when you hear Joel's voice -- he has such an iconic voice -- whenever he talks to me, I just don't even know if... I'm time traveling. His voice has such quality to it that I'm like, "Is he here? Or am I watching you on TV?" It was so cool.

Jonah Ray: Time is a flat circle. So both of them could be true! ... I was, as I've said to Felicia before, I was petrified. I was very, very scared because the show meant so much to me and I didn't want this to go badly. I look at sometimes an episode from the first Netflix season and I just see a scared boy. A scared, hairy boy just hoping that it works out. But ... to be a fan is to know what it is to be a fan. And to know what that was like. "Man, I don't know. I've said some pretty nasty stuff about remakes in my time." 

It was scary, but because there was a lot of us that were new there, I think we all took care of each other. And I think that was very important for us to be supportive of each other and champion each other and be there.

'When You Look Stupid Is When It's The Funniest'

Was there ever a point where you realized that the fear was melting away and you were getting a little more comfortable? Or are you still nervous to this day?

Felicia Day: The great thing about this season is that there's a lower scale to it. It was an amazing record-setting Kickstarter, but the shows themselves were done on a smaller scale that was a lot more organic to what "MST3K" is. And being from web video, I'm like, "Oh yeah, I can handle this scale." So the crews were smaller, not only because of Covid, but because just of the way that they were shooting. We were on green screen. There were fewer people on set. It was a more intimate, spontaneous atmosphere. There was not a Netflix to approve the script so we could change stuff on the fly if it didn't work. And it was a lot more collaborative. And really, I think it has the spirit of the original show a lot more than the last two seasons.

And so I just loved getting on stage and knowing that I could do it, whatever the hell I want. And Jonah actually directed a lot of the segments that I was in as a performer. And we've known each other for a long [time]. I just trusted that he wouldn't let me look stupid. I'm like, "If you think it was funny, let's go with it." 

Jonah Ray: Which usually is when you look stupid, is when it would be the funniest.

Felicia Day: Thank you. 

Jonah Ray: And that's the one I would always... That's the take I would use.

Felicia Day: Yeah. Cool.

Jonah Ray: Yeah. But I think this is the season that... I think because of that Kickstarter and seeing how many new people had donated to it. I think it was more than half of the people who donated to the last Kickstarter didn't donate to the one before. And so that made me at least kind of go, "Oh. These are people that want our version. They want more of our version." That was a very confidence-instilling moment. So it's like, "More of us? This is the money for us to make the thing?" It's like, "Sure. Okay. Let's do it." And having a bit more of that confidence.

And just like Felicia said, the way it was, we came in knowing each other better, knowing each other's strengths as performers and comedy chops and just being able to go, "I don't know. What do you think? What can we do to make this a little better?" Coming in with a bit of a steadier hand. And knowing the sillier we were, the more fun we were having, it almost doesn't matter what happens after that. And hopefully, it reads. Because that's not true for all. When you have a fun set doesn't necessarily always mean it's going to come across. But I think these have been. There's a bit of an unwieldiness. Yeah.

'We're All Eating The Same Tostitos'

Would you agree that this is maybe going a little bit back to "MST3K's" roots in a way? That a "big" production of "Mystery Science Theater" seems almost antithetical to the spirit of the thing?

Jonah Ray: Yeah. I was confused by the size. I remember walking onto those sets for the Netflix seasons: Gigantic sound stages. Which in itself is exciting, and you're going on to a lot -- It's show biz! You're walking around and I'm in the jumpsuit, and you're in your costume. And you're like, "Oh, this is like in 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure.' When the centurions are walking by, and the spacemen and cowboys." And it feels like show biz, and it's super fun.

But it's also antithetical to what the show is. We're not too dissimilar from the movies we're watching. We're just some scrappy people trying to make some entertainment, trying to make some people happy. And we're no better than the movies we're watching. We're just having fun with them. And we should embrace what they embraced, which is, a lack of major resources. And just swinging for the fences. And that's what it felt like this time. It did feel like how [the original cast] would make it. And I remember, even on that second season. When Joel was talking about this season, I was like, "We can bring it way down." And I was trying to tell him, I was like, "Me and Felicia, we come from web videos and sketches and DIY."

Felicia Day: I would rather be on a set that has nothing. We're all eating the same Tostitos. That's fine. Honestly, I realize about myself I'd rather be on a low scale where people's spontaneity can come out. There's less management, there's less intimidation. There's just less.

Jonah Ray: Yeah. When there's 70 people on set and you're just trying to go, "Okay. Sorry. Keep on messing that line up. All right. Let's do it again. Action. [Robustly exaggerated] "What do you mean?" And then just some guy, some gaffer, some union guy, just waiting to get off, just waiting. 

Felicia Day: This was a union production, but yeah.

'We're Just Kind Of Odd'

Now that you sort of have this freedom to be a little bit more relaxed and do things at your own pace, are you starting to think ahead?

Felicia Day: I think the Gizmoplex itself ... Jonah and I aren't in charge of finding the financing or making more episodes or any of that. The vision that Joel has for the Gizmoplex is pretty impressive. And it is a living, breathing entity, in a way. So people can get on there and chat with each other. They can talk to each other. Where they watch an episode, there's going to be live streams with cast and creators, all that stuff. And I think it's really brilliant in a new media way to build community and have that sort of spontaneity.

Jonah Ray: Yeah. And I feel that's seeing what people gravitate towards, what people like. It's going to help us almost in a live comedy way of "How does this score? Hey, when we did that thing, there was a good response. Okay. Let's lean towards that thing that got the good response."

And now we can have that feedback almost in real-time with this stuff to pivot, as opposed to chunking an entire season and going "Hope you like it the way it is." And yeah, we've shot all these [episodes], but moving forward, we're going to get this ... real-time feedback and it's good. I think it's going to be very, very good for the show. We've still sped up the process of this season to try and get it out within the timeline of what we set with the Kickstarter and whatnot. And so I do think if and when we get to do more, we're going to try and really expand what it is, to what the show can be.

This is more of an acting question: I know a lot of "MST3K" characters are extrapolated from extant stage personae; Joel Robinson is based on Joel Hodgson, for example. How much of yourselves were you permitted to bring into your roles? And how much it was study and getting into character and really delving into the past of Kinga and Jonah Heston?

Felicia Day: I have tomes of backstory for Kinga that I've actually written a book on her backstory. It's her diaries from when she was 10 to 12 years old. I'm writing them in Wattpad.

No, I definitely ... watched my "relatives" [in the clan Forrester]. And I tried to be a little broader, a little more expansive, a little bit more out-of-control. And it certainly was not something that fit me like a glove. I really had to work at being ... because I have a different style of acting. I hadn't really done as much sketch and stuff and it was super fun to just let it go. Patton Oswalt was really key in helping me find that. Because it really was him setting that energy tone and me kind of, "Oh, I want to match him." And I needed to be bigger than him because I need to be in charge of him. So having him at this level allowed me to aim for that level.

And this season. Oh my ... We're just kind of odd. We just went crazy. We're just a little out of control in a good way. I'm like, "Is it broad enough, Jonah?" And he's like, "Go with it." And I was like, "Nice."

'No One's Done Goofy Before'

Jonah Ray: Super silly. There's a lot of the nerdiest aspects of Felicia now being funneled through the chaotic anger of Kinga in this season that I really, really love.

Felicia Day: I feel like I've really found Kinga this season in a way that we haven't before. And it's mostly just being just as silly and broad and not even caring what is on screen. Just really just inhabiting the character in a way that I really appreciate.

Jonah Ray: And I really love how you let yourself cry immediately a lot with the character. A small thing going wrong ... And then this anger! And because the fun thing I like about Kinga this season is that it's yet another attempt to get something going. And it's that desperation is really starting to kind of trickle in and the emotions are kind of getting in the way. I think it's super fun. [As for] Jonah Heston: I was super nervous and excited to be there and I figured I might as well utilize that. And because I hadn't seen that [before]. Joel's this guy and he's the father figure. And Mike is just this Midwest dry ... His dryness and flatness of his delivery is just perfect. It's one of my favorites. And I figured, well, no one's done goofy/excited to be there. That was my approach to it. If I'm already super excited to be there, I might as well use some of that through the character.

"Mystery Science Theater 3000" season 13 premieres May 6, 2022, on The Gizmoplex.

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The post Felicia Day and Jonah Ray On Returning Mystery Science Theater 3000 To Its Scrappy Roots [Interview] appeared first on /Film.

The day was March 20, 2020. Millions of Americans were either under a stay-at-home order or were soon to be under one as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Things were, frankly, a little scary, and many turned to entertainment in an attempt to not think about the rising death tolls. Netflix had just released a little documentary series called "Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness," and it became a pop culture phenomenon almost overnight. More than 34 million Americans tuned in to watch the series in its first 10 days, ranking it right up there with the debut for the beloved "Stranger Things 3." As word of mouth spread about the horrible hijinks of big cat enthusiasts Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, and the rest of their unhinged crew, the viewership grew, and it became undeniable that "Tiger King" was the show of the early pandemic. The series became a monster hit, eventually getting a sequel series, live-action scripted versions of events, and more.  

In the wake of "Tiger King," just about every streaming service has tried to capture that chaos magic. HBO Max made "McMillion$" and Apple TV+ has the upcoming "The Big Conn," while Hulu doubled down on scripted series based on true crime, like "Pam & Tommy" and "The Girl From Plainview." They're all trying to create their own "Tiger King," and it's just not going to happen. "Tiger King" owes its success to a number of different factors, and trying to get the stars to align that perfectly again is a fool's errand. 

Tiger King Owes A Lot To The Pandemic

What many of the companies trying to capitalize on the success of "Tiger King" fail to realize is that a large part of the series' success was a matter of timing. Mere weeks into the pandemic, we were all reeling and looking for something, anything, to distract us from how scary things seemed. The trashy, weird escapades of the people whose worlds revolve around big cats were the perfect kind of escape, because it felt so outside of our own reality. It wasn't feel-good TV by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a kind of schadenfreude, watching terrible people be terrible to one another. "Tiger King" has the same kind of shocking appeal as daytime TV like "Jerry Springer" or reality shows like "Hoarders" or "My 600 LB Life." The point is not to learn anything, just to point, laugh, and say, "wow, at least I'm not those guys." 

While that's horribly exploitative in many instances, like the TLC shows that revel in making a spectacle of people's struggles, with "Tiger King" the ridicule felt earned. Sure, Baskin got more of it than any of the men and that's a huge problem that was at least addressed by "Tiger King 2," but these are all people who chose a public life. They aired their stories and grievances on YouTube and social media long before Netflix ever showed up, so there's really no guilt for tuning in. The real exploitation happened to the animals, and as "Tiger King 2" revealed, attention on the facilities helped get them shut down and the cats were relocated to more appropriate sanctuaries. 

Other shows that have tried to capture the "Tiger King" magic similarly focus on terrible people, but the nearly mythological heights of the feud between Baskin and Exotic just weren't there. "McMillion$" has a clear villain in Jerry Jacobson, and he mostly just goes around hurting people. It has a wild cast of characters like "Tiger King," but they're not operating on the same wildly villainous levels as Baskin, Exotic, and the rest of the depraved subjects of Netflix's documentary series. Instead of watching the assured mutual destruction of terrible people, it's just the documentation of a bad person doing bad things, then eventually getting caught. Justice being served is fun, but something is missing. 

Netflix Understands Sleaze

For better and worse, the folks at Netflix understand the power of a tabloid-esque trashiness. The streaming service has a number of thought-provoking, intelligently-made docs like "The Staircase," "Casting Jon Benet," and "Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel," but on the flip-side, they also have a whole lot of documentaries that revel in exploitation and shock value.

The Netflix Fyre Festival documentary, "Fyre," became the source of many memes because of a sequence where event producer Andy King explained the extreme lengths he went to in order to secure water for the festival. (Here's a hint: it involved sexual favors.) The documentary "Wild, Wild, Country" painted everyone involved in a less-than-stellar light, capitalizing on the intense personalities behind an Oregon cult. Even "Evil Genius" lingers on the gory details of a bank robbery-turned-murder a bit too long, though it makes for great television. 

Hulu is smart in mostly sticking to scripted, dramatized versions of true crime stories instead of trying to beat Netflix at the sordid documentary game. Some of them are equally exploitative, but it doesn't feel like more of the same, just from a different streamer. HBO Max, Apple TV+, and the other streaming services that are trying to catch up and somehow luck out onto their own "Tiger King" are chasing something that's already gone extinct. People don't even really want more "Tiger King," it turns out, so why would they tune in to yet another attempt at making a true crime story feel wacky and wild?

Instead of trying to catch big cat lightning in a bottle, maybe they should try to find their own niches in the documentary world. HBO has done great work with some of their docs like "Mommy Dead and Dearest" and "Class Action Park," both of which are weird true crime that don't trade in scandal. Focus on what you're good at, streaming services, and leave the trashy stuff to Netflix. It's like the one thing they're good at these days, after all. 

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

The post Every Streamer Wants Their Own Tiger King, and Buddy, You're Not Getting Your Own Tiger King appeared first on /Film.

One of the best characters in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe is Wong. This may sound like a weird thing to say, especially to long-time fans that know the character's comic book history, but it's true. With each appearance from "Doctor Strange" in early Phase Three to the recent hit "Spider-Man: No Way Home," Benedict Wong's Master of the Mystic Arts and current Sorcerer Supreme has carved out a very special place in our hearts as he kicks major ass, takes no guff from nobody (particularly Dr. Stephen Strange), and is one hell of a singer at the karaoke bar. Truly, we have entered Phase Wong in the MCU. 

Now a firm fixture in the beloved film and television franchise, Master Wong makes his next appearance in Sam Raimi's "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." But before actor Wong was cast in Scott Derrickson's 2016 film, he was determined to earn the role for his ancestors.

Do You Believe In Magic?

While speaking to Digital Spy to promote the home release of "Doctor Strange" in 2017, Benedict Wong revealed that he was a long-time comic reader. Growing up in Manchester, he would frequent a comic shop called Odyssey 7 and religiously pick up Spider-Man comics. So when the opportunity arose for him to play a character from Marvel Comics on the big screen, there was no hesitation on his part. And he didn't just take the part for him. Wong was ready to represent his culture.

"For this type of opportunity to arrive, yeah, I didn't have to think about it all. If anything, I was always a little crestfallen that there wasn't, in my mind, any East-Asian superheroes ... I was having lunch with Chiwetel [Ejiofor] one time, and he told me what he was up to with 'Doctor Strange.' I had a little look on the net, and then I saw this drawing of Strange, and then on the side was Wong. I just... you know, my jaw dropped. I thought, 'I've got to get this – for my ancestors, alone.'"

It's been said time and time again, but representation matters. Seeing yourself reflected in the media you consume is a powerful experience, especially for those that don't get to see it very often. And one of the reason's why Benedict Wong's jaw probably dropped upon finding Marvel's Wong in his search is because he wasn't necessarily the right kind of representation that Asians and the Asian diaspora were looking for.

When Wong first appeared in the pages of Marvel Comics in the April 1963 issue of "Strange Tales" (where he initially appeared as a nameless character until nine issues later), his mission in life, like the ten generations of first-born males in his family before him, was to serve a master sorcerer. After Wong came of age, the Ancient One assigned him to be Doctor Strange's manservant in America. So even though Wong trained in the martial and mystic arts during his time at the monastery, his sole purpose was to be a subservient valet and sidekick to a master who can oftentimes be the absolute worst. The optics weren't great, particularly since the majority of Asian characters in comics remained largely stereotypes that depended on white saviors for a long, long time. 

Thankfully, when Derrickson and MCU architect Kevin Feige set out to adapt the Doctor Strange story for the modern-day, they had enough sense to update the character of Wong before he made the jump from page to screen. No longer a servant, he was finally able to use the skills he learned in Kamar-Taj as a Master of the Mystic Arts himself that could stand on his own two feet against Thanos' forces or the Abomination. He even schooled Strange and put the egotistic surgeon in his place when needed. But more importantly, he became Strange's equal. A valued partner in the fight to protect the Earth dimension from whatever mystical threats are out there. And when they added Benedict Wong to the mix, it really created the perfect recipe for one of the most memorable characters in the MCU. If I had to guess, I'd say that the ancestors of the British actor also known for his roles in "The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance," "Deadly Class," and "The Martian" are very proud.

"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" hits theaters on May 6, 2022.

Read this next: Every Ridley Scott Movie Ranked From Worst To Best

The post Benedict Wong Had a Personal Reason For Wanting a Role In Doctor Strange appeared first on /Film.

This week saw the 36th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster -- which had occurred just days before the Soviet Union's annual May Day celebration in 1986 -- and featured lots of patriotic outdoor parades. At the time Lev Golinkin was a 6-year-old living less than 300 miles away in the Ukrainian town now called Kharkiv. Writing for CNN, Golinkin remembers that Moscow "had remained silent, refusing to admit anything had occurred until the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl was detected in Scandinavia on April 28, making it impossible to hide the catastrophe any longer." Even then, Golinkin remembers that they "grossly downpayed the issue...." On April 29, three days after the Chernobyl disaster, Moscow issued a terse television announcement informing citizens that a reactor was damaged and aid was being provided to those who required it. The announcement was less than 20 seconds The days and weeks that followed were filled with a torrent of rumors and innuendo swirling around living rooms across the USSR while Moscow continued to pile over the explosion with secrecy and obfuscation. The Politburo began to loosen up restrictions on freedom of speech, but the confusion remained. No one knew the truth, but everyone knew the Kremlin was lying -- and that was about the only certainty around... [T]here was no rationalizing away the radiation. Moscow's refusal to cancel May Day festivities exposed the hollow horror of the Soviet Union -- even the most faithful believers in communism realized they lived in a country that thrust millions of people into danger just so it could hold a parade. Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev himself admitted Chernobyl -- which eroded faith in the Soviet system, poisoned vast tracts of land and cost billions to clean up -- contributed to the collapse of the USSR more than any other factor. Decades of Moscow's secrecy around the disaster makes it impossible to arrive at an accurate estimate of casuaties, and to this day, experts continue to guess and reassess the true impact of Chernobyl.... For nearly 70 years, the Soviets in Kremlin had generations of citizens tolerate bloodshed papered over by mendacity and propaganda. The same is happening today, during Moscow's savage war in Ukraine. The media formats may be somewhat different, but the lies continue... My family and I fled the Soviet Union in 1989. Watching the horrors in Ukraine unfold from America is surreal, in no small part because it feels like the intervening decades between the falls of communism and today have evaporated.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Register noted this week that two "unofficial" Ubuntu remixes "came out on the same day as the official flavors." - Ubuntu Cinnamon (Linux Mint's flagship desktop environment) - Ubuntu Unity, a revival of what used to be the official Ubuntu desktop by Ubuntu team member Rudra B. Saraswat (described the Register as "a 12-year-old wunderkind") Ubuntu Cinnamon is the older of the two and first appeared in 2019, while Ubuntu Unity came out in May 2020, soon after the release of Ubuntu 20.04. Ubuntu Unity....has the macOS-like desktop that was Ubuntu's standard offering from 2011 until the company pensioned it off in 2017.... Ubuntu Unity is as free as Ubuntu itself, and the new remix continues to evolve. In 22.04, most of the GNOME-based accessory apps have been replaced with the MATE equivalents, such as the Pluma text editor and Atril document viewer. (A handful remain, such as the GNOME system monitor rather than the MATE one, but the differences are trivial.) The System Settings app is the original Unity one, and the Unity Tweaks app comes pre-installed.... The new "Jammy Jellyfish" version of Ubuntu Unity also adds support for Flatpak packages alongside Ubuntu's native Snap packages. To do this, it replaces Ubuntu's Software Store with version 41.5 of GNOME Software. Interestingly, this also supports Snap packages, so sometimes, when you search for a package, you might get multiple results: one for the OS-native DEB package, possibly one for a Flatpak, and maybe a Snap version too.... [I]f you dislike both the Unity and GNOME desktops and want something more Windows-like, but you don't mind GNOME's CSD windows, then Joshua Peisach's Ubuntu Cinnamon remix may appeal. Cinnamon is the default desktop of both Ubuntu-based Linux Mint and its Debian variant. Ubuntu Cinnamon combines the latest upstream version of Mint's Cinnamon desktop, 5.2.7, with the standard app selection of upstream Ubuntu. This means most of its apps lack menu bars, except for the Nemo file manager and LibreOffice. For these classic-style apps, the Ubuntu Cinnamon distro has tweaked the GNOME title-bar layout to be more Windows-like: minimize/maximize/close buttons at top right, and a window-management menu at top left.... Cinnamon's roots as a fork of GNOME 3 do offer a significant potential feature that MATE, Xfce and indeed Unity cannot do: fractional scaling. This is clearly labelled as an experimental feature, and in testing, we couldn't get it to work, so for now, this remains a theoretical advantage.... These caveats aside, though, Ubuntu Cinnamon is maturing nicely in the new version. While Ubuntu and Ubuntu Unity are now purple-toned, Ubuntu Cinnamon has switched to a restrained theme in shades of dark orange and brown, which reminded us of the tasteful earth-toned Ubuntu of the old GNOME 2 days... Both these desktops are X.11-based, so there's not a trace of Wayland in either distro. Both also benefit from having working 3D acceleration. Both remixes "are aiming for inclusion as official Ubuntu flavors," the article points out. But then again, "There are dozens of Ubuntu remixes and flavors out there. The official Ubuntu Derivatives page links to 30, and DistroWatch has more than five times as many, including many which are no longer maintained."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As the world increasingly moves to the cloud and digital-everything, organizations’ risk postures have also changed. Embedding security into the business is the new, must-have approach and product security is the most seamless path to make it happen – led by the emergence of the engineering-centric CISO

read more

The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) has announced the initial prototype release of a new tool that's capable of carrying out dynamic analysis of all packages uploaded to popular open source repositories. Called the Package Analysis project, the initiative aims to secure open-source packages by detecting and alerting users to any malicious behavior with the goal of bolstering the

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

The Series: "Good Girls"

Where You Can Stream It: Netflix

The Pitch: Imagine this scenario: You had a kid in your teens, and his father is married to someone else. You have no money and you're getting desperate. Or this one: You have four kids and a house. You're incredibly unhappy in a marriage where your husband keeps cheating, and his terrible money issues have made it so you're going to lose that house. Or this one: Your daughter has kidney problems, and insurance won't cover the thing that could potentially save her life. You and your husband can't figure out a solution, and your other kid needs attention as well. What do you do? Well, if you're Beth (Christina Hendricks), Ruby (Retta), and Annie (Mae Whitman), you find an unlikely solution. You rob the grocery store that Annie works at. Seems like the perfect solution. The store has insurance to cover the loss, no one gets hurt, and you can save your house, your kids, and make a better life for yourself. 

The caveat? Not only did one of the employees recognize Annie, but the store was a front for a dangerous gang, who is now coming after you for a cut. This begins the story of three unlikely criminals, one of whom has a real talent for it. Crime is a slippery slope in this show, with each attempt to cover tracks or get out leading to yet another law-breaking event in a game of criminal whack-a-mole. 

Why It's Essential Viewing

"Good Girls" was not a series I was interested in to begin with, but after watching the first season for an event, I was completely hooked. I was fascinated by not only the lives of these women and their families, but the unbelievable chemistry between Beth and her gang contact Rio (Manny Montana). I mean, this is palpable. It will burn through your watching screen of choice.

If you didn't remember how good an actress Christina Hendricks is, oh goodness, are you in for a treat! She practically jumps off the screen at you. Every look, every thought that goes through her head is on point, and the scenes between Beth and Rio, full of danger and attraction let you know early on that Beth was just made for a life of crime. Maybe it was years of taking a back seat to her husband. Maybe it was untapped potential, but whatever it was, you can see how desperately she wants this. Even as she tries to get out, you can see how her heart isn't in it. As she learns each new aspect of being a criminal, she becomes better than the people she learned it from. (I have also learned things, like the color of nail polish needed to counterfeit money. It just ... seems like a lot of work.) 

Add in Matthew Lillard who plays Beth's weasel of a husband (and he's so good at playing weasels), and performances from June Squill, Allison Tolman, Ione Skye, and Andrew McCarthy, and you've got a total blast of a series. 

Some People Were Just Made For Crime

This entire show is about girl power. Criminal girl power, sure, but you know what desperate times call for (in fact, that make this show even more timely than it was when it came out). It's not just that though. In a show where men are often jerks who cheat and destroy things, you have the incredible marriage of Ruby and Stanley (Reno Wilson). It would be very easy to know how much the audience is going to root for these women and to make all the men villains. Stanley is not only wonderful and supportive, no matter what he learns, but he's no pushover. This feels real. It feels like an actual marriage. He's not just there as a foil. Even more lovely is the way the character of Ben, Annie's son, comes out as transgender. The actor Isaiah Stannard came out as trans during production, and we got to see a story that needed to be told.

I'm still heartbroken that the show came to an end, but it did so in a way that doesn't just feel like loose ends were tied up because of the cancellation. They weren't tied up at all, but you can absolutely see what's going to happen next. Just make sure that when you sit down to watch this series, you have a lot of time. You're not going to want to turn it off once you start. 

Read this next: The 18 Best Crime Dramas In TV History

The post The Daily Stream: Good Girls Shows What People Will Do for Family appeared first on /Film.

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AMC's "The Walking Dead" spinoff series, which is poised to fill the void left by the series when it concludes its final season, seems to be going through some major changes behind the scenes. Earlier this week, news broke that Melissa McBride, who was set to star as Carol alongside Norman Reedus' Daryl, would not be working on the show after all. Now, Deadline reports that the series will also be switching up showrunners.

The spinoff, which is one of three currently greenlit new shows set within the world of "The Walking Dead," was originally announced with Angela Kang on board as showrunner. Kang currently serves as showrunner on the flagship series, which is now in its eleventh season. Now, though, Deadline reports that the spinoff series has tapped former "ER" showrunner David Zabel to lead the charge for the new series. Kang is still set to stay on board as an executive producer. Scott Gimple and Kang are co-credited as the show's creators.

The Dead Are Walking (To Europe)

Kang's exit as showrunner was reportedly finalized before McBride stepped away, and Kang is set to continue working on other AMC projects. McBride's departure, meanwhile, was apparently the result of a major switch-up in the production plan. According to TVLine, the series is relocating from Atlanta, GA to Europe. That's a major move for long-time cast members of "The Walking Dead" who have been working on the show in Georgia for over a decade, and McBride isn't the first actor to bow out due to a location issue. Andrew Lincoln, who starred in "The Walking Dead" as its original main protagonist, Rick Grimes, eventually left the flagship series in order to spend time with his family in England.

A representative from AMC shared the following statement about series lead McBride's departure to TVLine on Wednesday:

"Melissa McBride has given life to one of the most interesting, real, human and popular characters in 'The Walking Dead' Universe. Unfortunately, she is no longer able to participate in the previously announced spinoff focused on the Daryl Dixon and Carol Peletier characters, which will be set and filmed in Europe this summer and premiere next year. Relocating to Europe became logistically untenable for Melissa at this time. We know fans will be disappointed by this news, but 'The Walking Dead' Universe continues to grow and expand in interesting ways and we very much hope to see Carol again in the near future."

Although there's no word on whether Kang's continued collaborations with AMC involve "The Walking Dead" spinoffs, there are at least two more in the works. "Isle of the Dead" is set to follow Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Maggie (Lauren Cohan), two characters who have apparently overcome a whole lot since the last time I watched this show, in a new story set in Manhattan. And "Tales of the Walking Dead," an anthology series, has already released its first teaser.

The as-yet-untitled Daryl Dixon spinoff has not announced a release date, but is expected to debut on AMC in 2023.

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

The post The Daryl Dixon Walking Dead Spinoff Adds David Zabel as New Showrunner appeared first on /Film.

A Bloomberg opinion columnist calls the RobinHood stock-trading app "a symbol of the 'memestock' boom that galvanized a generation of bored locked-down day traders. "But judging by the company's latest figures, the mania is over." In the first quarter, Robinhood's monthly active users fell 10% year-on-year to 15.9 million, the lowest since the end of 2020. It's a loose metric, to be sure, covering debit-card swipes and webpage log-ins. Net funded accounts have held steady, but activity is flatlining: Transaction revenues fell by almost half, and average quarterly revenue per user slumped 61% to $53. In a post-lockdown era of rising inflation, consumers have less money and fewer hours to spare. Eyeballs and finger-swipes are not guaranteed. This will put Robinhood's premium "tech" valuation — around seven times annual revenue, a higher multiple than Meta Platforms Inc.'s — under extra pressure. Shares of the financial-services company have already fallen 71% in six months, a drop that began well before Ukraine. With fewer reasons to get excited about risky, hyped-up trades such as bitcoin (down 40% since October), the feedback loop of fear is spreading. Trading platform Coinbase Global Inc., which like Robinhood went public last year amid a retail-driven frenzy, is down 62%. The average Robinhood user is 31 years old with an account balance of $240. It's a band of merry men (women are a minority on the platform) who dabble. While the company's business model differs from that of social-media and streaming apps, the reversal of fortunes looks a lot like the post-Covid "attention recession" that's also battering the likes of Netflix and Spotify Technology. "The lost merry memestock men already appear disillusioned," the columnist argues. "What happens next, if speculative bets keep deflating, may swear them off trading for good." But he also sees Robinhood is "talking up its appeal to paid 'Gold' customers and is launching a more diversified, bank-like suite of products. With its recent announcement of a new debit card, Robinhood no doubt aspires to become a super-app like unlisted fintech Revolut, valued at around $33 billion, according to CBInsights."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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PC Gamer describes how to set up Fallout: New Vegas in 2022: How to have the best Fallout New Vegas experience in 2022 Our definitive step-by-step guide to setting up and playing this classic RPG. Combining the best of Fallout 3's 3D open world with the nuanced roleplaying of the original two isometric games, Fallout: New Vegas is one of those classic PC RPGs that must be played—just not in its original form, unless you happen to enjoy suffering, frustration and confusion....

There are reasons that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds exists beyond the need to keep the Trek content pumping so nobody thinks too hard about canceling Paramount+. It’s designed to quell some of the discontent in Star Trek's vast and vocal fanbase about the direction the live-action shows have traveled under the stewardship of uber-producer Alex Kurtzman. It’s also a slightly bewildered response to the criticism of its predecessors, Discovery and Picard, made by the same people behind those two shows. In short, it’s designed to appeal to people who, when asked what their favorite live-action Trek show is, unironically say The Orville.

We open on Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), the once-and-future captain of the Enterprise after his sojourn leading Discovery in its second season. There, a magic time crystal told him that, in less than a decade, he’ll be non-fatally blown up in a training accident. Armed with a standard-issue Grief Beard™, he refuses the call to return to the stars until the siren song of non-serialized space adventure becomes too great. It isn’t long before he and Spock are reunited to rescue Rebecca Romijn’s Number One from a spy mission on a pre-warp planet gone wrong. Sadly, Paramount’s restrictive embargo on discussing the first few episodes forbids me from discussing much of what I've seen, so things will get vaguer from here on out.

It looks like it was August 2020 when Alex Kurtzman said that the show would be episodic rather than serialized. This was a way to address the criticism of the heavily serialized, go-nowhere, do-nothing grimdark mystery box stories that sucked so much of the joy from Discovery and Picard. Strange New Worlds is, instead, a deliberate throwback in the style of The Original Series, albeit with serialized character stories. So while we visit a new planet each week, characters still retain the scars, and lessons learned, from their experiences.

There are more refreshed Original Series characters than just Pike, Spock and Number One along for the ride. Babs Olusanmokun is playing a more fleshed-out version of Dr. M’Benga, while Jess Bush takes over for Christine Chapel. André Dae Kim is the new Chief Kyle, who has been promoted from intermittent extra to transporter chief. Then there’s Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet Uhura, whose semi-canonical backstory is now firmly enshrined as a Dead Parent / Troubled Childhood narrative. Uhura aside, most of these roles were so under-developed in the ‘60s that they’re effectively blank slates for the reboot. Oh, except that everyone is now Hot and Horny, because this isn’t just Star Trek, it’s Star Trek that isn’t afraid to show characters in bed with other people.

Rounding out the cast is Christina Chong as security chief La’an Noonien-Singh, a descendant of Khaaaaan! himself, Trek’s in-series Hitler analog. From what we learn of her so far, she also gets saddled with a Troubled Childhood / Dead Parent narrative, as well as a case of the nasties. I expect her character will soften further over time, but right now she’s officially the least fun character to spend time with. Of more interest is Melissa Navia’s hotshot pilot Erica Ortegas who can launch the odd quip into the mix when called upon, and Hemmer. Hemmer is a telepathic Aenar (a type of Androian first introduced in Enterprise) played by Bruce Horak. Horak plays Hemmer as an old-fashioned lovable grump and mentor figure for some of the other characters and will clearly become a fan-favorite.

And having now seen the first half of the first season (a second is already in production) I can say that Strange New Worlds will be a frustrating watch for fans. Frustrating because there are the bones of a really fun, interesting Star Trek series buried deep inside Strange New Worlds. Sadly, it’s trapped in the usual mix of faux-melodrama, clanging dialogue and dodgy plotting with the usual lapses in logic. Many writers are blind to their own flaws, which is why it’s so amusing that this is what Kurtzman and co. feel is a radical departure from their own work.

Maybe I’m being unfair, but this is the seventh season of live-action Star Trek released under Kurtzman’s purview. The three lead characters all had a full season of Discovery to bed in, too, so it’s not as if everyone’s starting from cold. But despite the gentlest of starts, the show still manages to stumble out of the gate, trying to do too much and not enough at the same time. The first four episodes, especially, feel as if someone’s trying to speed-read you through a whole season’s worth of plot in a bunch of partly-disconnected episodes.

An aside: Ever since the mid ‘80s, Paramount was desperate to reboot Star Trek with a younger cast to cash-in on that Kirk/Spock brand awareness. It eventually happened, but only in 2009 with J.J. Abrams’ not-entirely-successful attempt to reboot the series in cinemas. While a Young Kirk movie made sense in the ‘80s, mining that seam for nostalgia today seems very weird indeed. After all, most people under the age of 50 will likely associate TNG as the One True Star Trek. The fact that not-so-closet Trek fan Rihanna’s favorite character is Geordi La Forge speaks volumes about where millennial love lies. But I’d imagine a La Forge spin-off series was never going to fly with any generation of Paramount executives.

Now let’s talk about that emotional continuity, because while people will take their experiences with them, little effort has been made to pre-seed conflicts before they erupt. Arguably the weakest episode of the bunch tries to cram four (4!) A-plots into its slender runtime. One of which is a coming out narrative for one crewmember – and once they’ve come out, another character reveals a deep-seated antipathy toward that group. It would be nice, if we could have let this particular battle brew, but it’s introduced about 25 minutes in and resolved with a punchfight by minute 40. We’re not shown the person wrestling with the decision to come out and risk their professional and personal relationships beforehand, either. Just… punchfight.

A lot of these episodes don’t properly resolve themselves either, which is the standard problem for any 50-minute TV show. It’s hard to build a new world, flesh out new characters, establish and resolve their problems in the space of two episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. But at least three episodes feature conclusions that either aren’t clear or take place entirely off screen, explained away with a line of dialogue. I don’t know if it was a production problem, or if a majority of the show’s 22 (yes, twenty-two) credited producers signed off on it, but it feels a hell of a lot like cheating. It's almost as if the writers wanted to provoke surprise in the subsequent scene — how did this get resolved!? — over concocting a satisfying emotional and narrative catharsis on-screen. 

In fact, I’m going to harp on about this one particular episode because it’s not content with just dropping one major character revelation. The episode basically stops 10 minutes early in order to – shock horror – drop another Kinda Dark Secret About A Crewmember You Barely Know. One thing I said when Discovery started was that if you never get to know the characters in their default state, it’s not valuable to see their bizarro-world counterparts straight away. It’s the same here, Strange New Worlds refuses to do the painstaking work of filling in these characters before they start changing as a result of their experiences together.

The cast is all solid, and clearly working hard to elevate the material they’ve been given, because the dialogue here is so rough that I think they all deserve danger money. Now, nü-Trek dialog has always been awkward and/or impenetrable, but it’s beyond dreadful here. Kurtzman and co. forgot the whole “show, don’t tell” nature of screenwriting, and so characters just stand there and tell you everything, constantly. This is made worse because rather than giving space for these talented, well-paid actors to act, they’re instead forced to say what they’re feeling.

Here’s an example of that: In one episode, a character is trying (and failing) to remember a key memory from a traumatic experience in childhood that holds the key to saving the day. But rather than use the performer to convey that, they have the actor in question stand there, blank-faced, and say “I am trauma blocked.” Then there are scenes in which two characters describe what’s happening in front of them with the sort of faux-gravitas that only Adam West could pull off.

Remember when I said there was promise? There really is, and you feel like if the writers could get out of their own way, things could improve massively. There’s one episode you could easily describe as the (actually fun) comedy romp of the season and it’s great. Every Trek fan knows that The One With The Whales is the most financially successful Trek property ever made. And yet whenever a new Trek property is made, it’s always with the promise of more grimness, more darkness, more grit, more realism. Yet here we are, with the fun episode reminding you why you watch Star Trek in the first place, and making the characters fun people to hang out with. If the series could continue in that slightly slower, more relaxed groove, then Strange New Worlds could be brilliant.

I haven’t talked much about the production design or effects, both of which are great – this new Enterprise is gorgeous inside and out. Nor the series music, with Nami Melumad’s score being smart, subtle and lush in all of the right places. That’s a compliment not shared with Jeff Russo’s now standard fare, which neither matches the delicacy of a good prestige drama intro nor the soaring bombast associated with Star Trek. The best and worst thing I can say about the intro theme is that it sounds like it came from one of Interplay’s mid ‘90s CD-ROM games.

Fundamentally, I can only really damn Strange New Worlds with the faintest of praise – it can be fun, every now and again. I would imagine, and hope, that things will improve as time goes on, and the show’s makers won’t indulge their worst impulses. Given that I walked away from Picard after the end of its first dreary-as-hell run, the fact I’m at least prepared to stick around here speaks volumes.

Specified path can be invalid if filename is a device. Fixes installer for World Series of Poker.

It's duos this week as we talk about Mythforce, Peglin, Ravenous Devils, whether Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a better game pass game than a standalone title, the importance of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, the intense wtf of Halloween 3, and more! This week's music:  Stevie Nicks (feat. Tom Petty) - Stop Draggin' My Heart Around

"Everything Everywhere All At Once" won big for original films this weekend. Daniels' multiverse-hopping fantasia saw a rare 0% loss over last weekend (per Forbes), even as it enters its sixth week in theaters. The steady profit is likely informed by a special limited IMAX engagement for the eye-popping film, which began Friday in the US.

The tremendously unique A24 movie has no doubt benefited from positive word of mouth and critical praise, but holding steady in week six is still a surprising and impressive feat for any film. "Everything Everywhere All At Once" has actually maintained a fairly strong trajectory since its March release, and is set to hit $35 million domestic gross this weekend according to Variety.

The movie, which had a reported budget of $25 million, is on track to enter the upper echelons of A24's box office winners. With no signs of slowing, it's possible the film could even overtake "Hereditary," which closed out its theatrical run with $44 million, to become the studio's third-highest-grossing film.

This Movie Deserves Everything All At Once

It makes sense that the Michelle Yeoh-led genre-bender has staying power: it's very, very good. The film, which sees Yeoh's laundromat owner Evelyn start shifting realities in the middle of an important tax appointment, is garnering some of the highest praise possible. Whether it's horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan tweeting that it's one of the best films he's seen in his life, or /Film's own Jacob Hall giving the film his first-ever 10/10 score, this movie is being talked about in the highest terms.

The new IMAX option courts return viewers and offers a chance to see the maximalist adventure in the most intense way possible. The engagement, which has already begun, is set to run for one week only in the U.S. and a similar engagement will begin May 4, 2022 in the U.K. In total, the film added 80 theaters this weekend, including IMAX and traditional screenings.

The 0% drop and the film's overall success are both clear wins for independent filmmaking, and they're wins the teetering industry needs right now. Other indie films, including Robert Eggers' Viking epic "The Northman", have fared poorly at the box office as audiences still largely refuse to show up for non-franchise movies. With the introduction of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" next weekend, some smaller films will likely be swallowed up whole in the vortex of the latest Marvel offering. In the meantime, the triumph of "Everything Everywhere All At Once" continues to be a bright spot in the year's cinema landscape.

"Everything Everywhere All At Once" is in theaters and IMAX now.

Read this next: /Film's Top 10 Movies Of 2021

The post Everything Everywhere All At Once Drops 0% In Sixth Weekend at the Box Office appeared first on /Film.

A successful Borderlands spin-off. | You can tell that Tiny Tina's Wonderlands doesn't take itself seriously after the first few seconds. Read on to know more about the technology and graphics requirements in our benchmark tests.

Long-time Slashdot reader UnderAttack writes: After Microsoft patched and went public with CVE-2022-26809, the recent Remote Procedure Call vulnerability, the SANS Internet Storm Center set up a complete Windows 10 system exposing port 445/TCP "to the world." The system is not patched for the RPC vulnerability. But so far, while it has seen thousands of attacks against SMB a day, nothing yet for the new RPC vulnerability.... But still, attackers are heavily hitting other vulnerabilities like of course still ETERNALBLUE From the article: Should you stop rushing out the April patch? Absolutely not. I hope you are already done applying the patch. But the April Windows patch had several additional gems, not just patches for RPC. Chatter about CVE-2022-26809 has died down, but as they say: Sometimes the quiet ones are the dangerous ones, and people able to exploit this vulnerability may not broadcast what they are doing on social media. The article is credited to Johannes B. Ullrich, Ph.D. , Dean of Research at the security site SANS.edu. Interestingly, Ullrich's byline is hyperlinked to a Google+ profile which has been unavailable for nearly three years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The first time you hear it, the noise can be jarring. Seemingly out of nowhere, it sounds like a helicopter is landing on your roof, or a freight train is about to come barreling through your wall and into your home. The room—and its contents—may shake the way they would during a minor earthquake.

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With the Doom of Icewind Dale chapter of The Blades of Netheril module for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition scheduled for a June 2022 release, we can now check out a preliminary version of the opening cinematic for this ambitious project aiming to continue the story of the original Neverwinter Nights campaign.

Here it is:

This is the opening cinematic for the NWNEE module Doom of Icewind Dale - the opening chapter of the 7-part campaign The Blades of Netheril, which continues the story of the Hero of Neverwinter!

Doom of Icewind Dale is currently scheduled for a summer 2022 release. Check out https://www.patreon.com/lukescull to keep up to date with the project and support the development of The Blades of Netheril campaign. Every cent received will be funnelled into new art, music and feature content!

In its latest developer diary, Hinterland Studio says that a The Long Dark season pass is coming "later this year" - which will represent the first paid DLC for the popular survival game since it was released eight years ago in 2014, as the studio founder hands the reins to a new lead.

In a lengthy April update on Steam, Hinterland founder Raphael van Lierop talks about the future of The Long Dark and the changes coming to the open-world game - specifically, about the team's plans to "decouple" the sandbox survival mode and the story mode. He explains how The Long Dark has steadily "increased in scope and complexity" to the point where it has become "unwieldy".

Furthermore, the close connection between the two modes meant that certain planned updates for one mode "couldn’t really be done because of how they might impact the other". However, the team is now at the stage where it can "update survival independently of story". According to Raphael, players can now expect "a whole new era of survival mode content updates that will bring new life and new energy back into The Long Dark".

Bring back '70s Dr. Strange in Multiverse of Madness, you cowards.

Over the last half-decade, Laura Linney's character, Wendy Byrde, has undergone quite a journey on Netflix's "Ozark." When the show first launched in 2017, it was anchored more to the perspective of Wendy's husband, Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman), as he cast off his civilian life as a mild-mannered financial advisor and uprooted his family from Chicago to launder money for a Mexican drug cartel in Missouri. Comparisons between "Ozark" and "Breaking Bad" abounded, which initially seemed to leave Linney in the unenviable position of playing second fiddle to Marty as the mere "wife" in a show that was framed more from a male, "Walter White Collar" perspective.  

Over the course of four seasons, however, Wendy has evolved into a true co-lead on "Ozark," and the force of her presence and personality even outshines (or out-darks) that of Marty much of the time. With the release of "Ozark" Season 4: Part 2 over the weekend, the show's final season is now streaming in its entirety, leaving viewers to look back on Wendy's full character arc over 44 episodes.

In an interview with GQ in January of 2022 after the first half of "Ozark" season 4 hit, Linney discussed the first breakthrough she had with Wendy as a character. She said:

"Chris Mundy [Ozark's showrunner] and I talked early on. When you're playing the wife of the main character of the show, it can be wonderful or there can be not a whole lot to play. I didn't care how big my part was, I just wanted to have something that I could really play that would help move the narrative of the story forward. Chris and I talked a lot about identity. I think at the time, I was questioning that—who are we as Americans? Who are we? As an American citizen, who am I? Who did I think I was? Who did I want to be?"

Wendy's Big Possum-Twirling Scene

Linney continued:

"I started thinking about that family [the Byrdes] and how they really don't know each other very well. They functioned well enough to have a solid middle-class life, but they didn't know each other well and they didn't know themselves well. In the course of the show, they all get to really learn about themselves and learn about each other in a very different light."

As Linney was playing Wendy and getting to know her, a crucial moment for her to crack the character and understand her background and mentality came during a scene in "Dripping Sleep," the third episode of "Ozark" season 1.

The scene sees Wendy drive up to a trailer, where Wyatt Langmore (Charlie Tahan) is sitting on the roof. Wendy hauls a dead possum out of the car — which the Langmores had left on her lawn — and proceeds to twirl it with all her might up onto the roof, warning Wyatt and his brother Three (Carson Holmes), "Either of you, you f*** with my daughter, you come near my house again, it'll be you the vultures are picking at." 

Linney pointed to that scene as a turning point for her and said:

"When we shot the episode where [Wendy] twirls the possum and it goes on top of the roof — I had a moment when I got that script where I thought, 'How does she know how to do that? How would a woman from Chicago know how to fling a possum by the tail and not be afraid of it? And how is it that she knows how to talk to all these people in the Ozarks in a way that is blunt and cuts right through and she's not scared of them? What is that?' She's a foreigner, but I could smell something familiar there. Chris and I talked, and I said, 'She's not from Chicago. She's from a variation of the Ozarks, and now part of the reason that she has resisted going there is because she's right back where she started.' She fought so hard to get out of that environment. And then the whole character ... the kaleidoscope shifted and I could just see it all."

Viewers can now "see it all," too, as all four seasons of Wendy's arc and the complete "Ozark" series are available to stream on Netflix.

Read this next: The 18 Best Crime Dramas In TV History

The post The Ozark Scene That Made Wendy's Character Click For Laura Linney appeared first on /Film.

With his long-awaited third feature, "Nope," hitting theaters in a few short months, it feels like the perfect time to delve into Jordan Peele's directorial influences. Although little has been revealed about the forthcoming film's plot, it is easily one of the most anticipated titles of the summer — and honestly, the hushed mystery surrounding it only adds to the hype.

Bursting onto the scene with his directorial debut, "Get Out," in 2017, Peele effectively reinvigorated the socially conscious horror film by focusing on the grim reality of racism in America. He proved his horror prowess wasn't just a fluke with his 2019 follow-up, "Us," which features a stirring dual lead performance from Lupita Nyong'o as a woman named Adelaide and her evil "tethered" doppelgänger. To prepare Nyong'o for the demanding role, Peele gave her some "homework": nine horror films, each brimming with parallels to "Us" and the director's broader cinematic inspirations. As such, it would be easy to classify the list as a blueprint of the filmmaker's favorites.

Let's unpack this list, examining their common themes and what they reveal about Peele's creative process.

Modern Horror Staples

Often classified as an "elevated" horror film (though the term is largely debated), "Get Out" came on the heels of horror films that revamped critical interest in the genre. Often focusing on social themes as opposed to "senseless" violence and gore, it's easy to see how films such as Jennifer Kent's "The Babadook" and David Robert Mitchell's "It Follows" made it to Peele's list. Both premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, generating a ton of early buzz. Writing about "It Follows," /Film critic Germain Lussier dubbed it "one of the scariest horror films in years." Another /Film review noted "The Babadook" was also "one of the best horror movies in years." It was hard to classify the titles as anything other than bar-raising and genre-shattering. Both still endure as bone-chilling in their wildly varied scopes, and their direct effect on Peele is tangible.

In "The Babadook," a family is devastated after the death of a husband and father. Stepping in to fill the void is the titular monster, who straddles the line of ghostly visage and psychological tormentor. Revealing unsettling truths about motherhood, grief, and child-rearing, it certainly feels like a lot of the dramatic cues are melded into the story of "Get Out," albeit with a dramatically different purpose. Instead of the grief of losing a loved one manifesting into a mad-hatted entity, the spirits of dead ancestors are grafted into Black bodies, adding a horrifying, racial overtone while inverting the process of possession that "turns" Kent's matriarch into a murderess.

"It Follows," on the other hand, uses unassuming human vehicles to commit acts of horrific violence against those who are targeted for death. While the STI-inspired element has been long noted, Peele certainly takes inspiration from the uncanny "humans" in "It Follows" for his "tethered" doppelgängers in "Us." They look human — perhaps some even are human — but their unquenchable bloodlust makes them into monsters. With the "tethered" family of doppelgängers trailing Adelaide (Nyong'o) and her family, the hopeless sense of being caught also permeates "Us" with the same dread in "It Follows."

Familial Torture

Speaking of familial dynamics, nothing suffuses "Get Out" and "Us" with more terror than the idea that an otherwise idyllic family might be harboring heinous secrets — or perhaps are the unwitting target of unspeakable torture. The next two additions to the list, Michael Haneke's 1997 brutal "Funny Games" and Pascal Laugier's relentlessly violent "Martyrs," perfectly showcase Peele's fascination with the nuclear family at war. The home invasion plot of "Funny Games" is totally palpable in "Us," particularly the scene where the "tethered" family confronts their alters in their living room. Although "Funny Games" is much bleaker (and a larger commentary on societal desensitization toward violence on screen), "Us" takes a cue from Haneke — children aren't spared, and it's brutal to witness.

"Martyrs," on the other hand, feels much more appropriate in conversation with "Get Out." While the white nuclear family in Peele's debut is certainly deranged, they stick together to fulfill a common goal. In "Martyrs," notoriously one of the most brutal of the New French Extremity cinematic movement, another unassuming family harbors a terrible secret of their own. They are pawns in the quasi-religious scheme to create "martyrs," tortured subjects who learn to love their pain. In "Get Out," the white family uses Black bodies for their own gain as well — by forcing a Black person's body to be inhabited by a white person's consciousness, it's easy to dismiss the tangible violence of racism. As such, in "Get Out," the Black victims are taught that their suffering is excusable because it advances the lifespan of wealthy white people. While there might not be an extended skin-flaying scene, the shared mentality of subjugation makes "Get Out" just as disturbing.

Doubles And Doppelgängers

Here's where the inspiration for the doppelgängers in "Us" shines through. Next on the list are Kenneth Branagh's "Dead Again," Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining," and Kim Jee-woon's "A Tale of Two Sisters." All three employ radically different approaches to the idea of doubles and doppelgängers, and they're invaluable references.

Branagh's 1991 film "Dead Again" features a heady plot that centers on spiritual and corporeal reincarnation: A 1940s murder appears to replay in the early '90s. With Branagh and Emma Thompson playing the victims past and present, "Dead Again" toys with the idea of repeated fate. This is clearly mined in "Us," particularly with the mirrored actions (and fated defeat) of the "tethered." When it's revealed that Adelaide may not be who she seems, the intellectual query on human nature feels equally relevant in "Dead Again."

With "The Shining," it's almost self-explanatory. The Grady Twins, the pastel-donning ghosts that torment Danny in the halls of The Overlook Hotel, are at once innocent and corrupted. They appear wearing matching gowns, hands interlocked. "Come play with us," they chime in unison. When they appear again, Danny sees flashes of their maimed corpses — their father, the previous winter attendant, killed them with an ax. The twins — once pristine, now slaughtered — represent the duality of Adelaide's children and their doubles. While the "normal" children are relatively sheltered from the world's evil, the "tethered" kids are all too aware: They were used as crude guinea pigs in a government ploy for mind control.

"A Tale of Two Sisters" approaches the idea of "doubles" from a psychological angle. Centering on a young girl who fears her life is threatened by her malicious stepmother, it's revealed that much of the perceived danger is the result of horrifying psychological trauma. This parallels Adelaide's experience in "Us" — she's plagued by the house of mirrors, where she first encountered her doppelgänger, and the trauma has made her forget her identity. This block is integral to the film's final twist — it makes sense why Peele guided Nyong'o to "A Tale of Two Sisters" for reference.

Supernatural Phenomena

To put a cap on Jordan Peele's list, we've got two supernatural thrillers that are definite stylistic touchstones for Peele. We've got Alfred Hitchcock's classic "The Birds," starring Tippi Hedren — which is perhaps another thespian reference for Nyong'o, though her Adelaide is comparatively much cooler under pressure. But Peele has often been compared to Alfred Hitchcock, both professing a penchant for conjuring suspense and dread. "Vertigo," "Rear Window," or "Psycho" could have easily made the list, but Hedren's performance is probably what made "The Birds" the definitive Hitchcock pick for Peele.

Finally, we have the 2008 Swedish vampire film "Let the Right One In." It's important to note that Peele opted for this title as opposed to its 2010 English-language remake by Matt Reeves. Although both films are fantastic, the Swedish one imbues a concerted dual interest in what constitutes monsters versus humans — as such, its tone is a bit more comforting despite the gore it portrays. Again, this makes total sense when juxtaposing the movie with "Us." Although we at first fear the doppelgängers, the film's real villain is the U.S. carceral health care system, using disenfranchised subjects as fodder for their twisted experiments. Do we really fear the "tethered," or do we fear that our own participation in these systems might justify vengeance? The pensive through line is, ultimately, what makes a Jordan Peele film. Let's hope it's preserved and expanded upon with "Nope."

Read this next: 16 Horror Movies That Ruined Everyday Activities

The post Jordan Peele's Favorite Horror Movies List is a Perfect Study in Terror appeared first on /Film.

Cloud Imperium has released Star Citizen Alpha 3.17 to all of the game’s backers. This brand new version brings a number of new features, and you can also find below a new trailer dedicated to it. Going into more details, Star Citizen Alpha 3.17 adds the ability for players to sell inventory items. This includes … Continue reading Star Citizen Alpha 3.17 has been released, new features detailed →

The post Star Citizen Alpha 3.17 has been released, new features detailed appeared first on DSOGaming.

Just hours after it was announced that "Batwoman" had been canceled at the CW, another DC Comics show has been given the axe. After seven seasons, "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" has been informed that they will not be seeing an eighth. Co-showrunner Keto Shimizu took to Twitter to express her feelings, saying, "We are heartbroken, but also immensely grateful for the amazing work our cast, crew, and writers have contributed to the little show that could." She continued her thread by expressing her appreciation for the show's rabid fanbase, leaving on a positive note by saying, "You'll always have a place on the Waverider." The "Legends of Tomorrow" writers' room also posted a collective statement online, echoing Shimizu's sentiments.

Thank you for being the greatest fans and sticking with us for seven seasons ❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎Once a Legend, always a Legend. pic.twitter.com/5D8chctUo6

— Legends of Tomorrow Writers Room (@LoTWritersRoom) April 30, 2022

The seventh season of the original "Arrowverse" series ended on a cliffhanger last month, finally introducing Booster Gold (played by "Scrubs" favorite Donald Faison) who intended on arresting the Legends for their time crimes. Sra found out she was pregnant with Ava's baby, Nate lost his superpower and was heading to live with Zari 1.0. The finale was clearly setting up an exciting eighth season, that we, unfortunately, will never get the chance to see. With "Black Lightning," "Batwoman," and now "Legends of Tomorrow" canceled at the CW, this marks the third superhero show with Black and LGBTQIA+ leads to be denied renewal. Regardless of how these cancellations fit in the larger plan for DC properties following the merger between parent company Warner Bros. and Discovery, the optics on this ain't good, chief.

Brace For More Heartbreak

With "Batwoman" and "Legends of Tomorrow" finding out about their cancellation status on the same day, the future doesn't look bright for newly debuted shows like "4400," "Naomi," and "All American: Homecoming." Longer running series like "Dynasty," "Charmed," and "Legacies" are currently awaiting the green light for additional seasons. The stress for all of these writers' rooms must be thick enough to cut with a knife right about now. In a depressingly ironic coincidence, the cancellations also come on National Superhero Day.

The CW cancelling Legends of Tomorrow AND Batwoman is one of the biggest losses. Both shows that have championed so many important stories…happy national superhero day I guess 🥴

— Nora Dominick (@noradominick) April 30, 2022

As of publication, "The Flash" is still secured for a ninth season, and hopefully some of the loose ends left by the premature cancellation of "Batwoman" and "Legends of Tomorrow" can be tied up through the handful of remaining Arrowverse shows. If not, perhaps the shows could find a home at HBO Max, but it's best not to get our hopes up too high. After today's announcements, we should probably start getting used to the disappointment.

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

The post DC's Legends of Tomorrow Has Been Canceled at The CW appeared first on /Film.

A beach that makes you old sounds right in the wheelhouse of M. Night Shyamalan, the filmmaker who gave us aliens that emit poison gas from their wrists in "Signs" and airborne plant toxins that make you kill yourself in "The Happening." And a beach that makes you old is the premise at the heart of Shyamalan's movie "Old," itself loosely based on the French comic book "Sandcastle" written by Pierre Oscar Levy and illustrated by Frederik Peeters.

Where the beach was little more than a magical realist conceit that Levy and Peeters employed to explore mortality and existence in "Sandcastle," Shyamalan takes this setup and runs wild with it. "Old" isn't just a film where a bunch of strangers visiting a secluded beach suddenly begin to age one year every half-hour; it's a mystery-thriller where characters spend a lot of their dwindling time unraveling the sci-fi mechanics of how the beach works. Shyamalan also tosses in a sub-plot involving an insidious organization that conspired to bring this specific group of people together for a greater purpose. The filmmaker himself drives the point home with one of his trademark cameos, delving even deeper into meta territory (but with a playful wink) than that time he played a writer literally destined to change the world in "Lady in the Water."

"Old" is a lot, in other words. Yet, for all the things that don't work in the movie, it's far too personal and go-for-broke bizarre — be it in terms of plot, tonal shifts, or the baffling spots Shyamalan chooses to place the camera — to dismiss out of hand. There's perhaps no better example of this than the way "Old" pays homage to a long-forgotten 1970s western starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson (!), as directed by Arthur Penn (!!) of "Bonnie and Clyde" fame.

Remember That Movie? Shyamalan's Dad Does

Directed by Arthur Penn from a script by Thomas McGuane ("92 in the Shade," "Tom Horn"), "The Missouri Breaks" stars Jack Nicholson as Tom Logan. The leader of a group of cattle thieves, Tom sets out to seek revenge against a land baron who killed a member of his gang by buying a farm near their ranch and stealing horses from it. In retaliation, the baron turns to Robert E. Lee Clayton (Marlon Brando and, yes, that's really his character's name), an eccentric shooter-for-hire or "regulator" who pledges to take down Tom and his crew.

Despite arriving on the heels of Brando and Nicholson's respective Oscar-winning roles in "The Godfather" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "The Missouri Breaks" was a box office disappointment upon its release in 1976. The movie has yet to attract a cult fanbase, and M. Night Shyamalan admitted he hasn't actually seen it in an interview with FOX. All the same, he decided to reference it in "Old" by having Charles (Rufus Sewell), a middle-aged surgeon with schizophrenia, constantly allude to the film as the beach ages him, causing him to rapidly develop dementia.

As the filmmaker explained:

"I've never seen ['The Missouri Breaks'] ... It's from my dad [Dr. Nelliyattu C. Shyamalan], who actually has some dementia, and he would not stop talking about Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando, this movie that they were in. And I was like, 'Dad, I have never seen it.' And he goes, 'Jack Nicholson! Marlon Brando!' And he kept going on and on about it. I was like, 'Dad, I'm putting this in a movie if you keep talking about this.' And he did."

Shyamalan, Good Or Bad? The Answer Is... Yes

If you're like me, dear readers, you're of two minds about M. Night Shyamalan the filmmaker. The unnatural dialogue he writes is clearly a stylistic choice, but that doesn't make it any less clunky to listen to. His use of genre tropes (be it sci-fi, fantasy, or horror) to explore themes about the human condition and spirituality is audacious, yet he can't stop chasing the high of "The Sixth Sense," the result of which is he keeps making movies where the big twists and reveals fall flat. Then there's his formalist visual style, which at times is fantastic, while at other times it can be overly distracting or muddle the meaning of what Shyamalan is trying to convey.

We could go on (like his continued misuse of mental illness as a plot device), but you get the idea. At the same time, he's someone who invests so much of himself in his art, even pouring his own money into making them. You can see it when he talks about his films, too, like his take on what the nod to "The Missouri Breaks" signifies in "Old:"

"For me it represents this thing that someone's holding onto for their sanity. Everyone must know, these are the two greatest actors of all time, why doesn't anybody know this? And so they can't understand this but they're holding onto it... It was just a kind of funny, sad, beautiful thing about my dad and cinema."

Then there's the way Shymalan refuses to join a current franchise while forgoing movies based on "safe," well-known IPs in favor of making either original, riskier, low-to-mid-budget thrillers or, in the case of "Old," a film based on relatively obscure source material. It's what keeps me coming back to his work, time and time again, enough so I can say there's a part of me that loves all his movies, no matter how the final product turns out.

Rest assured, when his next movie, "Knock at the Cabin," arrives, I will be ready to get hurt again.

Read this next: 13 Box Office Bombs That Are Truly Worth A Watch

The post M. Night Shyamalan Paid Homage to a Forgotten Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson Western appeared first on /Film.

One of the challenges within DFIR, particularly as we've moved to an enterprise approach by leveraging EDR telemetry, is the root cause analysis, or "RCA". In short, the challenge is observing malicious activity and determining the root cause; the challenge itself stems from the fact that EDR telemetry is only partial visibility, or that correlating observed malicious activity with causal data not evident or available via EDR telemetry requires additional context, and by extension, additional effort/expenditure of resources. It also requires an additional "leveling up" of skillsets. 

Yes, many organizations that deploy EDR tooling also include a means for extracting additional files/data from the endpoint, and what to collect isn't usually in question. Rather, how to truly exploit the collected data is the issue, with the exploitation of that data being the "levelling up".

When malicious activity is observed, or the impact of malicious activity is discovered (via threat hunting, etc.), the challenge then becomes, how do we determine the root cause? In the past, when someone has shared suspicious activity with me and sought guidance as to next steps, I've often asked, "...did a reboot or login occur just prior to the activity?" as a means of developing context around the observed activity. Was the executable launched via an auto-start mechanism, such as a Windows service, entry in a Run key, or as a Scheduled Task? The thought process has been to seek causal events for the observed activity, which can be important to not only determine the root cause, but perhaps to also identify a shift in TTPs, once we're to a point where we can arrive at attribution.

There are a lot of different ways for threat actors to persist on Windows systems, some of which were mentioned earlier in this post. Each has their advantages and disadvantages, and both require and provide different levels of access. For example, creating an entry in the user's Run key means that the malware won't start again until the user logs in, and then runs within the user context. However, if the threat actor has Admin privileges, they can create a Windows service or Scheduled Task, which then will run malware with SYSTEM level privileges. As a result, the persistence mechanism used provides a great deal of context beyond just the entry for the malware. 

To provide further insight into this topic, Krz wrote up an excellent blog post not long ago about how a laptop going on battery (unplugged from the power cord) can impact an investigation.

Based on the MITRE "Event Triggered Execution: Screensaver" page, I created a RegRipper plugin for my local repo to parse the screensaver settings out of the NTUSER.DAT hive, and ran it against a hive extracted from my local system, the output of which follows: