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Nobelium, the threat actor attributed to the massive SolarWinds supply chain compromise, has been once again linked to a series of attacks targeting multiple cloud solution providers, services, and reseller companies, as the hacking group continues to refine and retool its tactics at an alarming pace in response to public disclosures. The intrusions, which are being tracked by Mandiant under two

"Fear the Walking Dead" fans can breathe a sigh of relief. During the Sunday night episode of "Talking Dead," it was announced that the series is coming back for an eighth season on AMC. In addition, according to Deadline, former cast member Kim Dickens will return to the series in the second half of season 7.  

Dickens, who played Madison Clark, one of the lead roles, from the beginning of the series until season 4, will be a series regular in season 8. Sunday's episode marked the fall finale for the AMC series. 

Here is the info for season 7 of "Fear the Walking Dead":

Teddy brought about his vision of "The End" when he detonated nuclear warheads across the Texas landscape, but it will be up to those who survived to decide what "The Beginning" will look like. And they'll have to do it in a world devoid of light and hope, where the outside air is just as deadly as the walkers they face. The survivors will find out who they really are and what they're really made of. Some will rise to the occasion, some will find new purpose, and some will redefine themselves — even if it comes at a terrible cost to those they once considered family.

The Return Of Madison Clark

Scott M. Gimple, Chief Content Officer of "The Walking Dead Universe" told the site: 

"If there were a Mt. Deadmore, Kim Dickens' face would be on it. Madison Clark is a foundational character to TWDU — heroic, complex, an everyperson who becomes a warrior and then a force of benevolence ... Kim Dickens' raw talent, strength, and brilliance will electrify TWDU once more and we couldn't be luckier to have her back."

The series that started it all, "The Walking Dead," will premiere its final season in 2022, when we'll see the second half of "Fear the Walking Dead" season 7. The spinoff series will return to AMC on April 17, 2021. "The Walking Dead" and its associated properties are based on Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard's comic book series. "Fear the Walking Dead" is executive produced by Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd, Greg Nicotero, David Alpert, Scott M. Gimple, and showrunners Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg. The series premiered on August 23, 2015. The seventh season premiered on October 17, 2021.

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The post Fear The Walking Dead Season 8 Renewed With Kim Dickens Returning as Series Regular appeared first on /Film.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Almost exactly a year ago, security researchers uncovered one of the worst data breaches in modern history, if not ever: a Kremlin-backed hacking campaign that compromised the servers of network management provider SolarWinds and, from there, the networks of 100 of its highest-profile customers, including nine US federal agencies. Nobelium -- the name Microsoft gave to the intruders -- was eventually expelled, but the group never gave up and arguably has only become more brazen and adept at hacking large numbers of targets in a single stroke. The latest reminder of the group's proficiency comes from security firm Mandiant, which on Monday published research detailing Nobelium's numerous feats -- and a few mistakes -- as it continued to breach the networks of some of its highest-value targets. Mandiant's report shows that Nobelium's ingenuity hasn't wavered. Since last year, company researchers say the two hacking groups linked to the SolarWinds hack -- one called UNC3004 and the other UNC2652 -- have continued to devise new ways to compromise large numbers of targets in an efficient manner. Instead of poisoning the supply chain of SolarWinds, the groups compromised the networks of cloud solution providers and managed service providers, or CSPs, which are outsourced third-party companies that many large companies rely on for a wide range of IT services. The hackers then found clever ways to use those compromised providers to intrude upon their customers. The advanced tradecraft didn't stop there. According to Mandiant, other advanced tactics and ingenuities included: Use of credentials stolen by financially motivated hackers using malware such as Cryptbot (PDF), an information stealer that harvests system and web browser credentials and cryptocurrency wallets. The assistance from these hackers allowed the UNC3004 and UNC2652 to compromise targets even when they didn't use a hacked service provider.Once the hacker groups were inside a network, they compromised enterprise spam filters or other software with "application impersonation privileges," which have the ability to access email or other types of data from any other account in the compromised network. Hacking this single account saved the hassle of having to break into each account individually.The abuse of legitimate residential proxy services or geo-located cloud providers such as Azure to connect to end targets. When admins of the hacked companies reviewed access logs, they saw connections coming from local ISPs with good reputations or cloud providers that were in the same geography as the companies. This helped disguise the intrusions, since nation-sponsored hackers frequently use dedicated IP addresses that arouse suspicions.Clever ways to bypass security restrictions, such as extracting virtual machines to determine internal routing configurations of the networks they wanted to hack.Gaining access to an active directory stored in a target's Azure account and using this all-powerful administration tool to steal cryptographic keys that would generate tokens that could bypass two-factor authentication protections. This technique gave the intruders what's known as a Golden SAML, which is akin to a skeleton key that unlocks every service that uses the Security Assertion Markup Language, which is the protocol that makes single sign-on, 2FA, and other security mechanisms work.Use of a custom downloader dubbed Ceeloader.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you are a programmer, you might already be familiar with the nuances and capabilities of Visual Studio Code. The tool is ideal for developers and programmers alike, who want to configure and run several programming languages from a single platform.

[link] [69 comments]

The post Voir – Netflix Review (4/5) appeared first on Heaven of Horror.

Huddle up, team. If you're not caught up on Showtime's "Yellowjackets" yet, get your life together because we're crash landing with our first individual episode recap. This week's episode, "Bear Down" comes to us from show co-executive producer Liz Phang and Deepa Mehta and it's a very Nat-centric episode. Hurray for Juliette Lewis! Hurray for Sophie Thatcher! Hurray for all of us to get to enjoy it!

After a quick recap of last week's episode, we're back inside the plane during the crash, and checking in on our favorite bleached blonde pile of teen angst and smoky eyeliner, Natalie Scatorccio. It doesn't take long before things take a serious WTF turn, as Nat seems to hallucinate her drunk dad seated next to her, with half of his head blown out like the ghost in "The Sixth Sense" who talks to Haley Joel Osment about where his dad keeps his gun. Alas, it's just a nightmare, but whatever happened with Nat's dad has clearly been plaguing her ever since, just like Lottie with the dead body last week, who Nat sees sitting straight up and staring at the ladder to the attic while everyone around her sleeps.

Back in 1996, Misty continues to be the most unhinged character on television as she inches toward Annie Wilkes territory after she tries to help Coach Scott take a poop in the woods (since he can't hover on his own with one leg) by singing Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Good news, I'm still obsessed with her.

Ready, Aim, Fire!

Good news, the weird cabin they found in the woods has a gun and a survivalist's stock of bullets. Bad news, only Coach Scott knows how to use a gun and he's currently re-learning how to walk again with an amputated leg and a makeshift crutch. He decides to test out the team's shooting skills, and turns out Travis has decent aim, but Natalie is an emo, burnout Annie Oakley. She and Travis are tasked with hunting food for the rest of the crew as their rations of Snackwells and Corn Nuts have finally bit the dust. Travis has a major attitude problem, but he and Natalie's chemistry is fantastic.

Before they focus on their mission, Travis heads back to the crash site to dig up his dead dad, looking to snag a family heirloom off his finger to give to his grieving little brother. Naturally, he yaks upon seeing his decomposed dad, so Natalie does him a solid and gets the ring for him, which includes having to cut off his finger with a pocket knife. The duo bond over being members of the Dead Dad's Club and eventually track down a deer that Natalie strikes with one shot. They bring the deer back to camp where Shauna volunteers to bleed it out, pissing off Misty who enthusiastically volunteered but was ignored by Coach Scott who is very fed up with her weirdness. The team devour the venison cooked on sticks, with barbaric chomps reminiscent of the cannibalism implied in the pilot. Ooooh, foreshadowing!

Shauna's Reliving Her Teen Years

After sneaking around with the mysterious but CLEARLY sus Adam, it's confirmed that Shauna definitely cheated on her lame husband with this equally lame guy. As we've seen from her teen years, Shauna clearly gets off on cheating and this sparks some high school nostalgia feels, and she invites Adam to help her experience the rambunctious teen milestones she didn't get to have. They convince some guy to buy them booze even though they're of age, they intentionally hit mini-golf balls into a neighborhood just to prove they can, and eventually they jump off a bridge into some water, but not before Shauna is haunted by the image of Jackie (!) telling her "Someone's going to get hurt." Is this confirmation Jackie doesn't survive? Regardless, she ignores her and the couple celebrate their evening of debauchery by screwing in the back seat of a car. Ah, high school! Melanie Lynskey is captivating as always, but no offense to actor Peter Gadiot, but in a show with this much gay energy, the last thing I give a single f*** about is a man trying to be charming.

We don't see a lot of teen Shauna in this episode with the exception of her volunteering to bleed out the deer and delivering the slowest throat slit imaginable. She's not at the "rip a rabbit's skin off in a single swoop" level that we'll see as an adult, but this is obviously the start of something to come. Does this mean Shauna is the one we saw in the pilot draining the blood out of a captured teammate? Or is she the mastermind who nods and gives the go-ahead?

Taissa's Not Great At Schmoozing

Teen Taissa isn't seen a lot in this episode either, with the exception of some continued playful (AND GAY) banter with Van. The two of them, Jackie, and Laura Lee are foraging for greens when they come across a small plane in the woods. Van is nearly hacked by its propellers when Jackie saves her ass, but hey, now they've got a functional plane at their disposal ... one that Lottie thinks is definitely cursed or something.

In the present, Taissa is trying to impress some rich donors for her campaign at a fancy dinner. Her opponent made an attack ad implying she's a cannibal, so she's gotta schmooze it or lose it. She has some hallucinatory freak-outs where she imagines the roasted pig they're serving is a deer head, and we find out that Taissa is now a vegetarian as a trauma response to surviving the woods. She finally has a private sit-down with a fancy rich lady who tells her she'll only give her the campaign funds if Taissa tells her all the juicy details about what happened in the woods. She snaps back and rightfully calls this white savior out for being a performative a-hole. We're still not 100% on what the public at large thinks happened during their 19-month hell, but it's clear that everyone assumes they all turned into teenage Alferd Packers even if it wasn't said so on record.

Natalie's In Her Own Personal Hell

Following her and Misty's brush with the law after finding Travis dead, Natalie returns to the trailer home she grew up in to find her bitter mother as resentful as she was during her teen years, and Nat's room looking exactly the same as she left it. Coming home brings a little sense of comfort as she digs through old mixtapes, but is a painful reminder of the abuse she endured long before the plane crash. She has dinner with her high school best friend Kevyn who has exchanged his Dead Kennedys shirt for a police badge, and manipulates his feelings for her in order to get a copy of Travis' toxicology report, as she's convinced he was murdered and didn't actually take his own life. Nat isn't the most reliable narrator, but she's a straight-shooter, and I think she's right on this one.

As '90s Nat approaches the deer in the woods, we're given flashbacks as to what really happened to her dad. Kevyn was over and the two were listening to music while she painted his nails black (awww!) but her dad storms in belligerently and keeps calling her "a little slut" while beating the crap out of her mom for nodding off and "allowing" it. Nat pulls a gun on him in self defense, but he mocks her when she goes to fire and the safety is on. This move would prove futile after he trips with the gun in his hand and blows off his own face, right in front of Natalie. She didn't pull the trigger, but to her (and her mom), she might as well have been the one to do it.

Misty's Still Doing Misty

Adult Misty calls up Natalie to check on her, with an online article pulled up titled "What to (and Not to) Say to Someone Grieving a Suicide." No one really wants to talk to Misty because, well, she's an absolute lunatic, so she steals one of the old ladies from the facility she works at to be her dinner date while she spies on Natalie and Kevyn. While at the restaurant, she notices the reporter Taissa hired and confronts her by saying, "I know when you look at me, you don't see someone you should be afraid of, but, uh ... you're wrong." Considering we've already seen Misty effortlessly chop off a leg with an axe, sabotage the group by breaking the rescue communicator, sing to someone while they're trying to take a s***, pull the cables from cars to force them to go places with her, deny patients pain medications out of spite, and trip Coach Scott's crutches because he didn't pick her to bleed out a deer ... uh, yeah. 

The episode ends with Misty calling up Shauna who expressly states that she asked her to never contact her again (WHAT DID SHE DO FOR THEM TO ALL SAY THIS TO HER?!) but she announces that Travis is dead and Shauna looks mortified. We know why Travis and Natalie have a special bond, but this indicates something went on with him and Shauna too, and my imagination is currently going full Pepe Silvia as I try to figure out why she's this upset.

Buzzworthy Moments And Additional Thoughts

Ultimately, this feels a bit like a filler episode, but even a filler episode of "Yellowjackets" is better than 90% of anything else on TV. Questions still remain unanswered, and now we've got half a dozen more to add to the list. Misty's elderly dinner date saying to her, "You remind me of my granddaughter. No one really likes her, either," is hands-down the best quote of the episode. Close behind is Natalie telling Misty, "I hate to break it to you, but we're not Rizzoli and Isles," in the moment before. Honestly, anytime someone is telling Misty to F-off, there's bound to be a great zinger.

• I find myself holding my breath every time Lottie is on screen knowing that she's out of her antipsychotics. It's not a matter of "if" she's gonna lose it, but "when." I'm scared.
• Move over, coconut La Croix. Adult Misty can now add "chocolate martini" to her continued list of liking the absolute worst form of a specific drink.
• Jeff is a total moron if he thinks Shauna's "book club" lasts that long. I know that he's a straight guy who married his high school girlfriend's best friend he was cheating on her with, but come on.
• Teenage Van and Taissa need to just tell each other they're in love already. Quit pussyfooting around, ladies. We see you.
• My resentment toward Adam might be due to my own jealousy of wanting to go mini-golfing with Melanie Lynskey. I should probably ask my therapist about that one.
• I can't take my eyes off of Sammi Hanratty as teen Misty no matter if she's the focus of a scene or not. She's always pulling some weirdness in the background and I'm fascinated by her.

"Yellowjackets" is on Showtime every Sunday. Showtime app users can watch the episode early, but the channel broadcasts at 10 P.M. PST/7 P.M. EST.

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The post Yellowjackets Bears Down With a Filler Where Nat's a Killer appeared first on /Film.

When "The Exorcist" was celebrating its 25th anniversary in 1998, actor Jason Miller, who played Father Damien Karras, remarked (via News & Record), "In the lexicon of movies, it's right up there as probably one of the top horror films of our time."

At the time, film critic Mark Kermode was interviewing Miller for what would become the BBC documentary, "The Fear of God: 25 Years of The Exorcist." This was before a new 2000 edition of the movie, "The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen," restored the infamous lost scene with the demon-possessed girl, Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), walking backward down the stairs like a spider.

There are no shortage of shocking moments in "The Exorcist," but for Miller, one of the biggest shocks came on the set while they were filming. It's a sheer gross-out moment that also may have helped the phrase "projectile vomit" enter the lexicon of certain viewers (those who had never had the misfortune of experiencing such a thing or even hearing about it in real life before).

There's an old playground joke, the simplified version of which goes:

What did you eat all day?

Pea green soup.

What did you do all night?

Pee green soup.

It was no laughing matter, however, when Miller had pea green soup projectile-vomited onto his face during the production of "The Exorcist." As Miller (who passed away in 2001) told it, the plan was for Regan's projectile vomit to land on his chest — and that's the way it happened all throughout rehearsals. When the cameras were rolling, though, the vomit was suddenly "aimed" right at his face. And that's the take that made it into the movie.

By Accident Or Design?

The soup-to-the-face incident wasn't the only time something unexpected happened on the set of "The Exorcist." The stories of director William Friedkin's unorthodox methods for eliciting raw reactions from his actors are legendary. In the case of "The French Connection," the Academy Award-winning film he made before "The Exorcist," Friedkin actually staged an illegal car chase that he later admitted put people's lives in danger.

According to Miller, Friedkin also had shotguns going off on the "Exorcist" set to create tension. Looper notes that the guns were firing blanks, but it's understandable why just the abrupt sound of them would put the actors on edge.

An even more well-known behind-the-scenes "Exorcist" story involves Friedkin slapping a real priest right before a shot to provoke a genuine emotional response and get it on film. It was Father William O'Malley, who played Father Joseph Dyer in the film. Friedkin at least had the decency to ask, "Do you trust me?" before he did it, which is more heads-up than he gave Miller with the vomit.

Friedkin has since said that he regrets some of his extremely guerrilla filmmaking techniques in the 1970s and would not employ them today. In today's sensitive climate, it feels like those techniques wouldn't fly with anyone. Yet for better or for worse, they were woven into the fabric of his filmmaking on "The Exorcist," an old-school '70s blockbuster that had Hollywood laughing — and projectile-vomiting? — all the way to the bank.

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The post The Exorcist's Bizarre On-Set Accident You Can Actually See In the Movie appeared first on /Film.

These days, nobody would blink twice at a hotshot director following their breakout film with a superhero movie. In 2000, however, few expected M. Night Shyamalan to go from making the Oscar-nominated, box office chart-topping supernatural thriller "The Sixth Sense" to helming "Unbreakable," a film where Bruce Willis learns he's capable of superhuman feats. (Clearly, he'd never watched himself in "Die Hard.")

Far from a conventional superhero origin story, "Unbreakable" revolves around David Dunn (Willis), a security guard who, upon emerging as the sole survivor of a horrific train crash, is approached by Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), an eccentric comic book aficionado with brittle bone disease who believes David possesses incredible strength and power. Most of the movie plays out as a slow-burn exercise in suspense as David grapples with the truth about who he is and how denying his identity has left him estranged from his wife and son. In time, though, David brings his life back into balance by becoming the real-world superhero he feels he should be.

Then comes the late gut punch everyone was expecting after "The Sixth Sense": David learns that Elijah caused many terrible "accidents" (the train crash included) in his search to find the Batman to his Joker, so to speak. "Unbreakable" thusly ends with multiple freeze frames and onscreen text revealing Elijah was sent to an institution for the criminally insane after David reported him to the police — a notable change from the conclusion in an earlier script draft.

'They Called Me Mr. Glass'

When interviewed by Creative Screenwriting in 2015, Shyamalan confirmed his "Unbreakable" screenplay once ended with David stepping into a crowd of "ordinary people, walking on an ordinary street, in an ordinary city." As he explained:

"I think the greatest twists are when things change fundamentally. The two films I always use are 'Planet of the Apes' and 'Psycho,' where what you thought you saw you did not see. In Unbreakable what you thought you saw was a superhero becoming a superhero. But that's not what you saw. The whole movie twists and turns on its head. It's a kind of fundamental change that I was going for, that I didn't quite get before."

It seems part of the reason Shyamalan made this change was to clearly explain what became of Elijah and not leave audiences with more questions than answers. But more than that, he appeared to realize that a scene alluding to the notion that superheroes walk among us (even one as quiet as what he had in mind) is innately more upbeat than one where a visibly devastated David walks away from his once-trusted mentor and friend, tears welling up in his eyes. There's been many a superhero film and comic book that appropriately ended with an image of the hero carrying out their duties in the everyday world, but for a movie as melancholy and willing to wrestle with bleak existential ideas as "Unbreakable," that doesn't feel like the right approach.

Was There Another Un-Filmed Ending?

As part of EW's Oral History of "Unbreakable," , Disney's former film production president Nina Jacobson discussed her own feelings about the movie's ending:

"I remember conversations about the ending. The hero walking away from the villain always troubled me. And to leave so much unknown was something I wondered aloud about to Night. So maybe there should be a sequel."

She wasn't alone in that regard. An "Unbreakable" sequel was the subject of speculation for years after the film's release. In EW's Oral History, artist Derek Thompson — who created the original comic book illustrations featured in the movie — even claimed that an early script he read had David realizing the truth about Elijah through a talk with the latter's mother about a piece of art depicting "this mysterious, shadowy figure working on a robotic arm in a wheelchair" at Elijah's gallery. "It had this powerful, haunted ambiguity to it. But the idea was that this was meant to be an Act One movie. It was meant to tee up two more films," Thompson added.

Shyamalan, for his part, told EW there was never an un-filmed ending where David didn't shake Elijah's hand and use his ability to see the worst things people have done by touching them to uncover the truth. Of course, Shyamalan didn't deny that he'd always wanted to make a trilogy of movies based in the "Unbreakable" universe either, and would realize that dream in the years after that interview.

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The post The Original Ending to Unbreakable Left More Questions Than Answers appeared first on /Film.

A bomb squad was dispatched to the UK's Gloucestershire Royal Hospital last week after a patient reported a World War II mortar shell stuck in his rectum. (Rectum? Nearly killed him! And lots of other people too!) Physicians apparently removed the shell before the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team arrived. — Read the rest

If you're making a Hollywood movie that revolves in any way around real-life subject matter, you have a choice; You can choose to do your research and honor the subject matter accurately, or you can just ... make stuff up (Disney's "Pocahontas," anyone?). Unfortunately, many writers and directors choose to go the route of the latter, but every once in a while, you get someone who wants to make sure they do things right. When the writers of "The Craft" set out to make a movie about a group of teenage girls with an interest in witchcraft, they wanted to be as accurate as possible to the religion. To do this, they sought help from a real-life witch named Pat Devin. She acted as a consultant to the filmmakers throughout the entirety of the project, and her knowledge and influence on "The Craft" helped shape the movie into the hexing good time (see what I did there?) that it is today.   

Who Is Pat Devin And What Was Her Influence In The Craft?

In an interview for the Wychwood Castle website, Pat Devin spoke about her experience as a consultant for "The Craft." Devin, herself, is listed as "a Dianic Elder Priestess and a member of Coven Ashesh Hekat, as well as Public Information Officer of Covenant of the Goddess, Southern California Local Council." In short, she knows her stuff. In her interview, she explains how she got the gig after being approached by a local occult shop owner she knew. He had recently been "contacted by a Sony publicist, looking for a Witch [sic] to act as technical advisor on an upcoming production, tentatively titled 'The Craft.'" Not wanting to miss an opportunity to help portray her religion in an accurate and appropriate light, Devin agreed to meet with the director of "The Craft," Andrew Fleming, and executive producer Ginny Nugent.

Devin connected with the idea of a group of teenage girls with an interest in witchcraft. After all, she used to be one of those teenagers, "reading Sybil Leek, singing 'Season of the Witch' and joining [her] high school girlfriends in midnight Ouija Board sessions." She was warned by Fleming that she was signing onto a Hollywood production which meant that, while accuracy was important, the film still needed to sell tickets. When asked if she would be able to work within the parameters of Hollywood entertainment while still being as accurate as possible, she first asked to see the script. Impressed by what she read, she agreed to get on board. 

It's a good thing she did because as it turns out, Devin was not the only one who connected with the four teenage witches in the film. The movie, while originally expected to be nothing more than a mediocre hit, performed exceptionally well at the box office. But I mean, what's not to love about these powerful ladies? They're basically the gothy equivalent of the Lisbon sisters who might have turned out differently if they had broken free from that stifling household and discovered candles and their local Hot Topic. Ahhh, if only.    

So What Things Did Devin Help Influence In The Film?

Jokes aside, though, Devin played a vital role in making "The Craft" as accurate as Hollywood would allow. She created spells that sounded as precise as possible to the real things, and it was her idea to have the four girls take part in an Initiation. "I told Andy that, if the girls were going to threaten Sarah with death for leaving the Coven, he needed an Initiation where the girls committed themselves to each other," she says. She also suggested giving a reason why Fairuza Balk's character, Nancy, and her Coven are looking to add a fourth member to their group, allowing each girl to "call a corner" for each element during the "Invocation of the Spirit" ritual they perform on the beach.

Still, not all of Devin's suggestions were taken. When it comes time for each of the girls to represent an element during the invocation, Devin "had Sarah as Earth, Rochelle as Water, Bonnie as Fire [ ... ] and Nancy as Air," but the art department for the film disagreed with her and ultimately flip-flopped the elements for Nancy and Sarah. Even so, Devin insists that many of her ideas were utilized. One thing does make her sad about the film's final cut, though. "I'll always miss the truly magical final scene in the original script, that had Sarah reading to a group of little girls and, as she reads, the story comes to life around them, and they are in a forest clearing, with deer and birds around them." I'm not entirely certain if I love this ending as much as Devin seems to. It would have messed with those delightful straight jacket Fairuza vibes, and that's just not something I'm willing to give up.   

And just in case you were wondering, those looking to summon the real-life Manon themselves are out of luck. The powerful Deity that's summoned and ultimately abused isn't real. Devin made him up just for the film. She diligently researched to make sure that Manon was not a real Deity because "[she] didn't want hordes of teenagers running down to the beach or out to the woods invoking anybody real." Which, honestly, was probably a good call. Add that to the list of reasons why it is always, always important to consult an expert.     

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The post The Real-Life Witch Who Heavily Influenced The Craft appeared first on /Film.

When Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes took the stand last week (on trial "for 11 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud"), she submitted four hand-written pages of notes that included a breathless to-do list more suitable for robots than humans. — Read the rest

Whoa. 

"The Matrix Resurrections" trailer is here, and director Lana Wachowski has delivered a whole new slew of mysteries for fans of the franchise to devour. Fans have been trying to figure out exactly when "The Matrix Resurrections" will take place on the "Matrix" timeline, and one tiny clip from the new trailer might have finally given us the answer. 

Niobe, An Aged Survivor

Jada Pinkett Smith has been confirmed to return as resistance fighter and pilot captain Niobe in "The Matrix Resurrections," and the new trailer revealed a first glimpse of how her character has fared in the time between now and the end of the last movie. While both Keanu Reeves' Neo and Carrie Anne Moss's Trinity have aged as much as the actors who play them, Pinkett Smith appears in old age makeup, looking much older than either of her costars. 

Her battle scars and age-lines likely mean that decades have passed in the real world since Neo and Niobe had seen one another. Trinity has been kept in one of the stasis tubes the machines use to plug people into the Matrix and siphon their energy, and it's entirely possible that Neo has as well. Chilling out in a vat of goo tends to do wonders for your skin, apparently. 

Niobe's romantic relationship with Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) ended before the original film trilogy began, but her inclusion in both "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions" helped give Morpheus depth and introduced the wider world of the rebellion and Zion. The last we saw her, she was thanking Neo for ending the war with the machines. With those battle scars, I'm guessing the war wasn't as over as she thought. That, or humans decided to war amongst themselves. Either way, poor Niobe has been through it, and she likely has some very interesting stories to share. 

Decades Have Passed, But Some Things Are New

Time has clearly passed for Niobe in the real world, but what about the characters who inhabit the Matrix? The programs are ageless, so Agent Smith returning in a different form as "Mindhunter" actor Jonathan Groff isn't a big stretch. We'll also be seeing a much-younger version of Morpheus, played by Yahya Abdul Mateen II, though he's probably a digital version of some kind, as we've only seen footage of him inside the Matrix. Morpheus might have uploaded himself to the Matrix fully when his body aged too greatly, or he might have died and had some part of himself put into the program. It's entirely possible that the Morpheus we see is fabricated completely by the machines, too, as a way to get to Neo. 

Whatever the case, we now know that the events of "The Matrix Resurrections" take place long after the end of the third film. We'll find out exactly what that means for Neo, Trinity, Niobe, and the rest of the futuristic fighting force when the movie debuts in theaters and on HBO Max on December 22, 2021. 

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The post One Key Shot in the New Matrix Resurrections Trailer Reveals When the Movie Takes Place appeared first on /Film.

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

The Movie: "The House Bunny"

Where You Can Stream It: Amazon Prime

The Pitch: Anna Faris is a beautiful model named Shelley Darlingson enjoying her magical life at a gigantic mansion with the only family she's ever known, her fellow Playboy playmates. In the morning that follows her 27th birthday, Shelley finds herself kicked out of the mansion for being "too old," and forced to figure out how to survive in the real world. Unfortunately for Shelley, the real world doesn't play by the same rules as the Playboy Mansion, and adjusting to a life that isn't surrounded by endless pocketbooks and celebrities proves to be a lot harder than Shelley had anticipated. She stumbles upon sorority row on a California college campus, and becomes the new house mother to a crew of sorority outcasts, the nerdy gals of Zeta Alpha Zeta who are in danger of losing their house unless they can improve their social standing on campus and convince more students to join their house.

Why It's Essential Viewing

Last week I talked about how "Just Friends" is the perfect Christmas rom-com, and a major part of the success of the film is Anna Faris as Samantha James. Faris is known for her leading role in the "Scary Movie" franchise and for her eight seasons on "Mom," but in the grand scheme of things, Hollywood hasn't appreciated her comedic talents the way they have other actors. The fact that Anna Faris isn't the go-to comedic actress of a generation is a crime against humanity, because there's no one quite like her. She's just as hilarious as she is sexy, and has managed to work both angles in an industry where actresses are typically forced to choose one or the other. "The House Bunny" is the culmination of everything that makes Anna Faris great. 

Written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, the writing team behind such greats as "Legally Blonde," "Ella Enchanted," and "She's the Man," the character of Shelley was written specifically with Faris in mind, with every joke playing to her strength. Her masterful handling of vocal inflections, willingness to commit 100% to physical comedy bits, and perfect comedic timing is all on display. "The House Bunny" should have been her calling card as the First Lady of Comedy, but critics woefully misunderstood this film, and with 2008 being a year where girl-hate and anti-femme bias (See: everything that lead to #FreeBritney), "The House Bunny" hit at the worst possible time.

A Sorority Of Superstar Performances

Faris' commanding comedic performance is extra impressive considering the Zeta house is filled with Emma Stone, Kat Dennings, Rumer Willis, Katharine McPhee, and Dana Min Goodman, the latter being one of the first to come forward about Louis C.K.'s history of abuse. Goodman's career was unfortunately impacted by her bravery, which is all the more reason to rewatch "The House Bunny" and marvel at her hilarious delivery of asking where the bathroom is so she can "drop off some lumber" as a pick-up line.

Emma Stone is the de-facto leader of the Zetas, an endearing bookworm who is painfully awkward around men. This is a few years before "Easy A" would prove her to be a superstar, and watching her gleefully suggest fundraisers like a "Bring Your Own Mouse" party, Battlestar Galactica watch party (with pudding), or attempt sex appeal by spraying a hose on herself for wet pants, as opposed to a wet t-shirt, is genuinely endearing. Comedic greats like Beverly D'Angelo and Christopher McDonald show up as the rival house mother and head of the Greek council respectively, both playing hilarious villany the way only they can. Sarah Wright, best known for playing Jerry Gergich's daughter on "Parks and Rec" is the perfect evil sorority girl, and her "SO NICE" passive-aggressive conversation ender will wiggle its way into your vernacular.

A Genuinely Good Makeover Movie

Teen movies and in particular, movies marketed for women, have been featuring makeover subplots forever, and "The House Bunny" is easily one of the best. The makeover is initially presented as a very superficial change for all of the girls, because Shelley is remaking them the only way she knows how. At the same time, though, she doesn't try to completely remove what makes them all special. Kat Dennings is introduced as a butchy misandrist, and her makeover transforms her into a sexy rocker chick with studded belts. Eventually, the girls do start falling into the traps of toxic femininity when they start acting the way they think they're supposed to act now that they're "hot," but they're acting based on how they've been treated by the world around them and from what they've learned from a lifetime of cultural socialization.

On the flip side, Shelley does her best to impress her love interest Oliver (Colin Hanks), an intellectual who works at a retirement home. She uses all her typical Playboy bunny angles, but it doesn't work on Oliver, who wants a genuine connection. Shelley then tries to turn herself into something completely different to win him over, which also fails because it's so inauthentic to who she is. Shelley helps the Zetas find confidence in who they are, and the Zetas help her adjust to the reality of building relationships not built on "Oh my god, you're in Playboy?!"

Not all of the humor in "The House Bunny" has aged well (it was 2008, y'all) but as an overall product, it's an underseen gem that absolutely deserves to be included in the brilliant canon of Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, and proof that Anna Faris is a comedic genius.

Read this next: The Daily Stream: The Clovehitch Killer Will Make Your Daddy Issues Seem Pretty Chill

The post The Daily Stream: The House Bunny Solidifies Anna Faris' Legacy as a Comedic Great appeared first on /Film.

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Concerned about America's cybersecurity preparedness, the White House "is accelerating efforts to fill nearly 600,000 vacant cybersecurity positions in the public and private sectors bogging down efforts to protect digital infrastructure," reports Axios: Following a deluge of ransomware attacks targeting critical government and corporate infrastructure this year, clogs in the talent pipeline are leaving federal, cash-strapped local governments and Big Business even more susceptible to hacking. The issue has emerged repeatedly in Senate and House hearings but received little public attention until recently... Microsoft...has pitched in by providing free cybersecurity curriculum to every public community college. A nonprofit, Public Infrastructure Security Cyber Education Systems, provides university students hands-on experience: monitoring real-time data on local government networks... A job-tracking database funded by the Commerce Department shows there are nearly 600,000 U.S. cyber job openings nationwide. The Department of Homeland Security recently launched a federal recruiting tool aimed at courting young, diverse talent. DHS currently has about 1,500 cybersecurity-related vacancies, affecting the agency's efforts to protect the homeland. A Senate audit found key agencies across the federal government continue to fail to meet basic cybersecurity standards, with eight of them earning a C- in the report. Historically, local and federal government entities have struggled to compete with private sector companies, where bidding wars for talent are commonplace.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Users looking to activate Windows without using a digital license or a product key are being targeted by tainted installers to deploy malware designed to plunder credentials and other information in cryptocurrency wallets. The malware, dubbed "CryptBot," is an information stealer capable of obtaining credentials for browsers, cryptocurrency wallets, browser cookies, credit cards, and capturing

While we've had Halo Infinite's multiplayer to keep us busy for close to one month, it will soon be time to play the campaign. While we know that the Halo Infinite release date is today (December 8), some of those who have taken the day off will likely wonder what the Halo Infinite campaign unlock time is. Thankfully, 343 Industries has provided the answer, which you can find below.

While you still have some time to wait, the Halo Infinite campaign reviews have started coming in, and it's all looking quite rosy so far. Some outlets have given it a perfect score, whereas others have given out the equivalent of an eight-out-of-ten score. Us? We landed on an eight ourselves, with Elliot Gardener calling it "a return to form for one of gaming's greatest heroes" in his Halo Infinite review. 

It's also worth bearing in mind that you'll only be getting access to the single-player version of the campaign. 343 Industries has previously confirmed that a co-op option will come along in Season 2, which should be launching in May.

RELATED LINKS: Halo Infinite release date, Halo Infinite system requirements, Halo Infinite ranks

"If you were to see Daredevil in upcoming things, Charlie Cox, yes, would be the actor playing Daredevil," says Marvel chief Kevin Feige.

It’s nice to have the Chief back So I’ve talked about my extensive history with Halo already in our Halo Infinite multiplayer...

The post Review: Halo Infinite appeared first on Destructoid.

As the series that did more than any other to establish not only the original Xbox but all of its successors, Halo holds a special place in the hearts of gamers worldwide. It has also always felt like a console IP.

The admittedly disappointing Halo 5: Guardians still isn't playable on PC, and many of its predecessors only arrived on our towers very recently with the Master Chief Collection. Now, more than six years after Halo 5, the world is soon to have a new main-sequence Halo game, and it's releasing day-and-date on PC for the first time ever. Halo Infinite has a lot of pressure, and excitement, resting on its shoulders.

But my God does it deliver. You’ll feel it the first time that iconic orchestral score swells in the heat of battle. Perhaps you'll be hunkering in cover waiting for your shields to recharge, when suddenly that bom bom bom bommm makes you realise that, wait a minute, you're the Master Chief. Screw hiding from the Covenant - er, I mean the 'Banished’ - it's time to rush out guns blazing, to throw a fuel cell into the face of the nearest Brute with your grapple hook while you pop the head off a dozen grunts with your trusty BR55. Halo Infinite manages to make you feel like a badass in almost every battle, whether you’re sniping from a clifftop you’ve just scaled, or mowing down foes in a Warthog full of comrade marines.

RELATED LINKS: Halo Infinite release date, Halo Infinite system requirements, Halo Infinite ranks

Ars Technica reports: Months after the first-person-shooter classic Quake got a major 25th anniversary re-release, its modern handlers have returned with an update that exceeds all expectations. Thursday's new 770MB patch on all platforms (Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, PC) adds an entirely new co-op combat mode, and it officially opens the game's mod floodgates for players outside the PC ecosystem. The uncreatively named "Horde" mode works much like a mode of the same name in Gears of War. Instead of progressing through a level from start to finish, players are expected to hunker down inside a somewhat circular arena and then contend with hundreds of enemies spawning from all sides. Kill a full "wave" of foes, and your team will get a moment to breathe, replenish health and ammo (or argue over who gets to use it), and do it all over again. For the sake of Quake's first-ever official co-op mode (beyond the campaign, which always supported co-op as an option), Bethesda support studio MachineGames has whipped up four brand-new battling arenas, which are pictured above. Each includes at least one "silver key" door, which is full of more powerful weapons and is gated until players earn a key by defeating a tougher "boss wave" of foes. Get through nine enemy waves, and your team gets a "gold key." You can either exit the level at that point or stay and keep fighting increasingly tough foes until your team dies. In addition, Quake now has a new "add-on" menu, and this week's patch gives it an option for playing the foggy 2012 Quake mod "Honey."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As you were learning how to drive, you may have also learned a few car maintenance basics, like how to refill your windshield wiper fluid or check your oil levels. Another common tip was to use a penny to check the tread on your tires.

Read more...

Here's more rumormongering to get the weekend off to a saucy start. Following a recent unconfirmed report about plans for a new BioShock game, VGC has more speculation about a fourth installment in...

Henriquejr spotted the release of the 4th expansion of Titan Quest: The Eternal Embers are still glowing strong, Titan Slayers! Guess Who's Back, Back Again: Titan Quest Gets Its 4th Expansion Today, Eternal Embers Vienna/Austria, December 3rd, 2021 - Action-RPG Titan Quest is getting a new expansion! In Eternal Embers, players will set foot in the mystic realms of the Far East....

This week we're joined by a special guest - IGN's Miranda Sanchez, who explains to us exactly what the hell the deal is with Genshin Impact, and we also talk about the new space-bound shooter Chorvs (that's "Chorus," not "chorv-s"), Animal Crossing's expansion, Exo One, and a lot more.  This week's music:  FKA twigs (feat. Central Cee) - Measure of a Man

Ye Old Entertainment reviews Planescape: Torment. Planescape Torment review: the GOAT of RPGs? Does it compare with Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale Planescape Torment juggles with some of humanities biggest questions, especially those that revolve around transcendence and spiritual rebirth....

(Welcome to Now Stream This, a weekly column dedicated to the best movies streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and every other streaming service out there.)

As another week winds down, it's time to kick back with some movies. Sure, I guess you could go somewhere. But yuck, who wants to leave the house? Not me! The weekend is the perfect time for some streaming, dear reader. And since the world of streaming services is so cluttered these days, it can be helpful to have a guide. Well, consider me that guide. I am the Virgil to your Dante, guiding you through the nine circles of streaming hell! So, TGIF, folks. Let's get streaming.

The Power Of The Dog

Now Streaming on Netflix

Jane Campion's "The Power of the Dog" is one of the best films of the year, a stark, quiet, often disturbing story that plays its cards extremely close to the vest. This is the type of film where you don't really know what's going on until the final frames, and it can be very difficult to pull that sort of thing off. But Campion does it, and makes it look easy, because she's such a damn good filmmaker. Lonely widow Rose (Kirsten Dunst) runs an inn with her strange, quiet son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). One day, some cattle drivers come in, including brothers Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George (Jesse Plemons). George is awkward but kind, while Phil is loud and cruel. Both brothers are wealthy, and we eventually learn that Phil has an Ivy League education but chooses to play cowboy. Rose and George marry, but to Phil's annoyance – he has no patience for outsiders like Rose, and he mocks both her and her son. And then a curious thing happens. The son, Peter, starts trying to befriend Phil. And Phil, despite his cruelty, takes a liking to the boy. And that's all I'm going to tell you, because like I said, "The Power of the Dog" is in no hurry to reveal its secrets. Cumberbatch has never been as good as he is here, making Phil into a truly ominous character who instills dread every time he appears.

Pig

Now Streaming on Hulu.

Lots of people like to point out how wacky Nicolas Cage can be, and sure, that's fair. Cage can definitely go over the top. But it's important to remember that he's a great actor, too, and if you've forgotten that, please go watch "Pig." The premise, which has Cage playing a former chef trying to find out who kidnapped his prized truffle pig, sounds like the set-up for some sort of "John Wick" style tomfoolery. But that's not what "Pig" is. Instead, it's a quiet, reflective story about trying to grab hold of something special in a world that feels designed to crush you. Cage's performance is subtle and strong, some of the best work of his entire career, and it's a travesty that he'll probably be completely overlooked this awards season. 

The Rescue

Now Streaming on Disney+.

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the team behind the anxiety-inducing documentary "Free Solo," are back with another doc about people who risk their lives partaking in a seemingly insane hobby. This time that hobby is cave diving, wherein people strap on SCUBA gear and dive into dark, narrow underwater caves. For fun. But unlike "Free Solo," the subjects at the center of "The Rescue" aren't just doing this for their own personal glory. Instead, they've been called in to help rescue a young soccer team trapped in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in northern Thailand. The clock is ticking – if the kids don't die of hunger or thirst, the threat of rising waters will surely drown them. And so an extremely dangerous plan is put together. Using a blend of real footage and recreations that look like real footage, "The Rescue" paints a harrowing, hopeful story of people going above and beyond in order to save total strangers. That's a sentiment we could use a lot more of these days. 

Edward Scissorhands

Now Streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Disney+.

When I was a young goth loser, I idolized the work of Tim Burton, especially his fairytale-ish "Edward Scissorhands." The weird outsider at the center of that story really appealed to me; I saw in him a kindred spirit. Then, at some point, I grew warry of Burton. It didn't help that his work began to decrease in quality, and he descended into self-parody. The filmmaker's weaker efforts made me adopt a blase attitude to his filmography in general, and I felt I had grown beyond it. But the thing is, while Burton's modern-day work doesn't hold water, a lot of his earlier films are worthwhile. And when I revisited "Edward Scissorhands" last year for the first time in a long time, I was blown away by how well it's held up. For all of Burton's flaws, this tale of a Frankenstein-like figure (Johnny Depp) who heads down into candy-colored suburbia, remains fairly magical. The suburbanites take to poor Edward at first, and Edward is instantly smitten with Kim (Winona Ryder). But before long, the locals turn on this hapless creature, because he will always be an outcast, even if he does manage to win Kim's love. Few moments in Burton's career are as effective and heartbreaking as a climactic scene set during Christmastime, where Jen asks Edward to hold her, and Edward, with his blade-like fingers, quietly responds, "I can't." Brutal, man. Brutal. Throw in one of Danny Elfman's most gorgeous scores, and you've got something special. 

Changing Lanes

Now Streaming on HBO Max.

When was the last time you heard anyone talk about "Changing Lanes"? I'm guessing the answer might be "never," and that's a darn shame! Because this forgotten 2002 thriller is quite good, and it's the type of mid-budget, adult-driven drama we don't really get anymore. As the story begins, two very different guys are rushing to court. One of them, played by Samuel L. Jackson, is a recovering alcoholic trying to win joint custody of his kids. The other, played by Ben Affleck, is a Wall Street attorney on his way to file some very important paperwork. Both men end up in a car accident, and Affleck's character, Yuppie scumbag that he is, ends up leaving Jackson stranded. As a result, Jackson misses his court appearance. But unfortunately for Affleck, he accidentally left the important documents he needed to file behind – and Jackson finds them. Soon, the men are locked in a battle to ruin each other's lives. It's a unique scenario, and Affleck and Jackson are both great here, backed up by a crackerjack cast that includes Toni Collette, Sydney Pollack, and William Hurt. 

Read this next: The Best Movies Of 2021 So Far

The post The Best Movies Streaming Right Now: The Power of the Dog, Pig, and More appeared first on /Film.

"Lost in Space" (or, to use the title I personally gave it, "A Series of Unfortunate Events ... in Space!") has come to an end after three seasons packed with stunning sci-fi visuals and, despite the darkness along the way, a fundamentally hopeful vision of humanity's future. Based on the 1960s CBS show of the same name, "Lost in Space" debuted on Netflix in 2018 and has traveled many lightyears since then. 

When "Lost in Space" season 3 begins, the Robinson children have been separated from their parents for almost a year (providing a handy explanation for why Will Robinson actor Maxwell Jenkins is now about three feet taller). Given a choice between heading on to Alpha Centauri and going back to rescue their parents from near-certain death, Captain Judy Robinson makes the decision to defy her original instructions and return to where the rest of the colonists were stranded, risking the children's lives but ultimately getting everyone to Alpha Centauri alive.

Unfortunately, danger isn't far behind them. After getting the location of Alpha Centauri by scanning Don West (the only member of the Jupiter-2 crew who has been to the colony before), alien robot leader SAR prepares to launch an attack on the colony, sending an advance team to sabotage its power supply. Alpha Centauri manages to raise its defense shields again (unlike most sci-fi shows, the human spaceships in "Lost in Space" are not equipped with guns or missiles, so defending is the best they can do), but not before a single alien robot ship gets through -- with SAR onboard.

Previously, On Lost In Space...

For many shows, but especially one with a three-season arc as tight and cohesive as that of "Lost in Space," it's impossible to fully appreciate the ending without a reminder of how things started. The series finale may find the expanded Robinson family sitting around the dinner table in an atmosphere of warmth and affection, but that same family started out cold. And I'm not just talking about the ice planet that the Robinsons landed on in the "Lost in Space" pilot episode, "Impact."

When we first met the Robinsons, Maureen and John were barely on speaking terms and the kids didn't get along great either. In "Impact," Penny cheats at cards and, after being caught out, stubbornly insists that Will hand over his card anyway. Penny and Judy also snipe at each other, setting a precedent for the bristly dynamic between the two sisters that would persist throughout the series. Once we learn that this is a family of exceptional over-achievers who passed the stringent tests required for the colony mission (all except Will, who failed the stress test but had his results fudged by Maureen), the in-fighting and tension between the Robinsons starts to make a lot of sense. 

The opening episode also sheds light on why, in "Lost in Space" season 3, Will Robinson feels the need to silently shoulder so much of the responsibility for keeping the colony and his family safe -- even if it means sacrificing his own life. When the Jupiter sinks into icy waters in "Impact," John wastes no time in telling his young son that he'll have to be the one to dive down and retrieve power cells from the ship. When Will freezes up in fear, Judy dives into the water and, because she couldn't fit into the same tight gaps that Will could have, runs out of time and almost dies. For Will, it was an early and brutal reminder that if he didn't answer the call to wade into danger, his hesitation could cost his family their lives.

In "Impact," we also see for the first time the "reprogramming" that turns the tide of the fight against the alien robots in the "Lost in Space" season finale. Though Will and the split-in-half Robot are caught up in the same raging fire, Will doesn't choose to save the alien in the hopes that it will return the favor. Instead, he simply says that there's no need for both of them to die, and after he frees Robot he leans back against the tree to accept his fate.

The finale offers a callback to "Dr. Smith's" very first appearance in the show: once again, she is found in a position of power over someone helpless, whose death would be advantageous to her. But whereas in "Impact" she stole the real Dr. Smith's jacket and left him for dead, in "Trust" she is prevented from committing an unforgivable act of murder by Robot, who arrives just in time to "help Dr. Smith."

The pilot episode even lays the groundwork for the end of Don West's arc. In a flashback, Don is shown searching for an escape route during the initial attack on the Resolute. His friend Tam points out that the Jupiters are only meant for the colonist families, not for lowly mechanics like themselves. Three seasons later, it's safe to say that Don has firmly found his family.

Why SAR Hates Will Robinson So Much

"Lost in Space" season 3 finally answered the question of why the Second Alien Robot (dubbed "SAR") was so single-mindedly intent on finding Will Robinson. The secret lies in the origin story of the alien robots, and strongly ties into the show's themes of trust, friendship, and family.

As Will learned while exploring the ruins of an alien city on the planet where the Fortuna was stranded, the alien robots were created by an organic race and designed in their image -- with four arms, two legs, and sharp claws. This race was wiped out by a violent, cataclysmic event, which SAR cryptically claims responsibility for. In "Trust," Will realized with horror exactly what killed the alien robots' parent race: an engine activating on the surface of the planet, ripping a hole in space hard enough to split their world apart.

Why did SAR kill its creators? Because the robots' programming forces them to respond to commands spoken in the alien language, and SAR believed that the only way it could ever gain free will was by destroying every last member of its parent race. Freedom, above all else, is what SAR craves. So, when SAR came across an alien robot who had seemingly been reprogrammed by a member of the squishy human race -- the same race that had enslaved Scarecrow and used stolen alien technology for its colony missions -- it was terrified of being forced to obey a master again. SAR's dogged pursuit of Will has been driven by its determination to find out how Will had managed to "reprogram" Robot, and then make sure no one could ever do it again.

Of course, SAR actually has it the wrong way round. Robot wasn't reprogrammed by Will, but liberated from his original programming and given the freewill that SAR so desperately wants. SAR, meanwhile, is still a slave to its programming -- killing its masters didn't change that, it simply silenced them from giving orders. When the Robinsons and their allies surround SAR, playing a recording of commands in the alien language, the robot finds itself once again brought to its knees. The audio of the commands was a gift given to Will and Dr. Smith by the alien robots back on their home planet: after witnessing Robot sacrificing himself to save Will, the aliens decided to trust the humans with the key to defeating SAR.

The key ingredient that allows Robot, Sally, and the other alien robots to actually break free from their programming? "Trust, Will Robinson." When Will and Penny repaired their respective robot friends, it was done as an act of trust. In turn, the robots trusted them and bonded with their new human companions in a manner that was liberating.

At the risk of oversimplifying the themes of "Lost in Space," this one is pretty clear: Violence and revenge ultimately become a prison, but forgiveness and trust will set you free.

Let's Talk About The Death Fake-Outs

"Lost in Space" has a habit of pushing its characters perilously close to the edge of death, and it really stepped that up in the final few episodes of season 3. Will gets at least two death fake-outs, while Robot gets one of his own. And they're all tied into Will's heart, which SAR concludes must be the key to his "hacking." First SAR stabs Will in the heart, and he gets a dramatic farewell scene with voiceover of his final goodbyes to his family. Then Will gets an artificial heart, but puts it through too much strain in traveling to the alien robots' planet in search of help. He accepts his imminent death; after Dr. Smith suggests that he lie down and rest, Will tells her that it won't make a difference any more.

That's Robot's cue for his own death fake-out, and this one is a lot more convincing than Will's. Using some kind of alien robot lightning medicine ... thing, Robot instantly heals Will back to peak health, at the cost of Robot himself being reduced to ash. It's a moment that's painfully reminiscent of "The Iron Giant," but "Lost in Space" has a considerably happy ending.

In an ironic twist, Will's heart does turn out to be everything SAR feared it was: a hacking device. During the lightning storm, Robot transferred his consciousness into Will's new, artificial heart. When Will was stabbed through the heart by SAR a second time, Robot seized hold of that connection and used it to completely overtake SAR's body. The malevolent alien robot is defeated, and Robot has a brand new body.

How Does Penny's Book End?

It's a happy ending for the Robinson family, which now includes not only Robot, but also Don West, Debbie the Chicken, and Judy's biological father, Grant Kelly. While things end on cordial terms with Dr. Smith, there's quite a bit of healing left to do before she becomes "family" -- if that's something she even wants.

Speaking of healing, the newly-liberated alien robots now have a cordial relationship with the humans of Alpha Centauri, with the two races combining their technology to build a new ship that combines the best of the Resolute and the alien spaceships. This new union is particularly symbolized by Will and Robot going off to get "lost in space" all over again, exploring new planets and gathering new information about the universe. After everything the family has gone through and survived, Will's siblings and parents no longer worry about him being out in dangerous waters (or at least, not too much) because he's proven many times over that he can take care of himself. Also, he has a seven foot robot friend to protect him.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the "Lost in Space" epilogue is the fact that many robots -- including Sally, the one that Penny rescued and bonded with -- simply choose to leave when the battle's over, giving no indication of where they're going. It's an important reminder that the robots don't owe anything to the humans, not even those who personally saved them. After Scarecrow's enslavement and the dirty secret that Alpha Centauri and the other colonies were built on, humans definitely owed the robots an olive branch.

Though it may never have reached the heights of hype that other Netflix genre shows, like "Stranger Things" or "The Witcher" achieved, "Lost in Space" has quietly earned its place as one of the best sci-fi TV shows of the 21st century. And now that the story has come to a satisfying conclusion, hopefully more fans of all things outer space will discover this gem of curiosity- and hope-driven futuristic fiction.

Read this next: The 14 Greatest Science Fiction Movies Of The 21st Century

The post Lost in Space Season 3 Ending Explained: Trust, Will Robinson appeared first on /Film.

Long-time Slashdot reader mtaht writes: Comcast fully deployed bufferbloat fixes across their entire network over the past year, demonstrating 90% improvements in working latency and jitter — which is described in this article by by Comcast Vice President of Technology Policy & Standards. (The article's Cumulative Distribution Function chart is to die for...) But: did anybody notice? Did any other ISPs adopt AQM tech? How many of y'all out there are running smart queue management (sch_cake in linux) nowadays? But wait — it gets even more interesting... The Comcast official anticipates even less latency with the newest Wi-Fi 6E standard. (And for home users, the article links to a page recommending "a router whose manufacturer understands the principles of bufferbloat, and has updated the firmware to use one of the Smart Queue Management algorithms such as cake, fq_codel, PIE.") But then the Comcast VP looks to the future, and where all of this is leading: Currently under discussion at the IETF in the Transport Area Working Group is a proposal for Low Latency, Low Loss Scalable Throughput. This potential approach to achieve very low latency may result in working latencies of roughly one millisecond (though perhaps 1-5 milliseconds initially). As the IETF sorts out the best technical path forward through experimentation and consensus-building (including debate of alternatives), in a few years we may see the beginning of a shift to sub-5 millisecond working latency. This seems likely to not only improve the quality of experience of existing applications but also create a network foundation on which entirely new classes of applications will be built. While we can certainly think of usable augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR), these are applications we know about today. But what happens when the time to access resources on the Internet is the same, or close to the time to access local compute or storage resources? What if the core assumption that developers make about networks — that there is an unpredictable and variable delay — goes away? This is a central assumption embedded into the design of more or less all existing applications. So, if that assumption changes, then we can potentially rethink the design of many applications and all sorts of new applications will become possible. That is a big deal and exciting to think about the possibilities! In a few years, when most people have 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, or eventually 100 Gbps connections in their home, it is perhaps easy to imagine that connection speed is not the only key factor in your performance. We're perhaps entering an era where consistently low working latency will become the next big thing that differentiates various Internet access services and application services/platforms. Beyond that, factors likely exceptionally high uptime, proactive/adaptive security, dynamic privacy protection, and other new things will likely also play a role. But keep an eye on working latency — there's a lot of exciting things happening!

Read more of this story at Slashdot.