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Photovoltaic panels contain valuable metals, including silver and copper—but the supply of expired panels may overwhelm the capacity to process them.

"Jackie Brown" has always been an outlier in the filmography of Quentin Tarantino. Some people feel it is his best, most mature film. Some feel like it's missing some of that signature Tarantino personality. This somewhat divisive nature comes from the fact that this is the only time in his career he adapted someone else's material for a movie. "Jackie Brown" is based on the Elmore Leonard novel "Rum Punch." By and large, the film is pretty faithful to Leonard's novel. Sure, there are changes, like transplanting the action from Miami to Los Angeles and notably making the lead character a Black woman instead of a white one, but in terms of the story beats, it's pretty similar.

When translating a piece of material into an entirely new medium, changes have to be made, despite what countless book readers online will tell you. How you ingest information, character, emotion, and plot in a visual medium is entirely different than through words alone. Also, the story is being told through an entirely new prism. Quentin Tarantino may love Elmore Leonard, but that doesn't mean he is Elmore Leonard. Naturally, he is going to bring in his own ideas in his adaptation. It would be disappointing if he didn't. When a filmmaker does this, the original author is either glad the new one is making it their own or are furious that their work is being changed (i.e. Stephen King hating Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining").

In the case of "Jackie Brown," there wasn't much to get under Leonard's skin. However, there was one section invented for the film that left him a bit befuddled, but without it, we would have been deprived of our small dose of Chris Tucker.

'The Beaumont Situation'

Before the story of Pam Grier's titular character really begins, we are following Samuel L. Jackson's gun runner Ordell bailing out one of his underlings from jail named Beaumont (Tucker). Believing that someone as weak-willed as Beaumont gave up information to the police, Ordell kills Beaumont in the trunk of a car. This all was not in "Rum Punch." Speaking with Creative Screenwriting back in 1998, Quentin Tarantino explained why he created this side story and felt it was crucial to the full tapestry of "Jackie Brown:"

"The single biggest addition I made to the book is the whole Beaumont section. Of all the structural things in the movie, I think that is the best thing I brought to it ... You get to understand Ordell's situation and what's going on with Jackie through the Beaumont situation, cause you've just been through that. It's like a movie unto itself for the first twenty minutes."

I couldn't agree more with Tarantino here. "Jackie Brown" is a movie obsessed with process and logistics. The entire third act is seeing a crafted plan come to fruition from several different points of view. This particular process lets us experience the ruthlessness of Jackson's Ordell, which subsequently enhances the tension whenever he shows up on screen afterward. Elmore Leonard, though, didn't get it on a first read of the script. Tarantino continues:

"He didn't think it was important? But by spending twenty minutes with Beaumont here, that's a really neat shorthand I can do for the rest of the flick. 'Cause you know Ordell's modus operandi."

Even though he didn't initially understand it, it doesn't sound like he was pushing back too hard on Tarantino and ultimately let him make the movie he wanted to make. I know I'm thankful for that.

Read this next: 13 Tarantino Projects We Never Saw But Wish We Could've

The post Quentin Tarantino's 'Single Biggest Addition To Jackie Brown' Confused Elmore Leonard appeared first on /Film.

The malware downloader known as BATLOADER has been observed abusing Google Ads to deliver secondary payloads like Vidar Stealer and Ursnif. According to cybersecurity company eSentire, the malicious ads are used to spoof a wide range of legitimate apps and services such as Adobe, OpenAPI's ChatGPT, Spotify, Tableau, and Zoom. BATLOADER, as the name suggests, is a loader that's responsible for

Four seasons of "You" have come and gone, and Penn Badgley's obsessive part-time stalker part-time serial killer character Joe Goldberg has gotten away with all his nefarious activities. He has managed to flee to another country and assume a new identity after going on a murderous rampage in the United States ... and instead of living a low-key life and staying away from probable drama, Joe is plainly asking for it: he has taken on the identity of a university professor. Well, at least he's sworn never to commit a crime again. But if we really are talking about the same Joe Goldberg, who has a penchant for falling in love and stabbing people (among other things), it's only a question of when. He has a talent for evading his crimes, but sooner rather than later, he will pay for what he's done.

Or so Penn Badgley hopes.

As this pulpy thriller has become a killer whodunnit, the actor has portrayed the villainous protagonist who likes to believe he's still a good guy. Badgley thinks it's about time Joe got what he deserved, and fans would agree. With the second part of season 4 just released, Badgley is talking about how season 5 would be a fitting conclusion to the series, as Joe should "get what's coming to him." If there's anything we're certain about — what's coming for Joe isn't going to be pretty.

'I Don't Think It's The Conclusion That Anybody Wants'

Penn Badgley has a lot of feelings about the "You" season 4 ending. Although he agrees the end could be perceived as "somewhat satisfying" if the show doesn't get renewed for another season ... he doesn't believe it is the conclusion anyone wants. 

We've seen Joe do some horrifying things — he has killed and maimed and manipulated and buried his crimes (literally and figuratively) for so long it's unimaginable for him to still lead a normal life after all he's done. Badgley knows the end of his character's journey isn't up to him, but he senses there should be another season where Joe gets what he deserves: the absolute worst. Plus, Joe has more to lose now. The actor shared with IndieWire:

"It feels to me like we need to do another season. It feels to me like Joe needs to get what's coming to him, and now he has further to fall because he has all this power and wealth [...] I think what's particularly dystopic or chilling about it is he has effectively won. You have taken this man and shown him going out on top. In that sense, I don't think it's the conclusion that anybody wants."

'I Think We've Got One More In Us'

The actor further explained that we needed to see Joe come to a "conclusion" of sorts. There are so many variables that didn't exist before. Joe has power, and although it may seem like he has everything he needs, he's still unhappy. There's more to Joe's story, and Badgley wants to continue telling it:

"We're needing to see Joe come to a conclusion. Should there be another season? That to me feels like what is happening. Now Joe has power. There's a set of circumstances that doesn't exist before. It's actually a deeper change. In a way, you certainly don't think he's happy. That's really terrible feeling. In a way, that reflects reality, like as long as you somehow don't think Joe is winning. You see a man getting everything he wants but you know that it's awful. That to me is spiritually resonant storytelling. But I think we've got one more in us. But of course, I don't know."

Penn Badgley has always been vocal about his on-screen character and, for the longest time, has hoped Joe Goldberg would get a taste of the injustice he's so hellbent on serving. We'll have to see what Netflix thinks about it. Until then, all four seasons of "You" are available to stream on Netflix.

Read this next: The Moments That Defined TV In 2022

The post Penn Badgley Thinks You Should End With Season 5, And Joe Should 'Get What's Coming To Him' appeared first on /Film.

Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012 and, while the focus was largely on the new "Star Wars" movies that would be made as a result of that acquisition, that was always just going to be the tip of the iceberg. Naturally, Disney Parks has made incredible use of the franchise, putting Galaxy's Edge in its theme parks around the world to immerse fans in a galaxy far, far away. From personal experience, I can tell you that it's a remarkable experience. But Disney Imagineers, it seems, are just getting started, and I got a glimpse at something pretty damn remarkable at this year's SXSW: a real f****** lightsaber! Or, at the very least, as close to the real thing as any of us are ever going to get. Probably.

Josh D'Amaro — Chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products — took the stage at the massive festival in Austin, Texas to discuss what he and the Imagineers do at the company. More to the point, he offered a glimpse into some of the most cutting-edge things they've been working on and, after taking us through some lightsabers out there in the marketplace, including one that you can get custom-made in the parks (again, an incredible experience/product), he then brought out the real deal, met by gasps of awe and excitement from the audience.

Ok, agora eu quero um lightsaber desses! 😱Uma das surpresas do aguardado keynote de Josh D'Amaro, Disney Parks, Experiences & Products Chairman, aqui na @sxsw ! pic.twitter.com/hHNYe49PXk

— Ivan Costa (@Ivan_Costa) March 11, 2023

The lightsaber in question is used at Disney's Galactic Starcruiser, which is a multi-day experience mimicking a cruise through the "Star Wars" galaxy. We've known these lightsabers exist for a little while now, but dear reader; seeing one up close and personal like that was goosebump-inducing. Disney, through its endless innovation and desire to wow the public, brought something to life that many of us have been dying to see our entire lives. It was, in a word, magical.

Making Fiction Feel Real

We've all seen toy lightsabers for many years. Some of the plastic ones even have blades that go into the hilt, but they never looked or felt totally real, despite Lucasfilm's best efforts to squeeze money out of fans such as myself for decades. And make no mistake, I paid good money to build a lightsaber during my visit to Galaxy's Edge, a decision I do not regret. But as incredible as it is, it's still a hefty hunk of metal with a big, light-up bar coming out of it. What I saw on that stage was a weapon for a more civilized age: a blade of light extending from a carefully-crafted hilt. Is it capable of melting steel doors? Probably not, but it looked real enough that I wouldn't care to find out.

Seeing the actual lightsaber blade in that dimly lit, crowded room was jaw-dropping. Fortunately, though, Josh D'Amaro decided to pull back the curtain a bit and clue us in as to how they actually managed to pull this off. Imagineer Leslie Evans briefly joined him on stage, and shared some of what it took to make the Jedi's weapon of choice feel and look real.

"No one asked for this specifically," Evans revealed, explaining that her team took it upon themselves to understand that, if they could make it work, Disney would find a use for it. Indeed they did. In this case, making an entire audience s*** their pants in wonderment. At one point as Evans was monologuing, D'Amaro ignited the saber without warning. "You can't resist it," Evans quipped, hardly joking.

How The Hell Did They Do This?

Leslie Evans also brought one of the prototypes on stage to demonstrate what something this impressive looks like in the early stages. It is, admittedly, far less impressive, looking like an odd hunk of junk assembled in someone's garage for who knows what. "This thing is made from parts that are 3D printed, laser cut, things we bought off the shelves," Evans explained. But when it came to the real thing? It was far more precise.

"By the time we get to that final saber, every part in there is custom-made. There's so much we had to get right. The color temperature. The brightness. The sound. And we had a lot that we had to cram into what's actually a relatively small hilt. We even had to build our own spectral oven at R&D so that we could build that blade material."

Josh D'Amaro then cut Evans off for fear that she was going to ruin the magic of it all, though she did add that they made over 100 prototypes before getting to the saber that was brought out on stage. Judging by the reaction of the crowd (myself included) when he lit it up one final time, it was well worth it. This is Disney magic at its finest and, in hindsight, the pairing of Disney Imagineers and "Star Wars" always seemed like a remarkable idea, capable of delivering magic to the masses.

Read this next: Every Star Wars Project Currently In Development

The post I Saw A 'Real' Star Wars Lightsaber In Person And It Blew My Mind appeared first on /Film.

Sylvester Stallone's 1985 film "Rocky IV" is quite handily the silliest in its series. Tapping into the ultra-jingoistic rhetoric of the Ronald Reagan era, "Rocky IV" saw its American title character squaring off against a Soviet super-athlete in a symbolic attempt to prove which of the world powers was ultimately stronger. /Film already wrote about the film's extended central training montage, claiming it to be one of the best of all time because it provides a parallel between the way Rocky (Stallone) trains, and the way the evil Russian Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) trains. Rocky is out of his element in Russia, where his bout with Drago is to take place. Because of this, Rocky has to find clever, low-fi ways to build in strength, including hauling logs and pressing rickshaws full of locals. Drago, meanwhile, is locked into a high-tech, computer-run athletics facility where his muscles and strength are meticulously measured down to the tiniest units possible. 

It's high-tech, vs. low-tech. It's Soviet soullessness vs. American tenacity. The symbolism is about as subtle as having your face slammed into a kettledrum. 

"Rocky IV" was eventually and widely lambasted for how ridiculous it is -- many might immediately think of the human-sized robot built to serve drinks to Paulie (Burt Young) -- and Stallone re-cut the film in 2021 as "Rocky vs. Drago." The new version left out the robot and shortened the film into something slightly better. The training montage remained. In a making-of video about "Rocky vs. Drago," available on YouTube, Stallone pointed out that one of the shots in the famed montage -- the shot of Stallone lifting the rickshaw — was included as a deliberate homage to one of the director's favorite screen performers: Steve Reeves, better known as one of cinema's great Hercules performers.

We Can Take In An Old Steve Reeves Movie

Pietro Francisci's 1958 film "Hercules," starring Steve Reeves in the title role, might remain the high water mark in the peplum genre. Throughout the 1960s, Italian action/fantasy epics set in the ancient world were very much in vogue, and all of them starred bodybuilders and athletes. One might say they were the offspring of Johnny Weissmuller's "Tarzan" films from 30 years previous. Each of these films featured oiled, burly men performing great feats of low-budget derring-do, including fighting animals and destroying buildings. Mythic heroes like Hercules, Maciste, and Goliath regularly appeared throughout the genre. In the modern era, the films have acquired camp appeal for their dumb writing, and many of them have become guideposts for queer cinema; there's a reason why Dr. Frank N. Furter recommended watching an old Steve Reeves movie in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Where else can one see so many oiled, burly men? 

"Rocky IV," with its focus on the male physique and mythic heroes, might be considered a modern peplum film. It's not set in ancient Greece, but it is about a Hercules-like hero, Rocky, battling an equally powerful mythic villain, Drago. Stallone certainly seems to feel this way, as the "Rocky vs. Drago" commentary reveals Sly's affection for Reeves. In his words: 

"Steve Reeves, the guy that started me out, like this skinny kid and really thin. I was dodging school at 12 years old. I went to a theater and they were playing 'Hercules.' He's coming out of the temple and he's been chained up and he whips his chains and he pulls. And it's this really iconic shot. Literally, my mind exploded. It changed my life, I literally came out of there with a purpose."

Rocky Vs. Hercules

Sylvester Stallone recalled his experience watching "Hercules" so sharply, that he wanted to recreate that moment in "Rocky IV." He wanted to be Hercules, and, in a way, he was. He looked to Steve Reeves as an idol, a physical ideal to look up to. Stallone built himself up to look like a matinee idol, and he succeeded. He said: 

"I wanna be that. So when people say their films influence, absolutely. If you're gonna to the theater and your mind is open, but there's still some questions in your soul, about something, about your life, and all of a sudden your dilemma is played out on the screen it just resonates."

A moderator asked Stallone where he saw "Hercules," and he recalled that it was the Silver Theater in Silver Springs, MD. He went by himself and recalls the experience vividly. He ran out of the theater, and a career in bodybuilding unofficially began. "I went from that movie theater right to a junkyard," Stallone said, "and started lifting brake things or axles, you know? Like pieces. Not big, but enough. And I took a couple of pieces home and tied them together with ropes and I just started lifting junk. That was the beginning, and I never looked back." 

Stallone's low-fi lifting techniques as a 12-year-old would in fact translate directly into what Rocky Balboa did on screen in "Rocky IV." Sometimes, it seems, improvisation is the best tack. And while Stallone has never played Hercules, he did once paint a painting called "Hercules O'Clock," seen on his Instagram account, which is meant to visually represent his ambitions as a 12-year-old. Steve Reeves, it seems, has never left him. 

Read this next: Butkus To Punchy: Ranking All 8 'Rocky' Movies From Worst To Best

The post Sylvester Stallone Used Rocky IV's Training Montage To Honor The Film That Made Him An Actor appeared first on /Film.

Much has been made about Harrison Ford's recent foray into prestige TV. In 2023, when he's not traversing the treacherous plains of Montana in "1923," he's performing some tastefully understated comedy alongside Jason Segel in Apple TV+'s "Shrinking." But prior to both roles, Ford had stayed away from the small screen since he first appeared as Han Solo all the way back in 1977's "Star Wars."

In reality, it's not all that shocking that Ford is suddenly starring in two different TV shows. For some time now, TV has been keeping pace, if not outdoing movies in terms of production value and overall prestige. So if you are, as Ford told The Hollywood Reporter, eager to get back to work after sitting through a global pandemic, why not venture into the realm of premium streaming shows? Luckily, for "Shrinking" co-creators Brett Goldstein and Bill Lawrence, that's exactly what the Hollywood vet did.

The "Ted Lasso" collaborators decided to send Ford their script about a therapist who embraces radical honesty with his patients while grieving the loss of his wife, thinking they had no chance of actually landing the 80-year-old star. But it seems they caught him at the right time. Even though he was hard at work on the upcoming "Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny," Ford was impressed enough with the "Shrinking" script that he invited Goldstein to his place in London to discuss it. But not before the writer ignored his phone call altogether.

'Best Script I've Ever Read'

Casting Harrison Ford in "Shrinking" turned out to be a stroke of genius as it not only lent the show some serious gravitas, but it gave Ford a chance to showcase his comedic side. Securing that magnetic aura proved to be a touch-and-go process for Brett Goldstein and Bill Lawrence, despite Ford's enthusiasm for the script. Goldstein spoke to Stephen Colbert about the whole thing on The Late Show, where he revealed that he and Lawrence decided to "offer it to Harrison Ford and then laugh about the fact [they] offered it to Harrison Ford." But as it turned out, the "Indiana Jones" star was so impressed with what he read that he decided to call Goldstein, who ignored the call as it came from a number he didn't recognize. But once Goldstein heard Ford's voicemail, he called back to arrange a meeting, which he described to Colbert:

"I turn up at the apartment, ring the doorbell. Han Solo answers the door, and I'm like, 'Hello mate!' And I go in the house, and he goes, 'Best script I've ever read.' And I go, 'Shrinking?' Because I've seen 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' that's a very good script. What are you talking about? And then I see on his table, he's got loads of scripts, and I go, 'Oh, he thinks I'm someone else. He's thinking of the wrong thing.' And I see the 'Shrinking' script and I point at it and I go, 'Shrinking?' And he goes, 'Best dialogue I ever read.' And I go, 'Oh, okay. Do you wanna be in it?' And he goes, 'Yeah!' And I go, 'Okay then.' And then he goes, 'Is that business done?' And I go, 'Looks like it.' And he goes, 'Let's eat!'"

Did Harrison Ford Even Read The Script?

With "Shrinking," the notoriously grumpy Harrison Ford reminded us all why he's as big a star as he is, demonstrating gentle restraint in the role of Dr. Paul Rhodes that serves as a perfect balance to Jason Segel's often manic energy as therapist Jimmy Laird. And, as Brett Goldstein and his collaborators no doubt suspected, having him onboard made their jobs a lot easier when it came to writing. In /Film's interview with Goldstein he said:

"Yeah, I hate to say it, it's easy because it's [Ford] and it's kind of easy to write to his voice and he's so f***ing good. I'm not saying it's easy, easy, but it's a pleasure because you're excited to go, 'He's going to say this and he is going to make this f***ing really funny or really moving.' He's Harrison Ford."

But despite Goldstein's amusing story about securing Ford for his dramedy, it seems the actor recalls it differently. In fact, Ford maintains that he didn't even read the script before saying yes to "Shrinking," throwing the actual genesis of his involvement into question. But whatever the actual series of events, it's clear Ford was looking for new projects that would allow him to branch out, and "Shrinking" provided the perfect opportunity in that regard. Even if Goldstein hadn't called him back, it's likely Ford would have found his way into the show, especially if "Shrinking" was indeed the best script he'd ever read. Or not read, depending on who you ask.

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

The post Brett Goldstein Offered Harrison Ford Shrinking As A Joke (Then Ignored His Call) appeared first on /Film.

An anonymous reader shares this report from Dark Reading: In recent weeks, hackers have been deploying the "IceFire" ransomware against Linux enterprise networks, a noted shift for what was once a Windows-only malware. A report from SentinelOne suggests that this may represent a budding trend. Ransomware actors have been targeting Linux systems more than ever in cyberattacks in recent weeks and months, notable not least because "in comparison to Windows, Linux is more difficult to deploy ransomware against, particularly at scale," Alex Delamotte, security researcher at SentinelOne, tells Dark Reading.... "[M]any Linux systems are servers," Delamotte points out, "so typical infection vectors like phishing or drive-by download are less effective." So instead, recent IceFire attacks have exploited CVE-2022-47986 — a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in the IBM Aspera data transfer service, with a CVSS rating of 9.8. Delamotte posits a few reasons for why more ransomware actors are choosing Linux as of late. For one thing, she says, "Linux-based systems are frequently utilized in enterprise settings to perform crucial tasks such as hosting databases, Web servers, and other mission-critical applications. Consequently, these systems are often more valuable targets for ransomware actors due to the possibility of a larger payout resulting from a successful attack, compared to a typical Windows user." A second factor, she guesses, "is that some ransomware actors may perceive Linux as an unexploited market that could yield a higher return on investment." While previous reports had IceFire targetting tech companies, SentinelLabs says they've seen recent attacks against organizations "in the media and entertainment sector," impacting victims "in Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates, which are typically not a focus for organized ransomware actors."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Deep fakes are expected to become a more prominent attack vector. Here's how to identify them. What are Deep Fakes? A deep fake is the act of maliciously replacing real images and videos with fabricated ones to perform information manipulation. To create images, video and audio that are high quality enough to be used in deep fakes, AI and ML are required. Such use of AI, ML and image replacement

The massive breach at LastPass was the result of one of its engineers failing to update Plex on their home computer, in what's a sobering reminder of the dangers of failing to keep software up-to-date. The embattled password management service last week revealed how unidentified actors leveraged information stolen from an earlier incident that took place prior to August 12, 2022, along with

Want a glimpse into the future of SFF? We look at some of the weird and wonderful standouts from The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022.

Queued up ahead of the Linux 6.4 cycle this spring is removing all of the PCMCIA "char" drivers as part of a broader effort to remove PCMCIA socket and card driver code where there is no apparent users remaining...

The new Adam Driver sci-fi/dinosaur thriller 65 asks the question, “What if Kylo Ren was in a Jurassic Park movie?” Okay, that’s not exactly what this film is, but Driver does play a brooding space traveler who ends up stuck on Earth 65 millions years ago, directly before a life-ending asteroid comes to wipe life from the planet.

This film has a lot going for it. Sam Raimi produced it. Danny Elfman scored it. The writers of A Quiet Place, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, wrote and directed the film, and Adam Driver is the lead star of the film, showcasing both his emotional and physical acting at a level you rarely see, especially on the physical side. Plus there are dinosaurs!

Unfortunately for 65, it seems like Covid has gotten the worst of it. It’s had several release delays since its filming during 2020 and at this point it seems to have little marketing behind it, coming out at a time when most people are catching up on Oscar-nominated films rather than heading to the theater to see a big blockbuster film. I have a strange feeling that this movie, which hasn’t done well with critics, will also not do well in theaters, but I think there’s a case to see it and I want to spend some time telling you why I had such a great time with 65.

This movie harkens back to a style of sci-fi we rarely see. Either they have to be big epics like Star Wars or think-piece dramas like Arrival, but this movie isn’t interested in science details. It’s only interested in shooting laser guns at dinosaurs and that is just freaking rad to watch. Don’t get me wrong. I love the epics and the dramas. Probably more so than most. I am a critic, after all. But I rarely get the chance to turn off my brain for a bit and just get sucked into an insane, sincere joy ride.

It was a breath of fresh air to see Adam Driver playing a character that still showcased a range of emotion while also sprinting and shooting at monsters. Portraying Mills, a pilot of a spaceship filled with sleeping passengers all in their pods, frozen in time. The pilot crash lands on a planet and ends up finding himself 65 million years back in our history, to the time directly before the dinosaurs all went extinct. That’s it. No other science needed.

Driver gives a wonderful performance, playing opposite a young girl, played by a non-English speaking Ariana Greenblatt who pulls off some great emotional acting, and CGI dinosaurs for the entirety of the film’s runtime. His family story is moving and he showcases his character’s emotional state perfectly. Beyond the drama, he also spent more time in this film running, jumping, and falling. Having a real military background, it felt like I was watching a real soldier. He wasn’t a big, larger-than-life action star like The Rock, but a real guy who’s been trained and is doing the best he can to survive.

The sound of 65 is also great. The dinosaurs, the score, the jump scares. They all stem from the sound of the film making it believable. The camera work is fantastic. There are several scenes where darkness plays a key factor, and there are shots of the dinosaurs that make them look extremely imposing. I’d also like to mention the set design, prop makers, and costuming departments. Everything felt subtle and normal. The technology of Adam Driver’s future (or past) doesn’t seem far from ours. Everything felt like you’d expect that rarely did I ever focus on the science fiction of the movie. It allowed the film to feel much more like an action film. It was as if Jurassic Park was less about the wonder and beauty of the dinosaurs, and more about the chomping and the bloodshed.

Speaking of, the dinosaur designs felt familiar enough, while also being a bit more menacing looking than the Jurassic Park monsters. We get enough variety in dinosaurs, putting our characters in danger quite often. In fact, this film cuts right to the point, introducing the sound of the dinosaurs a few minutes into the film, and our first glance at them not long after. Also, there’s one dinosaur you’ll fall in love with and I wish I could tell you more.

I had fun with this film. The dumb kind of fun that doesn’t need much explanation. It had enough heart and action and scares to keep me entertained for its easy 1 hour and 33-minute runtime.

65 is now in theaters.

The post [Movie Review] 65 appeared first on Nightmarish Conjurings.

In the wake of the box office and critical success of "Fargo," all eyes were on the Coen Brothers and their next film, "The Big Lebowski," which celebrates its 25th anniversary this week. Instead of following up their Oscar-winning black comedy with another richly profound crime film, the Coens made a stoner comedy starring Jeff Bridges as an easygoing slacker perfectly content to spend his days sipping White Russians and bowling with his buddies. Decades later, The Dude has become a cultural icon and "The Big Lebowski" is considered a bonafide comedy classic. When it was first released, however, it received a lukewarm reception in the States, save for a few diehard fans that understood its low-key greatness. 

No one was clamoring for a sequel, except John Turturro who pleaded with the Coen Brothers to sign off on a spin-off centering around his character Jesus Quintana — the perverted rival bowler who serves as one of the main antagonists of The Dude and his cohorts. It's rarely a good idea to make a sequel nearly twenty years after the original, but that's exactly what Turturro did when he began filming "The Jesus Rolls" in 2016. 

Using "The Big Lebowski" as a jumping-off point, Turturro peppers in plenty of references to the 1998 cult classic that mostly come off feeling forced and out of place. Really, Turturro was setting out to remake Bertrand Blier's 1974 film "Going Places" starring Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as a couple of low-rent criminals committing petty crimes across the French countryside. "The Jesus Rolls" collected dust for a few years until finally seeing the light of day in 2020 when it landed in theaters with a quiet thud. 

I Watched The Jesus Rolls So You Don't Have To

Honestly, if "The Jesus Rolls" would have come out now during the peak of the streaming age, it may have gained a lot more interest if it was marketed as a straight follow-up to "The Big Lebowski." As such, Turturro's indie film turns into a fairly meandering crime caper that feels more like an R-rated sitcom following two middle-aged convicts. 

After being released from Sing Sing prison, Quintana reunites with his long-lost buddy Petey (Bobby Cannavale) and they waste no time in stealing a car from a random hairdresser (Jon Hamm). They meet up with Marie (Audrey Tautou), a textbook nymphomaniac who joins them on the road committing petty crimes and engaging in awkward scenes of meaningless sex. Life has passed them by, leaving Jesus and Petey to wander the Earth until they either luck into a big score or wind up back in the pen. 

Jesus, the character, pretty much exists in name only as Turturro and Cannavale seem more interested in winging it in their own interpretation of a 1970s buddy crime film. There's very little connection to the original film by the Coens, with only loose references and lazy callbacks. Turturro seems more concerned with remaking "Going Places" or acting in a comedy version of 1976's "Mikey and Nicky" starring Peter Falk and John Cassavetes. 

Tonally, "The Jesus Rolls" is all over the place making the haphazard direction stand out even more. With a running time right around 90 minutes, the collection of vignettes plays out more like three episodes of a television series instead of a fully constructed feature. 

There Are Some References To The Big Lebowski Though!

Boasting an all-star cast featuring Susan Sarandon, Pete Davidson, JB Smoove, Christopher Walken, and Coen Brothers alumni Tim Blake Nelson, "The Jesus Rolls" has so many random cameos that it's pretty apparent Turturro was calling in favors without really knowing what to do with such an impressive collection of performers. Sarandon's appearance is slightly memorable, though, as an ex-con who gets caught up in Quintana's ill-advised crime spree. 

The cast aside, the main reason to give Turturro's passion project a watch is to catch all the references to "The Big Lebowski." For fans that attend Lebowski Fest who have been avoiding the spinoff, consider creating a fun drinking game every time Turturro says "Nobody f***s with the Jesus." (It's twice, by the way.) The troublesome subplot establishing Jesus as a sex offender is quickly dispatched early on when it's explained that it was all a big misunderstanding involving a kid who accidentally caught a glimpse of his package at a public urinal. For some reason, there's a flashback sequence so that a visual aid can be provided of the incident. 

The references keep coming when Christopher Walken's warden thanks Jesus for helping to win a few prison bowling tournaments, adding that he's never seen a man lick a bowling ball for luck. When Jesus does finally lick the ball later on, you know what to do: Drink! 

The biggest callback comes when Jesus and Petey take a break from thieving and bickering to visit the local bowling alley. Turturro brings out all the stops here and it's a joy to see his antics out on the lane one more time. Turturro really should have made two films instead of one, a straight remake of "Going Places" and, separately, a prison bowling movie with Jesus in a supporting role. Although he was glorious in "The Big Lebowski" 25 years ago, Jesus just isn't leading man material. 

Read this next: The 95 Best Comedy Movies Ever

The post The Big Lebowski Spin-Off You Probably Already Forgot About appeared first on /Film.

Earlier this week, Private Division released The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition, which was supposed to deliver a flat-out improved version of 2019's sci-fi roleplaying game made by Obsidian. The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition reportedly featured the following enhancements and additions:

• Increased level cap
• All DLCs included
• Lighting and environments overhaul (including improved materials quality)
• Enhanced visual effects
• Improved facial animations
• Higher fidelity for skin and hair
• Updated lipsync for dialogues
• Dynamic weather
• Higher resolution (on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X, compared to old-gen consoles)
• Better NPC pathing for AI
• Improved animations for Marauder NPCs
• Improved performance and quicker load times

However, the latter point didn't really turn out to be true when the game was actually released, leading countless users to protest the worse performance on the Internet. User reviews on Steam are very negative, with only 20% of the reviews recommending the game.

It doesn't help that saves aren't compatible with the previous version of the game. Moreover, even players who already own The Outer Worlds and all of its DLCs have to pay $9.99 to upgrade to this new edition.

What's quite funny is that in the game, Spacer's Choice is a greedy corporation that constantly tries to rip off and scam its customers. Its motto ('It's not the best choice; it's Spacer's Choice!') seems weirdly fitting for The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition, at least for the time being.

It should be noted that Obsidian likely didn't have much to do with this version of the game. The Steam page lists Virtuos Games as the developer, and Obsidian Community Manager Chris apologized on Reddit while directing complaints and bug reports to the publisher, Private Division.

The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition Bug Reporting from theouterworlds

 

For its part, Private Division already said a patch is being prepared to fix several of the outstanding visual and performance issues spotted by players in The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition. The patch notes should be available shortly.

As a reminder, The Outer Worlds was published by Private Division. However, the sequel (announced in June 2021 with a cheeky trailer) will be published by Microsoft Game Studios, given that the Xbox company acquired Obsidian in 2018.

If you're wondering whether The Outer Worlds is worth playing, check out Wccftech's review.

The Outer Worlds is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from Obsidian. The first-person action RPG features a great setting, fantastic writing and remarkable, complex characters to meet. The moment-to-moment gameplay isn't as exciting, though, failing to measure up with the best in the genre. Still, there's plenty to like here as long as you know what you're getting into, not to mention the potential for a sequel to be much better, particularly if the developers had a higher budget to work with.

The post The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition Problems to Be Fixed in a Patch as Obsidian Apologizes for Launch by Alessio Palumbo appeared first on Wccftech.

Backblaze has revealed the newest storage drive stats report for 2022, with a singular focus on SSDs that the company utilizes for data storage boot drives within their cloud storage systems.

Backblaze 2022 Annual Report: SSD Drive Stats Edition published, showing the current average failure rates for the company's SSDs

The last report from Backblaze informed its clients and the public about the hard disk drives that maintain customer data on its platform. The company utilized SSDs for boot drive purposes in the last quarter of 2018 and has supported them since. In that aspect, the use of HDD has diminished, and we are seeing a trend of more SSDs as boot drives by Backblaze. The company mentions that outside of booting storage servers, the SSDs "read, write, and delete log and temporary files" from the server as they are produced.

The data compiled by Backblaze covers last year's and three years' worth of data and lifetime stats of the SSDs incorporated. The company also introduces into their newest report temperature levels over the last year. This area was not presented before in previous reports and offers a look at the differences between the HDDs and SSDs temperatures to see if the SSDs that are utilized run at a lower temperature than the HDDs currently in use in the same functionality. As well known, temperature is a considerable aspect of the life expectancy of system storage and other components such as processors, graphics cards, motherboards, and more.

At the end of 2022, Backblaze incorporated 2,906 SSDs for boot drives in its data storage servers with 13 distinct models. The drives were considered "consumer-grade" compared to those utilized explicitly for server use or considered "enterprise-grade." Consumer-grade SSDs allow companies to alleviate overhead costs by purchasing less expensive equipment, such as solid-state drives. It will enable the company to save overall costs, and it is also easier to replace more frequently than a drive that would be much more expensive.

Andy Klien, the current analyst of Principal Cloud Storage at Backblaze, conducts and adds his observations on the data collected by the company. In the ongoing study, he looks at Annualized Failure Rate, or AFR, of the managed SSD models over the last year, three years, and the drive's lifetime to help give consumers a better idea of what SSDs might grant a longer lifespan than most.

In 2022, Backblaze found seven of thirteen SSD models did not fail during that year. However, six did not have the same time within the server, so any quantitative estimations about the failure would be complex. Dell's SSD (model DELLBOSS VD) had no losses in 2022, with over 100K drive days. The "BOSS" name for the model stands for "Boot Optimized Storage Solution." It is an M.2 SSD model installed onto a PCIe-supported card which Backblaze mentions is "half-length and half-height" in its design. The card is used in server deployments and is not available to most.

The remaining three drives from Seagate (model ZA250CM10003), also known as the Seagate BarraCuda 120 SSD, witnessed the lowest failure rate at 0.73%. Still, its other model, the Seagate BarraCuda SSD (model ZA250CM10002), saw the highest failure of the three at 1.98% for 2022. The last drive was from Crucial (model CT250MX500SSD1) and was between the two Seagate drives with an AFR of 1.04%.

Over the three years analyzed (2020 to 2022), the Crucial brand drives mentioned above had a few failures a few years ago but still shined better than the rest. In 2022, the company introduced four new models to its servers and did not have enough data to present in this analysis. The 250 GB Seagate SSDs in operation fluctuated in different directions depending on the model. For instance, model ZA250CM10003 is younger than the ZA250CM10002 in use, and between the two, the newer drive uses fewer milliwatts than the latter drive by about 69mW. This is due to its capability to optimize idle power.

Klein informed Wccftech that "the fact that our SSDs run warmer than the HDDs in the same server is interesting and not what is expected. While well within the temperature limits of operation for an SSD, this will be something to follow going forward."

For more analysis, Backblaze maintains previous data from the company's term observing storage drives in its servers on the Drive Stats Test Data webpage. The company mentions that the data does not distinguish between HDDs and SSDs. It suggests that viewers use the current model field to differentiate between drives and only look at information from the fourth quarter of 2018 to the present.

In the next look by Klein and Backblaze, the company is beginning to look at drive temperatures as part of Backblaze's SMART stats for SSDs. Backblaze's SSD Smart stats look at various attributes, including the level of wear on the drives, the lifespan, how well it handles over time, the life taken from the drive over time, temperature, and several other attributes.

One focus they chose to look into was drive temperatures, as they can remain somewhat consistent during use and over time. SMART 194 follows the internal temps of the drives at their raw value. This detailed analysis cannot be complete as some companies, such as Dell with their DELLBOSS VD SSD, do not publish "raw or normalized values for SMART 194." As such, they tested the other SSD drives for which the company could gather information during 2022.

Each month saw an average of 67,764 observations ranging from 57,015 earlier in the year to 77,174 at the end of 2022. What was found was that the average temperatures were altered by a single degree (34.4°C to 35.4°C, with the average for the year at 34.9°C). This was different with Backblaze's HDD as those drives evaluated over the same period had an average of 29.1°C. Klein feels that one of the reasons that make it appear that SSDs operate at cooler temps than HDDs is the boot drives are located a longer length away from the area that the data drives are, which is near the cool aisle, and why the data drives would have their temperatures lowered initially. Klein informed Wccftech that "the fact that our SSDs run warmer than the HDDs in the same server is interesting and not what is expected. While well within the temperature limits of operation for an SSD, this will be something to follow going forward."

The report continues discussing the varying temperatures throughout 2022 on all drives (HDDs and SSDs) and found that the fluctuations measured from 20°C to 61°C, which creates, in a line graph, what is referred to as a "bell curve" due to its shape. This culminated all SSDs, except for the Dell drives, which could not be calculated due to the deficient number of failures.

Finally, Klein takes us through the lifetime failure rates of the company's SSDs. What was revealed was that from 2018, the Lifetime AFR ended at 0.89% in 2022, which happens to be lower than the previous year's percentage of 1.04%. While there is still limited data, the company feels confident of a 1% or less interval from all SSDs. Out of the drives analyzed, the two Seagate models had a confidence interval of 0.66% and 0.96% lifetime AFR, while the single Dell model had zero percentage lifetime AFR. Klein also explains that consumer drives are suited to the company's needs for the time. Still, if the new storage server bundles purchased from Supermicro and Dell require enterprise-class SSDs, the company has no problem making the transitions as necessary.

The post Backblaze Reveals 2022 SSD Life Expectancy Statistics: Temperatures Are Potential Factor by Jason R. Wilson appeared first on Wccftech.

AMD has said that it is possible for them to develop an RDNA 3 GPU that competes in the ultra-enthusiast market with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card but they decided not to go down that route due to increase power and cost concerns.

AMD's Strategy With RDNA 3 Was To Be Price/Power Competitive: Could Make An NVIDIA RTX 4090 Spec But Will Result In Increased Cost/Power

During an interview with ITMedia, AMD's EVP, Rick Bergman, and AMD SVP, David Wang, sat to discuss their goals with the RDNA 3 and CDNA 3 architectures. The most interesting question is asked right at the start of the beginning about why AMD didn't release an RDNA 3 GPU under its Radeon RX 7000 lineup that competes in the ultra high-end enthusiast segment such as NVIDIA's RTX 4090.

Rick replied that it is entirely possible for AMD to develop a specification based on the RDNA 3 GPU that competes with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 but that wasn't the strategy AMD was going for in its Radeon RX 7000 lineup. It sounds like AMD can definitely squeeze some more juice out of RDNA 3 if they wanted to but it is also stated that such a specification will result in a higher power and also higher costs which is something they weren't going for in the first place.

It makes sense but at the same time, NVIDIA's RTX 4090 was said to be a power-hog post-release but that didn't end up entirely true. Sure the card is rated anywhere between 450W (reference) and 500W+ for custom AIB models but the card itself is very efficient compared to AMD's high-end, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX as seen in various reviews, even our own.

Technically, it is possible to develop a GPU with specs that compete with theirs (NVIDIA) . However, the GPU developed in this way was introduced to the market as a graphics card with a TDP (thermal design power) of 600W and a reference price of $1,600 (about 219,000 yen)'', and was accepted by general PC gaming fans . After thinking about it, we chose not to adopt such a strategy.

The RDNA 3-based GPU "Radeon RX 7900XTX" released this time is targeted at $ 999 (about 136,000 yen), which is considered to be the "upper price" assumed by high-end users among general PC gaming fans. Developed . The "Radeon RX 7900XT" below it is said to be $ 699 (about 95,000 yen).

The price strategy is the same as the previous RDNA 2 (Radeon RX 6000 series), with the top-end "Radeon RX 6900XT" and "Radeon RX 6800XT" targeting $999 and $699, respectively. However, the target price changes for each GPU generation .

We take this strategy to fit into the mainstream infrastructure (hardware environment) utilized by today's PC gaming enthusiasts . At the same time as demanding high performance, it should be possible to operate with an existing common sense'' power supply unit, ``be able to cool the inside of the case with common sense'', and can be installed without requiring an extremely large case.'' ――The Radeon RX high-end product group was designed with these in mind.

AMD EVP, Rick Bergman (Machine Translated via ITMedia)

Continuing the questions regarding AMD's ultra-high-end enthusiast product positioning, it was stated that while Ryzen exists for gamers, there's also Ryzen Threadripper which exists for highest end of users and AMD has no cost/power concerns in that specific segment to which Bergman said:

Certainly, Ryzen Threadripper is crazy high performance (laughs). However, we don't think it was developed as a CPU for general users or gamers . The CPU socket is also unique, as evidenced by the fact that it doesn't fit into the mainstream Socket AM4 socket. However, I believe that the Ryzen series, which applies 3D V-Cache technology , which stacks cache memory dies , has become a receptacle for such ultra-high-end gamers.

AMD EVP, Rick Bergman (Machine Translated via ITMedia)

If I may say a few words, we at AMD are developing and releasing ultra-high-performance GPUs. For example, two years ago, we announced the " Instinct MI200 series " as the world's first multi-die GPU.

The top model of the series, " Instinct MI250X " marked the world's fastest theoretical performance of FP32 (single-precision floating-point arithmetic) at about 48 TFLOPS at the time. Since this is an Instinct series, it is not a GPU for gaming. However, if you look at the Instinct series, you should know that AMD can develop (ultra-high-end GPUs) if they want to.

We just don't think such GPUs are suitable for consumer use.

We haven't planned a "$1600 GPU" like the competition (NVIDIA) for PC gaming fans in recent years. Instead, we are focusing on planning a GPU that fits in the $1,000 class with a good balance between performance and cost.

There is a "difference" of about $600 from them (laughs), but I think that using that $600 to procure other parts, such as a CPU, would lead to a better gaming experience. I'm here.

AMD SVP, David Wang (Machine Translated via ITMedia)

Talking about future tech, David Wang said that while chiplet architectures need to be realized for future GPUs, they decided to postpone the realization of a true Multi-GPU die for the RDNA 3 gen of GPUs. AMD's RDNA 3 GPUs are still the first gaming architecture to feature a chiplet architecture but the actual chiplets are for the memory controller dies, also known as MCDs. The GPU die is still a singular monolithic package but that seems to change in the future.

Chiplet architecture can be used to realize high-performance processors while reducing manufacturing costs.

As you know, current high-end GPU cores contain more than 10,000 arithmetic cores (floating point arithmetic units). This is over 1000 times the number of CPU cores. If you try to interconnect (connect) the GPU dies in this state, the number of connection points will be enormous, and reliable electrical signal transmission cannot be guaranteed . So, at the moment, it is difficult not only in man-hours but also in terms of cost to connect the GPU die with the same glue as the CPU die. There's nothing you can't do, but... Rather than doing so, it is more efficient and less costly to create a large-scale GPU (core) at the moment .

Therefore, in the current generation (RDNA 3 architecture), we decided to postpone the realization of "multi-GPU die.

AMD SVP, David Wang (Machine Translated via ITMedia)

Moving forward, it looks like AMD has still room left to squeeze out of its RDNA 3 and it might be possible that a future enthusiast product launch might be imminent. As for RDNA 4, David Wang says that ray tracing is going to be focused a lot more and they want to continue improving the performance at the same pace as RDNA 3 over RDNA 2 which was around a 60% uplift. Updates that improve execution efficiency and delivering a flexible processing system are up in the charts for RDNA 4.

The post AMD Says It Is Possible To Develop An NVIDIA RTX 4090 Competitor With RDNA 3 GPUs But They Decided Not To Due To Increased Cost & Power by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

There are some film characters that are so impossibly quirky, you cannot believe even a scaled-back version of them exists in real life. Many of these people reside in the twisted universe of Joel and Ethan Coen, and the majority of these oddballs can be found in their 1998 soft-boiled stoner mystery "The Big Lebowski." It's a sordid tale featuring marmot-brandishing nihilist thugs, a pederast ex-con bowling fanatic, and a criminal porn kingpin. But the film's most bizarro creation is its protagonist, who finds himself inexplicably at odds with these crackpot forces of evil. His name is Jeff Lebowski, but you can call him The Dude.

As brought to exquisitely wackadoodle life by Jeff Bridges, The Dude is a man who takes life as it slowly comes to him. He grocery shops in his robe, bowls with his buddies (belligerent Vietnam Vet Walter Sobchak and human doormat Donny Kerabatsos), and subsists largely on marijuana and White Russians. He is a creature of profound leisure who lives by a simple mantra: "The Dude abides."

He is also a very real person.

This Aggression Will, In Fact, Stand

Fans of "The Big Lebowski" know all about Jeff "The Dude" Dowd. He is a writer, a film producer, and an all-around righteous man of the people. The Coen brothers met Dowd at the 1984 Sundance Film Festival, where their debut movie, "Blood Simple," helped kick off the 1980s independent film revolution. Dowd is credited with having helped Robert Redford build up the Sundance Institute and the festival, which brought him into contact with loads of influential directors, critics, and studio folk.

One of Dowd's best friends on the festival circuit was Roger Ebert, who aptly described the producer as "tall, large, shaggy and aboil with enthusiasm." If you've ever been to Sundance, there is a very good chance you've crossed paths with him at the Yarrow Hotel. If he looked at your badge and saw that you wrote for an outlet that could help whatever film he was representing, there's an equally good chance that he pitched you — and you quickly learned that "no" isn't in his vocabulary. 

Variety critic John Anderson discovered this in 2009 when he informed Dowd that he'd be filing a negative review for "Dirt! The Movie." Knowing a poor write-up in a major trade publication would hamper the film's chances for distribution, Dowd kicked his pitch into overdrive. Anderson finally lost his cool and punched Dowd twice in the face. The police were called, but Dowd refused to press charges. He knew he'd pushed too hard, so he licked his (very minor) wounds and abided.

A Dude With A Purpose

Dowd's sphere of influence stretches well beyond the film industry. While attending the University of Washington in the late 1960s, Dowd joined the Seattle Liberation Front, a radical anti-war outfit that organized a massive demonstration outside a local courthouse in support of the Chicago Seven. Dowd and six of his cohorts became known as the "Seattle Seven" when, in the wake of the protest, they were charged with conspiracy to incite a riot.

Over 50 years later, Dowd is still fighting on behalf of the powerless by championing climate change initiatives, economic justice, and anti-war efforts. He was a vociferous supporter of Bernie Sanders during the 2016 and '20 presidential primaries and works in tandem with the child mentoring organization PeaceJam.

If this all sounds like too much work for Bridges' variation on The Dude, Ebert explained their spiritual connection by noting that they are each "creatures of the moment. Both dudes depend on improvisation and inspiration." Happily, Dowd is an eager participant in the annual Lebowski Fest, where attendees shower him with affection and ask him to bowl a frame or toast a White Russian.

For Dowd, it's not just a celebration of his long, strange trip of a life, but an opportunity to pitch his causes to a receptive audience. This Dude abides, but he's a bit more purposeful. He's got an ethos.

Read this next: The Coen Brothers Movies Ranked Worst To Best

The post The Story of Jeff Dowd, the Real Dude Who Inspired The Dude in The Big Lebowski appeared first on /Film.

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Acronis said a single customer’s account was compromised after a hacker leaked gigabytes of information on a cybercrime forum.

The post Acronis Clarifies Hack Impact Following Data Leak appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Michael James Gubitosi, more famously known as Robert Blake, died at the age of 89 in Los Angeles from heart disease. The news comes from Blake's niece Noreen Austin and was reported by Deadline. Blake was a Hollywood lifer, getting his start as a child in the MGM film "Bridal Suite" before assuming the role of Porky in the "Our Gang" and "The Little Rascals" shorts from 1939 to 1944. He continued performing well into his teen years, taking a brief hiatus in his 20s after he was drafted into the United States Army.

Blake reportedly developed a severe substance abuse problem in the years that followed but turned back to acting to get his life on track. He re-emerged playing more adult, dramatic roles, appearing in films like "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "In Cold Blood," and a string of studio Westerns under the stage name "Bobby Blake." He would eventually pivot to using the name "Robert Blake" in 1956, the name he continued using until today.

Blake had a career spanning six decades, playing a variety of characters like his Emmy Award-winning performance as Detective Anthony Vincenzo "Tony" Baretta in the hit series "Baretta," and even The Mystery Man in David Lynch's "Lost Highway," Blake's final role on screen. The reason for his retirement was not due to a lack of talent or an intentional decision, but because in 2001, Blake's at-the-time wife, Bonny Lee Bakley was fatally shot. Blake was arrested and charged with Bakley's murder, which Blake was believed to have solicited from his former stunt double.

Controversial Twilight Years

Blake was also charged with solicitation of murder, conspiracy, and special circumstances of lying in wait, but a jury eventually found him not guilty in 2005. Bakley's children quickly filed a wrongful-death suit against him, but the case of Bonny Lee Bakely is legally unsolved. However, Blake was found liable for the wrongful death of Bakely and was ordered to pay $30 million. The trial was the center of news reporting for months, and Blake's career naturally never recovered.

In 2011, Blake wrote his memoir "Tales of a Rascal: What I Did for Love," and spent his days out of the public spotlight. Quentin Tarantino's novel adaptation of "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" is dedicated to Blake, and the "alleged wife murderer" backstory of Brad Pitt's character, Cliff Booth, was seemingly also inspired by Blake. Do with that information what you will.

Blake's prolific legacy will forever be associated with his notorious accusations, and it is a true shame that Bakely's case was never closed during his lifetime.

Read this next: 13 Tarantino Projects We Never Saw But Wish We Could've

The post Robert Blake, In Cold Blood Actor Tried for Murder, Has Died at 89 appeared first on /Film.

If you are a fan of the YouTube series "Hot Ones," today is a good day. "The Mandalorian" and "The Last of Us" star Pedro Pascal just joined host Sean Evans to chat about his career over a series of successively hotter and hotter chicken wings. It's a brilliant show, and if you haven't watched it yet, you are in for a very spicy treat.

The episode digs deep into some fun moments in Pascal's career, like when he played a goth on "Law and Order" and how emotional he got acting against a puppet. Speaking of fun, there was no way Evans would let one of Pascal's stranger (and wonderful) films go by: "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" with Nicolas Cage. Pascal plays Javi, a wealthy fan obsessed with Cage's career. Cage plays a fictional version of himself who needs the big chunk of money he was promised for appearing at Javi's birthday party. There are drug lords, cliff diving, some well-deserved praise for "Paddington 2," and a very special room full of Cage memorabilia. 

In the "Hot Wings" episode, Evans asks Pascal about the rumor that everyone in the cast got Nicolas Cage pillows signed by the man himself. The pillow Evans is referring to is the sequin one with Cage's face on it that we see in Javi's shrine to the actor -- you know, the ones where you can move the sequins back and forth to change the image. As it turns out, Cage was a little weirded out by that pillow, which is odd, because I want one so badly. 

'Well, That's Just Creepy'

Pedro Pascal revealed that he hid the pillows from Nic Cage. He said that when people asked him to get the pillows signed, he told them, "No, no, no, no, he's not ready. He's not ready. He's not ready. He doesn't want to see it. And then I think we all got them at the end."

Look at that thing on the shelf in the picture. It's ... horrifying. And I have a powerful need for it. Pascal explained the scene and Cage's reaction to the pillow when he saw it. He said: 

My character had this collector's room of everything from his movies and a life-size model of him from 'Face/Off,' and we put this pillow in the scene. He wanted to get rid of it, and I said, 'No! I think it should stay.' And then he was like, 'Fine, so he'll play —' and he points to it, and he's like, 'Uh, that's weird.' And he, like, changed his face [moved the sequins], and I was like, 'No, it's nice!' and I put it back, and they kept it in the movie. That was definitely an improvised moment. The one time I was disagreeing with him."

You have to love that such a weird thing came out of improv. I don't know about you, but this is one of those films where I really want to see all the improv outtakes that they didn't leave in. 

"The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" is currently streaming on Starz.

Read this next: The 18 Best Action Movie Actors Ranked

The post Pedro Pascal Improvised the Pillow Scene from The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent appeared first on /Film.

A top House official said that a "significant data breach" at the health insurance marketplace for Washington, D.C., on Tuesday potentially exposed personal identifiable information of hundreds of lawmakers and staff. NBC News reports: In a letter obtained by NBC News, Chief Administrative Officer Catherine L. Szpindor said Wednesday that the U.S. Capitol Police and the FBI had alerted her to a data breach at DC Health Link, the Affordable Care Act online marketplace that administers health care plans for members of Congress and certain Capitol Hill staff. "Currently, I do not know the size and scope of the breach, but have been informed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that account information and [personally identifiable information] of hundreds of Member and House staff were stolen," Szpindor said. "I expect to have access to the list of impacted enrollees later today and will notify you directly if your information was compromised." Szpindor added that it did not appear that House lawmakers were "the specific target of the attack" on DC Health Link. Out of an "abundance of caution," Szpindor said, lawmakers may opt to freeze family credit at three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and Transunion. The data breach has also affected Senate offices, according to an email sent to Senate offices Wednesday afternoon that said the Senate Sergeant at Arms was informed by law enforcement about a data breach. The notice said that the "data included the full names, date of enrollment, relationship (self, spouse, child), and email address, but no other Personally Identifiable Information (PII)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This article contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Picard." It also contains references to domestic and child abuse, so reader discretion is advised. 

Art often imitates life, but in the case of "Star Trek: Picard," that seems completely intentional. The series has completely blurred the lines between Jean-Luc Picard, the Starfleet officer who likes his Earl Grey hot, and Patrick Stewart, the British actor who has become a worldwide treasure. The series deals heavily with the idea of legacy, and the third season has dug into the concept even further as Picard reconciles the fact that he has a long-lost son, Jack Crusher (Ed Speelers). Picard had a difficult childhood and contentious relationship with his own father (as detailed in season 2 of "Picard"), and it's clear that the idea of fatherhood makes him uneasy as a result. Stewart has been honest about his own struggles in childhood as well, revealing that his father suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of his experiences in the military during World War II.  

This isn't the first time that "Picard" has drawn from Sir Patrick's life, of course, as his love of dogs and his work as a Pit Bull breed advocate found its way onto the series through the adorable canine costar "Number One" in the first season. But mining Stewart's family history for the story is a bit different. For many, Jean-Luc Picard and Patrick Stewart are forever entwined, and it feels like the series is trying to be a proper send-off for them both. 

A Painful Past

The second season of "Picard" dove into the character's childhood more deeply than it ever had before, examining his relationship with his parents through flashbacks and a fantasy sequence in episode 7. We see young Jean-Luc running around Chateau Picard as a boy (played by David Birkin), and his mother Yvette (Madeline Wise) is a source of both comfort and concern. She's very sweet to Jean-Luc and helps inspire his interest in the stars, but she's also struggling with mental illness and is occasionally paranoid and delusional. Picard's father, Maurice (James Callis) chases them around in the memory, trying to lock Yvette away. It's only later that Picard realizes that his father was trying to protect the both of them, even if his methods felt cruel and frightening at the time. 

Stewart had a difficult childhood, growing up in West Riding, England with a father who was always angry when he wasn't absent and a mother who struggled to raise the children almost on her own. His father, Alfred Stewart, was a military man who served in World War II and came back a changed man. While on the BBC series "Who Do You Think You Are?," Patrick discovered that his father had seen real horrors in France and had "shell shock":

"We experienced an angry man, where he hadn't been angry before, and this could explain why. [...] It was a nightmare, bloody chaos. It both fascinated and horrified me."

While he understood the reasons behind his father's abusive behavior, it didn't stop the trauma that resulted from that abuse, or the ways that trauma would shape the rest of Stewart's life.  

The Clarity Of Time

Stewart and his brothers grew up "hand to mouth" and sometimes had to hide behind the couch with their mother when the landlord came to collect rent, but they enjoyed time with their mother and things often declined when his father would come home. In an article he wrote for The Guardian, Stewart was candid about how his father's military experience had changed him for the worse:

"Our house was small, and when you grow up with domestic violence in a confined space you learn to gauge, very precisely, the temperature of situations. I knew exactly when the shouting was done and a hand was about to be raised – I also knew exactly when to insert a small body between the fist and her face, a skill no child should ever have to learn. [...] Such experiences are destructive. In my adult life I have struggled to overcome the bad lessons of my father's behaviour, this corrosive example of male irresponsibility. But the most oppressive aspect of these experiences was the loneliness. Very recently, during a falling-out with my girlfriend, I felt again as though I were shut out and alone, not heard or understood. I was neither, but it was such a familiar isolation that it was almost a comfort and consolation."

Jean-Luc Picard shares this deep loneliness with the man who plays him, and the reasons behind it have been revealed through the course of "Picard." Like Stewart, the Starfleet captain had a very painful childhood where he was forced to grow up too soon, and it left him with a deep longing for parental love and protection in adulthood that could never come. 

Sins Of The Father

In the third season of "Picard," Jean-Luc discovers that he has an adult son with Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), and he doesn't quite know how to process that information. As much as he wishes that he could have been a part of Jack's life, he also fears passing down more generational trauma. He doesn't want to hurt Jack the way he was hurt by his mother and father, though his absence ends up being its own kind of hurt. In fact, Picard hurt his son the most without ever knowing, when the young man asked Picard about the need for family and Picard, unaware that he was speaking to his son, said that Starfleet was the only family he could ever need. Stewart found comfort in acting and Picard found comfort in Starfleet, because the bonds of biological family were a source of anguish. Unknowingly, he passed on more pain right to the one person he would have wanted to protect most. 

"Star Trek: Picard" has been a bit uneven over its three seasons, but the third season and its handling of the legacies of both Jean-Luc Picard and Patrick Stewart are worth commending. It's not easy to dig up the past and lay yourself bare, even though the lens of science fiction. Thank you for sharing so much of yourself with us, Sir Patrick. If to be human is "to make yourself more than you are," then you are more human than human. 

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

Read this next: The Main Star Trek Captains Ranked Worst To Best

The post Star Trek: Picard Has Forever Blurred the Lines Between Jean-Luc Picard and Patrick Stewart appeared first on /Film.

In George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series of novels, one of his most beloved and fan-favorite characters was Oberyn Martell, the vengeance-seeking hothead who arrives on the scene in King's Landing with mysterious motivations in the third book. Though doomed to a grisly fate, the creative team on "Game of Thrones" needed to cast someone with the charisma, sex appeal, and that intangible edge of danger to help the adaptation of this character live up to the original. Needless to say, Pedro Pascal was more than up to the task.

Years later, now that the "The Last of Us" star is a household name who's gone on to bigger and better roles, Pascal joined the ever-popular "Hot Ones" YouTube series with host Sean Evans to test his mettle under the most challenging of circumstances -- answering questions while eating spicy chicken wings, naturally. In the latest episode, Pascal revisited his famous role as the Dornish Prince in "Game of Thrones" and, specifically, the filming of that show-stopping duel to the death between himself and the hulking "Mountain," Gregor Clegane (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson). Though it ends in rather brutally gory fashion, Pascal's experience on set that day apparently took on a slightly different tone altogether.

According to the actor, it was somehow calming enough to lull him right to sleep.

'I Got My Head Crushed In, It Was The Best Part Of The Day'

How many actors out there would pinpoint their death scene as the highlight of a shooting day? Pascal did exactly that on the latest episode of "Hot Ones," laying out his perspective of the thrilling fight that certainly made an impact --  in terms of all its head-crushing nastiness, of course. As he humorously put it:

"I got my head crushed in, it was the best part of the day. It was so hot when we were shooting that scene. You know, [Björnsson's] over me and he puts his thumbs into my eyes and they've got piping -- tubing -- through his body into his forearms to his thumbs and just pumping this, like, cool blood. And so gentle, like the gentlest guy ever."

As amusing as it is to note the juxtaposition between Björnsson's physicality and his downright gentlemanly behavior when he was, well, gouging out Oberyn's eyes with his thumbs, the real treat of this segment comes when Pascal admits that he was "dead asleep" during the final wide shot of the sequence.

"Because it was so hot and this stuff was so cooling to the touch and you had to be really, really still, and that was the most relaxing ... And knowing also that we had gotten to the end of this sort of four-day fight that we were shooting out there, it was very cathartic, and I went into the deepest sleep I've been in."

The next time you revisit one of the best and brutal fight scenes in the entire series, always keep in mind that none of your anxiety was ever shared by Pascal himself, happily snoring away under loads of fake gore. Oberyn himself would approve.

Read this next: Shows Like Game Of Thrones You Definitely Need To See

The post Pedro Pascal Was Sleeping During THAT Game of Thrones Scene appeared first on /Film.

In Tom Gormican's 2022 film "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," Pedro Pascal plays Javi Gutierrez, a fun-loving playboy billionaire living in Majorca, Spain. Javi is a huge fan of actor Nicolas Cage and hires him to hang out for a weekend. Cage, playing himself, cautiously accepts the offer, having found himself in a bit of a creative rut; a younger version of Cage appears in visions to lambaste his older self that he is no longer the massive movie star he once was. Javi will spend a great deal of time heaping praise on Cage and eventually reveals that he has a secret collectibles vault full of Cage-related memorabilia. Cage, meanwhile, will be secretly approached by the CIA, and told that Javi is actually a dangerous arms dealer that might be involved in an ongoing kidnapping plot. The film is bright, whimsical, and enjoyable. Cage, as he always does, brings his A-game, and Pascal has never been funnier. 

In real life, Pascal is also a Cage fan. Like many of us, Pascal has seen many of Cage's movies and certainly has his favorites. On the most recent episode of "Hot Ones," Pascal revealed to the show's host, Sean Evans, that he considered Cage's earlier works — the films he made in the 1980s — to be the most impressive and significant of his career. He also threw in a 1990s action classic for good measure, and one might have already predicted what it was. 

While his face was burning from the Angry Goat Co.'s Dreams of Calypso hot sauce (rated at 101,000 Scoville units, about as hot as a raw habanero chili pepper), Pascal revealed his four favorites

The Four Movies

Pascal immediately listed his four: 

"The earlier ones for me because of how impressionable they are, but: 'Raising Arizona,' 'Peggy Sue Got Married,' 'Face/Off.' I've got a soft spot for 'Moonstruck,' man. And it isn't even about having a big swing in terms of performance. It is actually highly, highly intelligent choice-making in his acting. Where I'm gonna do, like, a Fritz Lang hand thing in the moment where I scream about my brother Danny Aiello accidentally chopping his hand off, he looked away and chopped his hand off he's like, 'I lost my hand!'"

Fritz Lang was, of course, the celebrated German filmmaker behind classics like "Metropolis," "M," and "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse." Essays have been written about the way the filmmaker uses hands and hand-related imagery in his work. In "Metropolis" in particular, the robot-creating mad scientist Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) famously raised his hands in two maniacal claws, one of them in a dark glove, as he announced his evil plans for a robot-motivated class uprising. In "Moonstruck," Cage's character Ronny — the brother of Danny Aiello's Johnny — has a wooden hand that he similarly hoists, evoking Rotwang. Pascal continued to describe the scene, saying: 

"[I]t is just to this perfect effect where it's grounded in the scene, it has all of this theatrical context to it and concept, he's still believable. It was really amazing to do homework for ['The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent'] and re-watch all these movies that I'd already seen so many times."

Pascal, however, feels that Cage's best performance came later than his '80s run.

Adaptation.

Pascal adds that, while he still leans into his our core favorites, he also feels that Cage's dual performance in Spike Jonez's 2002 film "Adaptation." was worth a mention. In "Adaptation.," Cage plays a fictionalized version of the film's actual screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, as well as Charlie's 100 percent fictional twin brother, Donald. The film is about the struggles Kaufman was having adapting the novel "The Orchid Thief" to the page, and his wrestling with the fineries of screenwriting. "Adaptation." is a cry of creative frustration from within the film we're watching. As a counterpoint, Donald was achieving great success writing shallow thrillers without a lot of thought into them. Pascal said: 

"'Adaptation.' is maybe one of the best screen performances in the history of American cinema. But the four that I mentioned have, you know, a personal place in my development as an aspiring actor, and to this day in my DNA a little bit where I realize that I'm doing something and I'm saying something in a way that I have to stop and take a second and realize, 'Oh, I got that from 'Vampire's Kiss' or something,' you know?"

It seems Pascal, and probably many other actors, have taken line readings and miniature mannerisms from Cage without even really realizing it. That Pascal was permitted to star opposite Cage in a movie was a dream only few could realize. 

He then ate a hot wing laced with Da' Bomb Beyond Insanity hot sauce, which measures 135,600 Scoville units. It was then that Pascal's eyeballs began to melt.

Read this next: The 14 Best Film Acting Debuts Of All Time

The post Pedro Pascal Reveals His Mount Rushmore of Nicolas Cage Movies appeared first on /Film.

ChatGPT is increasingly integrated into cybersecurity products and services as the industry is testing its capabilities and limitations.

The post ChatGPT Integrated Into Cybersecurity Products as Industry Tests Its Capabilities appeared first on SecurityWeek.

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