Ronald.phillips

Both entries in the Portal series have some deep roots in indie games, and one of the primary inspirations for Portal 2 is now available on Steam. The sequel's gel mechanics originate in a student game called Tag: The Power of Paint, and while it's been available as freeware online for years, you can now get it on Valve's own platform, too.

Tag was developed by students at DigiPen Institute of Technology back in 2009. It's a first-person puzzle platformer with a paint gun you can use to spray the environment with various colours. Those colours confer the floor and walls with properties that let you slide or bounce off the surface. It's a fun time, and only about 30 minutes long - check it out on Steam if you haven't already played it.

A bunch of indie awards were conferred on Tag, and Valve hired the team behind the project to implement many of those concepts into the gel system for Portal 2. That mirrors the development story of the original Portal - another group of Digipen students released Narbacular Drop in 2005, and were hired by Valve to bring its concepts into a full game.

How does one even approach making a list of the best comedies? Of all genres, this is the one that's the most difficult to pin down. First of all, comedy is entirely subjective -- everyone's sense of humor is different. What works for one person will fall completely flat for another. Then, how do we account for comedy that has aged poorly, but has had a huge impact on the genre, influencing cinema for decades after its release?

Really, embarking on this whole undertaking is like opening up a can of worms. Nevertheless, we've resolved to give it a try. Consider this list a primer of the best comedies released over the course of cinematic history -- with any luck, you'll find more than a few laughs in the films listed here!

9 To 5

If anything, "9 to 5" has only grown more relevant in the years since its release. Who can't relate to the feelings of rage and powerlessness that one experiences when dealing with a particularly monstrous boss at work? 

In "9 to 5," three secretaries have had enough with their infuriatingly misogynistic boss, and they hash out a revenge scheme with hilarious consequences. Aside from Dolly Parton's iconic opening theme, each of the film's three leading ladies are given an opportunity to shine. Tara Brady of the Irish Times says that the film, "retains a barbed relevance beneath its capering and unflattering hairstyles, not to mention one of cinema's most badass trios."

• Starring: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton

• Director: Colin Higgins

• Year: 1980

• Runtime: 110 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

Addams Family Values

One of the rare sequels that vastly surpasses the original, "Addams Family Values" is a delicious ode to the macabre. When a serial husband killer named Debbie (Joan Cusack) gets her hooks in the hapless Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd), the Addams children immediately see through her and are subjected to the worst possible torture as a result: summer camp. Wickedly funny throughout, "Addams Family Values" owes its classic status to Cusack's performance as the melodramatic, self-involved antagonist -- her villain monologue, which comes complete with a slide show presentation, is one for the ages.

• Starring: Raul Julia, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd

• Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

• Year: 1993

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 77%

A Fish Called Wanda

With an all-star cast that includes Monty Python alums John Cleese and Michael Palin, Kevin Kline, and Jamie Lee Curtis, "A Fish Called Wanda" was one of the premier comedy events of the 1980s. When a group of misfit criminals embarks on a carefully planned diamond heist, everyone just can't stop double-crossing one another. "A Fish Called Wanda" has some of the best comedic dialogue of the era, earning itself an Oscar nomination for best writing and best director, as well as a win for Kevin Kline for best actor.

• Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, John Cleese

• Director: Charles Crichton

• Year: 1988

• Runtime: 107 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

Anchorman

Back when the relationship between Will Ferrell and Adam McKay was firing on all cylinders, "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" gave birth to dozens of instantly quotable lines. Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) is the unquestioned king of 1970s San Diego news, but his supremacy is challenged when the network brings in a female co-anchor (Christina Applegate). Their rivalry leads to a hilarious fall from grace for Burgundy, as well as a wacky romance between the two leads. But Burgundy would be nothing without his news team, which is comprised of David Koechner, Paul Rudd, and Steve Carrell, all of whom make their mark on the film in endlessly entertaining ways.

• Starring: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd

• Director: Adam McKay

• Year: 2004

• Runtime: 95 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 66%

Animal House

The gender politics of "Animal House" may not have aged particularly well (and neither have the frat's hazing rituals), but its influence on raucous R-rated comedies is too significant to ignore. A pair of freshmen pledge Delta Tau Chi after being rejected by the more prestigious fraternities on campus. There, they find there a community of misfits singularly committed to the college party lifestyle, led by the laidback Eric (Tim Matheson) and the iconic Bluto, played by John Belushi at the height of his fame. Over-the-top and full of raunchy humor, "Animal House" would serve as the definitive college sex comedy for generations.

• Starring: John Belushi, Tom Hulce, Tim Matheson

• Director: John Landis

• Year: 1978

• Runtime: 109 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Arsenic And Old Lace

Although Cary Grant was primarily known for his romantic comedies throughout the '30s and '40s, romance takes a backseat in the pitch black "Arsenic and Old Lace." Just before he departs on his honeymoon, Mortimer Brewster (Grant) pays a visit to his kindly aunts, only to learn that they have been cheerfully murdering people and burying them under their floorboards. As a much-put-upon nephew whose aunts just don't seem to grasp the enormity of their actions, Grant plays one of the most legitimately hilarious straight men in comedy history.

• Starring: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Peter Lorre

• Director: Frank Capra

• Year: 1944

• Runtime: 118 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery

A delightful parody of 1960s spy films, "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" packs more gags into a minute than most movies manage over their entire run time. Mike Myers stars as Austin Powers, a shagadelic English spy from the swinging '60s who is cryogenically frozen and unthawed in the '90s to battle his greatest enemy, Dr. Evil (also played by Myers). But Powers doesn't just have to face off against Dr. Evil: He has to learn the ways of an entire new world, one with very different sexual politics than the era he left. With a cheeky grin, Mike Myers puts all of his considerable comedic talents into the dual roles.

• Starring: Mike Myers, Elizabeth Hurley, Michael York

• Director: Jay Roach

• Year: 1997

• Runtime: 89 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 73%

Barb And Star Go To Vista Del Mar

Released in the thick of the pandemic, "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar" as a balm for the weary soul. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo play a pair of Midwestern best friends who go on vacation to Florida, leaving their small hometown for the first time ever. Unfortunately, things don't go exactly as planned -- as soon as they arrive at the Vista Del Mar resort, the two quickly become embroiled in a villainous plot to release a horde of lethal mosquitos. Aside from the two delightful lead performances, the film features a hilarious turn from Jamie Dornan, who is given a rare opportunity to display his surprising comedic prowess.

• Starring: Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo, Jamie Dornan

• Director: Josh Greenbaum

• Year: 2021

• Runtime: 106 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%

Beetlejuice

There aren't many films that straddle the line between horror and comedy as well as "Beetlejuice." When a young, strait-laced couple (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) die in a car crash, a new family moves into their home. The only problem? The recently deceased homeowners are still occupying it, and are horrified by the changes made by the cosmopolitan Deetzes, who are played by Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones. That's where Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), a demonic figure guaranteed to scare away the humans, comes in. Keaton delivers a frenetic performance in the titular role, and a young Winona Ryder steals the show as the deeply morbid Deetz daughter, Lydia.

• Starring: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Geena Davis

• Director: Tim Burton

• Year: 1988

• Runtime: 92 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

Being There

A dynamite collaboration between director Hal Ashby and actor Peter Sellers, "Being There" satirizes both class and the world of politics. When a humble gardener (Sellers) is mistaken for an eccentric gentleman with courtly manners, he finds himself bemusedly hobnobbing with the country's elite. "Being There" would earn an Oscar nomination for Sellers, as well as a win for his costar Melvyn Douglas. Richard Combs of Sight & Sound referred to the film as "one of the boldest of commercial comedies, for the way it turns on passages of dead time, the dreadful pauses while other characters struggle to see the significance in each of Chance's cryptically meaningless remarks."

• Starring: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas

• Director: Hal Ashby

• Year: 1979

• Runtime: 130 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

Best In Show

By the time "Best in Show" came out in 2000, director Christopher Guest had long developed a reputation for being one of the leading voices in improvisational mockumentary comedy. Here, he brings together some of his most frequent collaborators to capture the epic highs and lows of the competitive dog show. Complete with overbearing pet owners and larger than life characters, "Best in Show" has a lovably chaotic energy that perfectly showcases the spirit of these well-intentioned oddballs.

• Starring: Michael McKean, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy

• Director: Christopher Guest

• Year: 2000

• Runtime: 90 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

Better Off Dead

John Cusack was one of the go-to teen stars of the 1980s, but while many of his films were light-hearted romantic comedies, "Better Off Dead" taps into something much darker and more wickedly funny. Cusack stars as Lane Meyer, a high school student in a major depressive funk after his girlfriend dumps him for the captain of the ski team. As he copes, he befriends a French foreign exchange student who lives with his bizarre neighbors, drag races Korean immigrants who learned to speak English from watching Howard Cosell, and is chased by a very determined newspaper delivery boy. Filled with quirky, subversive humor, "Better Off Dead" has become a cult classic.

• Starring: John Cusack, Diane Franklin, Curtis Armstrong

• Director: Savage Steve Holland

• Year: 1985

• Runtime: 98 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 77%

Big

Most kids are impatient to grow up. Few are actually able to will themselves into becoming an adult overnight with the help of a mysterious Zoltar machine. But that's exactly what Josh Baskins (Tom Hanks) does in "Big." Suddenly forced into the world of adults while still having the mind of an adolescent, Josh is bereft -- until he lands a great job working at a toy company and starts dating his coworker, that is. Set aside the weirdness of this poor woman coming to terms with the fact that she's inadvertently fallen in love with a child, and you've got a charming comedy with a winning performance from Tom Hanks.

• Starring: Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, John Heard

• Director: Penny Marshall

• Year: 1988

• Runtime: 104 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Blazing Saddles

There's really no such thing as a bad Mel Brooks movie, but "Blazing Saddles" stands among his very best. Starring Cleavon Little as Bart, the first Black sheriff in the dusty western town of Rock Ridge, the parody skewers the Western genre and its inherent racism as Bart and his cowboy friend (Gene Wilder) team up to protect the town from local criminals. Roger Ebert called the film a "crazed grabbag of a movie that does everything to keep us laughing except hit us over the head with a rubber chicken."

• Starring: Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Cleavon Little

• Director: Mel Brooks

• Year: 1974

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

Booksmart

An ode to high school overachievers everywhere, "Booksmart" stars Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein as two graduating seniors who are horrified to realize that they've followed the rules their entire academic lives, never once letting loose to have fun. So, they resolve to make their final night before graduation count by hitting up some last-minute ragers, but their adventures hit quite a few speed bumps. From the girls' awkward attempts to flirt to their drug-induced transformation into dolls, "Booksmart" gives its teen heroines the opportunity to be strange, codependent, and neurotic in a way that few films do.

• Starring: Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, Skylar Gisondo

• Director: Olivia Wilde

• Year: 2019

• Runtime: 102 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

Bridesmaids

When it comes to cinematic comedy duos, few have as much chemistry as former "Saturday Night Live" co-stars Kristin Wiig and Maya Rudolph. In "Bridesmaids," Wiig stars as Annie, a woman who feels threatened by the idea that her best friend Lillian is pulling away from her, especially as Lillian embraces a more grown-up life and prepares for her wedding. Believing that the seemingly perfect Helen (Rose Byrne) is taking her place, Annie acts out in ways that have wildly hilarious consequences. 

In addition to the charming lead performances, "Bridesmaids" proved that a comedy film starring an ensemble of women could not only be genuinely funny, but successful at the box office. It even garnered two Oscar nominations, including one for supporting actress for Melissa McCarthy.

• Starring: Kristin Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne

• Director: Paul Feig

• Year: 2011

• Runtime: 125 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Bringing Up Baby

The on-screen collaboration of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn is one of the best that classic Hollywood has to offer, and "Bringing Up Baby" shows why. Grant plays an exasperated paleontologist who is searching for the last bone to complete the skeleton of his beloved dinosaur. Hepburn is a kooky socialite with a pet leopard in tow, and a delightful little dog who has inconveniently buried said bone. Hijinks ensue. "Bringing Up Baby" was not a major financial success at the time, but it has since gone on to serve as the quintessential screwball comedy.

• Starring: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Charles Ruggles

• Director: Howard Hawks

• Year: 1938

• Runtime: 102 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Caddyshack

With some of the biggest comedy stars of the late 1970s signing on for "Caddyshack," it was pretty much guaranteed to become a classic. The film follows the goings-on at a local country club, where teens and college students work as caddies for entitled golfers. "Caddyshack" lives and dies on the performances of its stars, especially Bill Murray as a groundskeeper locked in a battle with a rogue gopher and Rodney Dangerfield as a gregarious, loud-mouthed golfer. In the years since its release, it has become a comedy staple, and remains one of the most quotable films to come out of the 1980s.

• Starring: Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield

• Director: Harold Ramis

• Year: 1980

• Runtime: 98 minutes

• Rating: R

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 73%

Car Wash

Films like "Clerks" and "Empire Records" owe a significant debt to "Car Wash," which really got the ball rolling on the modern ensemble comedy about a bunch of hard-done-by employees just trying to get through the day. The film takes place at a car wash in Los Angeles, where workers try to navigate obnoxious customers and an overbearing boss. Perhaps worst of all, however, they also have to contend with the boss' son, a well-intentioned but patronizing twenty-something who has just returned from college as a self-professed man of the people, but who is nonetheless happy to take on a managerial role. 

• Starring: Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Franklin Ajaye

• Director: Michael Schultz

• Year: 1976

• Runtime: 97 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

Catch-22

A pitch-black satire based on the classic novel by Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" exemplifies the inherent absurdities of warfare. It stars Alan Arkin as a World War II pilot whose efforts to get sent home are stymied by the titular catch-22: a discharge order would require evidence of mental instability, but the mere act of requesting a transfer away from death and constant warfare is, if anything, proof of sanity. Of Mike Nichol's directorial efforts, Time said, "It is the book's cold rage that he has nurtured. In the jokes that matter, the film is as hard as a diamond, cold to the touch and brilliant to the eye. To Nichols, "Catch-22" is 'about dying'; to Arkin, it is 'about selfishness'; to audiences, it will be a memorable horror comedy of war, with the accent on horror."

• Starring: Alan Arkin, Martin Balsam, Bob Newhart

• Director: Mike Nichols

• Year: 1970

• Runtime: 121 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%

City Slickers

When a trio of Manhattanites take a "relaxing" trip to a dude ranch in "City Slickers," comedy ensues. A grizzled cowboy, Curly (Jack Palance), tries (and frequently fails) to teach the trio of well-meaning doofuses the ropes, and their ill-fated efforts put a comedic spin on concepts of traditional masculinity and vitality. While the entire cast turns in note-perfect performances, Palance's memorable turn was singled out for acclaim, taking home the Academy Award for best supporting actor in a rare win for a comedy.

• Starring: Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby

• Director: Ron Underwood

• Year: 1991

• Runtime: 112 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

Clerks

An ultra-low budget independent film reportedly made for under $30,000, "Clerks" single-handedly put director Kevin Smith on the map. Its premise is simple: The film revolves around two underachieving store clerks, Dante and Randal, and the long conversations they have at work to avoid dealing with the customers that plague their days. A major box office success, "Clerks" launched the View Askewniverse (the name given to Smith's films that take place in the same narrative universe) and introduced the now-famous characters of Jay and Silent Bob.

• Starring: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes

• Director: Kevin Smith

• Year: 1994

• Runtime: 91 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Clue

How many great comedies are adaptations of popular board games? Possibly just this one. Set in a spooky mansion in 1950s New England, "Clue" takes place over the course of one dinner party with an extremely high body count. The murders begin to pile up, as the hapless guests desperately try to figure out who is responsible and keep themselves alive. "Clue" features kooky, fast-paced dialogue and a troupe of talented comedic actors who demonstrate an unshakeable commitment to playing it straight.

• Starring: Tim Curry, Michael McKean, Madeline Kahn

• Director: Jonathan Lynn

• Year: 1985

• Runtime: 96 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 68%

Clueless

A modern take on Jane Austen's "Emma," "Clueless" stars Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz, an entitled Beverly Hills teen determined to play matchmaker for the people in her life, even though her schemes often get her into trouble. Cher's most recent project is Tai (Brittany Murphy), a transfer student who she deems badly in need of a makeover. An icon of mid-1990s cinema, "Clueless" not only reflects the teen culture of the time, but successfully influenced it, with Cher's very specific speech patterns and slang effortlessly becoming part of the zeitgeist.

• Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Brittany Murphy

• Director: Amy Heckerling

• Year: 1995

• Runtime: 97 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%

Coming To America

By the late '80s, there was no one bigger in the comedy world than Eddie Murphy, and "Coming to America" is one of his best films. He stars as Prince Akeem, who travels to America from the African nation of Zamunda in an attempt to escape an arranged marriage and ends up falling in love with a girl from Queens. Although it received mixed reviews when it was initially released (Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times referred to "Coming to America" as a "hollow and wearying Eddie Murphy fairy tale"), it was enormously successful at the box office, becoming one of the highest grossing films of the year.

• Starring: Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, John Amos

• Director: John Landis

• Year: 1988

• Runtime: 116 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 73%

Cooley High

"Cooley High" is a coming-of-age story that serves as a counterpart to the more suburban nostalgia of George Lucas' "American Graffiti." It's Chicago in the 1960s, and two best friends are attempting to navigate their senior year, with frequently humorous but sometimes tragic consequences. When it was released in 1975, "Cooley High" stood in sharp contrast to the blaxploitation films that were popular at the time, and it has long been considered hugely influential on directors such as Spike Lee and John Singleton.

• Starring: Glynn Turman, Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs, Garrett Morris

• Director: Michael Schultz

• Year: 1975

• Runtime: 107 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

Dave

As cynical as we can be about politics, deep down we often have an idealistic desire to believe that our leaders are honest people who could be forces for good if they were given the opportunity. In "Dave," Kevin Kline plays a morally upright actor who bears a striking resemblance to the president -- a similarity that comes in handy when the president suffers a debilitating stroke and urgently needs a stand-in. Dave takes advantage of his time in the White House to make a difference, and while there are a few comedic growing pains as he acclimates to the role, he quickly proves himself up to the challenge of running the nation. With warm, earnest performances from Kline and his co-star, Sigourney Weaver, "Dave" is an unbelievably likable production.

• Starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella

• Director: Ivan Reitman

• Year: 1993

• Runtime: 110 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

The Dead Don't Die

Perhaps one of the more divisive films on this list, "The Dead Don't Die" is nonetheless a genuinely hilarious zombie comedy. It tackles all of the genre's expected tropes, while also gleefully barreling into increasingly surreal territory as it entirely demolishes the fourth wall. 

In the film, a trio of small-town cops are caught unaware when zombies begin to attack, but things only get more dangerous and bizarre as the outbreak continues. With anarchic plot twists and disarmingly deadpan performances, "The Dead Don't Die" isn't quite like any other zombie comedy -- whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is open to interpretation.

• Starring: Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Adam Driver

• Director: Jim Jarmusch

• Year: 2019

• Runtime: 103 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 54%

Death At A Funeral

All that Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen) wants to do is give his father a nice, respectable funeral, but it seems like the entire world is conspiring against him. Between his famous brother shirking his familial responsibilities, his cousin accidentally giving her strait-laced boyfriend (Alan Tudyk) heavy-duty hallucinogens, and his father's secret lover (Peter Dinklage) turning up out of nowhere to demand hush money, Daniel has his hands full. A relentlessly funny comedy of errors, "Death at a Funeral" takes the concept of an emotionally restrained upper-class British funeral and turns it on its head.

• Starring: Alan Tudyk, Peter Dinklage, Matthew Macfadyen

• Director: Frank Oz

• Year: 2007

• Runtime: 90 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 62%

The Death Of Stalin

When Stalin dies in his sleep, his inner circle is less grief-stricken and more flummoxed. What are a group of yes men supposed to do when their leader isn't around anymore, forcing them to grapple with one another for scraps of influence in the midst of a major power vacuum? 

With the television shows "Veep" and "The Thick of It" under his belt, director Armando Iannucci built his career around political satire, and "The Death of Stalin" should feel familiar to fans of his unique brand of comedy. With a strong ensemble of supporting actors who are each (unlike their characters) willing to share the spotlight, "The Death of Stalin" is side-splittingly hilarious.

• Starring: Steve Buscemi, Jason Isaacs, Simon Russell Beale

• Director: Armando Iannucci

• Year: 2018

• Runtime: 107 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoise

From the king of surrealism himself, Luis Buñuel, "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise" is a French comedy about a group of upper-middle-class friends who attempt to share a meal, despite a constant barrage of interruptions. Willing to play fast and loose with reality, the film is less one coherent storyline and more a series of intertwining vignettes. It was tremendously popular upon its release, earning an Academy Award for best foreign language film. Vincent Canby of the New York Times said of the film, "In addition to being extraordinarily funny and perfectly acted, 'The Discreet Charm' moves with the breathtaking speed and self-assurance that only a man of Buñuel's experience can achieve without resorting to awkward ellipsis."

• Starring: Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig, Stéphane Audran

• Director: Luis Buñuel

• Year: 1972

• Runtime: 100 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood

The Wayans brothers have a long history with parody, beginning with "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka," a 1988 film riffing on the blaxploitation genre. In "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood," they turn their comedic gaze to the Black coming-of-age films that came out in the early 1990s, including "Boyz N the Hood" and "Do the Right Thing." When Ashtray (Shawn Wayans) moves in with his father, he learns all about life in the hood — in the funniest way possible. Although it was not particularly well-received by critics at the time, it has since become a cult classic.

• Starring: Shawn Wayans, Marlon Wayans, Tracey Cherelle Jones

• Director: Paris Barclay

• Year: 1996

• Runtime: 88 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 30%

Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb

In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, audiences likely did not need a reminder of how close they were to nuclear war and destruction. Nevertheless, that's exactly what "Dr. Strangelove" offers. It's a chilling, subversive satire that skewers the American military and political structures as being full of buffoons, yes men, and dangerous megalomaniacs whose existence is the only thing standing between us and nuclear winter. It's also a comedy. That's the genius of "Dr. Strangelove" — it doesn't pull its punches. It develops its characters with ludicrous absurdism that we can't help but laugh at.

• Starring: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Keenan Wynn

• Director: Stanley Kubrick

• Year: 1964

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

The Edge Of Seventeen

With "The Edge of Seventeen," director Kelly Fremon Craig ushers in a new era of high school comedies in which teenage girls are allowed to be as weird and horny as their male counterparts. Hailee Steinfeld stars as an awkward student whose world is rocked when she learns that her best (and only) friend has been secretly dating her brother. To make matters worse, she accidentally sends her crush a graphic message on social media about all the raunchy things she'd like to do to him in the backroom of the pet store where he works. A perfect mix of the funny and the heartfelt, "The Edge of Seventeen" is one of the best teen comedies in years.

• Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Haley Lu Richardson, Woody Harrelson

• Director: Kelly Fremon Craig

• Year: 2016

• Runtime: 105 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

The charming tale of an upper-middle-class teenager who's spent his entire life avoiding the consequences of his actions, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" succeeds in large part due to Matthew Broderick's charismatic turn in the role of Ferris. He decides to play hooky from school one day, dragging his neurotic best friend, Cameron (Alan Ruck,) and his easygoing girlfriend, Sloane (Mia Sara), along for the ride. A series of misadventures ensues, as the trio makes their way across Chicago, narrowly evading their principal (Jeffrey Jones) and Ferris' sister (Jennifer Grey), who are both trying to catch them in the act.

• Starring: Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, Alan Ruck

• Director: John Hughes

• Year: 1986

• Runtime: 103 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%

The Freshman

Among the big three silent comedians (Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd), Lloyd was the most charming in a romantic comedy context. In "The Freshman," he tackles the 1920s trend of college-themed movies, playing an awkward first-year student who resolves to join the football team in a bid to win his crush's affections. All of Lloyd's performances are intensely physical, but "The Freshman" is particularly punishing, as he puts his body on the line to achieve a variety of pratfalls on the football field that holds up to this day.

• Starring: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, James Anderson

• Director: Sam Taylor, Fred Newmeyer

• Year: 1925

• Runtime: 70 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Friday

Arguably best known for introducing the internet meme, "Bye, Felicia," "Friday" is a stoner comedy starring Ice Cube and Chris Tucker. Taking place over the course of one Friday, it's a slice-of-life narrative about two friends who find themselves in over their heads with a drug dealer. "Friday" was created in part as a response to the many dramatic films released in the early 1990s that focused primarily on violence in urban communities. Its production team sought to bring a comedic, lighthearted sensibility that more closely resembled their own experiences.

• Starring: Ice Cube, Chris Tucker, Nia Long

• Director: F. Gary Gray

• Year: 1995

• Runtime: 91 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%

Galaxy Quest

A note-perfect sendup of "Star Trek" (and more importantly, "Star Trek" fandom), "Galaxy Quest" stars Tim Allen as a washed-up '70s TV star who milks science fiction conventions for all their worth. The rest of the cast from his popular TV show can barely hide how much they loathe him as they're forced to rehash old grievances at every public appearance. Still, they have to work together when they're recruited to mediate between two alien races who have received old transmissions of their show and believe them to be real historical records. Funny, heartfelt, and exciting, "Galaxy Quest" is nearly perfect.

• Starring: Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman

• Director: Dean Parisot

• Year: 1999

• Runtime: 104 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Game Night

An ultra-competitive couple (played by Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams at their most charming) live and die by their organized game nights with their friends. But one day, Brooks (Kyle Chandler) shows up and introduces an element of danger to the festivities, and a murder mystery party ends up involving the gang in actual crime. A perfect blend of action and comedy, "Game Night" takes the audience through a series of hilarious twists and turns. Jesse Plemons gives an incomparable supporting performance as Gary, the oddball neighbor.

• Starring: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler

• Director: John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein

• Year: 2018

• Runtime: 100 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

In "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell play two showgirls and best friends on a cruise. Lorelei (Monroe) is bubbly, obsessed with diamonds, and way smarter than she looks. Dorothy (Russell) would take a bullet for her friend, even when her social-climbing hijinks get in the way of her opportunity to ogle the entire U.S. men's Olympic team (in a musical number that is probably one of the most hilariously horny ever committed to celluloid). "Gentlemen" may be in the title, but the biggest joke of the film is that at no point does it seem that Lorelei or Dorothy particularly care what they prefer.

• Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Charles Coburn

• Director: Howard Hawks

• Year: 1953

• Runtime: 91 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

Ghostbusters

When New York City is suddenly plagued by a scourge of malicious ghosts, a trio of misfit scientists start their own small business to meet an obvious need. Thus, the Ghostbusters are born. Although some of the spirits featured in the film are more spooky than others, the efforts of Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and Harold Ramis to keep them in line are always funny. "Ghostbusters" was a massive hit when it was first released, earning nearly $300 million at the box office and spawning several sequels and reboots that stretch to the present day.

• Starring: Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis

• Director: Ivan Reitman

• Year: 1984

• Runtime: 107 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Girls Trip

When four friends decide to embark on an epic road trip to reconnect in "Girls Trip," things don't go exactly as planned. Their various misadventures see them get in scrapes with one another and accidentally hallucinate while drinking absinthe, but their wildly comedic journey only serves to bring them closer together. When speaking with the Hollywood Reporter, writer Tracy Oliver said that she wanted to show "Black women being carefree and having fun just like everybody else," adding, "I think we need to show all aspects of black lives. I love 'Moonlight,' I love 'Hidden Figures,' but I also want to see some people who are having fun and just showing female friends hanging out."

• Starring: Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith

• Director: Malcolm D. Lee

• Year: 2017

• Runtime: 122 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

Good Bye Lenin!

There's not much funny about the Berlin Wall falling as your mother has a debilitating heart attack that leaves her in a coma. However, "Good Bye Lenin!" manages to find the humor in a son's desperate, increasingly manic attempts to preserve a slice of East German life for his mother when she wakes up, believing that the shock of a rapidly Westernized, reunited Germany will finish her off. Daniel Brühl puts in a star-making performance, creating a miniature world for his mother to not only shield her from reality but also capture the last melancholy remnants of the flawed but familiar country that has always been his home.

• Starring: Daniel Brühl, Katrin Saß, Chulpan Khamatova

• Director: Wolfgang Becker

• Year: 2003

• Runtime: 121 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Groundhog Day

"Groundhog Day" is proof that the wish of having all the time in the world is not all it's cracked up to be. When a grumpy weatherman (played by Bill Murray, of course) is sent to cover a fluff piece about Groundhog Day, he isn't exactly thrilled about the assignment. But things get considerably worse when he is forced to relive this single day thousands of times — to the point where he has memorized the actions of every single person in town and learned a host of new skills to pass the time. We've seen plenty of time loop movies since, but they all owe a debt of gratitude to the one that started them all.

• Starring: Bill Murray, Andie McDowell, Chris Elliot

• Director: Harold Ramis

• Year: 1993

• Runtime: 96 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Harvey

"There are two ways to live well: You can be smart or pleasant. I've been smart for years, and I recommend pleasant." This is the philosophy of Elwood P. Dowd (James Stewart), the quirky lead of "Harvey." His family is horrified by his intimate friendship with Harvey, a seemingly imaginary six-foot-tall rabbit that only Dowd can see. The plot descends into screwball comedy as they attempt to have him committed, but "Harvey" has a surprisingly wise and heartwarming message that even in the conformist 1950s, normal is overrated.

• Starring: James Stewart, Josephine Hull, Cecil Kellaway

• Director: Henry Koster

• Year: 1950

• Runtime: 104 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%

Heathers

A withering anti-social response to John Hughes' view of teen life in America, "Heathers" stars Winona Ryder as Veronica, a girl who finds herself part of a vacuous clique that she quietly loathes but can't seem to extricate herself from. That is until J.D. (Christian Slayer) moves to town. His counterculture vibes are a breath of fresh air in monotonous suburbia. However, his rebellion quickly takes on a homicidal edge, and Veronica unwittingly becomes entangled in an accidental murder spree. With its pitch-black, subversive humor, "Heathers" is an open rejection of Ronald Reagan's 1980s Americana.

• Starring: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty

• Director: Michael Lehmann

• Year: 1989

• Runtime: 102 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

His Girl Friday

When it comes to screwball comedies from the 1930s and 1940s, Cary Grant is unquestionably your man. In "His Girl Friday," he plays a cynical newspaper editor who goes a little bit off the rails when he finds out that his ex-wife (Rosalind Russell) is about to get remarried. He uses the promise of a juicy story about a murderer scheduled for execution to lure her back into her fast-paced life as a journalist and, he hopes, a renewed relationship with him. Grant's chemistry with Russell is off the charts. Together, they make a fine pair in this classic Howard Hawks comedy.

• Starring: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy

• Director: Howard Hawks

• Year: 1940

• Runtime: 92 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%

Hollywood Shuffle

If there's a dearth of film roles available to Black men right now that don't fall into racial stereotypes, it was significantly worse in the 1980s. "Hollywood Shuffle" was written in response. Robert Townsend stars as Bobby Taylor, a young man who dreams of becoming an actor. His efforts to find success in Hollywood lead him to grapple with his conscience as he considers taking on poorly-written, racially insensitive roles. Taylor's concerns are presented as daydreams in which offensive Hollywood demands are exaggerated for comedic effect. One sequence depicts a school that teaches Black actors how to act "more Black" to meet the needs of a white production team. Bitingly witty and still relevant, "Hollywood Shuffle" is one of the best satires of the 1980s.

• Starring: Robert Townsend, Anne-Marie Johnson, Starletta DuPois

• Director: Robert Townsend

• Year: 1987

• Runtime: 80 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

House Party

Released in 1990, "House Party" stars Christopher Reid and Christopher Martin (also known as the hip-hop group Kid 'n Play) as a pair of teenagers determined to throw a rager, even if parents and an inordinate amount of trouble stand in their way. The film features some familiar faces, including Martin Lawrence, George Clinton, and Robin Harris, who tragically died just a few days after the film's release. Roger Ebert had positive words for the film, writing "the musical is a canvas used by the director, Reginald Hudlin, to show us Black teenagers with a freshness and originality that's rare in modern movies."

• Starring: Robin Harris, Christopher Reid, Christopher Martin

• Director: Reginald Hudlin

• Year: 1990

• Runtime: 100 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

A frenetic adventure, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" features a cadre of Hollywood stars in a race to lay claim to a hidden fortune. When a dying man reveals the location of a $350,000 stash, the unlikely witnesses to his deathbed confession are left to fight it out. It's at times an unwieldy comedy, clocking in at nearly three hours (something practically unheard of for the genre), but it hits far more often than it misses. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times described it simply, saying that "So many excellent actors and stunt men do so much in this film that it is beyond my space allowance to begin to credit them."

• Starring: Spencer Tracy, Edie Adams, Milton Berle

• Director: Stanley Kramer

• Year: 1963

• Runtime: 175 minutes

• Rating: G

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 70%

Kind Hearts And Coronets

A pitch-black comedy with razor-sharp wit, "Kind Hearts and Coronets" shows the lengths to which someone will go when driven by a sense of pride and entitlement. Dennis Price stars as Louis, the son of a well-born woman who disgraced her family by marrying below her station. Raised with a powerful sense of his noble ancestry, Louis decides to take his rightful place as the heir to the family fortune — even if it means killing every relative ahead of him in line! Alec Guinness is especially impressive, playing each of Louis' many estranged family members. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times wrote of his performance, "The sly and adroit Mr. Guinness plays eight Edwardian fuddy-duds with such devastating wit and variety that he naturally dominates the film."

• Starring: Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Valerie Hobson

• Director: Robert Hamer

• Year: 1949

• Runtime: 104 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

MASH

Set during the Korean War (although providing obvious political commentary on the then-ongoing Vietnam War), "MASH" revolves around the doctors and nurses who serve on the front lines at a military hospital. Despite its serious subject matter, Robert Altman's unique directorial style helps it to succeed as an irreverent comedy. The film proved so popular that it was quickly spun off into a television series. The version of "MASH" that starred Alan Alda and ran for 11 seasons on CBS is perhaps the more famous of the two iterations, but the film stands on its own as a subversive black comedy.

• Starring: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Sally Kellerman

• Director: Robert Altman

• Year: 1970

• Runtime: 116 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

Meatballs

Released just two years after Bill Murray made his debut as part of the cast of "Saturday Night Live," "Meatballs" served as proof that he could headline a major motion picture. He stars as Tripper Harrison, a counselor at an under-funded and under-staffed summer camp, who is just trying to get his campers and counselors-in-training back home alive. The film succeeds largely on his talents, with Gary Arnold of the Washington Post saying, "As the seniors boys' counselor, an easygoing role model, and spontaneous comic genius, Bill Murray of 'Saturday Night Live' makes a deceptively sensational debut as a film comedy star."

• Starring: Bill Murray, Chris Makepeace, Kate Lynch

• Director: Ivan Reitman

• Year: 1979

• Runtime: 92 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 72%

Midnight Run

Thanks to films like "Meet the Fockers," we're all familiar with Robert De Niro's comedic side, but when "Midnight Run" was released in 1988, he was primarily known as a serious film actor. His biggest hits up to that point had been "The Godfather Part II," "Taxi Driver," and "Raging Bull" — not exactly laugh riots. "Midnight Run" shows us a different side of the actor, allowing him to flip the script on his traditional tough-guy persona (here he plays a bounty hunter tasked with bringing in a mob accountant) and introduce a little levity to the proceedings. The result is overwhelmingly positive — Vincent Canby of the New York Times referred to De Niro and his costar Charles Grodin as "lunatic delights."

• Starring: Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Yaphet Kotto

• Director: Martin Brest

• Year: 1988

• Runtime: 122 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Modern Times

By 1936, silent film was all but dead — except, that is, in the eyes of Charlie Chaplin. He was slow to adopt sound, and "Modern Times" proves that he still had a few tricks up his sleeve. Chaplin stars as a harried factory worker who has a breakdown while working the assembly line, culminating in an imaginative sequence in which he becomes caught in the cogs of a machine. "Modern Times" has the pratfalls and slapstick humor one might expect from a Chaplin film, but it's also a subversive commentary about the burden of modern labor practices on the common worker.

• Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman

• Director: Charlie Chaplin

• Year: 1936

• Runtime: 89 minutes

• Rating: G

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

Moonstruck

Cher and Nicolas Cage might not be an obvious on-screen duo, but as we see in "Moonstruck," they just sort of make sense together. They both have the same frenetic energy that makes them constantly engaging, even when they're wildly dysfunctional. In "Moonstruck," Loretta (Cher) is engaged to marry Johnny (Danny Aiello). When she accidentally falls in love with his hot-headed younger brother Donny (Cage), a baker with one hand and a propensity to fly off the handle, chaos ensues. "Moonstruck" is frequently loud, often aggressive, but always charming.

• Starring: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello

• Director: Norman Jewison

• Year: 1987

• Runtime: 101 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Monty Python And The Holy Grail

If there were only going to be one Monty Python film on this list, it would have to be "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" for the sheer impact it has had on cinematic comedy. It stars Graham Chapman as a perpetually exasperated King Arthur, and it highlights his adventures alongside the Knights of the Round Table as they seek the fabled Holy Grail. Along the way, they encounter significant obstacles, including obstinate Frenchmen, a group of randy maidens at Castle Anthrax, the forbidding Knights Who Say Ni, and, of course, one homicidal rabbit. "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" maintains a lofty position as one of the most frequently quoted comedies of all time.

• Starring: Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Michael Palin

• Director: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones

• Year: 1975

• Runtime: 90 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

My Cousin Vinny

Let's all take a moment to stand in awe of Joe Pesci's crowning achievement, "My Cousin Vinny." He has no business being so funny as Vinny, a New York lawyer who is way out of his depth when he travels to the deep South to defend a young relative (Ralph Macchio) who has been charged with murder. There's absolutely no reason why he should have such electric chemistry with Marisa Tomei (who won an Oscar for her performance), who plays his endlessly clever girlfriend, Mona Lisa. Somehow, he just does, and it all works. There's not a single line or gesture that isn't executed for maximum comedic effect in "My Cousin Vinny."

• Starring: Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, Ralph Macchio

• Director: Jonathan Lynn

• Year: 1992

• Runtime: 119 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%

My Man Godfrey

During the Great Depression, screwball comedies had a tremendous amount of class consciousness. "My Man Godfrey" is a perfect example. In the film, a wealthy woman (Carole Lombard) adopts the homeless Godfrey (William Powell) to serve as her family's butler. She intends to help him get off the streets and into a comfortable home, even if her methods are patronizing (and ultimately unnecessary, as we learn that Godfrey is just as rich as her, only living with vagrants to get in touch with the common man). Nevertheless, she ends up falling for him, and the family's condescending philanthropy is turned on its head. "My Man Godfrey" is one of the best comedies and social commentaries of the 1930s.

• Starring: Carole Lombard, William Powell, Alice Brady

• Director: Gregory La Cava

• Year: 1936

• Runtime: 95 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

The Nutty Professor

A play on the classic "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" story, Jerry Lewis reaches new comedic heights with "The Nutty Professor," a film he both directed and starred in. He plays a shy, submissive chemistry professor who can't even prevent his students from pushing him around. That all changes when he invents a serum that instantly transforms him into the ultra-suave (and kind of mean and misogynistic) Buddy Love. 

His alter ego is irresistibly charming and often speculated to be a ruthless parody of Lewis' frequent on-screen partner, Dean Martin. However, Lewis denied this. He claimed that Buddy Love was "actually a conglomeration of every unkind, nasty son of a b*tch I had seen all of my life. The man who says, 'Waitress, where the hell is my coffee?' ... the man who takes the cab in the rain from the lady who had her hand on the [door] handle."

• Starring: Jerry Lewis, Stella Stevens, Del Moore

• Director: Jerry Lewis

• Year: 1963

• Runtime: 107 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%

The Odd Couple

"The Odd Couple" is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau make a very odd couple indeed. When neurotic, fastidious Felix (Lemmon) moves into the bachelor pad of perennial slob Oscar (Matthau), it requires a little bit of an adjustment period for them to figure out how to live together. Their personalities and lifestyles clash in the most hilarious ways. The duo made such an impression that they would team up again decades later as the titular "Grumpy Old Men" in the 1990s.

• Starring: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Fiedler

• Director: Gene Saks

• Year: 1968

• Runtime: 105 minutes

• Rating: G

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Office Space

An ode to the sheer pointlessness of office culture, "Office Space" speaks to everyone who has ever fantasized about quitting their day job. Ron Livingston stars as Peter, an office drone who quietly hates his life until his girlfriend convinces him to attend a hypnosis session. When the hypnotist suffers a fatal heart attack before waking him from his trance, Peter is stuck with a relaxed, devil-may-care attitude towards his job. Surprisingly, this makes his bosses respect him even more, perceiving him as a straight shooter. Full of great comedic moments (including the gangster-style execution of a perpetually malfunctioning printer), "Office Space" has grown in relevance since its release.

• Starring: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, David Herman

• Director: Mike Judge

• Year: 1999

• Runtime: 89 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

Once upon a time, Pee-wee Herman (played by Paul Reubens) was everyone's favorite naïve man child. In "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," our intrepid hero embarks on a cross-country adventure in search of his beloved bike, which has gone missing, much to Pee-wee's consternation. The entire production exists in a heightened reality, from the childlike feud between Herman and his ultimate nemesis Francis to his madcap escapade on a Hollywood set to his legitimately frightening encounter with the terrifying truck-driving ghost Large Marge. Director Tim Burton imbues this sweet film with a strange sense of menace that lies just beneath its candy-coated exterior, making "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" equal parts charming and unsettling.

• Starring: Paul Reubens, E.G. Daily, Diane Salinger

• Director: Tim Burton

• Year: 1985

• Runtime: 90 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 87%

Planes, Trains And Automobiles

In 1987 you could simply put Steve Martin and John Candy on-screen together, and it would be funny. The two play an unlikely duo in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," the classic story of two very different men desperately trying to get home for the holidays. Straight-laced Neal Page (Martin) has had his flight rerouted at the last minute, putting his Thanksgiving plans with his wife and children in jeopardy. The last thing in the world he needs is to end up with the good-hearted but obnoxious Del Griffith (Candy) — but that's what happens. Despite their differences, they have to work together to make it back home for the holiday.

• Starring: Steve Martin, John Candy, Laila Robins

• Director: John Hughes

• Year: 1987

• Runtime: 92 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

If there's any single entity ripe for parody, it's the self-important performing artist who is ultra-convinced of their own talent. "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping" stars Andy Samberg as Conner (aka Conner4Real), the former frontman of the wildly successful pop-rap group the Style Boyz, who goes solo. The film chronicles his seemingly endless series of poor decisions — creative, professional, and romantic. "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping" is held together by Conner's relentless optimism and a soundtrack full of note-perfect comedy musical numbers.

• Starring: Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone

• Director: Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone

• Year: 2016

• Runtime: 86 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 79%

Private Benjamin

When Judy Benjamin's (Goldie Hawn) new husband dies suddenly while in the middle of sex, she decides to take her life in a different direction. Thanks to a fortuitous conversation with a military recruiter, the pampered, indoorsy woman joins the Army. That's the basic plot of "Private Benjamin." Judy is a fish out of water as she tries to make her way through boot camp. While "Private Benjamin" laughs with Judy, it restrains itself from laughing at her. Hawn is too unrelentingly charming to be the subject of mockery for long, and her journey ultimately leads her to self-discovery.

• Starring: Goldie Hawn, Eileen Brennan, Armand Assante

• Director: Howard Zieff

• Year: 1980

• Runtime: 109 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 82%

The Producers

In Mel Brooks' "The Producers," Leopold Bloom (Gene Wilder) and Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) come up with a foolproof plan: They will produce a Broadway show so bad that it's guaranteed to flop, and they'll make a killing because they never have to pay back their investors. The result? "Springtime for Hitler," a garish, campy ode to the Third Reich that is in appallingly poor taste. But when it becomes a surprise hit, disaster looms for the suddenly successful theater producers. Wilder and Mostel are at the top of their game, bouncing off each other with the wit and precision of seasoned vaudeville performers.

• Starring: Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel, Kenneth Mars

• Director: Mel Brooks

• Year: 1968

• Runtime: 88 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Raising Arizona

Whenever the Coen brothers are involved, you know two things for certain: There's going to be crime, and it's probably going to be hilarious. That's what we get in "Raising Arizona," an off-kilter romantic comedy that showcases Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter at their absolute best. Cage is a petty criminal who can't stop getting arrested. Hunter is a police officer who falls in love with him in spite of herself. They marry, but when they are unable to conceive, they land upon a perfect solution: They'll kidnap one of the quintuplets that have been in the news recently. After all, with five babies, what are the odds that someone would notice one missing? This plan goes as poorly as you might expect, but it's a perfect disaster that makes an entertaining movie.

• Starring: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, John Goodman

• Director: Joel Coen

• Year: 1987

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

Rushmore

Eccentric indie auteur Wes Anderson's second film, "Rushmore," was a massive critical success that put the director on the map. It stars Jason Schwartzman as Max Fischer, a precocious teenager who is incredibly invested in a variety of extracurricular activities at his prep school despite being on the verge of flunking out. While he attempts to mount his theatrical opus on the high school stage, he finds himself falling in love with elementary school teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). Max's crush brings him into conflict with his curmudgeonly, older friend (Bill Murray), who happens to also be romantically interested in her. Come for Murray's quiet exasperation with his annoying teenage sons, and stay for the priceless exchange in which Dr. Peter Flynn (Luke Wilson) says, "These are O.R. scrubs," to which Max replies, "O.R. they?"

• Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams

• Director: Wes Anderson

• Year: 1998

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

School Of Rock

When deadbeat rocker Dewey (Jack Black) takes on a substitute teaching job in a desperate bid to earn enough money to keep his roommate off his back, he discovers a classroom full of elementary school students waiting to be transformed into a pint-sized rock band. Thus, the "School of Rock" is born. Jack Black was born for the role of a deeply dysfunctional mentor who offers a sense of chaos mixed with his genuine support for his students. "School of Rock" wouldn't be the outright classic that it is without its deep bench of young actors, all of whom are strong performers and preternaturally talented musicians.

• Starring: Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White

• Director: Richard Linklater

• Year: 2003

• Runtime: 108 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

Shaun Of The Dead

The first entry in Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy, "Shaun of the Dead" is a comedic take on the traditional zombie film. Shaun (Simon Pegg) doesn't have a lot going for him. He works a dead-end job and seems to be perpetually disappointing his girlfriend, Liz (Kate Ashfield), who wants them to take the next step in their lives together. Luckily (or unluckily), Shaun gets the perfect opportunity to prove himself when zombies descend upon their town, and he and his best friend, Ed (Nick Frost), must step up to defend the people they care about. Sweet, scary, and genuinely funny, "Shaun of the Dead" is a true original.

• Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Lucy Davis

• Director: Edgar Wright

• Year: 2004

• Runtime: 97 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

Sherlock Jr.

In this classic Buster Keaton silent film, the stone-faced comedian stars as a young projectionist who daydreams constantly about being a famous detective and wooing the woman of his dreams. "Sherlock Jr" features plenty of Keaton's trademark stunts and practical effects, including a notable fantasy sequence in which he is transported into the world of the film. The scenes keep changing around him so that one minute he's standing in a peaceful garden, the next in front of a speeding train. 

• Starring: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Ward Crane

• Director: Buster Keaton

• Year: 1924

• Runtime: 48 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

She's Gotta Have It

In 1986, director Spike Lee hadn't been proclaimed the next big thing yet. All he had was this little film, "She's Gotta Have It," which despite barely getting funded, became one of the cornerstones of the independent film movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s. It stars Tracy Camilla Johns as Nola, a sexually-liberated woman who isn't particularly interested in monogamy. In the film, she dates three men at the same time, partially because she finds different qualities appealing in each of them but also because she doesn't feel the desire to be tied down to just one person. Although it has some problematic elements (Lee himself has said that his one directorial regret is a sequence in this film), for the most part, it's a breezy, endearing introduction to his career.

• Starring: Tracy Camilla Johns, Tommy Redmond Hicks, John Canada Terrell

• Director: Spike Lee

• Year: 1986

• Runtime: 84 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Singin' In The Rain

You would be forgiven for considering "Singin' in the Rain" just a musical. After all, it is one of the very best of that genre. But as a parody of old Hollywood, especially in its depiction of silent film diva, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), it packs more humor into its runtime than many movies that are promoted as straight comedies. Lina, with her boorish behavior and comically screechy voice ill-suited for the transition to talkies, and perpetually quipping sidekick, Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor), provide plenty to laugh at in between musical numbers.

• Starring: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds

• Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

• Year: 1952

• Runtime: 102 minutes

• Rating: G

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Sister Act

It just makes sense. If you're hiding from the Mob, a nunnery has to be the last place they would think to look, right? Anyway, that's the logic in "Sister Act." When Deloris (Whoopi Goldberg) witnesses a murder, she is swiftly whisked away for her protection, posing as the newest nun in a convent in California. The quiet life doesn't particularly suit her, but she finds an unexpected outlet in running the convent's choir. "Sister Act" was a massive hit at the box office, ultimately earning over $230 million worldwide — not bad for a relatively inexpensive production with a budget of $31 million.

• Starring: Whoopi Goldberg, Maggie Smith, Kathy Najimy

• Director: Emile Ardolino

• Year: 1992

• Runtime: 100 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 74%

Slap Shot

The third collaboration between director George Roy Hill and actor Paul Newman, "Slap Shot" is a quintessential sports comedy. Set in a Rust Belt factory town whose best days are far behind it, the film follows the exploits of a local hockey team that is willing to resort to desperate (and violent) measures to win. Newman stars as the team's goalie and coach, who encourages his team to play ...

Before they called her "Queen of Swords," Cheng Pei-Pei was a dancer. As a child in Shanghai, while waiting for her younger sister to finish ballet class, she would mimic the movements of the surrounding dancers. A teacher there was impressed and signed her up for classes. Before long, she was training in both ballet and traditional Chinese dance. After her family left the mainland for Hong Kong, an opportunity arose to join the Shaw Brothers, a film studio on its way to become one of the most important in the history of Hong Kong.

Cheng's fluency in Mandarin Chinese coupled with her dance background made her a natural fit. At that time, the Shaw Brothers specialized in musical dramas like "The Kingdom and the Beauty." They saw potential in Cheng to become another Ivy Ling Po, a Chinese opera film star. A role in 1964's Huangmei opera film "The Magic Lamp" set Cheng on her way. But fate had different plans for her. In 1965, the Shaw Brothers decided that the studio's future was not in Chinese opera, but in martial arts. The movies that would emerge from this period, tales of heroic martial artists joining forces against impossible odds, make up some of the best examples of the heroic "wuxia" genre on film.

The King And The Queen

In the years to come, critics would hail Cheng's "grace, agility and dignity, which...came from her background in ballet, music, and Chinese dance." Cheng possessed all these skills and more, but just as important a trait was her willingness to challenge herself. When the Shaw Brothers offered to train their crew in martial arts, Cheng jumped in head first. "I'm very proud, and competitive to a fault," she would later say in an interview with TimeOut. "I thought, if a man can do it, so can I." Cheng's spirit grabbed the eye of Runrun Shaw, one of the two Shaw Brothers, who immediately made the connection between her folk dancing prowess and a future career as a martial arts actor. Soon Cheng was given the lead role in a project that was to be a turning point in the history of Hong Kong film. That film was "Come Drink With Me," and its director was King Hu.

Despite having very different skill sets, King Hu and Cheng Pei-pei were actually quite alike. Like Cheng, Hu had left the mainland for Hong Kong. His fluency at Mandarin Chinese had won him a position with the Shaw Brothers as a set decorator. Also like Cheng, Hu did not set out to revolutionize the way martial arts films were made. His main skillset was acting, and he appeared in several films before apprenticing as a director under the famous Li Hanxiang. His first film was a propaganda picture meant to slam the Japanese, and his follow-up "Ting Yee-shan" was canceled once it became clear propaganda pictures were no longer profitable. The Shaw Brothers wanted a martial arts film, and Hu together with Chang Ping-ping were in the right place at the right time to make it happen.

Golden Swallow's Unstoppable Sword

Martial arts tales had existed long before "Come Drink With Me." Chinese classics like "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Outlaws of the Marsh" depicted larger-than-life encounters between powerful warriors dueling to death. On the other side of the realism spectrum you had the equally important "Journey to the West," which in addition to its themes of Buddhism and enlightenment featured irrepressible transforming monkeys, magical tools, and man-eating bone demons. Early films made in China and Hong Kong had sought to capture the grandeur of these tales, but resorted to tricks to sell the illusion of supernatural human ability these stories required. "Fast or slow motion, footage printed backwards, animation..." According to the Harvard Film Archive, Hu avoided these tricks as much as possible. Instead he relied upon "the actual skills of his performers and the magic of editing."

"Come Drink With Me" walks a careful line between realism and the supernatural. Cheng Ping-ping plays Golden Swallow, the child of a general seeking to rescue their brother from a bandit gang. She is introduced as a man, her actual gender only revealed later in the story. The character's introduction puts total faith in Cheng's athletic skill, trusting that her grace of movement coupled with detailed choreography would convince the audience they were witnessing a true martial artist at work. Watching the film today, the viewer senses immediately that Golden Swallow is stronger and faster than her peers, simply by observing the incredulous reactions of bystanders to the stunts she performs. Yet her performance remains grounded in physical reality, as does her villainous rival Jade Faced Tiger. Only Golden Swallow's comrade-in-arms Drunken Cat, and his nemesis Liao Kung, manifest abilities that are explicitly supernatural.

The Shadow Of Jin Yong

"Come Drink With Me" was not alone in redefining martial arts stories. Jin Yong's "Legend of the Condor Heroes," one of the most popular martial arts novels, began serialization in 1957. "Condor Heroes" borrows from past masterpieces, integrating historical drama, political and interpersonal conflict and some mythological elements. But like "Come Drink With Me," it grounds itself in a melodramatic realism. The characters and their relationships are at the forefront, and the supernatural is  a hidden current under the surface of the world rather than a dominating force. "Come Drink With Me" is not a novel, and I don't know if anybody on set was an avid reader of Jin Yong. But I believe that these two works heralded a transformation in how these stories were told, creating a new paradigm upon which artists would riff for decades.

Another aspect in which "Come Drink With Me" and "Condor Heroes" broke ground is in their treatment of women. The hero of "Condor Heroes" is the naive but loyal male martial artist Guo Jing, but his soulmate Huang Rong steals the show. Huang is a quick and dirty fighter who resorts to trickery and poison, and while she loves Guo Jing too much to ever hurt him she happily plots circles around everybody else. "Come Drink With Me" similarly puts its heroine Golden Swallow front and center. For the film's first half, she plays the role of a headstrong martial arts hero without compromise. Complicating the scenario, Golden Swallow initially introduces herself as a man rather than a woman, introducing cross-dressing into the mix (Cheng had earlier played the role of a boy in her first film "The Magic Lamp.") Similarly, Huang Rong of "Condor Heroes" first befriends Guo Jing while dressed as a boy.

King Exits, The Queen Rules

That said, both "Come Drink With Me" and "Condor Heroes" only allow their female characters so much leeway. While Huang Rong makes a big impression in "Condor Heroes," the narrative truly revolves around Guo Jing. Similarly, Golden Swallow is poisoned halfway through "Come Drink With Me," at which point the reluctant martial artist Drunken Cat steps into the spotlight. Cheng Pei-pei comes back for the final battle, but the degree to which the narrative sidelines her character can't help but leave a bad aftertaste.

King Hu would evolve even further as a director in later films like "Dragon Inn" and "A Touch of Zen." These later two films are thought to be his true masterpieces, the high water mark of the wuxia genre on celluloid. But "Come Drink With Me" remains an important film, if only because of Cheng Pei-pei's performance. Hu took for granted she would star in his next film "Dragon Inn." Cheng would say to the South China Morning Post that "the costumes that had been prepared for that movie had my name on them." Unfortunately, "Dragon Inn" was to be made outside the Shaw Brothers, and Cheng was still on contract. Cheng chose to honor that contract rather than leave, because she was a "good girl" in her words. Cheng would never make another film with Hu, although they remained friends. In the meantime, her career continued to flourish.

"Ladies Should Be More Refined"

Cheng's next big role was in "Golden Swallow." While named for the heroine of "Come Drink With Me" and supposedly set within the same world, the film was very different from its predecessor. With Hu having left Shaw Brothers, the job of director was passed to Chang Cheh. Just one year earlier Chang had directed the martial arts film "One-Armed Swordsman," which was as important in its own right as "Come Drink With Me." Chang would go on to become one of the most respected directors of martial arts films in the history of Hong Kong cinema. If Hu defined wuxia films at their most detailed and imaginative, Chang's hyper-violent masochism carved out its own bloody legacy.

Unfortunately, Chang was far less compatible with Cheng Pei-pei than Hu. He had rigid ideas about the difference between men and women, forbidding Cheng from performing stunts on set that she had simply taken for granted while making "Come Drink With Me." According to Cheng, Chang Cheh would say to her that "you're a lady, and ladies should be more refined." It was only through hard work and constant lobbying that Cheng was allowed to carry her own weight. Cheng had already compromised by returning to the role of Golden Swallow without King Hu in the director's chair. She refused to allow what she and Hu had created to be compromised any further.

The Shadow Of Cheng Pei-Pei

"Around the time of Ricky Hui [in the 70s]," Cheng would say, "men started taking the lead and women became wallflowers." Slowly but surely, martial arts films were shifting away from the roles that Cheng had built her career on. But she would forge ahead regardless. Not only did Cheng collaborate with Chang Cheh once again in his film "The Flying Dagger," but she would continue to impress elsewhere in films like "Brothers Five" and "The Lady Hermit." After marrying in 1971, she ducked out of the film industry for a decade, but would return periodically to as a favor to old colleagues before starting again in television during the 1990s.

When Ang Lee hired Cheng to play the lead role in his Academy Award-winning film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," it was with the full knowledge of Cheng's legacy and what she once represented. Once a dashing young swordswoman in "Come Drink With Me," Cheng plays the old, cunning martial arts tutor Jade Fox in "Crouching Tiger." Decades after the films that made her name, Ang Lee's film grapples with the same gender stereotypes that made Cheng's life increasingly difficult on set. The film never absolves Jade Fox, but the weight of Cheng's history is present in every scene.

The Sword Was A Queen

"Swords are definitely my weapon of choice," Cheng Pei-pei once told TimeOut. "You can be more agile with it, unlike a staff." Cheng has wielded plenty of other weapons on the big screen, including whips and poison needles. But it is swords that have stuck in the memory. Not just because her dance experience lent her a unique athleticism. Not just because her break-out role, Golden Swallow, was a sword-wielder. But because Cheng Pei-pei is a sword in her own right. Direct, sharp-edged, forged in the fires of the Hong Kong film industry. Many have followed in her footsteps, to carve their own legacies in the history of film. But there is only one Queen of Swords.

Read this next: The 15 Best Jackie Chan Movies Ranked

The post How Come Drink With Me Created a Martial Arts Legend appeared first on /Film.

Elisha Cuthbert's horror movies are well-known among horror fans. Now, she's got a distinct trio of horror titles on her resume with "Captivity," "House of Wax," and now, "The Cellar." All different styles of horror movies, all different performances. However, those three movies share one key similarity for Cuthbert: "You can't hold back when you're doing horror."

Brendan Muldowney's "The Cellar" is more subdued, as the actress put it, but there's still notes of fear, regret, and paranoia to play in the old-school haunted house story. Even though Cuthbert doesn't make a lot of horror movies, when she does, she wants to give it her all. Recently, she told us how she did just that in "The Cellar" and reminisced about her days on "House of Wax" and one of the finest half-hour comedies in recent memory, "Happy Endings." 

"We Were Really In The Irish Countryside In These Tunnels"

When Brendan told you about his vision for the story, how did you think you wanted to help him fulfill it?

When it comes to Brendan, working with directors who have written the script is totally different because they know every nuance, every aspect of the script. It was easy for me to come to him with questions about backstory and concept. Just going to him and going, "How does this equation work mathematically?" And he's like, "Here, I have the diagram." In relation to the symbols over the doors. When we were getting into the nitty gritty of that, he was so versed in it all, because it does get mythical and mathematical.

We also had great conversations about how, tonally, it was going to be. That sort of subdued, atmospheric vibe was going to be front and center. I started to realize very quickly that the house itself was becoming a character, moreso than I imagined it was going to be. So yeah, I think it can only help when you have a director who knows every facet of the script, the way he did. It was great.

Did you both talk a lot about "The Haunting" and "The Innocents?"

Yeah, we were talking about those. We were talking about tone, mood. I could already tell, too, when we got to set, how shots were being set up by him. He's patient. We have so many nice, slow, beautiful shots that lead up to this really intense ending. So it starts down here, and it just builds and builds and builds and builds and builds. So to know prior to going in that it was going to be a slow build was great for me to track, script-wise, where I was going to be physically and emotionally.

Plus, it was all there, right? I mean, that set with all the people in the third act is very impressive.

I think anytime you don't have to really put your imagination to it as far as green screen goes, it was so much easier to actually have the Leviathan guy there. There's one scene that's not in the film anymore, but when I'm under the table, there was one shot through the doorway that the hooves of the Leviathan creature cross the screen. I was under the table, seeing this visually for the first time and then obviously jumping and all that. There were so many things that were actually happening in these catacombs and going down these tunnels. We were really in the Irish countryside in these tunnels.

You talked about getting a sense of Brendan's pacing for the story, the scares. Acting to that pace, is it similar to performing comedy for you?

You could definitely make a correlation between comedic timing and jump scare timing, for sure. What all movies, TV have in common with actors and the camera: There's always a dance, right? Even if we're doing the simplest of scenes, there has to be sort of a focus to the actor and the actor has to know when that's going to play. I think timing comes up in so many different ways, and it is all about timing, always, always.

[For tone] "Happy Endings," for example, when you're doing comedy or even "The Ranch," when you're doing a sitcom, your demeanor and your tone is so much higher. And then when I come into a movie like "The Cellar'' and you get into the Keira Woods vibe [Editor's note: Keira Woods is the name of Cuthbert's character], everything has to be a little bit more focused, a little bit more thoughtful and smoother.

You can't come into a movie acting like I would on "The Ranch." So it's good. It's nice to go from understanding how to act in front of a live audience and then coming back down into a feature and having to kind of come more into yourself.

I'm now imagining Alex [from "Happy Endings"] in this sort of horror movie scenario, though.

She'd probably like the guy, the beast. She'd be like, "Wait a minute!"

"That Film Was, For Lack Of A Better Word, Rockstar Times"

By the way, on the subject of "Happy Endings," I enjoyed telling the Russo Brothers after the success of "The Avengers" how that show is still their greatest accomplishment.

[Laughs] Yes! What did they say? What did they say?

They said they hear that a lot, actually.

Wow. That's amazing. We had such a good time with them on the pilot. They're great. They're so great. I think it was tough. That was at the very start of the show, so we had to figure out our chemistry and who we are. I don't even think Alex from the show, my character, I don't even think I understood her at that point. So it was like a real build to season 2, where I really started warming up and figuring out her voice. TV lets you do that, though. TV gives you the leeway, the time to develop. Where a film, you kind of got to know what you're doing right from day one.

But has all your television experience accustomed you to moving fast and under pressure, like when you're shooting an indie like "The Cellar" during the pandemic in Ireland?

Oh yeah. My style is now a hybrid of both. If you get on a big budget film, the pacing for me is really, really slow. It's actually harder and a mental challenge to keep myself in it, because we're doing it so much over and over again 'cause we have more time. Whereas with TV, they're moving on with or without you. So the performance that you want to convey and what you want to do really has to happen within the first or second, third take, otherwise it's time to go. So, now I'm kind of in the middle, I guess. I don't love a ton of rehearsal time or a ton of takes. I mean, unless that's what the director wants, but I tend to want to get my stuff out pretty quick.

How'd you approach horror movies like "House of Wax" or "Captivity" differently than you did "The Cellar?"

Maybe there's just maturity there. I think you can't help but hide your experience. And so for me, there's maybe what I thought was good and would go with it. Sometimes now I have a confidence where I just know, "Oh, that's how that's going to work." I've seen myself enough on camera and I've seen myself enough on TV and what works and what doesn't work to feel confident in some of the choices I make, and to also learn and be like, "Oh, I don't want to do that again."

"House of Wax," that film was, for lack of a better word, rockstar times because that budget was crazy. That movie was epic...

Amazing sets.

The sets were just out of control, right? Hollywood at its finest, moviemaking-wise. That was an amazing time. But again, that character is in her teens and young and there's a different energy to it. And in this film, "The Cellar," I get to sort of tackle that motherly instinct and get to draw on the fact that I have my own children in real life. This is an experience that I didn't have before, right? So it brings flavor to the characters whether I choose to draw on it or not.

"You Can't Hold Back When You're Doing Horror"

So based on that life experience you mentioned, what read true to you on the page for "The Cellar?"

When you do horror films or you watch horror films, or in my case, if you're reading them, you're seeing these scenes sort of unfold where you're like, "Why is that character going down the rabbit hole?" Or, "Why is that character going through the door that you clearly know is going to be bad and dark on the other side?"

For this film, I brought that motherly instinct. I know for a fact that you would go into any sort of dangerous situation to save your children if you knew you could. That rang true to me. I thought, "Well, that gives this character the leeway and the right to go down the steps, to go down into the cellar and to face her fears to save her children."

You deliberately don't make multiple horror movies in a row, right? Why is that?

I think you really have to give a lot of yourself and just be completely uninhibited and just go for it when you do these types of films, because you can't hold back when you're doing horror. You have to physically, mentally, emotionally put yourself there. For me, I need to space those out. It doesn't feel real or ring true to me to just do them back to back to back to back.

It takes something out of me. I just need to be ready to just go full out. Plus, it just sort of happened that as the scripts came, they organically came spread out the way they did. I was drawn to those particular movies, like "House Wax," then "Captivity," and now this, "The Cellar." I guess for me physically, and then also finding scripts that I felt like in the genre were great to work on.

I do want to ask about one of your comedies. Are you aware of how much hockey fans love the "Goon" movies?

No, I don't really know. I mean, is it like "Slapshot" now?

Hockey fans love them, myself included.

That's so cool. You know what? For me, I felt like I wanted to kind of come full circle with Jay [Baruchel]. When he asked me to be a part of "Goon 2," I was so happy because working together as kids on "Popular Mechanics for Kids'' and then coming back and him directing and it just was such a beautiful thing to get to do with him. I told him, "Give me a character that's totally crazy. I want the batsh*t crazy sister, and let's just go for it."

I know how much it meant to me on a personal level, but I love to hear that it's striking a chord with all the sports fans. I actually think I have -- my character has like a hockey card somewhere.

Oh yeah?

Yeah. I think there's like a hockey card floating around with her on it, which is hilarious. I'm like, "Yes, I got my own hockey card!"

"The Cellar" is now in limited release in theaters and is available to stream on Shudder.

Read this next: The 20 Best '60s Horror Movies Ranked

The post The Cellar Star Elisha Cuthbert Doesn't Hold Back in Horror Movies [Interview] appeared first on /Film.

DOS

• VGA-COPY/386 6.25: "World-renowned utility for copying and formatting floppy disks."

  • Archived download
  • Background information
  • Last blog post
  • Attempting to Repair Bad Sectors on Damaged Floppy Disks in MS-DOS: "VGA Copy is particularly useful when bad sectors cannot be repaired."
  • Comment attributed to 030 Datenrettung Berlin GmbH: "The best software to recover / copy floppies I know is VGAcopy/386..."

• ImageDisk 1.18 "is a program to read entire diskette images into files (type .IMD), and to recreate a copy of the diskette from that image. A detailed analysis is performed on the diskette, and information about the formatting is recorded in the image file. This allows ImageDisk to work with virtually any soft-sectored diskette format that is compatible with the PC's type 765 floppy diskette controller and drives."

• DiskImg: "Read/write complete (physical/logical) disk to/from file."

• SpinRite: "Everything SpinRite does for hard disk drives also works on floppy diskettes of any size and density."

  • Spiceworks reviews
  • Does SpinRite do what it claims to do?
  • Spinrite 6: An overdue review

Linux

• cat:

  • cat /dev/fd0 > floppy.img

• dd:

  • dd if=/dev/fd0 of=floppy.img conv=notrunc

• ddrescue:

  • From the manual:

    • "-c sectors Number of sectors to copy at a time.…The number of sectors per track (18 or 9) is a good value for floppies." [emphasis added]
    • "-d Use direct disc access…to read from infile, bypassing the kernel cache.…Sector size must be correctly set for this to work.…"

  • 1.44MB floppy: ddrescue -b 512 -c 18 -d /dev/fd0 floppy.img floppy.map

  • DOS floppy imaging/recovering examples from Archive Team (source)

• dumpfloppy "is a suite of tools for reading floppy disks in arbitrary formats supported by the PC floppy controller, and for working with the resulting image files. For image files, it uses the IMD format defined by Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk. You can capture an image with dumpfloppy and then write it back with ImageDisk, or use the dumpfloppy tools to examine or extract an ImageDisk file."

  • No compiling instructions included; found them in BitCurator's bootstrap.sh: aclocal --force && autoconf -f && automake --add-missing && ./configure && make
    (apt install automake if missing. Also encountered "make: Warning: File 'Makefile.am' has modification time 63026 s in the future" error; resolved thusly: find -type f -exec touch {} + && make clean && make)

  • Old fork: "Dumpfloppy dumps floppy disk images to files. Unlike ddrescue, dd_rescue or safecopy, it allows storing multiple CRC-failed reads to get the best possible data from failing floppy disks. Original by Adam Sampson."

• safecopy "is a data recovery tool which tries to extract as much data as possible from a problematic (i.e. damaged sectors) source - like floppy drives, hard disk partitions, CDs, tape devices, ..., where other tools like dd would fail due to I/O errors."

Windows

• BadCopy Pro 4.10: "BadCopy Pro is the leading data recovery software for flash drive, USB drive, CD, DVD, memory card, floppy disk and other removable disks. BadCopy Pro can effectively recover and rescue corrupted or lost data from damaged, unreadable, formatted or defective disks. It works with Microsoft Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10."

• Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier 5.2: "Recovers files from disks with physical damage. Allows you to copy files from disks with problems such as bad sectors, scratches or that just give errors when reading data. The program will attempt to recover every readable piece of a file and put the pieces together. Using this method most types of files can be made useable even if some parts of the file were not recoverable in the end."

• WinImage 10.0: "WinImage is a fully-fledged disk-imaging suite for easy creation, reading and editing of many image formats and fileystems, including DMF, VHD, FAT, ISO, NTFS and Linux. The disk image is an exact copy of a physical disk (floppy, CD-ROM, hard disk, USB, VHD disk, etc.) or a partition that preserves the original structure. With WinImage in place, you can recreate the disk image on the hard drive or other media, view its content, extract image-based files, add new files and directories, change the format, and defragment the image. All this and more is delivered in one intuitive user interface that enables imaging right out of the box."

• WinDiskImg: "Read/write complete (physical/logical) disk to/from file."

• Roadkil's Disk Image: "Creates and writes disk images files to hard and floppy disks."

Hardware

• Greaseweazle: "Tools for accessing a floppy drive at the raw flux level"

  • FluxMyFluffyFloppy
  • GreaseweazleGUI

• KryoFlux "is a USB-based device designed specifically for the reliability and precision needed to acquire reliable low-level reads suitable for software preservation."

  • Archivists Guide to KryoFlux
  • The KryoFlux Floppy Controller: A Magnetic Media Miracle
  • Project Kryoflux – Part 2: Why Bother with it?
  • Can't Copy that Floppy? KryoFlux Can! feat. Unistat V4.53
  • Jason Scott is not exactly a KryoFlux fan

• Archive Team's Rescuing Floppy Disks offers a comprehensive hardware guide.

Related

• Floppy Disk Useful Storage Space: "1.44MB Floppy - 80 tracks x 18 sectors x 2 sides x 512 bytes per sector = 1,474,560 bytes"

• Maxiumum recovery of data from old floppy discs with padded bad sectors and multiple passes

• Mounting a disk image using the loop device

• Floppy Disk Transfer: OmniFlop

• Floppy disk imaging - what program to use?

• Recovering Data From Floppies With Errors

• Recovering "lost" treasure-filled floppy discs with an oscilloscope

• Preserving a floppy disk with a logic analyzer and a serial cable

• What is the little twist in this floppy ribbon cable for?

• From Adafruit Floppy's FAQ:

  Did you know there are USB Floppy Drives for $10 on Amazon?
  Yes, we are aware. These are recycled laptop floppy drives with a controller chip that presents a mass storage interface to the sectors on disk. They are great for basic access to 1.44MB IBM PC MFM-formatted diskettes. They will not work for GCR formatted diskettes (we know because we tried) and may not work with non-FAT formatted diskettes (we don't have any but the controller chip is very specialized and may freak out). USB floppy drive controllers will not get you flux-level readings, and can't cope with damaged diskettes to read sector data that does not pass CRC to perform data recovery. They are also, of course, no good with 5.25" floppy diskettes.

  Why do you need a flux level reading of disks???
  Flux level readings are essential for data recovery, restoration, archiving of damaged or copy-protected floppies.

With utility bills on the rise, you may be looking for ways to save on energy costs for heating and cooling your home. While there are all kinds of expensive improvements you can make to cut your monthly bill, weatherstripping is a cheap and simple step you can take to make a difference in how much energy you use…

Read more...

Of all the fan-favorite superheroes that Marvel Studios has popularized through their movies since 2008, who would've ever thought that Thor would end up becoming the first and only one of the original core group of Avengers to receive a fourth solo film?

It's fair to say the God of Thunder got off to somewhat of a rocky start in the MCU, debuting as a stuffy, self-serious, Shakespearean blank slate (from a director who knows a thing or two about adapting the bard's plays, Kenneth Branagh) with very little in the way of actual personality, despite actor Chris Hemsworth's best efforts and chiseled physique. So early in the franchise and so soon after the "grounded" take on Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man, Marvel could hardly even bring themselves to call Thor an actual god. His next solo outing, "Thor: The Dark World," is commonly perceived as one of Marvel's rare missteps, though audiences remained interested in the hero's complicated dynamic with his (adopted) brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and the willingness to embrace Thor's more cosmic roots. But it took director Taika Waititi's willingness to step up to the plate and completely reinvent the character from the ground up in "Thor: Ragnarok" before fans finally took to the character in earnest, trading all the prior attempts at gravitas and importance for a rollicking, laugh-out-loud adventure that finally delivered on much of Thor's potential.

In one of the most no-brainer moves that Marvel's Kevin Feige has ever had to contend with, the studio didn't hesitate to bring Waititi back for the superhero's unprecedented fourth solo outing. "Thor: Love and Thunder." The returning filmmaker has spent months teasing fans and raising anticipation for the next film, previously calling it "crazy wild" and ensuring that the grand return of Natalie Portman suiting up as the "Mighty Thor" will put plenty of butts in seats when the time comes -- not to mention those party-crashing Guardians of the Galaxy, as well. After all that patient waiting, the day has finally arrived for our first (official) look at exactly the sort of comic-booky goodness Waititi has in store for us this time around. Check out the first "Thor: Love and Thunder" trailer below!

Thor: Love And Thunder Trailer

Those days of studio executives fretting over how to make Thor appealing to modern audiences are long, long gone, folks. Now, the main issue is more along the lines of how to meet the sky-high expectations that fans now hold for the God of Thunder and his supporting cast of characters. It's amazing how quickly things change, but our first look at "Thor: Love and Thunder" is finally here and it sure looks as if it'll continue the superhero's upward trajectory in style.

Chris Hemsworth is back in the title role and will be joined by an absolutely stacked cast of fan-favorite returning characters. You may have caught the oh-so-subtle hints that Thor's original love interest, Natalie Portman's Jane Foster, is coming back better and more powerful than ever as the Mjolnir-wielding Thor herself. The pair will be joined by Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie, the breakout character from "Ragnarok" who has since ascended to rule over the remnant of surviving Asgardians. Waititi, of course, will once again voice the lovable Korg in addition to his directing duties and will even be joined by another long-lost "Thor" supporting character, Jamie Alexander's Sif (who most recently appeared in the MCU in the Disney+ series "Loki"). Chris Pratt, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, and Sean Gunn are all reprising their roles from James Gunn's "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies. And if all that weren't enough to make the movie a must-watch, big-name actors Christian Bale and Russell Crowe are joining the franchise for the first time as Gorr the God Butcher and Zeus, respectively. We can certainly expect a few cameos from a certain troupe of in-universe stage actors, as well.

Recently delayed late last year along with the rest of Marvel's 2022 slate of films, "Thor: Love and Thunder" is set to arrive in theaters on July 8, 2022.

Read this next: Every MCU Post-Credits Sequence Ranked From Worst To Best

The post Thor: Love and Thunder Trailer: Natalie Portman's The Thor Now, Dog appeared first on /Film.

So, Marvel just dropped the first trailer for "Thor: Love and Thunder," and it looks like a fun, mind-boggling cosmic adventure, bringing together a slew of characters while introducing new ones. After the heartbreaking (and traumatic) events that went down in "Avengers: Endgame," Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is on a journey to find himself again, and the teaser hints at a lot that prompts heavy speculation.

We see a glimpse of Russell Crowe as Zeus, god of the heavens, sky, and yes, thunder, in the comics (as well as ancient Greek/Roman mythology), along with familiar faces such as Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) giving a rousing speech to Thor about looking into the eyes of those he loves. However, what the trailer does not quite reveal are the threats that lie beneath the seemingly utopian vibe of the trailer, which are teased in the official synopsis of the upcoming Marvel installment (via Comic Book):

"The film finds Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on a journey, unlike anything he's ever faced – a quest for inner peace. But his retirement is interrupted by a galactic killer known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who seeks the extinction of the gods. To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi) and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who – to Thor's surprise – inexplicably wields his magical hammer, Mjolnir, as the Mighty Thor. Together, they embark upon a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher's vengeance and stop him before it's too late."

There's a lot going on, obviously, ensuring that "Thor: Love and Thunder" will be a wild, eventful ride.

The Advent Of A Powerful Galactic Threat

Bale's Gorr the God Butcher is a supervillain in the comics, who first made his appearance in "Thor: God of Thunder #1." Gorr possesses the "All-Black the Necrosword," which is a weapon "first drawn from the stone of the endless night." The blade is immensely powerful, as it has the ability to slay actual gods, including Asgardians, while Gorr himself is virtually immortal. As the synopsis hints at the fact that Gorr is seeking the extinction of the gods, he will most likely emerge as Thor's greatest threat yet, forcing Thor to give up his sweet retirement life and plunge back into action (the poor man simply cannot catch a break).

"Thor: Love and Thunder" is being helmed by Taika Waititi, who will be reprising his role as Korg, the Kronan warrior, who fought during the Battle of Earth and returned to New Asgard, which is currently under Valkyrie's rule. The upcoming film will also be featuring team-ups, which will potentially be leading to exciting missions and adventures, and it will be interesting to see how Thor and his allies fare against Gorr, especially if he has access to a god-killing weapon and is armed with the ambition to annihilate an entire race of divine beings.

We also have Natalie Portman wielding the Mjolnir (as to how she is able to do that, we do not know yet), but Thor sure is baffled by her appearance in shiny new armor, and it remains to be seen how his new dynamic with Jane plays out.

"Thor: Love and Thunder" opens in theaters on July 8, 2022.

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Wake up, babe, a new Marvel trailer just dropped! After leaving fans in the dark for several months beyond the point when the marketing cycle for highly-anticipated superhero movies usually kicks in, the studio finally saw fit to release our first official look at "Thor: Love and Thunder" only 3 months before the sequel makes its way into theaters. Still, as brief a glimpse as it is, the wait has definitely been worth it. Among the many goodies packed into the minute and a half of footage, Marvel has gone ahead and thrown fans a bone (or several) with new looks at the returning Guardians of the Galaxy and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), a Mjolnir-wielding Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) as mighty Thor, and a post-"Avengers: Endgame" Thor (Chris Hemsworth) who seems to be filled with as much ennui and aimlessness as the average Millennial. Reader, I feel seen.

But among the many teases and Easter eggs to be parsed throughout the new trailer, one very quick but no less tantalizing shot would appear to give us our first official glimpse of perhaps the most unexpected casting in the entire movie. Unfortunately, Christian Bale's presence as Gorr the God Butcher is entirely absent at this point ... but what about the other big-name actor making his Marvel debut? Towards the middle of the trailer, we get a few intriguing shots of an otherworldly world that could very well be Marvel's unique take on Olympus, the city of the gods. And overlooking the entire realm, plastered in gold, surrounded by admirers, and sporting some flowing locks, would seem to be Russell Crowe as the top god of them all, Zeus.

Russell Crowe, Superhero Aficionado

In the past, Russell Crowe has famously portrayed the Roman gladiatorial hero Maximus Decimus Meridius (commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, etc. etc.), Robin Hood, the Biblical figure Noah, both Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and even other superhero roles like Jor-El in Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel" and an upcoming role in "Kraven the Hunter." But Crowe's portrayal of Zeus in the Taika Waititi-directed "Thor" sequel just might end up becoming his most out-there and mythological role yet.

Technically, our first look at the ultimate god of gods comes when he snatches one lightning bolt out of several that are flying around an appropriately epic-looking amphitheater. The ruler of the Olympians and the god of the heavens, sky, and weather, Zeus has enjoyed a colorful history in the annals of Marvel Comics over the year, coming across characters like the Eternals, and other mythological figures like Hercules and Conan, and even the Incredible Hulk. Given the unabashedly cosmic direction that Waiti has taken the character of Thor since "Ragnarok," it makes perfect sense that Zeus would somehow factor into the plot of "Love and Thunder," which will see Thor joining forces with the Guardians of the Galaxy (another group of heroes who've had run-ins with Zeus in the comics before) and Jane Foster's Mighty Thor. In fact, the looming threat of Gorr the God Butcher easily points to why Crowe's Zeus would eventually get involved at some point.

Personally, I'm fully here for Crowe's no-doubt hilarious and melodramatic take on the ancient Greek god, hopefully tapping into a similar tonal wavelength as his performance as Jackson Healy in Shane Black's "The Nice Guys." Crowe has proven that he can handle both outsized mythological roles and ones that require a killer sense of comedic timing, so I have high hopes for his collaboration with Taika Waititi. "Thor: Love and Thunder" will come to theaters on July 8, 2022.

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"Breaking Bad" is one of the best TV shows of the 21st Century, a show with incredible writing, memorable characters, and stunning visuals. It is also a movie with a perfect ending that did not need any continuation. So when "Better Call Saul" was announced as a prequel, the first question on many people's minds was: when are Walt and Jesse going to show up? Of course, it didn't make much sense for them to meet Saul years before their first meeting, which we saw on "Breaking Bad," but prequel rules dictate everyone from the original needs to show up eventually.

Still, by the time the first season of "Better Call Saul" ended, Jimmy's story was so strong, and the characters around him so interesting and well-written that there was no need to tie to Walt and Jesse. But last week, AMC outright announced that both Bryan Cranston's Walter White and Aaron Paul's Jesse Pinkman will make an appearance in the final season of "Better Call Saul."

'I Think People Are Going To Be Excited'

The news that Walt and Jesse will return is surprising, if inevitable, but more so is the fact that their return was announced before the season premiere. Indeed, even Aaron Paul himself was shocked by the announcement. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Paul said he found out they were going to announce it during the premiere party for the final season of "Better Call Saul."

"They go, 'There's a flag on the play. Just so you know, Vince and Peter let everyone know that you and Bryan are going to be in the final season.' And I was like, 'What?!' So I didn't see that coming. But to be honest, I'm happy to be able to finally talk about it and not be squirrelly. It's nice to be able to be open about it. So I'm excited."

As Paul correctly deducts, fans of both shows were kind of expecting this to happen. "They've been seeing the 'Breaking Bad' family slowly appear within the walls of 'Better Call Saul,' so I think it would be odd if Walt and Jesse didn't make an appearance," Paul said. "So I'm excited that we did and how we did. I think people are going to be thrilled about it."

Like everything else involving "Better Call Saul," the idea of Jesse and Walter appearing is a worrisome one, but if anyone can do it, it's Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. After all, they've been doing marvelously so far, so why start doubting them now? As Paul continues, "Leave it to Vince and Peter and the rest of the writers to come up with the perfect way. It's fun. I think people are going to be excited."

"Better Call Saul" season 6 premieres Monday, April 18, 2022, on AMC and AMC+.

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Fans have been clamoring for it for weeks, and Marvel decided to make everyone's Monday morning just a bit more interesting by finally releasing the "Thor: Love and Thunder" teaser trailer. And, as Marvel Cinematic Universe movies go, this is very much a teaser, as it offers mere tastes of the madness coming our way in director Taika Waititi's follow up to 2017's beloved "Thor: Ragnarok." 

While we do have a great many questions, we are going to take a much closer look at what is going on here by breaking down the trailer, moment by moment. Let's dig in, shall we?

The Evolution Of Thor

The trailer opens up with some soft guitar work and we see a young Thor running through the woods. As the footage rolls on, we see the God of Thunder transitioning through the years rapidly, going from teen Thor to pre-God Thor when we first met him in 2011.

It's a kind of fun way to showcase the evolution of this character in rapid succession to help set the stage for the story about to be told here. Not to spoil anything we're going to talk about here in a few moments. Also, make note of teen Thor's comic-accurate costume, which is certainly a nice touch. 

The God Returns

The whole montage concludes with a bit of fire and brimstone as we see Chris Hemsworth return with a fancy new fur-lined cape. He looks dead serious, but in a focused way, not in a "god of war" sort of way, and that is going to become very important as we move along here. 

Tools For Peace

Here we get to arguably the single most pivotal moment in the trailer, which sees Thor declare that Stormbreaker, his ax from "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Endgame," is but a humble tool for peace. He is no longer a god of war. He is trying to find his way and doing so through peaceful means.

Meditating Thor

Now we see a very peaceful, kind of beautiful shot with Thor, once the angry son of a beloved God of Asgard, meditating underneath a tree, overlooking nature in an unknown location, contemplating who exactly he is. Let us not forget that he surrendered the Asgardian throne to Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie (more on that in a minute) at the end of "Endgame." So he's got some soul searching to do.

Workout Montage

When last we left our hero, he had put on quite a bit of very understandable depression weight following Thanos' snap. However, Thor is getting back in shape here, using gigantic chains instead of ropes to do so. Also, notice his "Strongest Avenger" hat as a nice little callback to "Ragnarok."

As for what those chains are attached to? The decaying bones of a giant being, perhaps a troll based on the shape, though it is totally unclear. It's also around this time that "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses kicks in full stop, which makes for a remarkably interesting choice of soundtrack. 

The Guardians Of The Galaxy Return

Now we get to one of the big moments as the Guardians of the Galaxy are back. Thor blasted off with Star-Lord and the gang at the end of "Endgame" and it appears they are spending some real-time with one another. In this case, he is annoying Chris Pratt's Star-Lord right before a battle.

While everyone else is trying to be stealthy about it, Thor decides to just get right out in the open and make a mess of things. This clearly does not sit well with Star-Lord and the two are still seemingly at odds, with a pinch of love still there between them. Also, make note of Thor's very different get up here, as he's seemingly trying to fit in with the Guardians a bit more. 

Abstaining From Battle

Here, in an entirely different battle shot with Thor wearing his more traditional garb, he is choosing to abstain from battle. Clearly, something has happened to make him want to be a god of peace, rather than a god of war. What is that thing, exactly? The answer to that question is being hidden for now.

The Guardians Say Goodbye

In this shot, we see the Guardians taking off from an unidentified planet in the Milano, seemingly ending their team-up with Thor, leaving him to find his path in the galaxy as a new man declaring, "My superheroing days are over." Though he won't be alone.

Hello, Korg!

And would you look at that! Our pal Korg (played by Waititi) is back for more, and it appears that he is going to be paling around with Thor for much of this adventure as we'll come to find out throughout the rest of this trailer. The dynamic between these two was so strong last time around that it's hard to imagine anyone will have an issue with that. Also, make note of his colorful new pants. 

Space Goat Chariot

Waititi has promised a crazy movie and this shot of space goats (which is actually something ripped right from the comics) carrying a space boat across the water is truly something to behold and makes it seem as though Marvel let the filmmaker cut loose once again. Perhaps even more so than on "Ragnarok." 

Olympus?

We're going to get some more evidence very soon to point us in this direction, but it appears the above city/planet is Olympus, the home of Zeus. 

We've also got the above shot from much later in the trailer to help cement the point that this is indeed Zeus' stomping grounds. Thor, in the pages of Marvel Comics, ends up blending in a lot of actual Norse mythology so including Zeus and other real gods, as well as locations such as Olympus, would make an awful lot of sense. Especially as we're entering the fourth movie in the franchise. 

A Mysterious Pirate Kiss

Now here's something interesting! We see a blue-haired person who appears to be a space pirate of sorts, and Thor is kissing them. It's been a little bit since Thor had an actual on-screen romance with Natalie Portman's Jane Foster, and maybe he's going to cut loose on this little self-discovery mission. But old flames will return (more on that in a minute), making this proposition all the more interesting.

Behold! Russell Crowe As Zeus!

Well, well, well, if it isn't Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe entering the MCU as none other than Zeus. Hence, why we feel it's safe to assume that shot from earlier is indeed Olympus. 

While we don't see his face, the thunderbolt there, as well as the shot from the back, make it pretty damn clear who we're looking at. Now, what will bring Thor face-to-face with Zeus? That is an interesting question that has absolutely zero answers right now.

High Five, Bro

Not a whole lot to say here of substance but it is nice to see Korg and Thor continuing to develop their bromance with a crisp high five here. What has prompted their excitement? We shall see but this is one of the most promising relationships going in the MCU right now. 

From Page To Screen

This is without question one of the more impressive shots from the trailer, but it also is ripped directly from the pages of Jason Aaron's "Thor" run in the comics. And I don't mean a little wink and nod, this is a straight-up, completely faithful pull. 

While the creature is named Falligar the Behemoth, this very much looks like the Deviants from "Eternals," and that could provide a little bit of connective tissue to last year's MCU film.

New Asgard, Tourist Destination

This is another very interesting show, as we see New Asgard back on Earth. Only it has seemingly become a huge tourist destination following the events of "Endgame," with cruise ships hanging out in the waters just offshore, which adds a pretty interesting wrinkle to the whole thing. 

Hello, Valkyrie!

Speaking of interesting, here we have our first look at Tessa Thompson back in the saddle as Valkyrie. Though she is in a suit-and-tie in a board room filled with other suits. She is now the King of Asgard and it appears her duties have become quite tiresome and boring, given the look on her face. Perhaps all of this tourism business and the duties of an Earth-bound leader are not what she had in mind? 

The Full Guardians Lineup

And finally, we see the whole Guardians of the Galaxy team (minus Gamora) assembled, whilst Star-Lord give some advice to Thor. Saying, "You ever feel lost, just look into the eyes of the people that you love," he is very clearly looking at his crew. 

Thor can't help but try to force his head into the frame hoping that Peter Quill loves him too. Thor just needs somebody to love, apparently. Hence, the title of the movie. 

Jane Foster Returns ... As The Mighty Thor!

Last, but most certainly not least, the final moments of the trailer reveal Thor's trusty hammer Mjolnir coming into the frame but missing his hands entirely and heading straight for the hand of none other than Natalie Portman's Jane Foster. We haven't seen Jane in quite some time and, as we can see, she is our new Thor. This, it would seem, is quite the surprise to Chris Hemsworth's God of Thunder, given the look on his face. 

This is yet another key storyline ripped directly from the pages of Marvel Comics. Clearly, much is being hidden here as we don't even get a look at Christian Bale, who is playing the movie's villain, Gorr the God Butcher. As is often the case, we are left with more questions than answers but this is one heck of a note to leave off on. We'll see what more we can learn when the full-length trailer arrives a little closer to the movie's release.

"Thor: Love and Thunder" hits theaters on July 8, 2022.

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The post Thor: Love and Thunder Trailer Breakdown: A Hero No More appeared first on /Film.

"The Fifth Element" is one of those sci-fi films that defined the modern iteration of the genre. Even if you've never watched it, you've surely seen people cosplaying as Milla Jovovich's Leeloo, the opera singer Plavalaguna (Maïwenn Le Besco), Chris Tucker's Ruby Rhod, Gary Oldman's Zorg, or Bruce Willis' Korben Dallas at conventions. The 1997 Luc Besson film was like nothing we've seen before, and to this day, remains very much one of a kind.

In the story, co-written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen ("The Karate Kid"), we follow Korben Dallas, a former Earth's Special Forces major-turned-cab driver in the 23rd century. An ancient baddie is on the way back to destroy Earth, but aliens have the elemental stones needed to stop them ... and they're being attacked. A fifth element is reconstructed from a dismembered hand in their ship's wreckage into Leeloo (dressed in Jean-Paul Gaultier), a young woman out of her element who ultimately saves the planet with Korben as they fall in love. It was a wild ride of a film, weird, and funny, and a truly singular piece of sci-fi.

Bruce Willis' Multipass

According to Entertainment Weekly's's article for the 20th anniversary of the film, Besson wrote the original version of this film as three stories, and said, "It was bad." He joked that the second time he wrote it, it was bad as well, but obviously the version we saw was wonderful. His co-producer Iain Smith told the site that this was going to be a huge undertaking as it stood, which was in two parts. Besson looked at the budget and made it into a single story. Of course, he still needed a star to take on the role. 

Besson told EW, "Everyone in L.A. was saying, 'Oh, if you don't have a star, you can't make the film.' But we didn't even try to go to Bruce Willis, because he was too expensive." That can be a sticking point for filmmakers. In the late '90s though, getting Willis was a huge coup, but with effects and costumes like the ones in "The Fifth Element," there isn't going to be a ton of money left over for stars. However, Besson lucked out. He was having lunch with Willis' wife at the time, Demi Moore. Besson explains, "Bruce shows up at the dessert and he just says, 'Hey, my man, what about me?'" 

Money wasn't on Willis' mind that much though. Besson said that when he mentioned that it wasn't in his budget, Willis was cool about it. "He said this very sweet line," Besson said of Willis. "'If I like it, we will make an arrangement.'" 

Let's Play It Hard

Willis saying that he'd make that arrangement changed the landscape of sci-fi as we know it. Willis himself said to the site:

"He came out to our house in Malibu. I just liked Luc -- I liked the story, I liked the idea. I thought it would be fun to go to France and make a movie."

Thank goodness he did! Even better (maybe this is just me, but I doubt it) is the fact that he was willing to wear the crazy Gaultier costumes. He told the site at the time, "I liked that stuff I wore, that Gaultier. I thought it was pretty cool. One of the things I remember is that Luc had for some reason dyed his hair blond. And I said, 'You know what? I should dye my hair blond, have a little wig on my head.' That was a contribution of mine, and he liked it."

Everything about this movie is a delight. It's even more so, knowing that it's the only one we're getting — Besson won't do a sequel. He said, "For me there's no point to go back to the same place. No matter how much you love a film, the fun is to try something else."

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In 1962, Thor first appeared in Marvel Comics in "Journey into Mystery" #62, reimagining the mythological character as a nebulously powerful interdimensional alien who looked and talked like the Norse god of thunder. He eventually came to be one of the key members of a supergroup called The Avengers, and has since appeared in live-action movies seven times in the past twelve years.

Taika Waititi's "Thor: Love and Thunder" is due in theaters on July 8, 2022, and will be the fourth film devoted to the god of thunder as he was imagined in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So far, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has been banished from Valhalla by a vindictive father, lost use of his magical hammer, regained the use of that hammer, lost his mother and father, had his hammer crushed, rebuilt a new hammer, lost an eye, was given a new robotic eye, and lost his godlike physique during a five-year span when he retired from superherodom to drink beer and play video games with a pair of space alien friends. It seems even godlike alien super-beings need to work out to maintain their enormous biceps, death-dealing thighs, and chiseled abs. Several characters made jokes at his expense, comparing his new look to that of The Big Lebowski. 

In "Love and Thunder," Thor will lose the weight again a training montage. Given that director Waititi is known for comedy, the audience might safely assume the montage will be comedic.

Thor's Physique

Thor's new physique was openly mocked in "Avengers: Endgame," arousing concern in some viewers that his belly was merely a means to employ lazy "fat" jokes. Articles from sites like the Guardian, Cosmopolitan, and The Mary Sue all pointed to the treatment of Thor's body as "problematic." Thor's body had previously been exploited in multiple beefcake shots across the character's film appearances, and both Hemsworth and Thor came to be known for being almost distractingly attractive. The mockery of Thor's "Endgame" body, however, can be seen as par for the course for the characters who insulted him, as the Avengers regularly make jibes at one another's expense. Additionally, Thor was just as capable of murdering monsters on the battlefield with a pot belly as he was with a six-pack. Despite the conversation about Thor's body, "Avengers: Endgame" did not engage in fat shaming the character.

Thor will hit the treadmill in "Thor: Love and Thunder," and it appears that Hemsworth will be seen regaining his old muscular body in a montage. The decision to essentially hit the reset button on Thor's musculature is, however, reductive to the character. In "Endgame," Thor had not merely retired from superhero-ing to rest, but because he -- along with the rest of the universe -- was responding to great loss. At the point when we meet Thor in "Endgame," half of the universe's population had suddenly vanished in a cosmic cataclysm. In a fit of wrath, Thor brutally executed the perpetrator -- he chopped off Thanos's head -- but that solved nothing. Thor was still without parents, without his signature weapon, and had failed in his job as a superhero. Thor's pot belly was not a sign of laziness, but a symptom of his trauma. 

Eventually, other characters show concern for Thor, and not because of his weight. They are concerned with his mental health. There is a scene in "Endgame" wherein the heroes have gathered a collection of Infinity Stones that will restore the universe's population, but using them will take a great deal of physical strength. Thor, being a god, seems to be the logical choice to use the stones' magic and restore the universe. But, after so much trauma and death in his world, Thor elects not to use them. His friends don't want the magic to hurt him. His teammate, the Incredible Hulk, ends up using his strength to wield the stones and resurrect the dead. 

Let Him Heal

As anyone who has adopted an exercise regiment knows, weight doesn't just fall off, and washboard abdominal muscles don't appear after a mere 50 sit-ups. It's a long process of hard work that takes not just a physical toll, but a mental one. There are too few films about the emotional journey connected to exercise (the 2019 film "Brittany Runs a Marathon" is a rare example). Thor's body is linked with sadness and loss, and his getting back into shape should, perhaps, also address his mental health. Yes, he is a resilient, near-immortal space deity -- and, after his appearance in "Thor: Ragnarok," was transformed from a staid warrior into a comedic straight man -- but after eight film appearances, it's fair to delve into the character's inner life a little bit. 

In order to do proper service to the character, perhaps Thor's weight loss should take time and energy. "Love and Thunder" may address Thor's relationship to his own godlike body, but given the nature of the genre and Waititi's comedy chops, it will likely be a cursory mention thrown in among a swirling, cosmic plot. In "Love and Thunder," the character of Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a human from Earth, will be given a magical hammer of her own, transforming her into the next Thor. 

It remains to be seen whether "Thor: Love and Thunder" will adequately engage with the consequences of Thor's trauma, but perhaps getting back into god-like shape will help him heal and finally get the rest he deserves.

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TED conference executive director went to the Tesla "Gigafactory" in Texas to interview Elon Musk on various subjects, including global warming, brain-machine interfaces, and robots – especially sex robots.

From Futurism:

During a lengthy and freewheeling conversation with TED's Chris Anderson last week, Musk expanded on his vision of what it could look like to share everyday life with automatons doing our bidding.

— Read the rest

When you see the phrase "based on a true story" attached to a Hollywood movie, you should always take it with a grain of salt. But in the case of Kathryn Bigelow's 2002 film "K-19: The Widowmaker," there might not be enough salt in the ocean -- at least according to the people that survived the real-life ordeal depicted in the movie.

The film is based on Russia's first nuclear-equipped submarine, the K-19, and the near-meltdown in the ship's reactor in 1961. What survivors didn't know is that, years later, they'd have another fight on their hands: A battle to have their story accurately told.

Although the brave actions of the submarine crew prevented a global catastrophe, a sneak peek at the script revealed that another story was being told. The men who fought to save the submarine and prevent a nuclear disaster claimed the early version of the "K-19: The Widowmaker" script was inaccurate, and went as far as to threaten a lawsuit if it wasn't changed.

Harrison Ford Met With Survivors

The film presents the moral question of what, if anything, should be off-limits to Hollywood. In 1994, the L.A. Times attempted to tell the horrific story, giving agonizing details of the accident aboard the Russian submarine that nearly caused a meltdown at sea and explaining how 22 volunteers died staving off a nuclear disaster. But some thought this tragedy was specific to Russia and its people, and were skeptical of the story being told by outsiders.

So you can imagine the reaction when Harrison Ford arrived in Russia, Hollywood script in hand, asking the survivors what they thought. According to CNN, not only was the script inaccurate, but it was also insulting. Survivors decried the portrayal of a broken-down ship, drunken shipmates, and a fictionalized conflict among the ship's officers in command.

Captain Igor Kurdin, head of the St. Petersburg Sailors and Submariners Club, said, "This film isn't about Russians, but about how Americans want to see Russians." He found the timing of "K-19: The Widowmaker" curious, accusing Hollywood of taking advantage of the Kursk submarine tragedy in 2000, in which 118 crew members were killed in a Russian naval training exercise. Kurdin told The Guardian:

"We suspect that the film's idea is to show that Russian submariners were incompetent 40 years ago, and to imply that this is how they are now, in the wake of the Kursk tragedy."

While the Kursk tragedy might have piqued Hollywood's interest in the story, the screenwriters cannot bear all the blame for not knowing the whole story. Hollywood writers may have turned to Russian stereotypes because it was difficult for anyone to know the real truth about the accident.

The Soviet Government Hid The Truth

As the L.A. Times points out, until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, very little was known about the K-19 incident. It was commonplace for the Soviet government to cover up any type of embarrassing event such as K-19; just look at Chernobyl as a primary example of this mentality. The same tactics were used to cover up the K-19 accident. Six of the volunteers that prevented a meltdown were killed by such dangerous doses of radiation that their corpses were buried in secret, and the entire crew was sworn to secrecy.

Years later, with Hollywood in control of the narrative, Nikolai Zateyev, the captain of K-19, went as far as to threaten a lawsuit to continue protecting his men. Producers of the film responded by claiming that revisions were made and that scenes from the early script were scrapped. That seems accurate, as the men in the film appear proud to be aboard the maiden voyage of K-19 rather than portrayed as drunken, fighting, incompetent sailors.

"K-19: The Widowmaker" remains an amalgamation of the brave actions taken by the men aboard the ship and a dramatized conflict between the leaders of the submarine. As with any Hollywood dramatization of real events, the line between reality and fiction is often blurred. But a fight from the survivors of K-19 ensured that certain truths would be told when the movie eventually surfaced.

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The post Why the Real Survivors Of K-19: The Widowmaker Weren't Fans of the Script appeared first on /Film.

Beacon of Galaxy message could be sent into heart of Milky Way, where life is deemed most likely to exist. From a report: "Even if the aliens are short, dour and sexually obsessed," the late cosmologist Carl Sagan once mused, "if they're here, I want to know about them." Driven by the same mindset, a Nasa-led team of international scientists has developed a new message that it proposes to beam across the galaxy in the hope of making first contact with intelligent extraterrestrials. The interstellar missive, known as the Beacon in the Galaxy, opens with simple principles for communication, some basic concepts in maths and physics, the constituents of DNA, and closes with information about humans, the Earth, and a return address should any distant recipients be minded to reply. The group of researchers, headed by Dr Jonathan Jiang at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, says that with technical upgrades the binary message could be broadcast into the heart of the Milky Way by the Seti Institute's Allen Telescope Array in California and the 500-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope in China. In a preliminary paper, which has not been peer reviewed, the scientists recommend sending the message to a dense ring of stars near the centre of the Milky Way -- a region deemed most promising for life to have emerged. "Humanity has, we contend, a compelling story to share and the desire to know of others -- and now has the means to do so," the scientists write. The message, if it ever leaves Earth, would not be the first. The Beacon in the Galaxy is loosely based on the Arecibo message sent in 1974 from an observatory of the same name in Puerto Rico. That targeted a cluster of stars about 25,000 light years away, so it will not arrive any time soon. Since then, a host of messages have been beamed into the heavens including an advert for Doritos and an invitation, written in Klingon, to a Klingon Opera in The Hague.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The first teaser trailer for Taika Waititi's "Thor: Love and Thunder" is here, and along with it is our first look at Natalie Portman as Jane Foster as Thor — a comic book event that's been teased as becoming part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for some time. With the appearance of Foster as Thor, unfortunately, also comes a whole bunch of fans and outlets calling her "Lady Thor" or worse, "female Thor." Waititi clarified this point on Twitter in July 2019, but apparently, some folks didn't get the memo. Now, "Lady Thor" is potentially one of Foster's many titles in the court of Asgard, much like Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander), but it's not her official title, and using it is just kind of lazy, gendered silliness. Calling Jane Foster's Thor "Lady Thor" feels like the same tactic used to name women's sports teams: what the heck is a Shamrockette, anyway?

The Mighty Thor

If people had been calling Hemsworth's Thor "Lord Thor," "Prince Thor," or "Man Thor" all this time, I would have zero issues with gendered names for Portman's Thor. The reason this kind of thing matters is because it further enforces masculinity and men as the default, with women as secondary. The character of Thor as we have known him and loved him is Thor. Jane Foster is also Thor. Think of it like Hawkeye: both Kate Bishop and Clint Barton are Hawkeye. Kate isn't "Lady Hawkeye" or "Hawkgirl," thank goodness, and so applying it to Thor just feels unnecessary. 

In the comics, Jane Foster has been referred to as "The Mighty Thor," which is the same title that Waititi used when correcting fans. To differentiate between Thor Odinsson and the title of Thor, it seems like "Love and Thunder" will refer to Hemsworth as Odinson, since he no longer wields the hammer Mjolnir or fights for Asgard. In the comics, Jane's road to becoming Thor is a painful and difficult one and reducing her to "Thor, but a girl" is deeply unfair. The Mighty Thor will have slightly different powers than her predecessor, and she's not an Asgardian but a human, but she's still Thor. 

"Thor: Love and Thunder" clearly has no problems with unconventional gender roles or titles: Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie is the King of Asgard, for Yggdrasil's sake! So why are people hung up on defining Jane Foster by her gender instead of the fact that she's a badass cancer survivor who can wield the power of Mjolnir? Her mightiness is what matters and should be celebrated.

"Thor: Love and Thunder" premieres in theaters on July 8, 2022.

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

The post Her Name is Thor, Not Lady Thor, Thank You Very Much appeared first on /Film.

Some time ago I noted that The x86 architecture is the weirdo. (And by x86 I mean specifically x86-32.) I was reminded by the compiler folks of another significant place where the x86 architecture is different from all the others, and that’s in how Windows structured exceptions are managed.

On Windows, all the other architectures track exception handling by using unwind codes and other information declared as metadata. If you step through a function on any other architecture, you won’t see any instructions related to exception handling. Only when an exception occurs does the system look up the instruction pointer in the exception-handling information in the metadata, and use that to decide what to do: Which exception handler should run? What objects need to be destructed? That sort of thing.

But the x86 is the weirdo. On Windows, the x86 tracks exception information at runtime. When control enters a function that needs to deal with exceptions (either because it it wants to handle the exception, or just because it wants to run destructors when an exception is thrown out of the function), the code must create an entry in a linked list threaded through the stack and anchored by the value in fs:[0]. In the Microsoft Visual C++ implementation, the linked list node also contains an integer which represents the current progress through the function, and that integer is updated whenever there is a change to the list of objects requiring destruction. It is updated immediately after the construction of an object completes, and immediately before the destruction of an object commences.

This special integer is a real pain in the neck, because the optimizer sees it as a dead store and really wants to optimize it out. Indeed sometimes, it really is a dead store, but sometimes it isn’t.

Consider:

struct S { S(); ~S(); };

void f1();
void f2();

S g()
{
    S s1;
    f1();
    S s2;
    f2();
    return S();
}

The code generation for this function goes like this:

struct ExceptionNode
{
    ExceptionNode* next;
    int (__stdcall *handler)(PEXCEPTION_POINTERS);
    int state;
};

S g()
{
    // Create a new node
    ExceptionNode node;
    node.next = fs:[0];
    node.handler = exception_handler_function;
    node.state = -1; // nothing needs to be destructed

    // Make it the new head of the linked list
    fs:[0] = &node;

    construct s1;
    node.state = 0; // s1 needs to be destructed

    f1();

    construct s2;
    node.state = 1; // s1 and s2 need to be destructed

    f2();

    construct return value;
    node.state = 2; // s1, s2, and return value need to be destructed

    node.state = 3; // s1 and return value need to be destructed
    destruct s2;

    node.state = 4; // return value needs to be destructed
    destruct s1;
}

The unwind state variable is updated whenever the list of “objects requiring destruction” changes. As far as the optimizer is concerned, all of these updates to state look like dead stores, since it seems that nobody reads them.

Aha, but somebody does read them: The exception_handler_function. The problem is that the call to the exception_handler_function is invisible: It is called when an exception is thrown by the f1() or f2() function, or by the destructor of the S objects.¹

But wait, some of these really are dead stores. For example, the assignments of 2 to node.state is a dead store, because it is immediately followed by a store of 3, and there is nothing in between, so no exception could occur while the value is 2. Similarly, the store of 3 is dead because the destructor of S is implicitly noexcept.¹ And the store of 4 is dead for the same reason: No exception can occur when destructing s1.

Further dead store elimination becomes possible if f1 or f2 are changed to noexcept.

So the optimizer is in a tricky spot here: It wants to eliminate dead stores, but the simple algorithm for identifying dead stores doesn’t work here because of the potential for exceptions.

Coroutines make this even worse: When a coroutine suspends, the exception-handling node needs to be copied from the stack into the coroutine frame, and then removed from the stack frame. And when the coroutine resumes, the state needs to be copied from the coroutine frame back into the stack, and linked into the chain of exception handlers.

Knowing exactly when to do this unlinking and relinking is tricky, because you still have to catch exceptions that occur in await_suspend and store them in the promise. But we learned that await_suspend is fragile because the coroutine may have resumed and run to completion before await_suspend returns.

void await_suspend(coroutine_handle<> handle)
{
  arrange_for_resumption(handle);
  throw oops; // who catches this?
}

The language says that the thrown exception is caught by the coroutine framework, which calls promise.unhandled_exception(). But the promise may no longer exist!

Dealing with all these crazy edge cases makes exception handling on x86, and particularly exception handling on x86 in coroutines, quite a complicated undertaking.

Bonus reading: Zero-cost exceptions aren’t zero cost.

¹ Destructors default to noexcept if no members or base classes have potentially-throwing destructors, but you can mark your destructor as potentially-throwing,² and then exceptions thrown from destructors become something the compiler has to worry about.

² Please don’t do that.

The post The x86 architecture is the weirdo, part 2 appeared first on The Old New Thing.

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Prior to 1988, Walmart wasn’t in the grocery business, which is wild because Walmart absolutely dominates the modern grocery industry. The chain is easily the top grocer in the country, with sales of about $341 billion in 2020 and a 26% market share. What’s deceptive about that market share is how Walmart controls…

Read more...

"In the dusty California desert, U.S. Army trainers are already using lessons learned from Russia's war against Ukraine as they prepare soldiers for future fights against a major adversary such as Russia or China," reports the Associated Press. And their training scenarios include more than just a enemy willing to destroy a city with missiles and rockets. "The enemy force that controls the fictional town of Ujen is using a steady stream of social media posts to make false accusations against the American brigade preparing to attack." "I think right now the whole Army is really looking at what's happening in Ukraine and trying to learn lessons," said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. Those lessons, she said, range from Russia's equipment and logistics troubles to communications and use of the internet. "The Russia-Ukraine experience is a very powerful illustration for our Army of how important the information domain is going to be," said Wormuth, who spent two days at the training center in the Mojave Desert watching an Army brigade wage war against the fictional "Denovian" forces. "We've been talking about that for about five years. But really seeing it and seeing the way Zelenskyy has been incredibly powerful.... This is a world war that the actual world can see and watch in real time.... " Army Col. Ian Palmer said the exercise is using more drones by the friendly and enemy forces, both for surveillance and attacks. So his forces are trying to use camouflage and tuck into the terrain to stay out of sight. "You know if you can be seen, you can be shot, where ever you are," he said. Down in the makeshift town, the opposition forces are confident they can hold off Palmer's brigade despite the size difference. The Denovians only have about 1,350 forces, but they are throwing everything they have at the brigade, from jamming and other electronic warfare to insurgency attacks and propaganda. The role-players have their phones ready to film and post quickly to social media. The Denovian forces want to portray the unit in the worst possible light, said Taylor, and constantly twist the narrative on social media so Palmer's troops realize they are in a battle for the truth. That's a challenge, he said, because "when I've got a bunch of casualties and I'm getting overrun on my left flank and my supply trains aren't where they need to be and I can't find the bulldozers, it's hard to think about something that someone said about me on Twitter."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In January and February of 2022, I ran a Kickstarter campaign for a new retro style point and click adventure game Blood Nova. As one of my responsibilities is to create the macOS and Linux builds, I thought that, just for fun, I'd look into creating a build for MS-DOS too. Having worked on it as a side-project for a few weeks now, I'm confident that such a port is possible. This post is intended to explain a little about the process and the challenges involved.

The primary build of Blood Nova is being made for Windows using GameMaker Studio, which also supports doing builds for macOS and Linux. MS-DOS, however, is not a supported target platform (imagine that!). As the game runs in 320x180 resolution with a very limited colour palette of just a few dozen entries, and doesn't rely on blistering fast animations, full motion video, or complicated 3D worlds, there isn't really anything about the game itself that precludes running on DOS. That, coupled with the fact that a point and click adventure like this requires only a small subset of the functions GameMaker provides, made me think that, rather than doing a full port with an entirely different codebase, I should look into creating a runtime environment for DOS that allows using the original codebase with only minor alterations. This, while slower than a true port, would tremendously simplify maintenance of the code and keeping the content and features of the main version in sync with the DOS version. So, think of this DOS version not so much as the game being ported, but the engine. What I've created is similar to the ScummVM system allowing older games to run on modern systems, but the other way around.

As not everybody will be interested in every aspect of the process, here is a quick table of contents allowing you to skip to the sections that you might be interested in.

• GameMaker Language
  • with, self and other
  • Shims, redirects and stub functions
• Graphics
• Sound
• Music
• Conclusion

GameMaker Language

GameMaker has its own custom scripting language, called GML, which is highly similar to JavaScript/ECMAScript. There are some differences (some of which are very significant), but much of the syntax is identical. There are several JS interpreters written in C that can be embedded in host programmes like the runtime environment I envision. Examples of such interpreters are Sami Varaala's Duktape, Fabrice Bellard's QuickJS and MuJS. For my current development efforts, I have used Duktape as I have experience with that because I use it in my other games. Its primary focus is not on speed, which may prove to be a problem especially on the now obsolete hardware that is appropriate for the DOS era. So in the future, I may have to replace it with QuickJS or MuJS, provided I can build them with DJGPP (a DOS port of the GCC compiler).

One thing that is very confusing about GameMaker is that it has slightly different terminology for things than is common in the development world. What GM calls an "object" is what is normally referred to as a "class". And the actual instances of those class are called "instances" (which isn't too confusing, as the rest of the world also often calls them instances, however, they are also often called simply "objects", which leads to confusion with GM's use of that term). I will try to avoid the use of the word "object" and instead use "class" and "instance" only.

The first thing I created is a separate translator programme. It has several tasks:

1. Parsing all the GML scripts, classes and events into an AST which can then be output as text again in either GML form (outputting essentially the same as the input code, just stripped of all comments and with strictly uniform formatting) or JavaScript form (in many cases identical to the GML code, but with adjustments made for the differences between GML and JS)
2. Keeping track of which GM functions are actively being used by the GML code in Blood Nova, so that I know exactly which subset of GM to implement in the runtime
3. Injecting custom scripts to override certain GML behaviours and to manage the runtime. This is done in JavaScript as much as possible, rather than in the native C++ code of the runtime environment. That makes it a lot easier to switch to another JS interpreter if/when needed
4. Precompiling the JS code to bytecode for the JS interpreter, to improve startup performance of the DOS runtime environment
5. Converting all the metadata from the GM project into a format that is easier to handle for the runtime environment
6. Converting graphics from PNG format to PCX to comply with the VGA palette and for ease of decoding as well as performance on DOS era hardware
7. Converting sound effects from MP3 or OGG format to WAV format at a lower fidelity. Although they will take up more space in WAV format, this is offset by the reduced samplerate (11025Hz vs 44100Hz) and the reduced resolution (8bit vs 16bit). Still, the sound quality is lower
8. Replacing the digital music tracks with MIDI versions, with custom versions for General MIDI and the venerable Roland MT-32
9. Combining the results of all the above into a large packed data file, like a TAR archive (similar to a ZIP file, but without compression) for easier distribution, and to overcome the lack of long filenames on DOS

with, self and other

The with construct deserves special mention, because it is one of the most radically different things between GML and JS, is being used extensively in pretty much any GML code and is absolutely crucial to have it working properly to be able to run anything.

Even though GML has classes and instances, it's not a proper object-oriented language, lacking such features as constructors/destructors, method calls, encapsulation etc. What it does have is events like Create, Destroy, Step and Draw at the class level, and potentially some instance creation code for a specific instance in a room. While those features are lacking, it does have other features that are very appropriate for game development. While most languages would require the developer to keep track of which instances are active in the game, and iterate over those as needed, GML provides a with construct that loops over all active instances of a class. This means that, whereas in, say, C++, you'd have to do something like:

typedef std::list <CAlien *> LIST_OF_ALIENS;
LIST_OF_ALIENS active_aliens;
LIST_OF_ALIENS::iterator itor = active_aliens.begin ();
while (itor != active_aliens.end ())
{
	CAlien *a = *itor++;
	a->x += 3;
}

to move all aliens to the right by 3 pixels, GML instead allows you to do simply:

with (CAlien) x += 3;

JavaScript doesn't keep a list of all instances created with the class. It does have a with construct, though unlike the GML version, it is not a loop, instead operating on a single instance. So instead, the runtime has an object corresponding to the class, which has a member $instances where it keeps references to all instances created. The reason for starting the variable name with a $ sign is simply that GML does not accept $ as part of an identifier, so there is no possibility of conflicting variable names when I prefix the automatically generated ones with that symbol. So, the above code gets translated into something like:

_context_push ();
for (var $itor in CAlien.$instances)
{
	with (CAlien.$instances [$itor])
	{
		$context = self;
		x += 3;
	}
}
$context = _context_pop ();

Since nested with blocks are possible, there must be a way to access either the inner or outer object explicitly. This done through the self keyword for the inner instance or whatever instance an event is operating on (the counterpart of JavaScript's this keyword) and other for the outer instance (the self at the scope above the current with block). An example use of this is to make all aliens move towards any player characters that are within 100 pixels of them:

with (CPlayer)
{
	with (CAlien)
	{
		if (point_distance (self.x, other.x, self.y, other.y) < 100)
		{
			move_towards_point (other.x, other.y, 5);
		}
	}
}

To keep track of the current context and the other reference, a stack of contexts is kept and managed through the _context_push and _context_pop functions.

Additionally, any functions in scripts that aren't part of an event handler, are still executed with the scope of an object. To replicate this behaviour, my translator programme injects a with (this) { ... } to surround the body of every GML function after translation to JavaScript.

Shims, redirects and stub functions

Because GML isn't object oriented in the way that JavaScript or most other modern language are, outside the classes and instances that are placed on the game screen, all of its functionality is in functions rather than method calls. As the things these functions do are for a large part trivial, there are many shims that can be trivially implemented in JavaScript directly, greatly simplifying the code of the runtime host programme. For example:

function array_length(a) { return a.length; }
function ds_list_delete (list, pos) { list.splice (pos, 1); }
function variable_struct_get (struct, name) { return struct ? struct [name] : undefined; }

Others can be redirected directly to their JS counterparts entirely:

json_encode = JSON.stringify;

And finally, some functionality being used is totally irrelevant to a DOS environment, so these functions are implemented by ignoring them:

function application_surface_draw_enable (flag) {}

Graphics

Blood Nova's backgrounds are drawn at a resolution of 320x180, to have a 16:9 ratio, which fits neatly into the 320x200 resolution of standard VGA mode 13h. The palette for the game's graphics contains just 42 entries, so that too is perfectly suitable for 8-bit colour, with enough space in the palette left over to do multiple versions of the base palette to enable blending.

In game, there are several cases where blending is used to achieve translucency effects. The major ones are the semi-transparent black backgrounds behind the text, a dark background for the inventory grid, and a purple background for the map grid. Unfortunately, 8-bit colour doesn't allow for perfect blending of arbitrary colours. However, those three common instances of translucency can be reproduced perfectly.

As you can see in the image above, the background of the inventory panel is translucent. Any other uses of blending (which amounts to fading sprites in and out, such as during a cutscene) have to be approximated through the use of dithering. Honestly, I was quite surprised to find that it doesn't look absolutely terrible. A good example of the dithering is the letters of the Blood Nova logo on the main menu screen fading in.

Sound

There are plenty of sound effects in Blood Nova, all as high quality stereo recordings. Although it isn't a very common occurrence, it can happen that multiple sound effects play simultaneously, or that one-off sound effects play over a continuous background loop. This means that it won't do to just have those one-off sounds playing and cutting each other off if there is more than one at a time. To overcome that, continuous mixing of multiple channels is required. On a modern PC, this is handled by the sound hardware or even on the CPU with very little impact. On a DOS era computer, a Gravis UltraSound can handle the mixing in hardware, but for the much more common Sound Blaster family of cards, it has to be done in the CPU and the impact on performance is not insignificant. The lower the sound quality, the lower the aount of CPU power required. Additionally, the original sound effects are compressed MP3 files (and one OGG file), which requires yet more CPU power to decode.

Beside processing requirements, I'm also looking to keep the disk space requirements as low as possible. This is to make it possible to have a set of physical install disks (or downloadable disk images) as a means for distributing the game. To make the sound system workable and use up as little disk space as possible, I ended up decreasing the sound quality to 11kHz 8bit mono. Yes, this doesn't sound nearly as good as the originals, but I feel it is an acceptable compromise and also adds a bit of a retro charm to the sound. Here's a short video demonstrating the sound playback.

Writing (and especially debugging) the sound mixer code was an exercise in masochism, as the machine I'm writing the code on isn't very powerful and doesn't have great sound capabilities. Also, when programming under DOS, the debugging facilities aren't nearly as advanced as when writing under a modern OS with modern tools. That, and interrupt handlers are notoriously difficult to debug. Still, the results are worth it. I have elected to support only version 2 of the Sound Blaster card or later, including the SB Pro, SB16, and SB AWE. This is because the 1.0 and 1.5 revisions don't support auto-initialising DMA, which can be worked around, but that can result in audible clicks.

Music

Blood Nova's soundtrack is composed primarily by Donovan Jonk of Megahammer Studios. It would be quite possible to just use the digital tracks from the mainline version and play them back using the sound mixer described above. However, this would require a significant amount of disk space for the sampled tracks, and it wouldn't be very common for a DOS game not distributed on CD to have a fully digital soundtrack. More appropriate for the era was the use of an AdLib or Sound Blaster for the lower end, a Gravis UltraSound in the mid-range or at the high end of the spectrum, a Roland MT-32 or one of its General MIDI successors.

Therefore, the DOS version will also make use of a MIDI soundtrack. These tracks will be played back through the MIDI port through a General MIDI compatible synthesizer for best results, with a custom version being created for the Roland MT-32 (which has different instrument patches and velocity and panning response and different MIDI channel assignments). A cut-down version can be played through the OPL2 FM chip on the AdLib and Sound Blaster cards and I'm also exploring the possibility of implementing a Gravis UltraSound driver.

Note that the tune in the video above is from the Gravis UltraSound driver CD, played back through a Roland Sound Canvas MIDI synthesizer. The song is designed to show off the abilities of a MIDI synthesizer and, while it is great for demonstration purposes and testing whether the code works correctly, it sounds nothing like the actual Blood Nova sound track will. I can't take credit for writing this tune or for the sound quality of the Roland synth.

Conclusion

One final thing to end on. To make the nostalgia experience complete, there should be a configuration utility to choose the sound devices and I opted to model mine on the old style Sierra SCi installers.

I hope this will have given you a bit of insight into the process and the effort that goes into creating a DOS port of a modern retro game. The DOS version of Blood Nova will not be available separately, as I don't have the publishing rights for it, but will be freely available to people who have backed the game on Kickstarter, and may be offered as an extra download for the Steam and Itch versions too.

If you haven't backed the project on Kickstarter, you will be able to get the game on Steam when it is released, so go right ahead and wishlist Blood Nova on Steam.

So right off the bat: we've got audio issues this week. There was a mic snafu, and somebody recorded on a headset rather than their usual microphone. The audio isn't terrible, but it's not amazing. So, there's your warning. If you can get past the audio stuff, two of us are here this week to talk lots about Anger Foot, Prodeus, Switch Sports and plenty more.  This week's music:  David Bowie - I'm Afraid of Americans

The post AMD Ryzen Master Utility Adds Auto & Manual Curve Optimizer by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.

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IMDB Rating: 8.0/10
Genre: Documentary
Size: 1.46 GB
Runtime: 12hr 0 min

A look at the life of Gerry Anderson, the creator of Thunderbirds.

Despite the fact that "Our Flag Means Death" is the most in-demand new streaming series and has inspired copious amounts of incredible fan art from impassioned supporters, the future of the show is still up in the air. The first season left a lot of loose ends and a bit of a cliffhanger, so not knowing if HBO will greenlight season 2 has been more torturous than scrubbing the deck with Izzy Hands. Fans on Twitter have taken up using the hashtag #RenewOurFlagMeansDeath, but as of yet, those efforts have not paid off. 

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, series creator David Jenkins and star Taika Waititi shared updates on season 2, and unfortunately they're just as in the dark as we are. Jenkins has plans for season 2, but there's still no word on whether HBO Max will give them the "aye, captain" that they need to go on.

A Cruel Cliffhanger

The end of season 1 left Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) and Blackbeard (Waititi) at odds, with some serious problems facing both of them. It's in no way a satisfying ending, and it's clear that the people who make the series want the story to continue. Jenkins explained that he would "re-orient" Bonnet and Blackbeard in season 2 in order for them to deal with the events of season 1, as they're both processing a lot of new emotions. The series has been praised for its representation of non-binary people and queer relationships, and it would be great to see these stories get the ending they deserve. 

When the LA Times asked Jenkins and Waititi for updates on the renewal, Waititi was characteristically relatable, saying:

"I don't know anything. I just think that they should because it makes sense. Also, I need to know what happens next. [Laughs]"

It truly does make sense to continue a series that's been a hit for HBO Max and has a dedicated fanbase. Even if you remove the need to know what happens next (which is eating away at fans like the Swede's scurvy), it makes sense for HBO Max to renew the series from the popularity alone. Jenkins had a bit more to say, and was humbled by the outpouring of love from fans online:

"It's a rough one to not pick up on after what happened at the end of it. It's a particularly rough one. I hope they figure it out. I hope they want to do more. I know everyone in the show wants to. Just to go on [social media] and see it trend for like two weeks feels unreal. It's so gratifying, even not knowing if you're renewed, to see that people liked it that much."

I'm glad it's gratifying, but we need more "Our Flag Means Death," darn it! Shows this refreshingly funny, sweet, and full of positive representation are all too rare, and letting this ship sail into the night without a proper ending would be a tragedy. 

Read this next: 15 Shows Like Brooklyn Nine-Nine You Need To See

The post Our Flag Means Death: Taika Waititi & David Jenkins Say the Show's Future is Still Uncertain appeared first on /Film.

​​(Welcome to Year of the Vampire, a series examining the greatest, strangest, and sometimes overlooked vampire movies of all time in honor of "Nosferatu," which turns 100 this year.)

In the mid-2000s a micro-budget zombie film called "Pathogen" -- about a group of middle schoolers discovering an infection in their town's water supply was turning people into zombies -- was making waves at horror festivals all across the globe. A companion documentary called "Zombie Girl" hit the scene around the same time, giving a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of "Pathogen" and highlighting the budding talent of the film's director, Emily Hagins, who was only 12 years old at the time. In 2011, at the age of 17, Hagins wrote and directed her third feature, "My Sucky Teen Romance," which debuted at SXSW and was later distributed by Dark Sky Films.

The film came out between the two-part releases of "Twilight: Breaking Dawn," when teenage vampire mania was at an all time high, and encompasses the weird cultural existence many teenage geek girls had to endure during the "Twilight" craze. I'm only a few years older than Hagins, and distinctly remember the way I was treated and spoken to at horror conventions during this time. Despite the fact I was writing professionally about horror as a teenager, it was frequently assumed that my presence at a horror convention or film festival was born out of "Twilight" being my introduction to vampire cinema. 

Yet it was Hagins' story about a cabal of vampires infiltrating a comic book convention, from the perspective of a pair of teen girls just trying to enjoy themselves, which spoke directly to my heart in a way that most movies never could.

Count Kate-Ula

"My Sucky Teen Romance" centers on a girl named Kate (Elaine Hurt) who decides ahead of attending Space-Con that she wants to spend her weekend checking out all the geeky stuff she loves, and finding a no-strings-attached convention weekend hook-up. Knowing that her local grocery store clerk, Paul (Patrick Delgado), will be attending the con, she chooses him as her target ... not knowing that Paul was attacked just before the convention by a perennial teenage vampire from the 1950s named Vince (Devin Bonnee), and is now fighting the urge to drain the blood from the girl of his dreams. 

Hagins' love of pop culture is well on display in "My Sucky Teen Romance," and the film wastes no time parodying vampire tropes of both the classical horror and the sparkly romance variety. "You could sparkle or burst into flames," a friend of Kate aptly declares after she's been bitten.

For a movie filled with so many sarcastic takedowns of geek culture, there's a sweetness embedded in the storytelling about the power of fandom, and the bond that exists between people brought together by a shared love of something the rest of the world thinks you're "weird" for enjoying. As Kate turns more and more visibly into a vampire, her friends utilize their knowledge of vampire lore to develop a checklist of vampire symptoms. When Paul shows up at her convention hotel room to try and help her after accidentally turning her into a vampire, he realizes that she has things "under control" because her friends are using all of their vampire knowledge to keep her safe.

Low Budget But Not Low Quality

Returning to "My Sucky Teen Romance" over a decade after release was a sincerely delightful time, as Hagins' work exemplifies the DIY-or-die creativity that thrived in the 2010s as the tools for filmmaking became more and more accessible. Sure, the film looks like its budget, but in a way that only adds to the charm. The convention that the characters attend exemplifies the homegrown fests held all over the country considered "too small" for A-list celebrities to attend, but a sanctuary for those that love all things spooky or sci-fi. 

"My Sucky Teen Romance" is so much more than a snarky, teenage response to the growing vampire wars, as it proved that the wunderkind Emily Hagins wasn't a fluke or a gimmick, but a certifiable force in the world of filmmaking. Her 2013 film "Grow Up, Tony Phillips" feels like the spiritual precursor to Adam Sandler's "Hubie Halloween," and she even had the chance to direct the feature "Coin Heist" for Netflix, in addition to contributing segments to the "V/H/S/" miniseries and "Scare Package."

Vampire films have been part of the foundation of the horror genre since the very beginning, as has low budget and independent cinema. "My Sucky Teen Romance" is a marriage of both of those worlds, and the result is a film that is accessible to audiences of all ages. The humor is solid, the characters are endearing, and with the exception of one poorly-aged cameo, it's a lovely time capsule of indie geek culture in 2011. Hagins has a new film due out soon for Shudder called "Sorry About the Demon," and before it debuts later this year, "My Sucky Teen Romance" is well worth a revisit.

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The post Year of the Vampire: My Sucky Teen Romance Perfectly Captures Geeky Teen Love appeared first on /Film.

Nicolas Cage is having a moment, but it seems he'll be the first to tell you that it's a moment built upon a long filmography full of moments. The "Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" star spoke with Rolling Stone this week in an interview that turned out to be a bit of a career retrospective.

Ever insightful, Cage looked back at some of his best and most interesting roles. He also opened up about the mental framing that keeps him grounded. "I'm not career-minded," the actor said. "My mantra has always been 'work.' I never had a 'career.' I only had 'work.'" Cage noted the difference when discussing what sets him apart from Nick Cage, the fictionalized version of himself whom he plays in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent."

Every Album Has A Song That Works

Cage continued, "I find something in a movie that I think works. It's like a rock album. Maybe not all of it works in the script, but there's one or two songs, one or two scenes that work." His method seems to have paid off, as Cage is recognized not just for the great movies he's done, but for the great performance moments that have made less-great movies better. 

After recent years spent on mostly under-the-radar films, the actor gained acclaim for his turn in soulful drama "Pig" last year. With new fans flocking to Cage's filmography and uncovering deep cuts and hidden gems, his job-by-job mentality seems to be paying off. Refreshingly, the actor doesn't seem to weigh any one gig above another, recognizing the best bits of each. In conversation with Rolling Stone, he says:

"I think that I did some of the best work of my life in that so-called 'Direct To Video' period. 'Massive Talent' was in that group. 'Mandy' was in that group. 'Pig,' 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,' 'Joe,' 'Mom and Dad,' 'Color Out Of Space' — they were all in that group."

Over the course of his recent press tour, Cage has done a great job demystifying the art of acting, reminding fans that it doesn't always have to be spoken about in the most elevated, self-flattering terms. Sometimes it is a job, but even so, it can still be enjoyable. Last month, he told GQ magazine that "when I was doing four movies a year, back to back to back, I still had to find something in them to be able to give it my all." He seems to be saying something similar here.

There's something gently profound about Cage's ability to see some good in every movie, especially in an era when the immediate feedback loop of social media values quick and sometimes cruel first impressions. He might be onto something here.

"The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" premieres April 22, 2022 in theaters.

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

The post Nicolas Cage Says He's Never Had a 'Career,' Only 'Work' appeared first on /Film.

Since I’m a big fan of immersive sim games, I’ve been looking forward to Weird West since its initial announcement. After all, this is the first game by WolfEye, a studio formed by the co-founder of Arkane (who worked on Dishonored and Prey, both of which I absolutely loved). So, here are my thoughts after … Continue reading Weird West PC Review →

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