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The sizeable new The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Rebirth 5.8 update is here, bringing with it a number of notable changes to the excellent overhaul mod - including improving the Imperial Guards, revamping locations like the Shrine of Azura and Ebonheart, and adding weapons such as Skyrim's terrifying Ebony Blade.

While The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is over ten years old and looking decidedly long in the tooth, the third RPG game Morrowind is fast approaching its 20th anniversary in May. With a finished Skyrim Morrowind mod conversion still a long way off, the best way to play it is with the fantastic Morrowind Rebirth overhaul mod - which itself is ten years old.

Morrowind Rebirth 5.8 is out now, and it's described as an "early celebration" of the upcoming anniversary. There are a lot of improvements, fixes, and additions in the new update, but perhaps the coolest is the introduction of Skyrim's Ebony Blade - also known as "The Vampire" due to the way it leeches health from foes. It's actually been in every mainline Elder Scrolls game apart from Morrowind, so it's cool that the Rebirth team is readdressing that.

"Death Note" is among the most famous Japanese manga series in the world. It has sold over 30 million copies in Japan and was adapted into an anime television show that became popular with American audiences.

Created by Tsugumi Obata and Takeshi Obata, "Death Note" has a sinister premise. The story follows Light Yagami, a teen genius and high school student who discovers a mysterious, supernatural notebook called the "Death Note." The book is revealed to have belonged to Ryuk, a Shinigami (a death god) who grants the book's holder the ability to kill anyone by writing their name and cause of death on its pages. Consisting of 37 episodes, the series centers around Light's attempt to carry out a worldwide massacre of immoral individuals (mainly criminals) so he may live in a crime-free society, while the elite Japanese police task force led by a detective named L work to hunt him down.

The anime depicts Light's abuse of his newfound power and how it influences him to take on the alias of a godlike identity known as Kira. The series is compelling and features some seriously twisted characters, and it's so suspenseful you can never predict what happens next.It's one of the best psychological thriller anime series of all time — but even the greatest forms of entertainment can be embroiled in sensational controversy.

Death Note Caused Chaos In Chinese Schools

"Death Note" is one of the many manga/anime shows banned in China for its graphic content. In early 2005, the manga stirred significant controversy in the country after students in the Chinese city of Shenyang began creating their own death notes.

Students began purchasing stationery notebooks and followed the manga's instructions, writing names of people they disliked on its pages. In response, the school banned the use of stationery notebooks entirely. While many felt that the ban was an overreaction and completely unnecessary, Chinese parents and teachers approved it, describing the death note as "a poison that creates wicked hearts." They stated that the ban was meant to protect innocent children from the "evil notebook."

The Shenyang Night Report also published a quote from a middle school student who told the publication that many of his classmates owned death note notebooks and wrote down names of teachers they disliked when they got tired of studying.

That Wasn't The End Of The Controversy

In 2007, the popularity of "Death Note" was at an all-time high — the manga's first anime adaptation had been released a year earlier. An extensive news report from a Chinese publication details "Death Note" driving notebook sales in connection to its popularity among students in the Chinese city of Shenzhen.

The well-known notebook found in Takeshi Obata's manga became a preferred toy among elementary and middle school students. When parents and teachers were made aware of the new trend among young students, they began voicing their concern over the effect it could have on children, expressing their apprehensions about it negatively impacting a child's growth.

Days after the report was published, the Cultural Market Administrative Enforcement Department confiscated over 187 death note books from toy and school utensil stores in the city. Chinese authorities further banned stores from producing the notebooks, deeming them illegal products and threatening severe punishment if they were continued to be sold.

While "Death Note" has captured the hearts of anime and manga lovers alike, it certainly does feature a dark tale and several unsettling scenes.

It is more than just a supernatural high school drama — it explores how power can corrupt the most kindhearted and how rapidly a good man can make his descent into evil. Whether it deserves to be banned, however, is a question that remains to be answered.

Read this next: 15 Must-See Horror Anime Movies

The post The Death Note Anime Controversy Explained appeared first on /Film.

Contains DOOM 64 CE with graphics and audio addons. Requires a patched DOOM64.IWAD (see prerequisites instructions below). Comes bundled with GZDoom 4.7.1 for convenience, but you can use an existing installation of it. Read the readme for more details.

[link] [42 comments]

(Superhero Bits is a collection of stories, updates, and videos about anything and everything inspired by the comics of Marvel, DC, and more. For comic book movies, TV shows, merchandise, events, and whatever catches our eye, this is the place to find anything that falls through the cracks.)

In this edition of Superhero Bits:

• A "Guardians of the Galaxy" announcement is incoming.

• Bruce Campbell pulls one over on us for April Fool's Day. 

• "Loki" remains the champion of the MCU on Disney+.

• The future of "Moon Knight" is somewhat uncertain.

• All that and more!

We're Getting A Guardians Of The Galaxy Announcement Monday

We're getting some "Guardians of the Galaxy" news on Monday. However, we need to pump the brakes just a bit, because this doesn't have anything to do with "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3." Instead, this will be about the "Cosmic Rewind" attraction making its way to Walt Disney World later this year. There will probably be a trailer and/or some new details, perhaps a date for the attraction's opening. So be on the lookout.

Moon Knight Comic Cover Funko POP!

The folks at Funko have revealed a brand new POP! figure inspired by Marvel's "Moon Knight" series, which debuted earlier this week on Disney+. Specifically, this figure honor's the character's comic book roots with a cover from Marvel Comics featuring the hero on the packaging, in addition to the hero himself. The toy will be made available soon for $20. Those who are interested in pre-ordering can get all of the information at Funko's website by clicking here.

Loki Is Still The Most-Viewed MCU Show On Disney+

Even though "Moon Knight" is the new kid in town, "Loki" is still the king of the hill in terms of the Marvel Disney+ shows. The Hollywood Reporter recently did a rundown of how the "Star Wars" and MCU shows have performed on the streaming service over the past couple of years. "Loki" has total viewership of 5.23 billion minutes, averaging 872 million minutes per episode, which is the best of any of the Marvel shows so far. However, "The Mandalorian" is still the best overall, with 8.33 billion minutes logged for season 2. We'll see how "Loki" season 2 performs when it comes back around.

Peacemaker's Bat-Mite Gets A Poster

One of the absolute best gags in all of "Peacemaker" season 1 was the confirmation that the obscure "Batman" character Bat-Mite does indeed exist within the framework of the DCEU. Thanks, James Gunn! Now, the folks at DC Comics are having a little fun with it, giving the little guy his very own poster in the style of marketing for Robert Pattinson's "The Batman," with the admittedly silly character bathed in very serious red and black. Just great stuff by the DC social media team here.

Steve Trevor Is Really Dead, Don't Expect To See Him In Wonder Woman 3

Chris Pine's Steve Trevor made a somewhat unlikely return to the DCEU in "Wonder Woman 1984," but it was comic book-y stuff that made his resurrection possible. However, the film did kill the handsome pilot once more ,and this time, it appears to be permanent. Speaking with USA Today recently, Pine said, "I think poor Steve is dead, but I wish them all the best on the third one." So don't expect to see him pop up again in "Wonder Woman 3" alongside Gal Gadot. RIP Steve.

These Guys Built A Real, Working Bat-Signal

The Bat-Signal is one of the most iconic bits of imagery from the "Batman" franchise and, as it always does, it recently appeared in "The Batman" to help call Robert Pattinson's version of the DC hero where he is needed. The folks at the Hacksmith YouTube channel recently decided to see if they could make the Bat-Signal for real and, despite their doubts, they totally pulled it off. The video is a little long, but there is a lot of detail on its creation, from beginning to end. It's worth a watch even for casual fans.

Oscar Issac Doesn't Have A Long MCU Contract Beyond Moon Knight

In the early days of the MCU, much was made of the actors signing lengthy deals that included six movies or more. Those days appear to be long gone. As reported by Variety, Oscar Isaac does not have a contract with Marvel Studios that extends beyond "Moon Knight," which is being billed as a limited series. Speaking with the outlet, Isaac said the following:

"I had heard of the golden handcuffs. That was something that I was reticent about. And luckily, we all agreed that this [show] is what we're going to focus on. This is the story. And if there's any kind of future, I think it just depends on if people like it, if people want to see more, and if we find a story that's worth telling."

So if Marvel wants more from Marc Spector in the future, Isaac would have to be fully on board, and a deal would have to be worked out at the time, which is certainly interesting.

Bruce Campbell Gets The Last Laugh On April Fool's Day (Or Does He?)

Yes, it is April Fool's Day, which means fans of big franchises will be fooled left and right by fake stories about stupid things that aren't actually happening. To that end, Bruce Campbell posted the above photo teasing his role in this summer's "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," which is directed by his friend and frequent collaborator Sam Raimi. As we can see, Campbell is done up like Doctor Strange here, which might lead some people to believe he is playing a variant of the character within the Marvel Multiverse. Unfortunately, this is more than likely just a prank, given that it was posted on April 1. But wouldn't the real prank be if we find out this is legit and posting it on April 1 threw us all off the scent? Perhaps that's wishful thinking at best.

Read this next: The 15 Most Anticipated Comic Book Movies And Shows Of 2022, Ranked

The post Superhero Bits: The Uncertain Future Of Moon Knight, Bruce Campbell's Doctor Strange & More appeared first on /Film.

This is the full version of Morrowind Rebirth 5.8.

In the past five years, reports of staggering insect declines have stoked anxiety and debate concerning the fate of the "little things that run the world," as the late biologist E. O. Wilson once called them. As for the how and why of these declines, the prime culprits are habitat destruction, rampant use of pesticides, and climate change. But new research published March 30 in Biology Letters adds an unexpected suspect, at least for a large swath of North America: the earthworm. From a report: The study looked at 60 plots in an aspen and poplar forest in Alberta, Canada, and found that as the numbers of earthworms wriggling in the soil and leaf litter increased, the diversity and abundance of invertebrates aboveground decreased. These results might sound surprising, since earthworms are widely considered to be helpful garden residents. Worms earned their reputation by aerating and mixing soil with their burrows and releasing locked up nutrients in their castings, all of which can help certain plants thrive. But this new study is part of a growing body of research suggesting that at least in the forests of northern North America, earthworms may not be the slimy angels of the underworld we tend to think they are. "When people talk about insect decline, they rarely talk about the soil," says Nico Eisenhauer, a soil ecologist at Leipzig University in Germany and one of the authors of the new study. "Many of the insects and invertebrates that are in decline have life phases in the soil. What you don't see flying around now has first disappeared from the soil, and earthworms can fundamentally alter soil conditions." Earthworms' subterranean engineering isn't a problem in their native ecosystems, but in the northern half of North America, the glaciers of the last ice age wiped out virtually all soil-dwelling worms more than 10,000 years ago. The ice sheets covered nearly all of Canada, most of the northeast U.S., and much of the upper Midwest. When the ice receded, forests returned but the worms did not because they can only expand their range by a maximum of about 30 feet a year. These northerly ecosystems evolved for millennia in the absence of earthworms. Without worms munching through fallen foliage and churning the soil, these forests accumulated thick layers of leaf litter, which came to support a vast array of animals, fungi, and plants. Eisenhauer says even non-scientists can appreciate the difference.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Well, Marvel fans, the time is finally upon us, and those who have been curious for literally years at this point can finally head to a theater to see "Morbius." The latest Marvel Comics adaptation from Sony Pictures, given the green light in the wake of the success of "Venom," has been delayed more times than worth recounting — but Jared Leto's latest superhero endeavor following his turn as Joker in "Suicide Squad" is here. 

One thing those who head to theaters will probably notice is that several scenes from the trailers didn't actually make the final cut. But upon closer inspection, there were actually a lot of shots from the trailers that were either changed or axed entirely in the film's long journey to the screen. 

We're here to go over everything we found and try to figure out what exactly happened between the time that first teaser trailer dropped and now. Let's dig in.

Warning: major spoilers ahead for "Morbius." Proceed with caution.

Humming Beethoven

The initial teaser trailer for this movie came out more than two years ago. Let us never forget that. And it's very clear a whole lot changed between then and even when the final trailer came out. That said, the original teaser has Beethoven's "Fur Elise" as the music bed, and Leto's Dr. Michael Morbius can be heard humming the tune in the trailer. This is not something that ended up in the final product in any way shape or form.

'You've Been Missing For Two Months'

I will go into this a bit more later but a lot of dialogue was switched around between what was in the trailers and what ended up in the actual version of "Morbius" we got to see. One very interesting bit of cut dialogue from the trailers comes from Tyrese Gibson's Simon Stroud, a detective hot on Michael's heels throughout the film. In the trailer, he mentions to the good doctor, "you've been missing for two months" before being "found" on a container ship. This differs wildly from what happens in the actual movie. He is not missing for months and he isn't even technically found on the ship as he jumps overboard and is found later in the city. So this implies that not just scenes were changed, but whole story beats were shuffled around pretty significantly in editing beyond that first trailer.

Lifting A Heavy Artifact

"Morbius" has an admittedly weak sequence where the hero discovers his powers, with Leto working in his lab sort of figuring out what he can do while drinking artificial blood. In the trailers, there is a beat (glimpsed above) that sees him lifting a gigantic, heavy artifact of some kind (it looks like a tomb or a sarcophagus). This is not seen in the actual film and could have just been trimmed to tighten things up. It's unclear.

'A Form Of Bat Radar'

Getting to another bit of swapped-around dialogue, in the main trailer Michael mentions that he has "a form of bat radar" as a result of his experimentation. In the movie, a version of this line appears, but he punctuates it by actually using the phrase echolocation which makes him sound a bit smarter, which makes sense, given that he is supposed to be a brilliant scientist and should indeed know the right words for these things.

Matt Smith Walking

Here, we have a bit of a deceptive moment that was altered from the trailers to the final product. We see Matth Smith's Milo walking in the subway in human form in the trailer. However, in the actual film, he is in full-blown vampire mode with lots of CGI and maybe some makeup. It's pretty clear that they left this shot as human Smith so as to not spoil the reveal of the villain, or at least that's the version of it that makes this seem less messy and weird. In any event, a wildly different version of this shot is actually in the final product. It's not uncommon to edit trailer shots, as we saw with the "Spider-Man: No Way Home" trailer, so this one kind of makes sense.

'Dr. Michael Morbius, At Your Service'

One line that was used a lot in the marketing, even to punctuate the main trailer, was Leto doing away with some thugs. When one of them asks who he is, he replies, "I am Venom" and then hisses at the guy. He then pats the crook on the shoulder and says he's kidding before adding, "Dr. Michael Morbius, at your service." While the first part of the line does still appear in the movie, the second bit was cut out for reasons that are not clear. It is a bit odd to lean so heavily on this in the marketing and then not actually have it in the movie, but there's a lot of that at play here. It's also kind of weird to have your main character claim he's someone from a completely different movie. 

The Oscorp Building

I'll add a disclaimer here and say it's possible it could have been a blink-and-you-miss-it thing in the actual version of "Morbius" in theaters right now, but in the trailers, there was a pretty prominent shot of the Oscorp building in the skyline. This heavily implied that Norman Osborn and maybe even Harry Osborn were present in this universe. But it appears that Sony may have cut the building out in the final edit. Why do that? Could it have something to do with that post-credits scene and the studio's future plans? It's tough to say right now but this is a notable omission.

Jared Harris On The Park Bench

Jared Harris' Emil Nikols had an important role to play in "Morbius" as the doctor who helped both Michael and Milo throughout their lives. However, his actual screen time is not all that significant for an actor of Harris' caliber. It appears that he originally might have had a meatier part, as the trailers contained a pretty healthy chat between Emil and Michael on a park bench. Yet, in the movie, this scene was removed entirely. Again, this leads us to believe that the movie was heavily restructured through reshoots and editing, and Harris may have lost out on some screen time in the process.

The Scene With Adrian Toomes And Morbius

This is without a doubt the biggest of the big scenes that didn't make it into the movie. We've known for literally years that Michael Keaton's Adrian Toomes, aka Vulture, was going to be in "Morbius," which kind of implied that the movie existed in the MCU, since he was the villain in "Spider-Man: Homecoming." The scene from the trailers saw him actually speaking with Michael more directly in an alleyway in handcuffs and a jumpsuit. This did not happen in the movie and, instead, Keaton only appears in post-credits scenes that were incredibly different than what we saw in the trailers. There is no line where Toomes says "become what you're meant to be" to Morbius, and no interaction in the alleyway. It appears the whole multiverse rip from "No Way Home" completely altered Sony's thinking on how to handle this, and it was made all the messier and head-scratching for it.

The Spider-Man Graffiti Wall

Another gigantic, eye-grabbing scene from the trailers was Leto running by a wall with graffiti of Spider-Man on it (a Spider-Man that looks a lot more like Tobey Maguire's version, mind you) with "murderer" painted across it. This appears to be after Michael broke out of jail, but it doesn't really matter because this was axed from the movie entirely. Is it that the brass at Marvel Studios didn't want Spider-Man appearing so directly in this universe? Or is it that Sony decided to shift gears? The post-credits scene does make mention of Spider-Man, so we know one exists in this universe anyway, which makes it even odder that this shot was removed. Much to process, much to consider.

Lots And Lots Of Dialogue

To punctuate this whole thing, I should mention that going over the trailers again after seeing the movie a whole lot of little bits of dialogue stood out. Without going over them with a fine-toothed comb once the Blu-ray comes out, it would be tough to pick it all apart, but lots and lots of lines were changed from the trailers to the final film. It's a clear example that Sony (or director Daniel Espinosa) was still figuring a lot out even after the movie was "finished" ahead of its original planned release two years ago. One can't help but wonder about the discussion we'd be having if the original version of the movie had indeed hit theaters a couple of years back.

"Morbius" is in theaters now.

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

The post Every Morbius Trailer Scene Not in the Movie appeared first on /Film.

You've played Doom Eternal with ray tracing, you've played Quake 2 with ray tracing, and now it's time to reach even further into the past and play the original 1993 Doom with ray tracing. Yes, today is April Fools Day, but this falls into the best category of April 1 gags - a sudden update that brings a cool, weird, and very real new feature to a classic game.

Modder sultim-t has added real time path tracing to the PrBoom source port of the original Doom, which will let you enjoy the beauty of bleeding-edge lighting techniques through the game's first three episodes. You can download sultim-t's modded PrBoom for yourself on GitHub, though you will, of course, need to provide your own copy of the DOOM.wad file.

The results are… weird, but undeniably striking, as you can see in the trailer below. The simple textures and basic geometry of these old levels help the advanced lighting stand out even better than it does when applied to more complex modern games.

RELATED LINKS: Doom PC release date, Play Doom

I have never been a good student of history, at least not in the traditional sense. I hate reading about war, but war is only one lens through which we can study the past. History is literally just stuff that happened, and wars are not the only thing that happened. Almost any cultural phenomenon or artistic movement…

Read more...

submitted by /u/ColinLab [link] [comments]

China-based actress Zhang Ziyi has starred in some of the most celebrated martial arts films of all time, and pulled off incredible feats in the process. She carried her weight against titans like Tony Leung, Jet Li and Maggie Cheung in Zhang Yi-mou's 2004 epic "Hero." She totally stole the show — while dangling 60 feet above the ground — in Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." She even faced off with Ip Man (Tony Leung again) in Wong Kar-wai's "The Grandmaster." But according to the Zhang herself, one of her most difficult roles to date came in "House of Flying Daggers," her third collaboration with Zhang Yi-mou.

In "Daggers," Zhang plays Mei, a blind dancer who may or may not be an assassin in disguise. The actress told IGN about her role in the film and the challenge it posed. "This is a [difficult] role because not only am I blind but I have to fight blind," she explained. "I had to learn how to live, how to fight, how to dance and then to do all of this as a blind girl." Naturally, it wasn' easy — but for Zhang, who strives to bring "everything I have" to each role, it was also an opportunity.

Becoming Mei

Zhang was juggling a lot while preparing for "Daggers." Spending two months training to fight and dance came easily enough, but all that still had to be filtered through the experience of being blind. For that, Zhang turned to an unconventional teacher. "I lived with a real blind girl who was 14 years old," she told IGN. The actress learned by watching and mimicking the girl's movements and reactions, even asked the film's assistant directors to record the process.

"The A.D.'s helped me by videotaping us together," Zhang told Variety in 2005. "I'd then watch the tapes and see how the both of us react to the same things."

In turn, Zhang recalled teaching the girl a few things as well. "I taught her some martial arts that use bamboo, because I think the reaction is different."  There were other things that Zhang couldn't teach. "She can't run, the blind girl," Zhang told IGN. "I took her to a very, very big empty space and she was so scared, she wouldn't run. I told her, 'Come on, please!' but she was so scared."

Ultimately, Zhang borrowed more than just mannerisms from her teacher. According to Variety, it was the girl's inner-strength that inspired Zhang as well. It's an inner-strength, maybe even a rebellious spirit, that has made Zhang such a force on-screen. Her dedication to all her roles, no matter the difficulty, always shines through. But what makes the actress so exhilarating to watch is her ability to make it all look easy.

Read this next: 12 Awesome Action Movies That Never Got Sequels

The post Zhang Ziyi Had Some Unique Training For Her House Of Flying Daggers Role appeared first on /Film.

We here at /Film have a proud history of deciding not to recognize April Fool's Day in any way, shape, or form. That's not only because today has to be the absolute dumbest "holiday" ever invented by humanity, shamelessly pandering to the lowest common denominators among us and lowering the bar of "humor" to the point where it defies all reason whatsoever. No, my logic is even simpler than that. Why go to the trouble of making up absurd headlines in the moviesphere for kicks and giggles when actual news items happen to require absolutely no exaggeration whatsoever?

Take the latest quote from Ethan Hawke, acclaimed actor of the "Before" trilogy of Richard Linklater romantic dramas and who can currently be seen as the creepy antagonist, Arthur Harrow, in the Disney+ "Moon Knight" series. While the latest Marvel series is shaping up to be one of the franchise's best additions, Hawke's next project on the horizon appears set to be even more exciting. 

Robert Eggers ("The Witch") has established himself in no time at all as one of the best and most visionary talents in the business and is coming off "The Lighthouse," the black-and-white picture that put stranded lighthouse keepers Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson at each other's throats on the tiniest spit of land. The director's follow-up, "The Northman," just might be even more compelling. The scope and scale truly feel epic, with a brilliant cast starring Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Hawke, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Dafoe leading the way.

For Hawke in particular, the change of pace afforded by "The Northman" sure seems like one that was just too tempting to let slip through his hands. "It's like you found some epic Viking poem that's 700 years old and brought it to life," he told GQ in a recent interview. But if that were the full extent of his remarks on his newest movie, well, we probably wouldn't be here right now. No, that headline above demands a payoff that delivers. Folks, believe me when I say that this payoff delivers.

'We Get Naked And Do Some Kind Of Viking Acid And Howl At The Moon Together"

Willem Dafoe and Ethan Hawke have worked together on a grand total of one movie in the past ("Daybreakers," in 2009), which makes their next collaboration on "The Northman" that much more exciting for the both of them. In fact, it sounds like the two brilliant actors got along swimmingly. Later in the GQ profile, Hawke goes on to describe one of their big scenes together in Eggers' latest film. It perhaps doesn't quite reach the heights of previous scene descriptions, involving "A naked swordfight on a volcano" or yet another Eggers movie that happens to feature its fair share of farts. That said, the studio ought to slap this description on every single piece of marketing for the film and watch audiences turn up in droves. Here's what Hawke had to say about playing opposite Dafoe again:

"We have one amazing scene. We get naked and do some kind of Viking acid and howl at the moon together. And oh my god, if you have to be naked and howl at the moon, he's a great person to do it with."

The odd thing here is that I totally and unquestionably believe Hawke. Dafoe may have been somewhat typecast in villainous and unsavory roles throughout his career, particularly in the last few decades, but I have no doubt that the actor himself is an absolute gem to hang out with on the set of a Viking epic.

As for "The Northman" itself, it may be facing a bit of an uphill battle at the box office once it debuts later this April. But for those viewers who do turn up to watch all this madness unfold on the big screen, these and many more surprises surely wait in store. "The Northman" comes to theaters on April 22, 2022.

Read this next: The Best Movies Of 2021

The post Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe Got Naked and Howled at the Moon, Which Was Just Another Typical Tuesday Night appeared first on /Film.

The upcoming Star Trek adventure game captures the spirit of The Next Generation, but tells a story of its own.

Starting today, the latest development versions of ScummVM support the new trend that gamers can't stop talking about: NFTs (non-fungible tokens)! This exciting new development, created exclusively for players and backed by blockchain technology, uniquely identifies your in-game items, creating an ever-greater connection between you and the game worlds you love. It's not just a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle, it's your rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle.

But having exclusive ownership to an in-game item is just the beginning! Our developers are exploring how NFTs will let you transfer items between different game inventories. Love your new chainsaw from Full Throttle? With the power of NFTs, you can transfer it to The Secret of Monkey Island and create some alternate puzzle solutions!

Aren’t NFTs energy inefficient? Not for us! NFTs in modern games are less environmentally friendly because they represent in-game items with thousands or millions of pixels. But in the retro games that ScummVM supports, items are only tens of pixels, meaning they are less taxing on the environment.

And of course, you will be able to buy and sell your valuable NFTs through ScummVMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine Marketplace). This will allow you trade real-world currency for NFTs and loot boxes containing cosmetic outfits and hats. The profit will help fund “developer retreats” on tropical islands and our plan to launch a Sam & Max DeSoto into space.

Update: We’ve been blown away by the incredible reaction to this post! However, recent legal challenges to NFTs in the Kingdom of Daventry have led us to explore other methods that will be available to our users in that country.

We’ve also realized that tropical vacations and space payloads are more expensive than we expected, so we’ve canceled those plans. However, you can help ScummVM with web hosting expenses by donating through PayPal or buying games on GOG.com through our affiliate link.

In order to celebrate one year since the release of Disco Elysium's The Final Cut update, ZA/UM Studio offers their detective RPG at 65% off until April 4, 2022. The Steam announcement accompanying this sale lists the main new features of The Final Cut and the Jamais Vu update that followed it. It also highlights the latest minor patch for the game.

Check it out:

Disco Elysium - The Final Cut has its first anniversary today so we’re celebrating with a huge discount. Get the full game right now with all its bell bottoms and whistle blowers with a whopping 65% off until April 4. Tell all your friends.

An anniversary like this is as good a time as any for a party. And what do you need at a party? Games! So let’s play one: Can you remember everything we added to Disco Elysium with The Final Cut?

Alright, don’t panic, we know it’s a long list. Here are most of the things we added to the game a whole year ago:

• Full voice acting (English)
• New political vision quests
• New characters
• New clothes
• New area
• New cutscenes
• New animations
• New music
• New achievements
• Controller support
• Improved playability

Have you played The Final Cut and think you found everything? Well, think again as we added a bunch more secrets into the game in late 2021 with the Jamais Vu Update. Naughty of us, we know, but we wanted to say thanks to all of our brilliant fans.

Is that everything? Oh, not quite. The ZA/UM Atelier also celebrated its first birthday last week and had a full restock of its catalogue of Disco Elysium-inspired clothes.

Best go and browse the store right now in case there’s something you’ve wanted to pick up and haven’t had the chance yet – like, how about one of our esteemed art prints?

Alright, that’s all, friends. Ars longa, vita brevis.

All our love,
zaum

Disco Elysium Patch notes for version 2a92c13c (viewable in the F1/Help menu, bottom right)

• Fixed savegame name creation (no longer confusing!).
• Fixed molotov cocktail throw.
• Fixed audio when running the generator.
• Blast doors no longer open randomly.
• Updated end credits -- a good reason to get a different ending!
• Fixed an NPC who kept showing up too late on screen. Clearly, they had better things to do...
• Fixed general audio bugs in backyard.
• Attention Puller circle on Paralyzer orbs is now properly hidden. Really.
• Huge pile of optimisations for faster loading and a smoother Disco experience.

Take care and stay safe folks! Remember to report bugs here.

A new Elden Ring mod that has been released online introduces faster respawn times while also reducing load times in a variety of situations.

The Faster Respawn mod, like the name implies, makes respawning faster by removing the elapsed time after the You Died screen. As the mod is a modified regulation file, it can only be used in offline mode or with Easy Anti-Cheat disabled.

Interestingly enough, it has also been reported by CallMeHidden on Nexus Mods that the Elden Ring Faster Respawn mod also reduces load times when fast traveling, loading a save file from the main menu and other situations.

This has not only decreased the loading time of deaths, but it has also reduced the loading time of everything. Examples: Teleporting to graces, loading into the game from the main menu, quitting the game, and god knows how many others; this works very well with BladeCoding Startup Skip & Skip the Intro Logos (both do the same thing but are from different people)

The Elden Ring Faster Respawn mod can be downloaded from Nexus Mods.

Elden Ring is now available on PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One worldwide. You can learn more about the game by checking out my review.

The post Elden Ring New Mod Brings Faster Respawn Times, Reduced Load Times When Fast Traveling and More by Francesco De Meo appeared first on Wccftech.

The very first entry in the DOOM series features dated visuals, but they still can look quite impressive with the addition of ray tracing.

Sultim_t, who also added ray tracing via path tracing to Half-Life and Serious Sam The First Encounter shared today on their YouTube channel a new video that shows the very first entry in the series created by id Software running with real-time path tracing, achieving visual effects that are as close as possible to actual ray tracing. The video also provides a quick comparison with the vanilla version, which makes the updated visuals look even more impressive.

The source code and a playable build of this updated version of DOOM can be found on GitHub.

This isn't the first time that a classic game like DOOM by id Software has been updated with ray tracing. Back in 2019, a reimagining of Quake II, Quake II RTX, has been released on Steam, showcasing how ray tracing can improve the visuals of old games.

Quake II RTX is fully ray-traced and includes the 3 levels from the original shareware distribution.

Game Description
Shortly after landing on an alien surface, you learn that hundreds of your men have been reduced to just a few. Now you must fight your way through heavily fortified military installations, lower the city's defenses and shut down the enemy's war machine. Only then will the fate of humanity be known.
About Quake II RTX

Quake II RTX builds on the work of Christoph Schied and the team at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, who added ray tracing to Quake II to create Q2VKPT (in turn building upon the Q2PRO code base). NVIDIA has introduced new path-traced visual effects, has improved texturing, and has made dozens of other changes and improvements, resulting in an experience that rivals games created today, and pushes your RTX hardware to the limit.

The post Classic DOOM Looks Quite Impressive With Ray Tracing in New Video by Francesco De Meo appeared first on Wccftech.

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Some of the best filmmaking happens when the cast and crew throw caution to the wind and really commit to an idea. When certain creators really give it their all, we get films like "Venom," "Adaptation," or "Evil Dead 2." Movies that have nothing in common except that you find yourself sitting slack-jawed and mystified about what you're watching, sometimes for good and some times for not.

"Face/Off" is one of those films. Directed by John Woo and starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, "Face/Off" begins with an absurd premise — that you can take off one person's face and seamlessly put it on another person — and only gets more wild from there. Playing the terrorist Castor Troy, Cage gives it his all, as does Travolta when it's his turn to play the villainous lead. (The heroic Sean Archer is, sadly, the more boring character of the pair.)

Cage is known for being an actor that gives it his all during every film he undertakes. Even for his many direct-to-video films, the actors steadfastly says he "never phoned it in." During the filming of "Face/Off" though, Cage admits that he might have gone too far.

What's Your Definition Of "Too Far"?

"Face/Off" is rife with scenes that potentially come to mind upon seeing that sentence. Is Cage talking about an early scene as Castor Troy, when he's yelling "Fly, b****" at a pilot, clad in a swanky red-and-black silk ensemble and wielding golden guns? When's he's singing "ready for the big ride," and taunting our hero Sean Archer while being held at gunpoint? Or perhaps the scene where he dances and feels up a young choirgirl while dressed as a priest?

Apparently, it's none of the above. In a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Cage said that it's the prison scene, where Sean Archer begins to inhabit his undercover role as Castor Troy. In that scene, Cage is playing Archer faking as Troy, and he has to instigate a riot.

"That was the scene in the jail cell where — god, it's such a trippy movie — where Sean Archer is pretending he's Castor Troy and so it was so... cubist," he said. "And I remember I was like, 'I'm Castor Troy!' And it went on and on, almost like a riot."

Producer Steven Reuther asked Cage if he could tone it down and be "more concise" with his acting. Director John Woo, however, loved the excess and let Cage fly free for the scene. For Cage, it was almost an out-of-body experience.

"There was a moment in there where I think I actually left my body," Cage claims. "I got scared, am I acting or is this real? I can see it if I look at the movie, that one moment, it's in my eyes."

Let Cage Be Cage

John Woo loves to let his actors feel out the edges of their characters. He also enjoys grand bombastic personalities, like Inspector Tequila from "Hard Boiled" or Emil Fouchon from "Hard Target." "Face/Off" was another chance to lean on both ideas. Woo pointed toward a different scene with Cage as Archer as an example.

"After the face operation, when Nic Cage is seen taking off the bandages and looking in the mirror, he is getting pain, but laughing. He hates to look at himself and he smashed the mirror," Woo told Spliced. "Suddenly, while we're shooting, he turned and yelled and screamed at his doctor. That wasn't in the rehearsal. That came from his own instinct. At that moment, suddenly he feel like he need to scream at those people and I was shocked. It feels so great."

For Cage, going big on "Face/Off" and other films is just about keeping his "independent attitude." That attitude resulted in a most memorable villain in John Woo's best Hollywood action flick, so I can't say that was a bad decision. Hopefully for the potential sequel, director Adam Wingard can find a similar muse.

Read this next: The 20 Greatest War Films Of All Time

The post Even Nicolas Cage Thinks He Took This Face/Off Scene Too Far appeared first on /Film.

"Event Horizon" is a bonafide cult classic now. The science-fiction horror extravaganza wasn't a winner at the box office, making only $42 million on a $60 million budget. But something about it has stuck with audiences, and it even taught them a tiny bit of Latin.

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson fresh off helming the original "Mortal Kombat" adaptation, "Event Horizon" is the story of an experimental starship that tunnels through another dimension and brings back a piece of Hell with it. When the crew of the ship Lewis and Clark are sent to find out what happened to the eponymous Event Horizon when it appears near Neptune, the evil within the ship shows them what one bad day really looks like. The film features a bang-up cast, including Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Jason Issacs, and Kathleen Quinlan.

Despite its cult status after release, "Event Horizon" has not enjoyed a home release with all the additional bells and whistles. That's because it's sadly missing production materials to make such a release a reality.

Save Yourself From The Footage

"Event Horizon" was never intended to be a tentpole film. In an interview at Toronto Underground Cinema in 2011, director Paul W.S. Anderson admitted that it only got a Summer release because James Cameron had to delay "Titanic." Given its status as a substitution and its subsequent box office take, archiving any unused footage wasn't a high priority. This means when it came time to potentially do a director's cut, Anderson and crew found there wasn't any additional footage and that which was available wasn't of great quality.

"That movie has become a great seller for Paramount. They asked me if I wanted to do a director's cut. I investigated, and unfortunately, the material just isn't available anymore," Anderson told the San Diego Reader when asked about a potential director's cut. "We shot that movie before the DVD revolution. DVDs gave movies a great afterlife. You had to generate more material for the DVD — behind-the-scenes stuff, deleted scenes, etc. Event Horizon came out just before that. Because the movie wasn't a giant theatrical hit, the studio just didn't keep the material. The footage doesn't exist anymore to reinstate it in a director's cut."

Anderson said that most of the negatives had been thrown away or stored poorly. At one point, there was a rumor that some of the additional footage had been found on a VHS tape. Anderson said that he's never seen the tape, as producer Lloyd Levin, who was rumored to have it, moved to Spain.

Where We're Going, We Won't Need Deleted Scenes

Anderson did recall the scenes that were cut, however. At a Toronto Underground Cinema Q&A, he said that the studio stopped watching the dailies after the initial footage of the crew exploring the ship, so the production team was able to go wild after that. "We shot all of the kind of dark, disturbing stuff later in the shoot," said Anderson. "I think they never really saw it. The first time the studio saw the movie was at the first test screening."

Anderson called the test cut "gruesome." A lot of the footage related to Hell was cut entirely, with Anderson recalling "endless amounts of orgies and blood." He said it was influenced by the art of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel. Amputees were used for scenes of people missing limbs and adult film actors were used for the orgies. Anderson went all-in on Hell.

Deleted scenes also featured many of the main characters. One scene in the finished film has Medical Technician Peters (played by Kathleen Quinlan) seeing a hallucination of her son's mangled legs. The deleted version included writhing maggots on the boy's legs. The visions of Hell, showing the crew being tortured at the end, were also much longer in the original test cut.

Anderson believes that most of the deleted footage was probably too extreme for audience and took them out of the film. "In the original cut screened for test audiences, she looks down at the withered legs and we cut back to Kathleen. She looks at the legs again and suddenly there were maggots crawling all over the legs," he explained. "At that point, the audience turned away from the screen. I lost them. They disengaged with the movie because I had pushed them too far. It was an important lesson for me to learn to show a little restraint sometimes. You keep the audience rather than pushing them so far that you break the suspension of disbelief."

It's Time To Go Back To Hell

The director has thought about doing a prequel to "Event Horizon," showcasing the fates of the original ship's crew. "We've talked about it, doing the original voyage of the Event Horizon or following up on Richard T. Jones and Joely Richardson's stories as the lone survivors at the end," he told the Toronto Underground Cinema audience. Sadly, nothing has happened on that front.

Back in 2019, Amazon and Paramount Television did announce the development of an "Event Horizon" television series. "Godzilla vs. Kong" director Adam Wingard was set to direct and executive produce the series. But that potential series has yet to surface, and Wingard has a number of future projects on his plate, including a sequel to "Godzilla vs Kong" that's shooting later this year.

For his part, Anderson has no announced future projects at the moment, so perhaps he can once again take the helm of the haunted ghost ship and show us some new horizons in Hell.

Read this next: The 95 Best Horror Movies Ever

The post The 'Gruesome' Version of Event Horizon We'll Sadly Never Get to See appeared first on /Film.

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Now here is something that will please A LOT of old-school FPS fans. Modder ‘sultim-t’ has just released a real-time path tracing mod for id Software’s classic Doom games and no, this isn’t an April’s fools joke. Sultim-t is the man behind the amazing ray tracing mod for Serious Sam we shared in August 2021. … Continue reading Real-time Path Tracing Mod released for id Software’s classic Doom →

The post Real-time Path Tracing Mod released for id Software’s classic Doom appeared first on DSOGaming.

It's easy to forget this now, given their subsequent collaborations on films like "Righteous Kill" and "The Irishman," but when Al Pacino and Robert De Niro first sat down across from each other in "Heat" in 1995, it was a monumental movie moment. The two veteran actors, often cited as the greatest of their generation, had previously appeared in "The Godfather Part II" in 1974. However, De Niro was playing the father of Pacino's character in flashbacks and they never shared any scenes together. In "Heat," writer-director Michael Mann also kept them apart for most of the movie, but he understood the power of putting them together.

Pacino and De Niro are both method actors who studied under their "Godfather Part II" co-star, Lee Strasberg, but they each cultivated a different screen presence, something they brought with them to the diner table in "Heat." Pacino, in particular, had a tendency to go big in some of his '90s roles, perhaps best typified by his "Scent of a Woman" exclamation, "Hoo-ah!" This trait was arguably well-suited, though, to his "Heat" character, Hanna, since Hanna was a hotshot police lieutenant who was hopped up on cocaine.

Mann saw Hanna's larger-than-life personality as something endemic to his working technique. In Cinephilia & Beyond, he said:

"Every big city police department's major crime unit has that kind of guy there, who does that kind of work. That's a highly accurate, highly authentic character that Al's doing, and I think Al's performance was exactly where I asked him to go."

'Let's Rattle His Cage'

Hanna has multiple outbursts in "Heat," with a couple of them being directed at his informant, Albert, played by the late comedian, Ricky Harris. It's the kind of thing where he's liable to yell "Gimme all ya got!" or even break out into song. Yet Mann has no regrets about that aspect of his character, and in fact, there's only one thing he would change about Pacino's "Heat" performance.

If anything, Mann wishes he had dialed it up with more Pacino during the scene where Hanna is in the chop shop with Albert. He explained:

"If I had one thing I would do over differently, I would probably hang on Al more in the chop-shop scene. That scene comes from some place—it's about the relationship between a really high-line pro like Hanna and the informant. You've got to motivate him and shake him. It's not that he will tell you the truth all the time. That only happens in movies. In real-life it doesn't. If you need to know something, your management of him is highly manipulative, and that is what's being characterized here, particularly that Hanna has one modality and one objective: make my informant be ill-at-ease, let's rattle his cage. That's why that scene is that way. It's not laughing at Al being large."

Mann knew exactly what he was doing when he made "Heat." He went to exhaustive lengths while researching the film, and its memorable bank-robbery set piece was inspired by a real-life incident. He also based Hanna on "at least three different policemen," and he cast Pacino as the character for a reason. If the viewer ever finds Hanna's outbursts in "Heat" jarring, it may just be because they're experiencing the same sensation as his criminal informants as he tries to keep them off-balance.

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

The post Michael Mann Would Only Change One Thing About Al Pacino's Performance In Heat appeared first on /Film.

(Welcome to Survey Says, a feature where we conduct a movie-related survey for a random group of people and explain why they're completely right, completely wrong, or somewhere in-between.)

The 1990s is one of the most interesting time periods for horror movies, a genre trying to grow from the ashes of the slasher boom and Reagan presidency. Horror creators knew they could no longer rely on masked mad men wielding phallic weapons, and needed to find new ways to terrify audiences. This opportunity for inventive and experimental storytelling may have led to some of the more ... questionable contributions (looking at you, "Troll 2"), but also gave way to some of the very best films in horror history. 

We conducted a poll of 613 horror fans in the United States and asked them to tell us what they believe to be the best horror movie of the 1990s. The top choice won by an overwhelming percentage, but might be another instance of why "best" is always going to be subjective and how these surveys are the equivalent of film fan "Family Feud." Wait ...does that make me Steve Harvey for the day? I'll take it.

But First, The Bottom Three

Squeaking in with 5.06% of the votes was "Bram Stoker's Dracula" from 1992, a horror movie featuring one of the most mind-boggling A-list casts ever assembled, including Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Anthony Hopkins, Sadie Frost, Monica Bellucci, and Cary Elwes. It seems like people forget that this is an Academy Award-winning movie, bringing home the gold for Best Costume Design, Best Sound Editing, and Best Makeup. Next in line is the cinematic adaptation of Stephen King's "Misery," a film I'm honestly surprised placed this far down the list, with how Annie Wilkes has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity thanks to Kathy Bates starring on "American Horror Story."

The big shocker (for me), however, is "The Blair Witch Project" coming in third to last at 7.99%. I have no scientific data to back this up, but I firmly believe that people forget how genuinely terrifying and culturally impactful "The Blair Witch Project" was, because the film was mocked so relentlessly in the wake of the "Scary Movie" films. Then again, I could also be projecting as someone who fully admits to have been a second grader who fully believed "The Blair Witch Project" was real and fell into a conspiracy theory hole on early-era Internet forums desperately trying to find the truth and scaring myself half to death.

Slashers Take The Middle

Neck in neck in the middle of the pack are "Candyman" with 12.40% and "Scream" with 12.72%. While both films laughed in the face of "slashers are dead" claims, both films were groundbreaking in how they tackled the accepted formula of the subgenre. "Candyman" used the slasher formula as a means to interrogate issues of class and race, delivering us an iconic performance from Tony Todd and that unbelievably stunning score from Phillip Glass. 

A few years later, Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson completely changed the slasher genre forever with their meta-horror masterpiece, "Scream." The film's sharp satirization of genre clichés ushered in a new wave of intelligent teen slashers, and showed it was possible to have more than one Final Girl with Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers, and Dewey Riley. 

Both "Candyman" and "Scream" continue to thrive with horror audiences today, and likely will for years to come.

Oscars Don't Define Greatness

The top two films on the list were M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense" at 17.94% with "The Silence of the Lambs" taking home the gold with a whopping 36.22%, more than the previous two films' percentages combined. Only six horror films in the history of the Academy Awards have been nominated for Best Picture, with both of these films representing two of those slots. "The Silence of the Lambs" historically is the only horror film to win Best Picture, as well as becoming the third film in history to win Academy Awards in all the major five categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Original/Adapted Screenplay). The question remains though, does critical acclaim and statues of golden men dictate what it means to be "best?"

There's a strong argument to be made for all of these films, and "The Silence of the Lambs" is without question the most cinematically proficient film mentioned on the list, but when has that ever been a requirement to be one of the horror greats? Call it blasphemous, call it a hot take, but given the controversial history of "The Silence of the Lambs," a film like "Scream" feels far more definitive as the best 1990s horror movie, mostly because of how unapologetically '90s the film feels. A film like "The Silence of the Lambs" could easily be considered a "crime thriller" to wash the supposed stink of "horror" off of itself when convenient, but "Scream" is a horror classic through and through. 

That's the beauty of horror, though -- there's always something for everyone.

Read this next: The 15 Best '90s Horror Movies Ranked

The post 36% Said This Was the Best 90s Horror Movie Ever Made – Do We Agree? appeared first on /Film.

The cyberattack aimed at Viasat that temporarily knocked KA-SAT modems offline on February 24, 2022, the same day Russian military forces invaded Ukraine, is believed to have been the consequence of wiper malware, according to the latest research from SentinelOne. The findings come a day after the U.S. telecom company disclosed that it was the target of a multifaceted and deliberate" cyberattack

If peanut butter is a staple in your kitchen and pantry, check the brand and the label to see if it’s part of the voluntary recall issued by Skippy Foods, LLC. According to a release from the company—which was also published on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) website—the products are being recalled…

Read more...

Russian actor Konstantin Stanislavski laid out the rules for a revolutionary new system of acting in his 1936 book "An Actor Prepares." In this new system, actors were meant to cultivate what he called an "art of experiencing" as opposed to an "art of representation." This means that actors were meant to find a place wherein they could actually experience the emotions that their character would be experiencing -- usually by drawing on a similar event in their own lives. This stood counter to older schools of acting that depended on rote memorization and communicating certain kinds of established physical emotional signifiers. It's the difference between merely smiling and actually feeling happiness. 

As such, Stanislavski promoted improvisation as a preferred mode of rehearsal as opposed to table reads and running lines. An actor was encouraged to, essentially, become their character, to experience the role, to live as their character, to remain in-character even when the scene had ended. 

Stanislaski's system was adopted by prominent Russian Eastern European acting coaches Richard Boleslawski and Maria Ouspenskaya (from "The Wolf Man"), who taught it to Americans like Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Sanford Meisner, who, in turn, passed the Method on to prominent Hollywood stars like Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, and Warren Beatty. Since then, the Method has become part and parcel with the craft of acting. While some actors do not subscribe to the Method to the letter, many have still internalized its lessons as a form of vocational osmosis. Other actors, meanwhile, still read "An Actor Prepares" and devote themselves to a role whole-heartedly. 

Irish actor Daniel Day-Lewis subscribes to the Method. He stays in character when off set, will continue to speak in his character's dialect when the cameras aren't rolling (Day-Lewis' "Lincoln" co-star Sally Field revealed that he would send her text messages as Abraham Lincoln), and will even stay in costume when possible. This last detail once made Day-Lewis incredibly sick on the set of "Gangs of New York."

Gangs Of New York

Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York," based on the 1927 book "The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld," was a passion project that the filmmaker first obtained the rights to make into a film back in the late 1970s. "Gangs of New York" is set in New York City in 1862, and follows the era's colorful and formally organized street gangs as they battle to control the city's resources and politics. The conflicts would lead to outright wars in the streets, wherein hundreds of gang members would convene to murder each other by the score. Because Scorsese wanted to accurately represent 1862 New York, and because no modern cities looked appropriate, he required that an entire city be built from the ground up. The ambition of "Gangs of New York" is evident in its visuals; Scorsese was clearly adding more and more detail as the extended production dragged on. "Gangs of New York" looks like it had been in production for decades. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, and won none, losing Best Picture to "Chicago."

In "Gangs of New York," Daniel Day-Lewis plays a character named William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, who is extrapolated from the real-life gang leader William Poole. Poole was a vicious nativist and leader of the notorious Know Nothing party in the United States, which opposed immigration, preached racist rhetoric, and embraced xenophobia as a way of life. The No Nothing party's nativist politics are still expressed by many politicians today. Their name came from their origins as "Fight Club"-like secret society, and the phrase they would use when asked about it. In Day-Lewis' version of the character, Poole/Cutting was also an outspoken and colorfully violent dandy who dressed in loud clothing, sported an enormously elaborate mustache, and had a glass eye with an American eagle emblazoned on it. 

Bill the Butcher serves as the ersatz father figure to "Gangs of New York's" protagonist, Amsterdam Vallon, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Eventually, the two come to blows over conflicting philosophies, but mostly because Vallon is on a mission of revenge to kill the man who murdered his father (Liam Neeson). 

In order to play Bill the Butcher, Day-Lewis would stay in character to a fault. He constantly spoke in Bill's unique Yankee dialect (a bizarre televangelist snap; he read the Bible and Walt Whitman poetry to rehearse), and, according to a profile in The Things, would go out into the world to pick fights with strangers. 

The Coat Wasn't Warm Enough

The New York village constructed for "Gangs" was located outside Rome in 2001, which may be a unusual place to run into the leader of 1862's No Nothing party, but it was something that may have happened to a lucky few of Rome's citizens. Day-Lewis claims that, in order to retain Bill the Butcher's rage, would take to the streets of Rome and fight the people. He did not elucidate how he would instigate fights, or if he ever sustained -- or doled out -- and injuries, but if you're a Roman civilian and you remember throwing a punch at an odd mustachioed American in 2001, you might have been brawling with one of the greatest actors of his generation. 

Also, to experience the bitter cold of New York, Day-Lewis would take these sojourns in costume, a period-authentic coat made of materials only available in 1862. The coat was so lightweight, it wasn't able to protect Day-Lewis from the temperature, and the actor came down with a case of pneumonia as a result. Day-Lewis must have considered his illness as a natural part of his character's life, and merely rolled with it, understanding that William Poole likely caught pneumonia as well (incidentally, the real Bill the Butcher was shot to death at the age of 33). To keep the authenticity going, Day-Lewis wanted to be treated with only period-appropriate medicine. While one can appreciate the man's devotion to his craft, this seemed to be going over the line. 

Luckily, Day-Lewis pulled through, and would go on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, losing to Adrien Brody in "The Pianist." Day-Lewis would star in five additional films after "Gangs of New York," eventually winning two additional Academy Award for his performances in "There Will Be Blood" and in "Lincoln" to complement the Oscar he won in 1990 for "My Left Foot." As of this writing, Day-Lewis has effectively retired from acting. 

Let's hope he's staying warm.

Read this next: The 20 Greatest James Bond Villains Ever

The post Going Method For Gangs of New York Made Daniel Day-Lewis Sick appeared first on /Film.

What are the best offline games? If you’re disconnected from the internet for any time, you’ll need the best offline PC games to help tide you over. Not every game lets you play offline, though. Some games require a license check before launching for anti-piracy reasons - and although this doesn’t take long to perform, it means you can’t access the game without an internet connection.

There's a lot to consider when preparing a stockpile of the best PC games, but luckily for you, there’s no shortage of fun offline games to choose from when your internet cuts out. Whether you’re a fan of classic RPG games or the biggest modern open-world games, we’ve got something to suit nearly every need.

MORE FROM PCGAMESN: The best story games on PC, Best western games, Best sandbox games

After the cancelation of "Star Trek: Enterprise" in 2005, it looked like the book had shut on "Star Trek." After four TV shows and six movies starting in 1987, it seemed like the property was to be set to pasture, remaining pleasant in our memories and in reruns ad infinitum. After all, all good things must come to an end. 

Weirdly, thanks to the Super Bowl XXXVIII Halftime show featuring an incident wherein Justin Timberlake was too zealous in removing Janet Jackson's costume on live TV, there was a grand split in Viacom, the company that owned "Star Trek." MTV, also a Viacom subsidiary, produced that show, and was banned from hosting the Halftime show thereafter. Les Moonves and Tom Freston, the two heads of Viacom, went their separate ways with one of them gaining CBS (and other companies as well), and the other half retaining Paramount (and MTV, etc.). The issue with that split is that the CBS corner had rights to the "Star Trek" TV shows, and the Paramount corner had rights to the movie the movies. 

CBS enthusiastically began selling broadcast rights, as well as DVDs, of the myriad "Star Trek" shows already available; as a result, "Star Trek" is widely available most everywhere, not just on Paramount+. With only ten movies to their name, however, Paramount had no such sweet deal. The only way Paramount was going to make money on this ultra-lucrative property they were sitting on was to make more movies. For legal reasons, a new "Star Trek" feature film had to look distinct from the old "Star Trek," but a film could indeed be made. With the legal restriction in place, screenwriters Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman wrote a new "Star Trek" feature film with all of the show's most recognizable characters, now recast by younger actors under the auspices of the film taking place in an alternate timeline. Now they had to assemble the cast. And one potential cast member, Simon Pegg, took some convincing. 

Casting

TV impresario and helmsman of "Mission: Impossible III" J.J. Abrams was brought on to direct, even though he had professed to not be much of a "Star Trek" fan. A new cast was assembled, each of them bringing high-energy, hyper-charged renditions of the characters to back to the big screen for the first time since 1991. Leonard Nimoy was to reprise his role as Spock, having traveled back in time to meet his younger self. 

As detailed in "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, and Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek" by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, the casting of Enterprise engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, previously played by James Doohan, kept on circling back to Simon Pegg. Pegg, an English actor and comedian, had made a name for himself in beloved geek-friendly properties like his sitcom "Spaced" and the cult film "Shaun of the Dead." Abrams had cast Pegg as the tech expert Benji in "Mission," and it didn't seem like much of a leap to have him play "Star Trek's" own tech expert. 

Casting director April Webster explains: 

"We love Simon Pegg. He did 'Mission: Impossible III' for us, so any time we do a film we have to try and have Simon in it. He's so delightful, so inventive. He always brings something special to the part. We saw lots of Scottys, but we kept coming back to Simon. We didn't know what his availability was and ultimately we went to him, because he and J.J. have a great relationship. Simon is a character actor, so he becomes whoever you want him to be. You look at Mission Impossible and he was that tech guy. You look at him in this and he is Scotty. I think people like seeing him, as opposed to feeling, like, 'Oh, what's Simon Pegg doing in that movie?'"

Pegg Already Did The Tech Genius...

Pegg, something of a Trekkie himself, didn't initially think he'd be asked to appear in "Star Trek," as he felt he had already been "taken" by one hot Paramount commodity already:

"Because I'd worked with J.J. on 'Mission: Impossible,' I didn't think there was a chance for 'Star Trek.' But then I received an email asking if I would be interested in playing Scotty. I couldn't believe it. I told my wife and she laughed, because she's Scottish and also because it's a major iconic sci-fi character. I thought about it for a few days and I just wasn't sure. But then J.J. came back to me and said, 'The worst thing that can happen is that every couple of years we get together and have some fun.' That seemed like a very good argument for me, and I said yes. Next thing I knew, I was on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Not to mention, Pegg would join a vast pop culture legacy that would involve merchandise, conventions, and endless online speculation as to the clarity of the timeline from whence he came. Indeed, Pegg would have to fill the boots of James Doohan, who had passed away in 2005. In order to assure that he was doing Doohan justice, he attempted to reach out to the actor's family. It turns out that Doohan's son already knew of Pegg's casting and reached out first: 

"I wanted to reach out to someone in Doohan's family, but his son, Chris, beat me to the punch. I said to him, 'Look, I'm not going to do anything that disrespects your dad. This is something I want to do in honor of him and in tribute to him and carry on in the spirit of a character that he created.' And, really, one that he made one of the most iconic sci-fi characters ever. For a supporting player, if you say 'Star Trek' to people, chances are they'll bring up, 'Beam me up, Scotty.'"

Webster was effusive about Pegg's casting, and added that he was able to respect Doohan, but also make the part his own: 

"Simon brings wit and speed and cleverness and a very dry humor to him that I just adore. I know I use the word 'unexpected' a lot, but you never know what's really going to come out of Scotty's mouth. That's the way you feel when you're watching Simon, because he just embodies the character so well that the character has his own language and rhythm. It's not just him reading lines. He adds a little bit here and there. It's like when Will Smith did 'Independence Day.' There were a lot of things that they let him improvise, because he brings so much of his Will Smith-ness to it. It's the same thing with Simon."

Through the unknowable caprices of streaming, the 2009 "Star Trek" is not on Paramount+, but you can rent it from various outlets. 

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The post It Took Some Convincing Before Simon Pegg Agreed to Be Star Trek's Scotty appeared first on /Film.