Stranger Things season 4 is over! Well…almost. The first seven episodes that constitute Stranger Things season 4 volume 1 have now arrived on Netflix but there is still one more volume to go. Volume 2, which will contain episodes 8 and 9, is set to premiere on Friday, July 1. For now though, the ending of episode 7 “The Massacre at Hawkins Lab” has given us much to chew on and mull over....
If you’re one of those many gamers that never got the chance to experience Super Mario 3D World the first time around, you may be wondering what it’s all about. Well, while the recently added Bowser’s Fury expansion adds a new ingredient to the formula, Super Mario 3D World is essentially what it presents itself to be: a 3D version of Super Mario World for SNES. That means that most of the game is broken down into classic Super Mario platforming courses spread across various worlds that feature classic themes such as desert, ice, fire, and…ok, just take our word for it that these courses and worlds are far more clever than they may appear....
Superman & Lois episode 2 gave us a lot more information on our potential bad guy, and it’s quite a doozy. Superman’s Iron Man-esque foe isn’t Lex Luthor, he’s a Luthor from a parallel Earth, by implication stranded on this one by the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. And while Superman & Lois draws a lot from the comics, is this Captain Luthor like another big multiversal Luthor we know from DC Comics as well?...
No single day goes in the news without a mention of a hack or compromised personal privacy. And it always feels the opposite till it happens to us. There are many applications on the internet claiming to protect you from digital threats: VPNs, antitrack software, proxies, antivirus, private browsers, etc. Each of these offers some pieces of a puzzle, but one needs something whole–covering everything. That’s where Surfshark One makes a case for itself....
But the idea of current hotshot Italian filmmaker, Luca Guadagnino taking on the challenge (after David Gordon Green, director of the new Halloween, spent years trying to get it off the ground) was an interesting one. Guadagnino’s films, including I Am Love, A Bigger Splash and last year’s acclaimed Call Me by Your Name, all have a sensual, fleshy, almost luscious quality that could in theory bring a new dimension to the horror genre, especially in a story set in a ballet academy that is actually a coven of witches....
The overall process must be seamless, avoiding clutter and complexities so you can find what you aim for. But it’s not easy. It becomes challenging to manage a large amount of data from a research project. People struggle a lot in organizing and presenting information so that it becomes easy for them to analyze it. No matter how good you are at research, if you don’t manage your data correctly, you can end up being frustrated, and it will consume much more time than it should....
The Protagonist might be one of the most unimaginatively named main characters of all time, but it’s worth pointing out that he is referred to as “the Protagonist,” which is notably different from being called “the Hero.” Of course it’s not hard to argue he’s a good guy who does good guy things. He is fighting against a gangster who regularly kills people and has trapped his wife in an abusive marriage....
The 100 Season 5 Episode 2 Faster paced than the season opener, “Red Queen” is a great vehicle for Octavia as well as showing how she sets the new world order. This is its own form of world-building: making a new Kru, new rules, a new home. It also pays huge dividends on O’s history and the history of the people of the ark. This is why they had the harsh laws....
The 100 Season 5 Episode 4 After three episodes of much-awaited preamble, tonight’s episode sets in motion this season’s paradigm. Pandora’s Box gets a boost of energy from showing Wankru, Spacekru, and Clarke all in the same episode, for the first time this season. The mechanics are out of the way: most everyone is back on earth and out of the bunker. Clarke is reunited with her people. The prison ship people have some mysterious other motives, and they’ve shown that, like the 100 before them, they’re more than willing to rachet up the violence to get whatever they feel entitled to....
The Americans Season 5 Episode 13 I’ve been thinking a lot about Shakespeare lately. Party because of This American Life recently reran its excellent episode in which inmates perform the bloody final act of Hamlet and partly because I’m probably never not thinking about Shakespeare on some barely conscious level. This thought process has unlocked a memory from middle school that has ended up being far more transformative than I realized....
It’s obviously an early take, none of the nuances which will come to define the sound of it are yet in play. Paul McCartney is still shouting out chords, ad-libbing and scatting lyrics, most prominently the refrain which holds the piece together. A deadpan George Harrison asks if the song is called “I’ve Got a Feeling?” During the song, John Lennon backtalks and improvises melodic possibilities to fill in the as-yet-unfinished piece....
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010) Just because you’re a redneck, it doesn’t make you a psycho, in this deceptively adorable anti-slasher where a bunch of vacationing college kids keep accidentally getting themselves killed trying to escape from the harmless Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and his lovely friend Dale (Tyler Labine). Eli Craig’s directorial debut is gruesome, gory, and very funny, but the movie is more than just a gimmick: there are some top horror twists here, too....
This is by no means a complete list. Almost every Edgar Allan Poe film adaptation has a spectral presence; Charles Dickens’ nighttime visitors in A Christmas Carol are only ghosts of presents we wrap for seasonal coverage; director Lew Allen’s 1944 horror feature The Uninvited isn’t here because I haven’t read Dorothy Macardle’s Uneasy Freehold (1941), which it was based on yet; The Amityville Horror comes from a novel, but is allegedly “a true story” (which you can read about here)....
Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld), Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), George (Jason Alexander), and Kramer (Michael Richards), have soiled baptisms, weddings, anniversaries, Thanksgiving dinners, Puerto Rican Day marches, and even Super Bowl parties, which gave birth to the very phrase “re-gifting.” They’ve mugged old ladies for chocolate babkas, punctured the Woody Woodpecker balloon in the Macy’s Day Parade, and even convinced a tenant association to pass on upgrading an apartment to a survivor of the Andrea Doria shipwreck during the holiday season....
That didn’t stop him from feeling a touch of the Christmas spirit when filming the Ghosts special in February this year. “That actually felt very festive. It really had that Christmas feel. As well as the decorations, they added in some scents that made the set smell really Christmassy.” Even the most tinsel-averse can be turned by a cinnamon and gingerbread candle. It won’t have just been about the fragrance....
If you had to place a bet on the more likely murderer between a) a wealthy perfectionist who’s creepily obsessed with controlling women who look exactly like his dead wife, or b) some sadsack everyman who got dumped for being too needy, your money would clearly be on the rich weirdo. In BBC thriller The Girl Before, architect Edward Monkford played by David Oyelowo is the one who sets off the danger siren....
The Godfather: Part III was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Goodfellas, released that same year, only got six nominations. Neither won Best Picture. Before that The Godfather III had been one of the most anticipated films of all time; it wound up being one of the most maligned theatrical releases. The movie has become shorthand to describe cinematic disappointment. Nearly 20 years earlier, Coppola had delivered Paramount Pictures two major motion picture achievements, which the director had to fight to maintain his creative control on....
Granted the movie is certainly the product of liberal filmmakers turning election cycle politics into blood sport, but only in the most self-deprecating and self-satisfied way. The cinematic equivalent of Andy Borowitz’s standup routine at The New Yorker Festival, one can almost see the words crafted by Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse’s screenplay strain as they reach out of the screen to pat their own back. The only thing missing is an applause sign....
What seemed like a clear reference to the classic sci-fi horror movie Alien at first turns out to be a major blast from the past easter egg. This week’s episode of The Mandalorian, “The Passenger,” takes us deep into a deadly spider nest where Baby Yoda clearly bites off more than he can chew, all while reintroducing a piece of Star Wars history that goes all the way back to Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept art for the Original Trilogy!...
In one of the film’s quieter moments, the Soprano family is gathered around a TV set, watching the classic Key Largo (1948). The specific scene on the screen begins when Humphrey Bogart’s cynical combat veteran Frank McCloud defuses a tense situation with the gangster Johnny Rocco. Played by Edward G. Robinson, Rocco is very loosely based on Charles “Lucky” Luciano, the godfather of organized crime, who had been deported and barred from American soil....
