Stranger Things: Millie Bobby Brown Knows What Happened to Eleven, and We Never Will

Let’s face it, none of the buzz lingering six months after the Stranger Things finale is very good. If anyone brings it up at all, they’re going to criticize the terrible acting, the languid plotting, or that absurd final battle. To make matters worse, the one positive thing that people still talk about will never be resolved, because no one who knows the answer will spill the beans.

Appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Millie Bobby Brown dashed the hopes of anyone hoping to know the definitive facts about the fate of her character, Eleven. Brown revealed that Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer told her what happened to El, but also swore her to secrecy. “They were like, ‘Do not tell anyone. Because we made it a secret kind of pledge,'” Brown said (via Variety). “No one else knows. It’s just us three. And what we do with that information, it’ll be up to them.”

For those who care but don’t remember, El seemed to sacrifice herself after the final standoff with Vecna. Knowing that governments will continue to explore the Upside-Down, and could potentially release another threat, El stayed behind to permanently close the fissure between worlds. She appears to be buried under ruble, but the final moments of the episode hold open hope for El’s return. The show ends like it began, with Mike and his friends playing a game of Dungeons & Dragons. As Dungeon Master, Mike weaves another story for El, one in which she survived the gateway’s collapse and continues to have adventures in the Upside Down, at least until she can finally return home to Hawkins.

Was Mike’s story a prediction of things to come? Was it just a way for him to cope with the loss of his friend? Fans have shared theories time and again, as have the stars, but no concrete answer has come down.

Brown’s comments reveal why we don’t know for sure what happened: because the Duffers only told her the truth, and she can’t tell anyone else.

Frustrating as that may be, a lack of clarity may be best for all involved. Before the last season, fans came up with all sorts of predictions about how dangling plot points would resolve and how the series would wrap up. And, in most cases, the fans liked their ideas better than the story that appeared on screen.

Anyone who needs proof can just look at the “Conformity Gate” theory, in which fans convinced themselves that Netflix had a secret, “real” final episode to release after the finale, one that would be far more satisfying. So fervent was the speculation that Netflix actually had to reiterate that the series had definitively ended, that what fans mistook for a bonus episode was, in fact, a behind-the-scenes feature.

With that in mind, it’s probably better if we let Brown and the Duffers keep their secrets. The rest of us can follow Mike’s lead and just make up our own stories, one in which El gets the arc that we want to see.

Every episode of Stranger Things is now streaming on Netflix.

New Batman Animated Series Will Bring the Most Extreme Dark Knight to TV

Absolute Batman is the biggest thing in comics right now… literally. It’s not just that the series is set in an alternate universe where evil is the moral center. It’s that the series imagines Bruce Wayne as a 400-pound hulk, who grew up in Gotham’s slums after the murder of his father, a modest school teacher instead of a doctor with generational wealth. The increasingly gonzo reinterpretations that creators Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta present each month has made Absolute Batman a sensation, with every issue soaring straight to the sales chart and burning up the internet with memes and discussion.

Something that big cannot be held to just one medium. And so, DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation‘s latest announcement included not just a show about the super-dog Krypto and an anime show titled Joker: Laugh Riot, but also an animated Absolute Batman series. The decision makes perfect sense, but DC Animation’s track record with adaptations makes us wary of potential for success.

Launched in 2024, the Absolute Universe is a dark mirror of the DC Universe, in which villains have unprecedented power and the heroes we know all lack some key element. In this world, Wonder Woman is a witch who was raised in Hell by Circe, isolated from Paradise Island and the Amazons. Superman grew up on Krypton as the son of laborers, and came to Earth as an angry, alienated young adult who only had a few short years to learn about human kindness from the Kents. Absolute Martian Manhunter and Absolute Green Lantern radically reinvent their core concepts to tell mind-bending stories about the nature of fear and evil, while Absolute Flash, Absolute Catwoman, and Absolute Green Arrow use more traditional story forms to address corruption in economics and government.

All the Absolute comics have been excellent thus far, and all have captured the public’s imagination, none more so than Absolute Batman. Part of the popularity stems from the line’s central appeal. By reimagining the Joker and Ra’s al Ghul as untouchable billionaires who trample people in pursuit of economic power, the series speaks to our current political moment, turning our feelings of powerlessness and anger into power fantasies with immediacy—just check out last year’s Absolute Batman Annual #1, in which the Dark Knight laid waste to a group of white supremacists.

Absolute Batman also stands out because of Snyder and Dragotta’s fearless approach to the material. It’s not just beefy Batman who gets bigger; Joker is a dapper, sullen man who can transform into a cackling dragon, Poison Ivy is a plant creature who envelops the city, Bane grows to the size of a building and literally beats Harvey Dent and Oswald Cobblepot into becoming Two-Face and the Penguin. It feels like Snyder and Dragotta challenge themselves to push the concept to increasingly absurd lengths with every issue.

That very audacity gives us reason to doubt the animated adaptation. DC has been making animated adaptations of landmark comic stories and, with few exceptions (2010’s Batman: Under the Red Hood, for example), the cartoons have fallen far short of the source material. All-Star Superman hits the story beats, but lacks the wonder of the Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely series, 2011’s Batman: Year One shined off the grit and immediacy of the Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli original, and Batman: The Killing Joke inserted an unsavory romance between Bruce Wayne and Barbara Gordon into Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s already unpleasant story.

Whether making changes that don’t serve the story or rendering the artwork bland and smooth, these adaptations play as bland, unnecessary remakes. And if DC Animation diminished even straightforward superhero stories, how much more damage will they do to a series defined by its over-the-top visuals and plotting?

If there’s one bit of hope for Absolute Batman, it’s that Snyder and Dragotta are both on board as producers, and Snyder will serve showrunner. But how much time can they devote to the show when they’re busy making some of the best and most popular superhero comics of all time? That’s a big ask, even for people who made the biggest Batman.

Absolute Batman is now on comic book shelves.

From Possession to Obsession: The Horror Movies People Just Couldn’t Stop Thinking About

If you’re heavily into horror movies, you’ll give most of them a chance, no matter how low-budget they are or how poorly they went down with critics. Occasionally, you’ll also hear online or from friends that there’s one you’ve just gotta check out because it’ll mess you up a bit. It’s natural to be wary, as many of those kinds of horror movies embrace the more psychological side of the genre and the last thing you want is a sleepless night. Still, those films can be spectacular and irresistible—they make you think!

In the spirit of celebrating those very movies, we’ve put together a list of the ones people just couldn’t stop thinking about after watching them. These films have clawed their way into audiences’ brains, either by presenting scenarios so grisly and realistic that people weren’t quite convinced they were fictional, or by playing deft psychological games that left viewers reeling.

Major spoilers ahead as we take a look back at the horror movies that had our psyches in a chokehold.

Possession

A movie that didn’t do any business when it was first released, Possession has gained appreciation as a truly great cult horror film every year since. The plot of Andrzej Żuławski’s film is, uh, let’s just say tricky. So tricky that 40+ years later, no one’s even agreed on exactly what sub-genre the film is. Supernatural? Psychological? Political? Lovecraftian? You can make a case for all of them.

Luckily, we don’t really need to go into the movie’s actual plot here, because that’s one of the reasons it’s held its ground in discussions of the best horror films of all time. A group of people can sit down for a screening of Possession and come away with completely different interpretations of it. There’s no straightforward explanation for what happens. Yet, thanks in part to a killer performance by Isabelle Adjani, no one forgets this surreal masterpiece in a hurry.

Perfect Blue

When JPop idol Mima Kirigoe decides to leave the music world behind and become an actress, things go from bad to worse as she tries to establish herself. An obsessive fan begins stalking her, and she sees small, day-to-day moments from her life written up on a website called “Mima’s Room.” What’s weirder is that they’re written from Mima’s perspective, and she soon starts to question whether she’s somehow subconsciously involved. She’s also landed a role in a TV detective drama where she’s required to film sexual scenes that make her uncomfortable, and people in her circle keep getting murdered. A paranoid Mima struggles with psychosis, unsure of where the line is between fact and fiction.

Satoshi Kon’s psychological horror eventually became one of the most respected anime movies of all time, heavily influencing the visually dynamic output of directors like Darren Aronofsky, and the film itself has certainly lost none of its boundary-blurring effectiveness since its release in the late 1990s.

Cannibal Holocaust

1980’s Cannibal Holocaust absolutely broke new ground in the genre, and not always in the best ways. Often considered the first-ever found-footage movie, the Italian exploitation flick tracks the efforts of an anthropologist leading a team into the Amazon rainforest to find a crew of missing documentary filmmakers. What follows is a stomach-churning series of events featuring largely unpracticed actors in scenarios with indigenous peoples. As a result, the film’s mix of graphic bloodshed, sexual assault, and actual cruelty toward animals had many people convinced it was snuff for a while.

Even today, critics can’t decide if Cannibal Holocaust displays genuine merit with its social and ethical commentaries or if it’s just really bloody unpleasant. Either way, this one will stick with ya and no mistake.

Hereditary and Midsommar

Ari Aster’s cinematic double-punch of Hereditary and Midsommar ensured they became instant classics for a new generation of genre fans. Although the plots of these two are fairly straightforward compared to some others on this list, both contain unnerving and shocking moments that burrow deep into the brain and refuse to leave, including an elderly couple flinging themselves off a cliff and a teenage boy sitting in shock after his sister becomes decapitated in the backseat of the family car.

As both films feature Aster’s disturbing visual touches and linger in the memory, we’ve paired them here. People may always wonder what happens beyond Paimon’s arrival or Dani’s choice at the culmination of the midsummer ceremony, but neither film offers any answers, leaving you to forever mull whether Christian deserved his fate or whether the cult that gathered at Charlie’s treehouse found the riches they pursued.

The Babadook

The Babadook became an unwitting precursor to a string of “the monster is grief/trauma” horror movies, which is a shame because it does terrify a lot of people and doesn’t deserve retrospective eye rolls from those who have grown tired of that particular theme.

Boasting an effective storybook monster and a disturbing family dynamic that really gets under your skin, The Babadook is probably the best to ever do “the monster is grief” while maintaining a proper sense of the genre, following a widowed single mother struggling to recover from a car accident that suddenly took her husband out of the picture just as their son was about to be born. For anyone going through their own grief, this one leaves a lasting impression.

Psycho

Defying audience expectations and introducing a new level of psychological horror to mainstream movies, Alfred Hitchcock and Joseph Stefano adapted Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel of the same name with Psycho, a groundbreaking film about a boy who loves his late domineering mother so much that he starts dressing up as her and slaying the women staying at his secluded motel who make “Mother” angry.

Bernard Herrmann’s incredible score and the film’s iconic shower scene (where audiences thought they saw much more than they actually did) both contributed to Psycho’s endurance in the minds of those who kept on revisiting it, as more of them began to not just fear the supernatural or alien monsters of cinema, but also the ones who could realistically live next door. Off the back of Psycho, serial killers became big business.

Get Out

Using the genre’s framework to explore themes of racism and power in contemporary society, Jordan Peele’s breakout hit once again proved that some of the funniest people alive can thrive in horror.

When Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a Black photographer, visits the family of his white girlfriend and discovers a horrifying conspiracy hidden beneath their seemingly progressive attitudes, a sharp cultural critique emerges that encourages viewers to mull the movie’s complex themes long after the film’s final gag. A surprise hit, Get Out also inspired worthy conversations about race and privilege in a way that few horror films have managed before or since.

Lake Mungo

Lake Mungo starts off as one story about a family’s grief, then derails into an entirely different one before coming full circle, and that narrative disorientation serves the movie spectacularly.

After 16-year-old Alice (Talia Zucker) drowns in a dam in Ararat, Australia, her brother deals with his grief by fooling people into believing that her ghost is haunting their house. Mathew’s grainy footage is spooky and compelling, but you’re not really sure where the film is going once it’s been debunked. As more of Alice’s secret life is exposed, we realize that she knew she was going to die after an encounter with her own bloated corpse on a school trip to Lake Mungo. We cannot warn you enough about the psychic damage you’ll take from the cell phone footage of the incident, unless you’ve already seen it. In that case, well, you already know. You will never be able to unsee it, and that’s just one reason you’ll still see people discussing Lake Mungo almost 20 years later.

Director Joel Anderson hasn’t helmed another movie since, which adds to the mystique of this compelling mockumentary, but he has recently got back into the industry, working as a script editor on Netflix’s Clickbait and Shudder’s Late Night with the Devil, which is a creepy movie, but not up there with Lake Mungo.

Men

Here’s a random peek behind the curtain at Den of Geek that supports adding Men to this list: our Ending Explained article is still going strong years after its release. Why? Because Alex Garland’s follow-up to Annihilation was somehow even weirder and more confounding than that movie, and it’s worth remembering that Annihilation had a kind of mutant bear creature that could do a human voice. Nevertheless, Men is certainly more challenging than Annihilation, which is probably why reviews were decidedly mixed. It’s also rather unforgettable.

We follow Harper Marlowe (Jessie Buckley) as she pops off on a lovely holiday to a Herefordshire village to try and decompress from a tragic incident where her husband suddenly hit her, then plummeted to his death from a balcony at their block of flats. Does she get a much-needed break from the psychological impact of this incident? No. No, she does not. Instead, she’s hounded by a string of unsettling men, all played by Rory Kinnear, who eventually give birth to her dead husband. “What?” you may ask. Exactly, yes.

Mulholland Drive

One of the scariest entries on this list is not technically considered a horror movie. Instead, Mulholland Drive is a hugely unnerving story that refuses to be straightforward or linear. Many have tried to interpret David Lynch’s film over the years, but the director always refused to fully elaborate on it (RIP to a real one), so sometimes you’ll see a few theories about what exactly happens in Mulholland Drive doing the rounds, yet never anything definitive.

One of many options is to look at Mulholland Drive like this: a failed actress called Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts) goes to sleep one night in the knowledge that she’s paid for her estranged lover, Camilla Rhodes, to be killed by a hitman. She dreams that she and Camilla are back together, solving a mystery, and that those who have wronged her are getting their comeuppance, but when Diane wakes up she realises that the real Camilla is dead and that she’s responsible. Unable to live with her crime, she takes her own life.

That is just one way to look at it. Still, Mulholland Drive is ultimately open to interpretation, and fans of the film have kept coming back to it over and over again because it’s a puzzle box of identity-questioning and weirdness that can never really be solved, even with a shiny blue key.

The Blair Witch Project

The Blair Witch Project wasn’t the first found-footage horror movie ever made, but it was the first to achieve such massive success, grabbing almost $250 million at the box office from a budget of less than $1 million.

For a while, many people were convinced that the movie was actually a true story, and that what they were witnessing were real events from the Appalachian Mountains where three students had apparently gone missing. Thanks to a convincing promotional mockumentary and a fascinating website about the “missing” actors, The Blair Witch Project picked up hype before its release and went viral before anyone really knew what that meant, haunting those who watched it for years to come.

Martyrs

Martyrs is one of the most discussed (but divisive) horror movies of this century. Kicking off as a brutal revenge tale, it becomes so much more than that as it goes along, transforming into a distressing exploration of whether suffering can unearth hidden truths about the nature of existence and forcing us to think about how much we’re willing to sacrifice to be truly certain about what happens after we die (Flatliners ain’t got nothin’ on this bad boy!). Shocking, existential, and absolutely traumatizing, this movie has messed with a lot of heads since it emerged. And as more people discover it, more heads will be messed with.

Funny Games

Some people might have been fooled by the title of this movie when they sat down to watch it, but there’s not much to laugh at when two young guys arrive at a vacation home to hold a family hostage and torture them with games like “how good y’all movin’ with a broken leg?” and “guess how alive your dog is right now?”

While those games are upsetting enough, the pair’s knowing winks, glances, and questions to the camera break the fourth wall, making viewers partly complicit in watching the horrors play out. Director Michael Haneke doesn’t consider Funny Games a horror film; rather, it’s supposed to be a pointed message about violence in media. Still, people usually do feel like they’ve watched one, and for a long time after.

The Exorcist

There have been about a trillion possession movies since The Exorcist, but back in the early 1970s, depicting the demonic possession of a child was shocking. Controversy raged on for years after its debut, with the movie’s content said to have caused nausea, fainting, and even spiritual crises in those who had lapsed in their faith.

But all publicity is good publicity, as they say, and wild reactions to The Exorcist continued. In fact, video copies of the movie were withdrawn from circulation in the U.K. as late as 1988. It wasn’t until 1999 that it was once again granted a home video release, such was the furore over its “lenient” rating and its controversial story of an exorcism performed on a young girl by two priests. Don’t even get us started on whether the film itself is cursed!

Faces of Death

This mondo horror from 1978 pretends to be a documentary, but although some of the footage in Faces of Death shows actual humans dying from a distance, much of the movie is fake, with other queasy real-life footage purchased from the likes of random news stations and medical researchers and reappropriated in a mockumentary context. Despite many having this knowledge, the film sparked a moral debate over exploitative movies and their worthiness.

If you were a kid at the time, you often heard whispers in the playground about Faces of Death. Apparently, it showed real, grisly crimes, and it had scarred the kid who watched it for life. If you happened to hear those whispers in the U.K., you may have also been aware that it was a banned “video nasty,” which may have conjured gory imaginings far beyond the movie’s actual content.

These days, many countries have removed their bans on Faces of Death, but some still called for substantial cuts. However, the fact that there’s been a Hollywood reboot of the film tells you all you need to know about how shocking it is compared to what people regularly see online these days.

Pulse

Depending on who you talk to, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse, a.k.a. Kairo, is either one of the scariest movies ever made or wildly underwhelming, and we would argue that both reactions are understandable. Pulse is just so…intentionally empty. Yet, we’d also suggest that Pulse was pretty damn prophetic, given it came out back in 2001.

Exploring loneliness and disconnection in the digital age, and the fear that technology may be opening a door to something beyond human understanding, the characters in Pulse slowly become detached from the living world as society collapses into isolation. As such, it’s lingered somewhere in the back of our minds ever since, as real-world technology becomes more invasive and AI is thrust upon us.

Jacob’s Ladder

Massively influential on a whole bunch of horror movies and games that came after it (the Silent Hill universe wouldn’t truly look or feel as cool without this one paving the way), Jacob’s Ladder follows a Vietnam vet now living in New York called Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins), who struggles to cope in a fragmented reality. After a string of disturbing visions, it’s revealed that much of the film has taken place in his mind and that he actually died in Vietnam. Surreal and essential, Jacob’s Ladder is often namechecked as a triumphant, modern spin on Carnival of Souls that invites multiple interpretations.

Obsession

This year’s movie that people just can’t stop thinking about is a real peach. Inspired by the “be careful what you wish for” theme of The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror II,” we follow “nice guy” Bear (Michael Johnston) as he makes a wish on a novelty toy for his crush Nikki (Inde Navarrette) to love him more than anyone else in the world. The wish comes true, but in such a horrifying way that you’d assume Bear would just wish he had never made it. Bear being Bear, though (insecure, selfish, irredeemable), he just kinda wants to make alterations, even knowing that Nikki’s newfound devotion is entirely beyond her control. Her bodily autonomy ripped away, Nikki no longer has free will and Bear doesn’t have consent, forcing Nikki to act strangely even when it’s harmful toward others or herself.

Curry Barker’s second feature film seemed to get the whole internet talking as social media filled up with people either misunderstanding the film’s themes or arguing over the nuances of the characters and story. With some key moments in the movie remaining open to interpretation, Obsession became an instant conversation starter in an age when social dynamics and relationships appear more complex, even when they very much aren’t.

Thought of a different movie you couldn’t stop thinking about? Let us know in the comments!

Exploring Supergirl’s History as an Unlikely Queer Icon

Supergirl star Milly Alcock has not been one to shy away from embracing a queer interpretation of the upcoming film’s eponymous Kryptonian. Alcock recently said the character would “swing both ways” at a fan event ahead of Supergirl’s release, and before that she said Supergirl “doesn’t live in the binary” of typical gender expectations.

Supergirl has never been depicted as being anything other than a heterosexual cisgender woman in the comics and was similarly straight in her CW show. However, Alcock’s comments are a microcosm of fan’s views on Supergirl as a character. Despite not being a confirmed LGBTQ+ figure in any mainstream or canonical release, Supergirl has maintained a status as someone queer fans flock to.

Tales of a queer Supergirl have long entertained audiences. Searching on AO3 for gay fanfiction of the character will result in thousands of entries posted by users depicting Kara Zor-El (or a new interpretation of Kara) in a queer relationship. Fans of the CW show prolifically shipped Kara and Lena Luthor throughout its run, going so far as to call some of the show’s writing queerbaiting. DC Comics’ Elseworlds spinoff The Dark Knights of Steel, a medieval fantasy retelling of DC’s main characters, put Supergirl and Wonder Woman in a romantic relationship.

None of this enthusiasm or new storytelling has translated to mainstream LGBTQ+ storylines for Supergirl, but her comics often take a more coming-of-age route with their narratives than her DC contemporaries. Supergirl: Being Super, Joëlle Jones and Mariko Tamaki’s acclaimed four-issue graphic novel, focuses on Kara Danvers’ story on Earth, a narrowing in on her teenage angst and status as an outsider in her high school (while also providing Kara with a lesbian best friend, Dolly Granger). Tom King’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the Eisner Award-nominated eight-issue miniseries and basis for the upcoming Supergirl film, follows a Supergirl who is still coming to terms with her identity as a superhero and her place in the galaxy.

A focus on themes of coming of age and being an outsider, all while centering a person who is still figuring out their own identity, invariably aligns with the lived experiences many LGBTQ+ fans have gone through in their own lives. Going through very awkward teenage years, coming to terms with who you are as a person, and the isolation that comes with growing up different are all hallmarks of both Supergirl comics and being queer.

Supergirl goes through this relatable, deeply human drama, all while engaging in cosmic battles and helping those in need. For LGBTQ+ readers, Supergirl points to a bright future where they can beat the obstacles they face while going through incredibly isolating and turbulent times.

Characters such as Superman and Batman do indeed get to show a recognizably human side in their stories. The Death of Superman crossover comic event revealed that Superman could die just like any regular citizen in the streets of Metropolis. In Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, readers are exposed to a much darker story that takes on the corrupting influence of power while also showing an older, grittier Batman.

These are just two famous examples of stories in which superheroes step off the pedestal of unstoppable forces of good and become relatable, even if just slightly. There’s a long-running archive of these stories with many other big name characters — but none stand out quite as much as the stories about Supergirl.

Rarely do comic readers get a real coming of age story for any other character like they do for Supergirl, and few other DC characters have such a frequent emphasis on thematic elements and storylines with a close relation to queer lives. Even when she’s joining the Red Lanterns or battling galactic warlords, fans are still exposed to the parts of her that are undeniably flawed, unsure of herself, and human.

So yes, Supergirl might just swing both ways, as Alcock put it. But Supergirl also functions as a narrative capsule for stories many queer comic fans can take from the page and into their own lives. Although she’s not a perfect LGBTQ+ icon, Supergirl’s status is undoubtedly endearing with queer readers.

The Invite Review: Olivia Wilde’s Beguiling Sex Comedy Is the Event of Summer

I’m not going to begin by stating emphatically that Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton play sexy-time ghosts in Olivia Wilde’s The Invite… but what if they might be ghosts, who happen to be sexy? I’m kind of joking, but also stay with me for a minute.

Still high off its buzzy premiere at Sundance, The Invite walks, blurs, and utterly dissolves all manner of boundaries and bougie festival taboos. Floating with an ethereal mystique that borders on the otherworldly, as well as a painfully hilarious naturalism, this is a movie orbiting around a marriage in midlife catastrophe to the point of dizziness—an even more impressive feat after the film was marketed with such deceptive seduction. To be sure, Cruz and Norton are quite appealing, the seemingly perfect couple upstairs in a posh, if ancient, New York City tenement building. They initiate friendly conversation in the elevator, look gorgeous while making preternatural eye contact with neighbors, and apparently have passionate, earth-shattering sex after midnight each evening.

Angela and Joe (Wilde and Seth Rogen) should know. They hear it every night through their ceiling, along with a 12-year-old daughter who is never seen in the film. There is something just inexplicable about Piña and Hawk (Cruz and Norton). And it leaves our central couple so resentful and envious that the movie begins with an insert card of an Oscar Wilde quote: the eternal harbinger of doom for any romantic sentimentality beyond skin-deep nihilism.

So when Joe and Angela invite Piña and Hawk over for a couple’s dinner, something aloof is in the air. Joe thinks it’s tension, as he is more than ready, eager even, to complain about the animal sounds through the floorboards. But for our spirited guests, the tension could have an entirely different flavor, one of suspense as they are here to—eventually—propose the downstairs stuffed shirts join them in a shared sexual experience.

They want to swing by switching spouses for the night.

The ghostly element I mentioned earlier is a bit of a come-on, but not by much. While the film quotes Wilde, Oscar, there’s more than a touch of Dickens and his descendants about the way Piña and Hawk float into our unhappy protagonists’ lives. They’re kinky Jacob Marleys, freaky Clarences, the angel of mercy in It’s a Wonderful Life who’s come to grant Jimmy Stewart a second chance at life after decades of disappointment by getting frisky in the kitchen. Even the audience is tempted into thinking they’re watching one kind of beguiling sex comedy, which we sorta get, even as we’re really being lured into a far more existential exploration of love and marriage after the romance has died. Are things not already in the Twilight Zone when an orgy offer from strangers amounts to the closest thing to high romance Joe or Angela’s heard in years?

The trick of Olivia Wilde’s film and its luminious screenplay by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack is its structure. Based on the Spanish film The People Upstairs, Wilde’s picture borrows the original’s real-time setting of an unwieldy night of collapsing inhibitions and glasses of wine giving way to low-lit confessions in a cozy apartment’s corners. Among Jones and McCormack’s many scripted innovations, however, is the sensation that this is occurring in a bit of a theater workshop. This isn’t a knock at the performances, which are excellent, but at the sense we are sitting with a group of professionals, also over wine, as they psychoanalyze and deconstruct a messy, impermanent thing: the marriage of two people who care for each other but lost love a long time ago.

Wilde shoots the film almost wholly in steadicam and in an underlit setting wherein the decorative paint colors and apartment accoutrements that Angela distracts herself with are indistinguishable. She isn’t wrong to note Joe is checked out when she talks about “finishing” the bedroom several years on, but Wilde the filmmaker cannot let her character hide behind minutiae. She drowns Angela and Joe’s faux domesticity into an inviting yet gloomy shadow world.

Similarly, the helmer constantly films Rogen’s Joe as a domineering force in the life of his wife, towering over the frame and captured in harsh low light like a Halloween fright mask. At other times, the pair are caught in line of sight of each other in their horseshoe-shaped apartment, with the duo able to simply look up across the way and see one another in parallel windows. Yet they never do. It would make eye contact and break the spell of mutually agreed upon isolation.

At its core, though, one does not cast a talent like Rogen, or for that matter Wilde at her most mischievous, and not revel in the humor. Rogen accentuates a new note of tired resignation to his likable, schlubby everyman persona, but there’s a lot more bitterness to Joe than Matt Remick in The Studio, as well as more pathos. This is a sad sack too self-involved to recognize he’s dragging his marriage down, but his unhappiness is not unsympathetic to anyone who reached a certain point in life where they realized they did not become the person they dreamed about when they were 20. It also makes his acerbic digs at Piña and Hawk, particularly for the latter’s clearly self-chosen name, all the more biting.

Meanwhile Cruz delights in her role that purposefully walks a line between the ethereal and earthy. For much of the film, she might be a cipher, or certainly a projection of Joe and even Angela’s desires, albeit in very different contexts, but Cruz plays it with a rueful self-awareness. She’s the cat plucking at a pair of wounded canaries’ wings. The scene where she specifically attempts to uncoil Joe out of his wound-up funk to Sade’s now 26-year-old(!) “By Your Side” is a harmonious car crash; a collision of sweetness and cringe, reverie and gallows humor despair. And I haven’t even mentioned his dance moves.

The Invite is a shimmering dramedy for adults of a certain age, and perhaps a sobering epiphany that this can now be so acutely tailored to elder Millennials and younger Gen-Xers at that. The film is genuinely sexy but in the awkward and disarming way of clumsy foreplay. It stumbles and stammers, with its proverbial pants caught around the ankles before the whole thing tonally keels over. Yet for all the screenplay’s verbose intellectualization about sensuality, and Wilde’s obvious preoccupation with it as a storyteller, the main event is something more intimate and unspoken. It’s a lament about the passage of time, milestones left discarded, and maybe even marriages that also have outlived their shelflife.

One might even call it haunting, complete with the mysterious good-looking specters descending from above.

The Invite opens in select locations on June 26 and in wide release on July 10.

15 Non-Horror Movies With Horror Movie Endings

When watching a movie, the genre helps us get ready for what’s about to come. We don’t expect deep plots from comedies, nor do we think we’ll laugh our way through a drama. Yet genre is a fluid thing, and movies mix and blend them in ways that turn certain endings into unexpected surprises.

Those surprises aren’t always nice or uplifting, rather something that you’d expect to see in a horror movie. Bleak outcomes, lack of survivors and other gruesome fates are the hallmarks of these tales, and here are the most unexpected ones we’ve seen so far.

Se7en

Technically a crime thriller rather than a horror film, Se7en ends with one of cinema’s bleakest finales. John Doe’s final plan succeeds, turning Detective Mills into the embodiment of the deadly sin he desperately tried to resist.

Requiem for a Dream

Requiem for a Dream is a psychological drama about addiction, but its ending feels like pure horror. Every main character loses everything, with their physical and mental deterioration culminating in a series of deeply disturbing final scenes.

Remember Me

Remember Me is primarily a romantic coming-of-age drama, but its final moments completely reframe the story. The revelation that Tyler is inside the World Trade Center on September 11 transforms an intimate character study into an unexpectedly devastating tragedy.

Oldboy

Oldboy blends action, mystery, and thriller elements before revealing one of modern cinema’s most disturbing twists. The truth behind Oh Dae-su’s imprisonment permanently destroys his sense of identity, leaving the story on an unsettling emotional note.

Chinatown

Chinatown is a neo-noir mystery that concludes with shocking hopelessness. Evelyn Mulwray dies, Noah Cross escapes justice, and the final line, “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown,” underscores that evil sometimes wins without consequence.

Uncut Gems

For much of its runtime, Uncut Gems plays like a crime drama fueled by reckless gambling. Just as Howard finally appears to have beaten impossible odds, a sudden act of violence instantly turns triumph into catastrophe.

Prisoners

Prisoners is a crime thriller whose ending leaves audiences deeply unsettled. While one mystery is solved, Keller Dover remains trapped underground, with only the faint possibility that Detective Loki hears his desperate whistle before the credits roll.

No Country for Old Men

This modern western crime drama rejects the satisfying showdown audiences expect. Anton Chigurh largely escapes justice, while Sheriff Bell retires defeated, leaving viewers with the unsettling realization that some violence simply cannot be stopped.

Upgrade

Upgrade begins as a sci-fi revenge story before revealing a devastating final twist. The artificial intelligence STEM permanently traps Grey inside his own mind, taking complete control of his body while he believes he achieved revenge.

The Vanishing (1988)

Often classified as a psychological thriller, the Dutch film The Vanishing concludes with an ending as chilling as any horror movie. Rex finally learns his girlfriend’s fate by suffering exactly the same terrifying destiny himself.

Nightcrawler

Without being horror, Nightcrawler has an ending that is deeply disturbing. Lou Bloom profits from manipulation, crime, and exploitation without facing consequences, ultimately expanding his business and proving that his complete lack of empathy has been rewarded.

The Departed

The Departed spends two hours building toward justice before delivering relentless tragedy. Within minutes, several major characters are abruptly killed, leaving almost nobody standing and creating an ending defined by betrayal and sudden violence.

The Prestige

Christopher Nolan’s mystery drama ends with revelations more horrifying than supernatural. Robert Angier’s obsession required countless versions of himself to die, while Alfred Borden’s family is forever scarred by the deadly rivalry between the two magicians.

Brazil

Terry Gilliam’s Brazil mixes science fiction, satire, and dark comedy, but its ending is devastating. Sam appears to escape, only for the audience to realize his freedom exists solely inside his broken mind after relentless torture.

Buried

Buried is a survival thriller rather than a horror film, yet its ending is pure nightmare fuel. After spending the entire movie hoping for rescue, Paul learns the authorities have excavated the wrong coffin, sealing his fate beneath the desert.

15 Shows from the ’80s You Can’t Watch Anymore

Thanks to streaming rights and online availability, preserving media has become increasingly hard, yet it’s still doable. Back in the day, we depended exclusively on a show doing well for it to be preserved. Now, many of these shows are lost media, particularly if you don’t live in their originating countries.

We’ve also included a few entries that, while you can watch them today, their topics are in conflict with modern sensibilities. Their depictions of race, identity and the like make us wish that, although available, they did become lost media.

The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show

Several episodes remain controversial because they reused or echoed racial stereotypes inherited from earlier cartoons. While the series is available in some forms, edited versions and content warnings reflect how dramatically animation standards have changed since the 1980s.

Throb

This short-lived sitcom about a women-led music magazine was a modest hit during its original run but has never received an official home video or streaming release. Most episodes survive only through private recordings and unofficial uploads.

Hot Hero Sandwich

Created as an educational series for teenagers, Hot Hero Sandwich featured musical sketches tackling drugs, sexuality, and peer pressure. Despite its ambitious goals, it has never received an official home media release, leaving much of it effectively lost.

The New Zoo Revue

Although it began in the 1970s, reruns remained popular into the early 1980s. Today, the series is remembered more as a nostalgic curiosity, with limited official availability and production values that feel unmistakably dated.

The Littlest Hobo

This beloved Canadian family series remains difficult to stream outside Canada because of music licensing and distribution issues. While not completely lost, it has been unavailable to many viewers for years despite its lasting cult following.

Bosom Buddies

Tom Hanks’ first sitcom revolves around two men disguising themselves as women to secure affordable housing. Though groundbreaking in some respects, its treatment of gender identity and cross-dressing often feels uncomfortable through a modern lens.

It’s Your Move

This teen sitcom starring a young Jason Bateman has never received a complete official home media release. Rights issues and limited preservation have left the show difficult to watch legally despite its reputation among television fans.

The Charmings

This fairy tale sitcom imagined Snow White and her family living in suburban America. Despite lasting two seasons, it has never reached major streaming platforms or received a complete home video release, making it surprisingly hard to revisit.

B.A.D. Cats

This action-comedy about motorcycle-riding animal control officers lasted only a single season. It has never been officially released on DVD or streaming, leaving collectors and archival recordings as the primary way to experience the series.

Small Wonder

Small Wonder became a syndicated hit, but its portrayal of gender roles, parenting, and artificial intelligence often feels dated today. While still available in some markets, many of its jokes and character dynamics no longer land as intended.

The Ropers

Although it premiered in 1979, most viewers experienced it through early 1980s reruns. Some of its humor relies heavily on stereotypes surrounding sexuality and marriage that have aged poorly, making portions of the sitcom uncomfortable for modern audiences.

Webster

Webster was a family favorite throughout the decade, but several episodes contain jokes and storylines reflecting outdated attitudes toward race, gender, and disability. The series remains watchable, though some moments now carry content advisories or criticism.

You Can’t Do That on Television

Nickelodeon’s cult sketch comedy frequently pushed boundaries with jokes about corporal punishment, gender stereotypes, and other topics that children’s television rarely touches today. Some sketches feel remarkably edgy by modern standards despite the show’s young cast.

Today’s Special

This Canadian children’s series aired throughout the 1980s and was beloved by a generation of viewers. Despite its popularity, it has never received a complete official streaming or home video release, making many episodes difficult to find.

Out of This World

This sitcom about a teenage girl with alien powers enjoyed several successful seasons in syndication. However, complicated distribution rights have kept the complete series off major streaming platforms, leaving fans with only scattered reruns and unofficial uploads.

Common Movie ‘Injuries’ That Would Actually Be Fatal in Real Life

Action movie heroes, and protagonists of films in general, go through unbearable beatings on what seems to be a daily basis. Of course, we in the general audience lack any kind of training that would allow us to run a mile, let alone survive an explosion, but the question remains if anyone can actually shrug off most of the damage done in movies.

Well, in reality, no one can go through what action heroes do. Sure, sometimes they have superpowers or the like, but many movies depict seemingly normal individuals going through incredible trials. These are the most common tropes we’ve seen in movies, and how fatal they really are.

Catching Someone by One Arm During a Fall

Movies love last-second one-handed rescues, but the forces involved are enormous. The falling person’s momentum could dislocate shoulders, tear ligaments, or pull both people over the edge. Depending on the height, the outcome could easily be fatal for one or both.

Waking Up After a Shipwreck

Characters often wash ashore after being knocked unconscious during a shipwreck. In reality, an unconscious person cannot keep their airway above water. Unless rescued almost immediately, they would drown long before reaching the beach.

Being Thrown by an Explosion

Explosions in movies often send heroes flying before they stand up moments later. A blast powerful enough to throw a person can rupture lungs, damage internal organs, and cause fatal traumatic brain injuries, even without visible burns.

Getting Knocked Out by a Blow to the Head

A punch or blunt object that leaves someone unconscious for several minutes is treated like a brief inconvenience in movies. In reality, prolonged unconsciousness signals a serious brain injury that requires immediate medical attention and can be fatal.

Getting Launched Across the Room

If a person is hit with enough force to fly several feet through the air, that same impact would likely cause catastrophic internal injuries. Broken bones, organ damage, and spinal trauma are far more realistic than simply getting back up.

Jumping Off a Building With a Shoulder Roll

Action heroes routinely leap from two- to four-story buildings, perform a shoulder roll, and sprint away. In reality, those heights commonly result in shattered ankles, broken legs, pelvic fractures, or fatal head and spinal injuries.

Walking Away After CPR

Successful CPR is rarely the instant reset movies portray. Survivors often require intensive care, and chest compressions commonly fracture ribs or the sternum. Even when effective, recovery is lengthy and survival is far from guaranteed.

Crashing Through a Plate Glass Window

Movie characters dive through plate glass with barely a scratch. Real glass can produce deep lacerations that sever arteries, tendons, or nerves. Severe blood loss can become life-threatening within minutes without rapid medical treatment.

Gunshot Wounds

Films often treat gunshots as painful but manageable injuries. In reality, even a single bullet can destroy organs, rupture major blood vessels, or introduce fatal infections. Survival depends heavily on where the bullet strikes and how quickly treatment begins.

Ignoring a Laceration Wound

Adventure heroes frequently wrap a dirty wound with a strip of cloth and keep traveling. Untreated infections can spread into the bloodstream, causing sepsis, a medical emergency that remains potentially fatal even with modern healthcare.

Taking an Arrow to the Body

Movie characters often snap off an arrow and continue fighting. Removing an embedded arrow incorrectly can worsen bleeding, especially if it has damaged a major artery or organ. Without prompt treatment, the injury can quickly become fatal.

High-Speed Car Crashes

Hollywood crashes often end with occupants crawling from a wreck and walking away. Real high-speed collisions generate forces capable of causing internal bleeding, brain trauma, spinal injuries, and organ rupture, even when external injuries appear surprisingly minor.

Falling Into Freezing Water

Characters regularly plunge into icy lakes, swim ashore, and continue their journey. Cold water rapidly causes cold shock, loss of muscle control, and hypothermia. Without immediate rescue and warming, survival time can be dangerously short.

Falling Down a Flight of Stairs

Movies often portray stair tumbles as embarrassing rather than dangerous. In reality, falling down a staircase can produce fatal head injuries, broken necks, spinal damage, or internal bleeding, particularly when the victim strikes multiple hard edges during the fall.

15 Famous People Who Have a Non-Famous Twin

We may never know what it’s like to have a family member in the entertainment industry, but it must be something completely different to have a famous twin sibling. Particularly in the case of identical twins, having your face lead such a famed life has to be strange in some way.

Of course, there are plenty of twins in entertainment that we know of, like the Olsen twins that have done plenty of work together, or the Ashmore twins that have achieved fame separately. The ones we’ve listed here have twins that, for the most part, have stayed away from the spotlight.

Nicholas Brendon

Best known as Xander on the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nicholas Brendon has an identical twin brother, Kelly Donovan. Donovan occasionally worked in entertainment and even stood in for his brother on screen, but he never achieved the same level of fame.

Linda Hamilton

Linda Hamilton had an identical twin sister, Leslie Hamilton Freas. Leslie largely stayed out of the spotlight but famously served as her sister’s double during scenes in Terminator 2: Judgment Day that required two Sarah Connors on screen.

Jill Hennessy

Actress Jill Hennessy shares an identical twin with Jacqueline Hennessy, a writer and television host. While Jill became known through acting roles in television and film, Jacqueline built a career primarily behind the camera and in media.

Vin Diesel

Action star Vin Diesel has a fraternal twin brother named Paul Vincent. Unlike Diesel, who became one of Hollywood’s biggest box office draws, Paul largely stayed outside the public eye and worked behind the scenes in entertainment.

Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson has a twin brother, Hunter Johansson. While Scarlett became one of the world’s most recognizable actresses, Hunter pursued interests in politics, activism, and charitable work rather than building a major Hollywood career.

Kiefer Sutherland

Actor Kiefer Sutherland shares a twin sister, Rachel Sutherland. Although Rachel works in the entertainment industry, her career has largely been behind the scenes as a television producer, making her far less recognizable than her famous brother.

Jon Heder

Known for playing the title character in Napoleon Dynamite, Jon Heder has an identical twin brother named Dan Heder. While Jon became a familiar face in comedy films, Dan primarily worked in visual effects and animation.

Laverne Cox

Actress and activist Laverne Cox has a twin brother known professionally as M Lamar. Although he is a performer and composer in his own right, he remains considerably less famous and is often recognized through his connection to Cox.

Rami Malek

Oscar winner Rami Malek has an identical twin brother named Sami Malek. While Rami found international fame through acting, Sami pursued a career as a teacher, living a much more private life despite their striking resemblance.

Ashton Kutcher

Ashton Kutcher shares a fraternal twin brother with Michael Kutcher. Michael became an advocate for people with disabilities and organ donation awareness, but his public profile remains much smaller than that of his actor brother.

Giovanni Ribisi

Actor Giovanni Ribisi and actress Marissa Ribisi are fraternal twins. Although Marissa appeared in films and television, Giovanni’s extensive acting career made him the much more widely recognized sibling.

Gisele Bündchen

Supermodel Gisele Bündchen has a fraternal twin sister named Patrícia Bündchen. While Gisele became one of the most successful models in history, Patrícia generally stayed away from celebrity culture and has helped manage aspects of her sister’s business.

Parker Posey

Independent film favorite Parker Posey has a twin brother named Christopher Posey. Christopher has largely lived outside the entertainment spotlight, making Parker the far more publicly recognizable half of the sibling pair.

Elvis Presley

Music legend Elvis Presley was born a twin, but his identical brother Jesse Garon Presley was stillborn. Jesse never had the chance to share Elvis’s extraordinary life, yet remains an important part of the singer’s personal history.

Tiki Barber

Tiki Barber and Ronde Barber are both famous athletes, but they took very different paths after football. Ronde became a Hall of Fame player, while Tiki became better known through broadcasting and media work after retirement.

Can Digger Do for Tom Cruise What Birdman Did for Michael Keaton?

The first trailer for Digger, the upcoming collaboration between superstar Tom Cruise and Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu has already generated a host of questions and comments. Responses range from hope that Digger will finally get Cruise his Oscar to worries that the movie will be as ponderous as Iñárritu’s Babel or Bardo. But at least one person has to have had this thought: “Surely, Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning wasn’t that bad!”

It’s not just that The Final Reckoning was one of the many Tom Cruise pictures featured in the trailer’s first two thirds, a montage of shots from movies ranging from Risky Business to Top Gun: Maverick. It’s that by putting its attention on Cruise’s movie star career, the Digger trailer brings to mind Iñárritu’s most successful film, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). By juxtaposing Batman as the height of Michael Keaton‘s movie stardom to the fallow state of the actor’s popularity in 2014, Birdman revitalized Keaton’s career and cemented him as one of the greats. Does the metatextual trailer mean that Digger will do the same thing for Cruise, a man whose star has never fallen far, even after a lesser Mission: Impossible movie?

There’s no question that Cruise has had his ups and downs. Thanks to hits such as Risky Business and Top Gun, Cruise spent the ’80s and ’90s playing cocky and charismatic heroes. The movies of this period followed more or less the same plot line, with Cruise’s character beginning the movie thinking he’s the absolute best, running into people who don’t think he’s the best, and then proving to everyone at the end of the film that he was indeed the best.

By the end of the ’90s, Cruise demonstrated that he wanted to move beyond that limited character arc. He worked with auteurs such as Stanley Kubrick (Eyes Wide Shut), Steven Spielberg (Minority Report), and Michael Mann (Collateral), playing complicated characters, people whose abundant self-confidence betrays a deep brokenness. At the same time, Cruise revived his Mission: Impossible franchise, getting J. J. Abrams to direct Mission: Impossible III, which released six years after its predecessor dropped.

Interesting as that period was, it turned out that Mission: Impossible III would become the bellwether for the next decade. After his infamously weird behavior during an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2005, all of the more unsavory parts of Cruise’s life came to the fore: his relationship with the 16-year-younger Katie Holmes, the unpleasant end of his marriage to Nicole Kidman, and his connection to Scientology. These personal details made his screen persona less palatable, and while the Mission: Impossible movies continued to resonate with audiences, as did his outrageous and self-satisfied turn as studio executive Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder, stinkers such as Knight and Day, Rock of Ages, and Oblivion entered his filmography.

Then, something strange happened. Maybe it was the incredible trailer for Mission: Impossible—Fallout, or maybe it was his insistence upon holding Top Gun: Maverick until theaters reopened after the pandemic. Whatever it was, people forgave Tom Cruise, at least on screen. No one forgot about his weirdness or his Scientology; but his eccentricities were leveled out by the his passion for cinema. Nobody was talking about him as a Hollywood heartthrob, but we did appreciate him as a billionaire who regularly risks bodily harm for our entertainment.

In that regard, Cruise isn’t that different from Michael Keaton, circa 2014. Despite the differences in their career trajectories and popularities, neither Keaton then nor Cruise today is seen as a respected actor. They’re both living pieces of pop culture ephemera; Keaton because he played Batman decades ago, and Cruise because he’s the strangest movie star of our era.

Birdman used Keaton’s star persona and career arc to tell the story of another actor, haunted by the superhero he once played. Despite its flashy formal decisions, its single-take conceit and intrusive jazz score, Birdman resonated with audiences and made them appreciate Keaton anew, helping to make him a on-screen favorite.

At this point, it’s impossible to know if Digger will do the same. The trailer only contains a few seconds of new material, mostly impressionistic shots of Cruise’s character facing a crowd of desaturated rioters or shouting gibberish in a wood-paneled office. Further, it’s important to note that none of the Academy Awards won by Birdman went to Keaton (though Iñárritu helped Leonardo DiCaprio net an Oscar the next year with The Revenant).

Yet, if Iñárritu can turn our complicated feelings about our generation’s biggest movie star into dark comedy, the Digger may change the way we think about Tom Cruise, adding one more layer to this deeply odd figure.

Digger releases on October 2, 2026.

Daredevil: Born Again Season 3 Set Photos Tease a Hero’s Replacement

This article contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again seasons 2 and 3.

Turns out, the title Born Again doesn’t just refer to Daredevil. Since coming to the MCU via the Disney+ series, the Man Without Fear has brought along several characters from the Netflix series, including Vincent D’Onofrio as archenemy Wilson Fisk, Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones, and Mike Colter as Luke Cage. Initial set photos showed Finn Jones back as Iron Fist, and now a new set reveals that Elodie Yung has returned as Elektra, the Greek assassin/ex-girlfriend of Matt Murdock.

By itself, Elektra’s return isn’t much of a surprise. Since Frank Miller introduced the character in 1981’s Daredevil #168, she’s been a mainstay in Daredevil’s life. However, the timing of the return does raise some eyebrows. Season 2 ended with Matt Murdock’s identity being revealed to the world, and Matt sentenced to prison for his vigilante activities. Matt’s gone to jail several times in the comics for a variety of reasons, and, during his most recent stint in the slammer, a replacement took over as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen: Elektra Natchios.

HD look at Elodie Yung as Elektra on the set of ‘DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN’ Season 3.

(via: getty images) https://t.co/P0iwgDLk96 pic.twitter.com/UzIhLsd1KF
— Daredevil Shots (@_DaredevilShots) June 24, 2026

Elektra becomes Daredevil in 2020’s Daredevil #25, part of Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s incredible run. The issue begins with Elektra castigating Matt for choosing to go to prison instead of staying on the streets to help people, a decision she considers selfish and born of his Catholic guilt, not of any heroism. But by the end, Elektra confesses that she’s tired of the darkness that has enveloped her life and wants to walk in the light that she thinks Matt has found. So, in the final pages, she takes up the mantle of Daredevil, a moniker she keeps to this day, sharing the identity with Matt.

Of course, Elektra isn’t the only possible replacement for Matt Murdock on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. The prison plot line on the show sets up The Devil in Cell Block D, a 2005 story in which Matt goes to jail after having his identity revealed. In that storyline, Danny Rand puts on a Daredevil costume to not just protect the city, but to also prove that Matt couldn’t be the red-clad superhero. With Jones coming back into the fold, Danny seemed like the most likely candidate to replace Matt, especially since Elektra appeared to die in The Defenders.

For those who don’t remember (and no one would blame you, since it is very boring), The Defenders built on season 2 of Daredevil to position Elektra as “the Black Sky,” a living weapon created by the Hand ninja clan. Alexandra Reid (Sigourney Weaver) tried to resurrect Elektra as the Black Sky, but the latter killed Reid and established herself as the new head of the Hand. The series ended with Daredevil facing off against Elektra and, Matt Murdock being Matt Murdock, trying to talk her out of being evil. As usual, Matt’s ethical arguments only partially work, and Elektra seems to die in an explosion.

Of course, we never saw Elektra’s body at the end of The Defenders. And, even if we did, Elektra dies and gets resurrected so much that she might as well join the X-Men.

The bigger question is what she’s doing in season 3 of Daredevil: Born Again. She might just appear in a flashback, not unlike the occasionally-resurrected Foggy Nelson and never-resurrected Wesley in season 2. Or, she could be there for some Hand ninja shenanigans, which make us look even harder at shots of Hand ninjas attacking a prison in the trailers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

The simplest answer is likely the most correct. As in the comics, Matt’s faith in the inherent goodness of Elektra, a woman who has killed countless people, has finally paid off. She will become the new Daredevil, if only to save us from having to watch Danny Rand try to be the Man Without Fear.

Daredevil: Born Again season three releases in 2027.

Ghostbusters: Night Shift Can Move the Franchise Beyond the Core Four

Here is what we all know about the Ghostbusters: 1) they ain’t ‘fraid of no ghosts; 2) bustin’ makes them feel good; 3) their names are Ray Stantz, Peter Venkman, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zeddemore. Certainly, the franchise has tried several times over the past 40 years to change point number three, most obviously with the 2016 reboot movie, but also with the addition of Egon’s family members in the recent movies Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. But in every case, audiences largely rejected anyone who wasn’t part of the team that took down Gozer in 1984.

The upcoming animated series Ghostbusters: Night Shift might be the franchise’s best chance to finally move beyond the original. According to the synopsis that Sony Animation posted to their Instagram, the series takes place in 1994, when “a group of scrappy New Yorkers must suit up, face their fears, and bust some ghosts.”

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The nature of that threat isn’t clear yet, but one of the images included with the post might give us some clues. We see a massive humanoid with flames leaping from his head (think DC Comics‘ Firestorm, but the Blackest Night version). It sits in the middle of New York City, dangling what appears to be a citizen in its hand.

If ghosts such as this are popping up, then it’s easy to see why citizens would be strapping on proton packs to help. But who are these citizens? Again, the Instagram post provides the only information we have thus far. We see six figures walking away from the camera, all with the traditional Ghostbusters work suit and gear. At least two appear to be people of color, while the one tossing a ball to a dog looks like a child, while another riding on a skateboard presents as a teenager or a young adult.

Despite the lack of detail, we can tell one thing about these characters: they aren’t Ray, Winston, Egon, or Venkman and that could be a problem. Even though Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Harold Ramis, and even Bill Murray have had some involvement in each of the sequel and reboot movies, their limited screen appearance has not yet functioned as a proper hand-off. In fact, the only iteration of the franchise since the first movie was the animated series The Real Ghostbusters, which featured stylized versions of the core four. As soon as the continuation Extreme Ghostbusters tried to branch out into new characters, the series met a quick end.

However, Night Shift‘s setting may allow Ghostbusters to move on from the original characters while still retaining some of the first movie’s strength. The series takes place five years after Ghostbusters II, the same amount of time that elapsed between the first two films. That means that we’re only a decade after the founding of the Ghostbusters, and the quartet can still be around instead of scattered to parts unknown, as is the case for the recent movies. Yet, that’s also enough time for a new generation to come in right behind them, making for a cleaner line of succession.

Will that proximity to the originals be enough for audiences to accept this new cast? We can’t tell, but if the franchise wants to be anything more than an ’80s spirit haunting the new millennium, then Ghostbusters has to show us something we don’t know already.

Ghostbusters: Night Shift streams on Netflix in 2027.

Silent Hill: Townfall Leans Hard Into Melancholia and We’re Here for It

After an extended period of dormancy, it’s a really good time to be a Silent Hill fan and that hot streak doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. Following 2024’s Silent Hill 2 remake and last year’s Silent Hill f, this September will see the release of Silent Hill: Townfall. We got to see an extended preview of the game, including its first-person perspective gameplay, at Summer Game Fest 2026 and it’s looking like the future of Silent Hill continues to be in the right hands.

Set in 1996 at the coastal Scottish town of St. Amelia, Silent Hill: Townfall follows protagonist Simon Ordell after he regains his senses at the ominous location, with his memories compromised. As Simon investigates the town, he rediscovers traumatic elements of his past the deeper the delves into the fog-enshrouded community. But true to franchise form, this painful trip down memory lane is full of disturbing environments and nightmarish monsters which Simon must evade and defeat in order to survive.

Just glancing at the preview, Townfall is among the best-looking Silent Hill games in recent memory, something particularly apparent from the game’s first-person perspective. The environments are richly rendered and detailed, with the fog effects throughout the setting’s exteriors really delivering the sense of foreboding that Silent Hill is known for. This project has been in development since at least 2022 and this in-depth look at the game’s visuals proves that it has been worth the wait.

And it’s that first-person perspective that really sets Townfall apart from the rest of the Silent Hill series, which is historically played from a third-person perspective. The change in perspectives not only makes the experience feel more immersive but it heightens the tension whenever the game shifts to a combat or evasion situation. The franchise had previously experimented with going first-person in the short-form spinoff Silent Hill: The Short Message and the delisted P.T., but Townfall really takes this shift to the next level.

The change in perspective also reflects a change in tone and combat approach compared to the 2024 Silent Hill 2 and f. Both of those games emphasized its respective protagonists getting into grueling, physically fights against monsters, with a noted focus on melee combat. Townfall retains the ability to get into brutal battles while wielding wooden planks and pipes, but also encourages players to take a more stealth-oriented approach to enemy encounters.

In the preview, Simon is seen sneaking around dimly lit interiors as monsters prowl about searching for their prey. Similar to the recent Resident Evil Requiem or Amnesia, Simon can throw objects around to distract enemies to investigate where the item landed while moving away. This suggests that, unlike Silent Hill 2 and f, Simon probably shouldn’t try to kill any monsters that cross his path, but only as a last desperate resort to combat when there is no other alternative to proceed. Instead of using a radio like the original Silent Hill games, Simon relies on a handheld CRTV to detect nearby enemies, a sort of merge between classic Silent Hill mechanics with the tracker in Alien: Isolation.

Another, more stylistic element that struck us watching this preview unfold is that Townfall doubles down the melancholia and desolate atmosphere, elevated by a score composed by Pilotpriest. St. Amelia feels a bit more abandoned and isolated than overtly sinister, as had been the case in the Silent Hill f principal setting of Ebisugaoka. Upon exiting the Silent Hill: Townfall preview at SGF, one of my colleagues commented that this was a game that was going to “make him feel things again” and that observation wasn’t wrong; Townfall is poised to put the psychology back into psychological horror.

In reviving the Silent Hill franchise, Konami has been very careful about making sure that, even with a new game release three years in a row, each experience is distinct from the others. Silent Hill 2 was a return to form in more ways than one, updating the franchise’s greatest game for modern sensibilities while staying true to the source material. Silent Hill f felt like the series’ boldest swing to date, relocating outside of its titular American town to Japan while emphasizing melee combat and that Silent Hill is more of a traumatized state of mind than a single geographic location.

By comparison, at least based on what we’ve seen so far, Silent Hill: Townfall is shaping up to be the moodiest of what is already an intensely introspective series. In a way, many Silent Hill sequels have been chasing the melancholia and self-confrontational themes that the original Silent Hill 2 did so well in 2001. In that sense, Townfall feels like a clear spiritual successor but standing on its own with its first-person gameplay and greater focus on evasion over constant combat.

Konami has consistently put out its Silent Hill games since its 2024 resurgence in time for Halloween and Silent Hill: Townfall is no different in its release strategy. Compared to Silent Hill f, this is a game that hews closer to the familiar aesthetics of the series (albeit in Scotland) but still feels fresh and accessible to newcomers. Any venerable video game franchise needs to evolve with the times and Silent Hill has done this the most visibly since its return, with Townfall getting us excited for another deep dive into the fog.

And, at the very least, make us ready to feel things again.

Developed by Screen Burn Interactive and published by Konami and Annapurna Interactive, Silent Hill: Townfall will be released September 24 for PlayStation 5 and PC.

Supergirl Review: Milly Alcock Rocks in Uneven Space Western Mashup

Director Craig Gillespie, known for I, Tonya (2017) and Cruella (2021), ventures into superhero territory for the first time with the second film in the revamped DC Universe, Supergirl. Written by Ana Nogueira and drawing heavily on Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s Woman of Tomorrow graphic novel, the film makes for an engaging if ultimately shallow intergalactic adventure, and something of a disappointment after last year’s Superman.

There are definitely aspects to admire about Gillespie’s approach to Supergirl, and chief amongst them is Milly Alcock’s casting as Kara Zor-El. The Australian actress, in her first lead film role, completely owns the screen, delivering a charismatic, punk rock take on the Last Daughter of Krypton. From the moment she first appears, nursing a hangover and cosmic regrets, Alock commands a perfect balance of natural vulnerability and a gritty, fierce edge. She brings a badass, cute, girly‑pop energy that’s lightyears away from David Corenswet’s squeaky clean Superman.

The film around her, however, plays like a speed run through King and Evely’s universally praised book. It isn’t exactly a reinterpretation, nor a direct adaptation, but something in between: it captures the aesthetic, a few major plot beats, and the overall attitude, yet loses much of the emotional depth, worldbuilding, and thematic weight that made the comic such a defining storyline for Kara.

Like that book, the film opens with a rougher and more reckless version of Supergirl than audiences might be accustomed to. While Clark embodies optimistic, nerdy idealism, Kara comes across as a grumpy Kryptonian with prickly emotional scars. Beneath her sarcasm, attitude, and bravado, Alcock authentically captures the trauma that defines the character, keeping the heart as visible as the anger.

Celebrating her 23rd birthday—a curious change from the character’s 21st birthday in the book, perhaps to wallpaper over all that drinking?—Kara begins the story by traveling through space with her dog Krypto. They leave Earth often for these interstellar bar crawls because planets with a red sun suppress their powers. In other words, it lets her get drunk! It also allows her to cross paths with Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a young girl seeking revenge against Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts) for murdering her family. Reluctantly agreeing to help, Kara embarks with Ruthye on a galaxy‑spanning quest filled with bounty hunters, outlaws, and difficult moral dilemmas.

The strongest element is the central performances of Alcock and Ridley, as well as how they’re framed in moments of intense spotlight. During one of the film’s most striking vignettes, Kara escapes into space, hovering in the orbit above an alien planet. By herself in negative space, Alcock erupts in a silent scream that no one could literally hear. All the while, the film remains fixated on a single tear Kara leaves floating across the aether. It’s one of the film’s most powerful sequences, hinging on Alcock’ tightening expression and capturing the suppressed grief and rage beneath her stubborn exterior.

Another strength of the film is its worldbuilding and creature design, which is anchored by DP Rob Hardy, production designer Neil Lamont, costume designers Anna B. Sheppard and Michael Mooney, and VFX supervisor Geoffrey Baumann. The film’s blend of practical and visual effects, substantial physical sets, striking costumes, trippy and tactile alien creatures, and intricate makeup, creates a visually rich space Western aesthetic that feels far larger and more diverse than Superman’s Earthbound narrative.

The film spans Krypton, ruined cities, intergalactic bus stops, and numerous alien frontiers, each with its own identity. Furthermore, the costumes are both grounded yet faithful to the comics. Shepherd and Mooney elected to emphasize movement, flexibility, and performance, with their signature key design choice being to keep Supergirl’s iconic skirt and the character’s unmistakable silhouette.

However, much of this worldbuilding and artistry is in service of a film that still feels uneven at times and tonally discordant. Many of the supporting characters are jobbers, lifeless figures with little depth, and the visual effects can be inconsistent. While the practical locations and designs are often impressive, some CGI‑heavy sequences look unfinished or overly artificial, diluting the poetic beauty of Evely’s imagery on the page.

The most noticeable CGI element proves to be Krypto the Superdog, a fully animated character. The visual effects team used motion and emotional references from James Gunn’s own rescue dog Ozu to bring Krypto to life in both this film and Superman, but while the design prioritizes realistic canine anatomy and movement, the character sometimes slips into less convincing territory during faster or more complex scenes. Krypto, like the film, can at times get caught in an uncanny valley caught between two suns.

The fact Supergirl actually has those two suns of different hues in the third act shows that the film understands the comic’s imagery, but not always its heart. While it recreates some plot points from Woman of Tomorrow, it often strips away the elements that gave those moments emotional weight, reducing them to surface‑level sequences defined by exposition instead of empathy. Core thematic ideas such as grief, vengeance, mercy, and moral growth are present in outline, but they rarely develop with the same nuance.

A major part of what’s lost is the richness of the journey itself. The comic is a true galaxy-spanning odyssey in which Kara and Ruthye travel from world to world, encountering dragons, centaurs, strange civilizations, and surreal alien cultures, such as the segregated blue or purple people‑skinned societies. These encounters aren’t filler but essential to the themes, reinforcing the brutality of the universe and deepening the story’s ideas about grief and forgiveness. In contrast, the film condenses this journey into a literal three-day race against the clock, removing much of the fantastical poetry of the book. Instead of fully engaging with its themes of prejudice and genocide and the horrifying actions of Krem’s villainous Brigands, it glosses over a hinted‑at human-trafficking subplot, specifically involving young girls, which is never fully unpacked.

This condensing also weakens the character dynamics and moral stakes. Kara’s arc on the page is shaped through repeated choices toward compassion as she tries to steer Ruthye away from revenge, culminating in devastating realizations. Without that pacing and scope, the film struggles to replicate the richness of the book.

Even so, Ruthye remains one of the film’s strongest elements, thanks to Ridley’s performance and clear chemistry with Alcock. However, her emotional arc is significantly weakened by its brevity. The movie speeds through Ruthye’s family life, her relationship with her parents, and the inciting murder, whereas the comic spends time establishing her bond with her parents and the depth of her grief. As a result, the stakes feel thinner, and even her fighting abilities come across as inconsistent rather than carefully developed.

A similar issue affects Kara’s backstory and the portrayal of Argo City, the last outpost of Krypton that spent years floating through space after the rest of the planet evaporated. This backstory is crucial to understanding why Supergirl differs so sharply from Superman. Although the film depicts Argo City, Kara’s father, radiation poisoning, and Krypton’s destruction, it rarely lingers long enough for these elements to fully resonate. Key aspects such as Argo’s forcefield, the city’s slow decline, and Kara witnessing the death of her people amount to only a handful of scenes. These flashback sequences are striking, but are almost dumped in montage on the viewer instead of being deeply woven into the narrative.

The film’s villains are further underdeveloped. Krem is framed as the central antagonist, but Schoenaerts’ performance is generic and the character underwritten. Krem functions more like a henchman than a truly formidable threat. By diluting the heinous, genocidal elements of the Brigands on the page, the villains as a whole lose their sense of danger. Meanwhile Jason Momoa’s cameoing Lobo, a space biker bounty hunter, plays as largely unnecessary fan service. He’s entertaining to watch, but ultimately distracting from the core Kara‑and‑Ruthye journey.

Tonally, the film plays it safe. It leans on cookiecutter storytelling beats, avoids risk, and lacks the imagination and visual splendor of the source material. The comic’s strange, mythic, and sometimes horrifying universe is traded for a more PG‑friendly structure that flattens. Even the humor and music don’t consistently land, with the jokes often feeling mistimed while the stylized girly‑pop soundtrack and slow‑motion sequences sometimes seem more interested in “cool moments” than meaningful ones.

If it sounds like we’re being overly harsh, there are again many individually strong elements to enjoy: Alcock’s consistently magnetic performance, how it’s implemented in scenes reflecting on Kara’s trauma, every time Ruthye looks up at her unlikely role model in awe, and plenty of Krypto’s usual charm. But Supergirl is an adaptation that seems more interested in recreating the highlights of Woman of Tomorrow rather than understanding why they mattered. The world is beautiful, the cast is excellent, and there are flashes of genuine emotion, but beneath the style lies a surprisingly shallow take on one of DC’s most heartfelt stories.

Supergirl is in theaters on Friday, June 26.

Batman: Caped Crusader Season 2 Trailer Promises More Deep Cut Villains

The least surprising part of the first trailer for season 2 of the Prime Video series Batman: Caped Crusader occurs in the last few seconds. That’s where the Joker makes his presence known, dropping a few cryptic lines before unleashing his signature laugh. Even before the Clown Prince of Crime’s reveal, the trailer is full of familiar faces. In particular, the Riddler presents himself as the season’s big bad, joined by Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.

Most Batman projects feature at least one of these baddies, the most frequent escapees from Arkham Asylum. But Caped Crusader is a spiritual sequel to Batman: The Animated Series, and we expect more than just obvious picks from Bruce Timm. Fortunately, the trailer doesn’t let us down in that regard, giving glimpses of Roxy Rocket, Mad Hatter, Firefly, Man-Bat, and potentially the Mad Monk, all characters who can get in animation the respect never extended to them in the comics.

Some of the best episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and its continuation, The New Batman Adventures, featured minor villains. Most notably, the two-parter “Heart of Ice” turned Mr. Freeze from a sad Captain Cold knock-off into a tragic figure. “The Clock King” turned a charter member of Justice League Antartica into a criminal genius, “Fire from Olympus” made us fear Maxie Zeus, and “Mean Seasons” joined with The Long Halloween to transform the Calendar Man a terrifying killer.

Caped Crusader already continued that tradition in season 1, pitting its younger Batman (voiced by Hamish Linklater of Midnight Mass) against nobodies like Nocturna and Firebug. These stories worked, in part, because Timm and fellow showrunner James Tucker took liberties with the original designs, reworking them to fit the show’s 1940s aesthetic. They even took that approach with popular characters, with Timm reimagining his creation Harley Quinn as an icy, emotionless figure dressed in yellow.

Timm will be reworking another one of his original creations for Caped Crusader‘s second season, turning Roxy Rocket from the spunky, bomber jacket-wearing gal he and Paul Dini introduced in The New Batman Adventures into an Iron Man homage, clad in yellow armor. Mad Hatter also gets reimagined, changed from a creepy man who uses mind-controlling hats to an older woman who harangues Batman on her talk show.

Yet, the most interesting deep pulls are those we don’t yet know much about. Man-Bat appears to be pretty close to his comic book design, but The Animated Series gave the character one of his best stories with its premiere episode, “On Leather Wings.” Moving away from season one’s Firebug, Caped Crusader seems to be using Firefly, who may or may not have his signature jetpack. Then, there’s someone in a red cloak, leading a group of followers. This appears to be the Mad Monk, albeit redesigned to resemble Batman. Introduced in 1939’s Detective Comics #31, the Mad Monk is the second supervillain to ever appear in a Batman story.

None of these characters will likely get too much attention, not with Riddler and Poison Ivy, here presented as classic noir gangsters, waging war on Gotham and Joker waiting to attack. But even in small doses, these bad guys can have an impact on Caped Crusader that they’ve never had in the comics.

Batman: Caped Crusader season two debuts on Prime Video on July 31, 2026.

14 Movies That Would End in Ten Minutes With Modern Tech

A lot of the tension a movie brings forward depends on the time it was made. Before the widespread use of cars and trains, simply traveling from one place to another was a challenge in and of itself, let alone what we can do today with modern technology.

This is why it’s fun to think how movies of old (and some not that old) view challenges that are simple nuances today. Widespread use of smartphones, GPS tracking and other tech marvels make our lives easier, and our plots redundant. These are movies completely solved by today’s technology.

Phone Booth

A modern version of Phone Booth collapses almost immediately. Once the caller is pinned down, mobile networks, CCTV feeds, and real-time police dispatch systems would quickly triangulate the location. The enclosed psychological standoff depends on obsolete isolation that no longer exists.

Dogma

Dogma’s early catalyst relies on ignorance about a fictional destination and blind pilgrimage. Today, a few minutes of online searching would confirm the nonexistence of the claimed John Hughes inspired town, preventing the journey and dissolving the premise before it starts.

Eurotrip

Eurotrip’s entire structure breaks under modern travel tech. Real-time translation apps, cheap flight aggregators, GPS navigation, and ride services remove the need for improvised cross-Europe wandering. The characters would simply follow optimized routes with constant digital guidance.

Home Alone

Home Alone hinges on a child being accidentally cut off from communication. Modern phones, family tracking apps, and security systems would instantly reveal the oversight. Even basic smart home alerts and neighbor surveillance would expose intruders far earlier than in the original scenario.

One Hour Photo

One Hour Photo depends on quiet, unnoticed intrusion into a customer’s life. Today, digital photo storage, automated cloud syncing, and metadata tracking would reduce the role of physical film development entirely, eliminating the central access point for the character’s fixation.

Jackie Brown

Jackie Brown’s carefully staged money transfer and surveillance evasion would be heavily disrupted by modern tracking systems. Mobile location data, pervasive CCTV, and banking alerts would make coordinating a cash-based exchange significantly harder to execute without rapid detection.

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle loses its premise with GPS navigation and restaurant mapping. The entire cross-city search for a single fast-food location becomes trivial, with instant directions, reviews, and delivery options removing the need for any chaotic journey.

Gone Girl

Gone Girl’s disappearance plot relies on limited public visibility and fragmented evidence. In a modern suburban environment filled with doorbell cameras, traffic surveillance, and phone tracking, her movements would likely be reconstructed quickly, making a clean vanishing act far more difficult.

You’ve Got Mail

You’ve Got Mail’s mistaken identity romance depends on anonymity in early internet communication. Today, video calls, profile verification, and cross-platform identity linking would immediately reveal who the participants are, resolving the misunderstanding long before emotional stakes can develop.

Scream

Scream depends on landline calls, isolated victims, and slow information flow. Modern smartphones, caller ID, and constant social connectivity would expose the caller’s identity far more easily. The killer would need a fundamentally different method to maintain suspense or control encounters.

WarGames

WarGames relies on early computing isolation and limited system awareness. Modern military networks with AI monitoring, intrusion detection, and automated response protocols would detect and contain unauthorized access attempts long before they escalate into global simulation scenarios.

Cast Away

Cast Away depends on complete communication absence. Today, satellite emergency beacons, GPS-enabled cargo systems, and portable communication devices would allow distress signals to be sent early, dramatically shortening the period of total isolation.

The Blair Witch Project

The Blair Witch Project requires total loss of orientation and communication. Modern smartphones with GPS, offline maps, and emergency location sharing would prevent prolonged disappearance, while constant recording would also document events in a way that removes ambiguity.

Speed

Speed’s tension relies on delayed response and limited situational awareness. With modern GPS tracking, live transit monitoring, and coordinated tactical communication, authorities would likely identify the vehicle’s route and intervene far faster than the original narrative allows.

The 14 Weirdest Jobs Movie Characters Somehow Held Down

Movie characters have every kind of job imaginable, but every so often, Hollywood invents careers that sound like they were pulled out of a hat. Of course, some of these professions are real, and others are meant to be a joke; they all still feel like they can only happen in the movie’s fictional universe.

These jobs are weird enough to steal the scene despite barely being the focus. Whether they existed in real life or were exaggerated for comedy, they’re the kinds of careers you never expect to hear someone casually mention.

The Big Lebowski – Los Angeles Slacker

The Dude technically survives on unemployment checks and the occasional odd job, but his “career” mostly seems to consist of bowling, drinking White Russians, and somehow getting dragged into increasingly bizarre situations.

Burn After Reading – CIA Gym Employee

Linda Litzke works at a fitness center, but her job quickly expands into amateur espionage, blackmail, and government intrigue. For someone whose official title is gym employee, she has an unusually eventful workweek.

Office Space – Software Consultant

Peter Gibbons has one of those vaguely defined corporate jobs where even he struggles to explain what he actually does. His position becomes a running joke about meaningless office work.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty – Negative Assets Manager

Walter Mitty’s job is managing photographic negatives for Life magazine. It’s an oddly specific position that sounds completely fictional until you remember how magazines operated before digital photography.

Thank You for Smoking – Tobacco Lobbyist

Nick Naylor’s official job is convincing people that cigarettes aren’t so bad. Being a professional spokesperson for the tobacco industry makes for one of cinema’s strangest white-collar careers.

The Terminal – Airport Construction Inspector

Frank Dixon spends the entire film obsessing over airport regulations and renovation schedules. His incredibly specialized administrative role somehow turns him into Viktor Navorski’s greatest obstacle.

Joe Versus the Volcano – Lightning Safety Inspector

Joe Banks works as a lightning safety inspector at a factory, a position so oddly specific that it feels completely invented. The movie never questions its existence, making it even funnier.

The Devil Wears Prada – Second Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief

Andy Sachs lands a job with a title so specific it sounds fabricated. Her duties range from journalism to personal errands, proving the role is far stranger than the title suggests.

Up in the Air – Corporate Downsizer

Ryan Bingham flies around the country firing employees on behalf of companies unwilling to do it themselves. It’s an incredibly niche profession that somehow supports an entire career.

Michael Clayton – Legal Fixer

Michael Clayton isn’t a lawyer in the traditional sense. His job is cleaning up disasters for a law firm before they become public, making him equal parts consultant, negotiator, and crisis manager.

The Hudsucker Proxy – Mailroom Timer

One of the executives is responsible for timing how quickly mail moves through the company. It’s exactly the kind of absurdly narrow corporate position only a Coen-style satire could invent.

The Shape of Water – Government Laboratory Cleaner

Elisa works as a nighttime janitor in a secret government research facility. It’s already an unusual workplace before she unexpectedly finds herself caring for an imprisoned amphibious humanoid.

Fight Club – Automobile Recall Specialist

The Narrator calculates whether companies should recall defective cars after fatal accidents. It’s a chillingly specific actuarial job that perfectly reflects the film’s critique of corporate life.

World War Z – United Nations Investigator

Gerry Lane isn’t a soldier or scientist. He’s a former UN investigator whose oddly specialized background somehow makes him humanity’s best hope during a global zombie pandemic.

15 TV Scenes That Give Us the Chills Every Time We Watch

TV shows are at their best when we remember them as a whole, a package that tells a long form story that moves us in different ways. Yet certain scenes have consolidated the power of entire seasons into a single moment, through shock or iconic moments alone.

These moments are, of course, only iconic thanks to the shows that they are tied to. It’s our commitment to the show and understanding of its symbology that makes these scenes great. Yet once you understand the context, you can stop but look at them differently, remembering the impact they had.

“I Am the One Who Knocks” – Breaking Bad

Walter White’s furious declaration to Skyler transformed him from desperate chemistry teacher into a man fully embracing Heisenberg. Bryan Cranston’s performance makes this speech just as intimidating on every rewatch.

The Red Wedding – Game of Thrones

The massacre at the Twins remains one of television’s most shocking sequences. Even when you know exactly what’s coming, the mounting tension and devastating payoff never lose their emotional power.

“Not Penny’s Boat” – Lost

Charlie Pace’s final message through the porthole became one of Lost’s defining moments. The quiet sacrifice and Michael Giacchino’s score combine for an unforgettable farewell.

The Elevator Ride – Mad Men

After years of unresolved tension, Don Draper and Peggy Olson silently share an elevator following Peggy’s departure from Sterling Cooper. Their restrained exchange says more than pages of dialogue ever could.

The Spear Catch – Vikings

When Ragnar catches King Aelle’s spear in midair and throws it back without breaking stride, the moment perfectly captures why he inspired such loyalty. It’s an effortlessly cool scene that still gives fans goosebumps.

Ozymandias’ Confession – Watchmen

Adrian Veidt calmly explains that he carried out his plan thirty-five minutes earlier. The reveal completely flips the traditional superhero confrontation and remains one of television’s boldest endings.

Captain Flint’s Monologue – Black Sails

Flint’s speech about civilization creating monsters perfectly captures the themes of Black Sails. Toby Stephens delivers the monologue with such conviction that it remains endlessly rewatchable.

The Final Conversation – The Americans

Philip and Elizabeth’s garage confrontation with Stan Beeman delivers unbearable tension without a single punch being thrown. Years of friendship and deception collide in one extraordinary scene.

“The Constant” Phone Call – Lost

Desmond finally reaches Penny after years apart. The emotional phone conversation, anchored by Henry Ian Cusick and Sonya Walger, is widely considered one of the greatest scenes in television history.

The Bent-Neck Lady Reveal – The Haunting of Hill House

The revelation of the Bent-Neck Lady completely reframes the entire series. The heartbreaking twist transforms one of television’s scariest ghosts into one of its most tragic characters, making every rewatch even more powerful.

Saul’s Courtroom Confession – Better Call Saul

Jimmy McGill abandons the deal of a lifetime and publicly accepts responsibility for his actions. Bob Odenkirk’s restrained performance gives the finale an emotional payoff years in the making.

“The Body” – Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Rather than relying on supernatural threats, The Body confronts grief with brutal realism. The quiet moment when Buffy discovers her mother’s body remains devastating on every viewing.

The Lighthouse Revelation – Midnight Mass

Father Paul’s confession about the “angel” completely reframes everything happening on Crockett Island. Hamish Linklater’s mesmerizing performance makes the revelation both terrifying and strangely beautiful.

The Final Montage – Six Feet Under

Few television finales have matched the emotional impact of Six Feet Under. Watching each main character’s eventual fate unfold to Sia’s “Breathe Me” remains a deeply moving experience.

Sherlock Faces Moriarty – Sherlock

The rooftop confrontation at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital is the culmination of Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty’s rivalry. Benedict Cumberbatch and Andrew Scott elevate a simple conversation into unforgettable television.

15 Actors Only Your Grandparents Could Name

Every generation has its movie stars. While today’s audiences instantly recognize modern A-listers, previous generations had icons whose fame once rivaled anything Hollywood produces now. These actors filled theaters, won Oscars, and became household names, only to gradually fade from popular conversation as decades passed.

Their influence remains enormous, but many younger movie fans would struggle to identify them by name. Ask your grandparents, however, and you’ll probably hear stories about standing in line to see their latest films. These stars dominated the silver screen in their day, even if time has made them far less familiar to modern audiences.

Richard Widmark

Richard Widmark became famous for playing intense villains before evolving into one of Hollywood’s most dependable leading men. His performances defined film noir and westerns, though his name is far less familiar today.

Dana Andrews

One of the defining stars of 1940s Hollywood, Dana Andrews headlined classics like Laura and The Best Years of Our Lives. Once a major box-office draw, he is rarely discussed by younger audiences.

Van Johnson

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer built Van Johnson into one of its biggest stars during the 1940s. His friendly screen persona made him immensely popular, though his fame has faded considerably over the decades.

Robert Mitchum

Known for his effortless cool and unmistakable voice, Robert Mitchum became a legend through noirs and westerns. While film enthusiasts still admire him, casual audiences often overlook his enormous influence.

Jean Arthur

Jean Arthur was one of the most beloved actresses of the 1930s and 1940s, starring in classics alongside Hollywood’s biggest names. Today, her work is remembered mostly by classic film enthusiasts.

Glenn Ford

Glenn Ford successfully balanced westerns, dramas, and comedies across four decades. He was once among Hollywood’s most reliable leading men, but modern viewers rarely recognize his name.

Ann Sheridan

Nicknamed “The Oomph Girl,” Ann Sheridan became one of Warner Bros.’ brightest stars during the Golden Age. Despite her popularity at the time, she has largely disappeared from mainstream recognition.

Victor Mature

Victor Mature headlined biblical epics, noirs, and adventure films throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Although enormously successful during his career, he is far less remembered than many contemporaries.

Burt Lancaster

Burt Lancaster won an Academy Award and starred in countless classics, from Elmer Gantry to The Leopard. His legacy remains strong among cinephiles, but younger audiences often overlook him.

Deborah Kerr

Deborah Kerr built an extraordinary career through films like From Here to Eternity and The King and I. Despite multiple Oscar nominations, her name no longer carries the recognition it once did.

Richard Conte

Richard Conte became one of film noir’s defining faces before appearing memorably in The Godfather. His performances remain admired, even if modern audiences rarely remember the actor behind them.

Jane Greer

Best known for Out of the Past, Jane Greer became one of noir’s quintessential femme fatales. Her influence on the genre remains significant despite her relative obscurity today.

Edmond O’Brien

An Academy Award winner and prolific character actor, Edmond O’Brien appeared in dozens of major films. His face remains recognizable to classic movie fans even when his name does not.

Walter Pidgeon

Walter Pidgeon was one of MGM’s most respected leading men, earning multiple Oscar nominations throughout a career spanning decades. He was once a marquee attraction but is now largely forgotten outside classic cinema.

Gene Tierney

Gene Tierney captivated audiences with films like Laura and Leave Her to Heaven. One of the most admired actresses of her generation, she deserves to be remembered far more often than she is today.

15 People Who Might Just Be the Coolest in the History of the World

What defines how cool someone was? Well, public perception more than anything else. So when deciding who was the coolest person in history, it all comes down to who you’re asking. If you’re asking us, we can’t just name a single person, since history is filled with legendary individuals.

Thanks to their achievements, these figures continue to fascinate long after their deaths. Coolness is impossible to measure, but some names come up again and again whenever people discuss the most remarkable individuals to ever walk the Earth. Here are some of history’s strongest contenders, in no particular order.

Marcus Aurelius

Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius ruled one of history’s greatest empires while writing the Stoic reflections that became Meditations. Leading armies by day and contemplating virtue by night has made him an enduring symbol of wisdom.

Gautama Buddha

After abandoning a life of luxury in search of enlightenment, Gautama Buddha founded one of the world’s major religions. His teachings on compassion and mindfulness continue to influence billions more than two millennia later.

Sir Christopher Lee

Christopher Lee fought in World War II, became a horror icon, played unforgettable villains, recorded heavy metal albums, and kept acting into his nineties. Few lives combined adventure and artistry quite like his.

David Attenborough

For generations, David Attenborough has introduced audiences to the natural world with unmatched enthusiasm and knowledge. His lifelong dedication to wildlife education has made him one of the most admired broadcasters in history.

Fred Rogers

Fred Rogers believed kindness was a strength rather than a weakness. Through Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he spent decades teaching empathy, emotional intelligence, and respect to millions of children.

Public Universal Friend

Born in colonial America, the Public Universal Friend rejected their birth name after a near-death experience and lived as a genderless religious leader. Their remarkable life challenged social expectations centuries ahead of its time.

John Brown

John Brown devoted his life to ending slavery, ultimately leading the raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. Though controversial in his own era, his unwavering commitment made him a lasting historical figure.

Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix transformed electric guitar playing in just a few short years. His innovative sound, unforgettable performances, and fearless creativity permanently changed rock music despite his tragically brief career.

Hildegard von Bingen

A medieval abbess, composer, scientist, philosopher, and visionary, Hildegard von Bingen excelled across disciplines rarely accessible to women of her era. Her influence still reaches music, theology, and natural history.

Robert Smalls

Born into slavery, Robert Smalls escaped by commandeering a Confederate ship and delivering it to Union forces. He later served in Congress, becoming one of the Civil War’s most extraordinary heroes.

Miyamoto Musashi

Japan’s legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi reportedly fought dozens of duels without defeat. His writings in The Book of Five Rings continue to influence martial artists, military strategists, and business leaders alike.

Tom Waits

With his gravelly voice, unforgettable songwriting, and refusal to follow industry trends, Tom Waits built one of music’s most distinctive careers. His artistic independence remains as admired as his albums.

Steve Irwin

Steve Irwin’s enthusiasm for wildlife conservation inspired millions to appreciate animals rather than fear them. His infectious energy and genuine love of nature made him an internationally beloved television personality.

Samuel Clemens

Better known as Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens combined razor-sharp wit with timeless storytelling. His adventures, lectures, and satirical observations made him one of America’s most colorful literary figures.

David Bowie

David Bowie constantly reinvented himself, embracing new musical styles and artistic identities throughout his career. His willingness to challenge convention made him one of popular culture’s most influential and enduring icons.

Supergirl’s Milly Alcock Reveals Favorite Scene from Woman of Tomorrow Comics

This week’s upcoming Supergirl movie starring Milly Alcock and directed by Craig Gillespie isn’t entirely adapted from Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s famed graphic novel, per se, but it’s heavily influenced by it. And if you’ve ever cracked open Woman of Tomorrow and its sci-fi, space-opera riff on True Grit, it’s easy to see why.

Even Milly Alcock admits to being blown away when she first devoured the book in preparation—and on social media—for Supergirl.

“It’s such a visceral world, it’s so vivid, and I was so seduced by the colors and the imagery of the world Tom King and Bilquis Evely presented,” Alcock tells us when we catch up in Beverly Hills. “Also the story was so surprising, I did not expect to read a comic book and find this messy, resilient, and incredibly kind person within the book.”

That emphasis on messy, and kind, is the recipe Alcock, Gillespie, and screenwriter Ana Nogueira are specifically following for a Supergirl movie that feels distinct from many other caped movies out there. While the marketing has obviously emphasized the space adventure aspect of the tale, which echoes producer James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy at Marvel Studios, the actual Kara Zor-El film has a fairly somber and wistful tone.

The colors of Evely’s pages were eschewed in favor of a grungier, faintly dystopian aesthetic by Gillespie—whose vision has been compared not unfairly to Mad Max—but the core narrative of the book remains: a disaffected and traumatized superheroine gets roped into a road-trip journey with a young girl named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) after Ruthye’s family is slain by a space brigand. One element that especially carries over is witnessing the action from Ruthye’s POV.

Nogueira tells us framing the set pieces this way was another Gillespie choice, but the broader sense of adapting the graphic novel’s narrative with a child’s perspective was something the screenwriter brought to the material before a director was ever attached.

“It’s because Kara doesn’t feel extraordinary in her own life,” Nogueira explains about the two-hander nature of the story. “She feels like she’s less than, but in the eyes of this little girl she is the most incredible being Ruthye has ever come across, and so it was important to see Kara through the eyes of that child, and hopefully Kara can eventually see herself through the eyes of that child and learn to love herself and accept this mantle that feels so large.”

Indeed, Alcock reveals to us and Nogueira both that her favorite scene in the book is a simple sequence where King’s prose takes a backseat and Evely meticulously draws across two pages Kara teaching Ruthye, a provincial from a planet that is a cross between the Old West and feudal Japan, how to use running water.

“My favorite scene within the comic book is the scene where Kara teaches Ruthye how to wash her hands,” Alcock says. “That broke my heart, because it gave me such an insight into this person who has such extremities to care for others, I just adored it.”

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An appreciation for the source material seems acute on this one, though, with co-star Jason Momoa getting to live his own adolescent fantasy by at last playing Lobo, the space-biker bounty hunter. Technically Lobo isn’t in King and Evely’s Woman of Tomorrow, but it proved true to another comic fan’s vision.

“I remember the walls of my comic book store in Iowa, and I remember being there with a friend who was the guy who introduced me to everything,” Momoa muses. “I don’t remember which one I got first. At that time I just bought a bunch of stuff, and it was just tons and tons of comic books.”

The ones featuring Lobo cumulatively left an impression on the Hawaiian actor, too, who originally lobbied to play the bounty hunter years ago before being cast instead as Aquaman in Zack Snyder’s version of the DC Universe in the 2010s. And it was also Momoa who directly texted James Gunn when news first trickled out that Gunn was probably rebooting the DCU in this decade. Much of the iconography we associate with Lobo—the motorcycle, the cigar, the leather—is here, as are elements that the actor invented wholecloth, such as giving Lobo basically metal talons on his fingers.

“It’s just more weapons,” says Momoa. “I think it’s just fun to be able to rip someone’s face off with claws. He’s got the fangs and everything, he’s just a big beast…. he’s a Grizzly Bear.”

Momoa seems to be a genuine fan of the material. When we even mention an infamous comic book story wherein Lobo is hired by the Easter Bunny, the actor interjects “to kill Santa Claus” before we finish our sentence. With that said, he’s not sure his Lobo would take that job.

“I mean, it’s tough to say. I like Santa Claus,” Momoa laughs. “I’m a fan of the character. But sure, I think there should be something funny in there, and Santa should definitely be in there, and I should definitely give him the eye.”

Of course not everything that works in a comic book works in a movie and vice versa. Some of this is due to commercial considerations, such as the fact that while Tom King’s Kara swears like a sailor, Alcock’s is only permitted one F-bomb in a PG-13 rating. Hence why they shot multiple scenes where Alcock dropped the four-letter word, leaving choices in the final edit.

“I had a favorite but it didn’t get in, it didn’t make the final cut,” Alcock sighs with a chuckle. “I can’t say what it is, because it might spoil things, but yeah, I had a favorite, and it didn’t make it in.”

It’s apparently the same as Nogueira’s, who half-jokingly teases that maybe on the Blu-ray they will include “all the F-bombs that we had.”

Other elements that are left out of the film are, perhaps, more fantastical, such as Supergirl’s winged Pegasus-like horse who can soar through the cosmos, Comet. Then again, while the magical steed (and his shockingly complex backstory) is not in Supergirl, the screenwriter doesn’t rule out the possibility of revisiting the character down the road.

“The Comet situation,” explains the screenwriter, “needs its own [story]—the reason it’s not here is there are certain things you need to move away from, but they need their own run to let the rest of the audience know about him.”

Perhaps in another movie Kara can form her own team of super-pets with Krypto the Super-Dog and Comet the Space Horse?

Supergirl is in theaters on Friday, June 26.

Marvel Rivals’ Biggest Roster Problem Isn’t Mutants, It’s Role Balance

Any X-Men fan knows that the team just isn’t complete without a certain optic-blaster. Thankfully, the NetEase Games developers behind Marvel Rivals seem to feel the same way. On June 12, Cyclops made his debut in the team-based hero shooter as part of the game’s season 8.5 update, finally bringing the X-Men’s field leader to the game’s hero roster.

Other than excitement for such a fun character, Cyclops’ arrival ignited a steadily growing debate within the community: is Marvel Rivals adding too many mutants? It’s not an unreasonable concern at first glance…until one takes into account that there are 51 playable characters in the game and only 13 of them are mutants.

Simply put, Marvel Rivals doesn’t have a mutant problem, it has a role balance problem. In fact, focusing on the mutant count distracts from what has increasingly been the game’s even deeper roster issue: the growing divide between damage dealers, tanks, and supports.

That imbalance stems from the ever-expanding Duelist roster. As more DPS heroes are added, and Vanguard and Strategist additions remain relatively scarce, team compositions become harder to balance. In recent seasons, this has created problems that have a much greater impact on actual matches than whether a character comes from the X-Men or Avengers.

To understand why Marvel Rivals’ growing Duelist roster is becoming a problem, it’s important to first understand how team compositions work in hero shooters, and what Duelist, Vanguard, and Strategists even are for those unfamiliar with the game.

Often shortened to “team comp,” team composition refers to a combination of roles and skills a team chooses in order to create balance and achieve a shared goal, often protecting a moving convey or maintaining control of a designated area. While individual skill matters and can either make or break a match, games like Marvel Rivals are designed around teams filling different responsibilities in order to create synergy.

Marvel Rivals divides its playable characters, or “heroes,” into three primary roles: Vanguard, Duelist, and Strategist.

Vanguards serve as the game’s tanks, using their durability and defensive abilities to create space for teammates and to absorb incoming damage.

Duelists are the damage dealers, often referred to as DPS (damage per second), whose primary job is securing eliminations and applying offensive pressure.

Strategists act as supports, offering healing, buffs, crowd control, and other utilities that help keep a team alive.

Because each role serves a different and specific purpose, Marvel Rivals team comps function best on a 2-2-2 structure: two Vanguards, two Duelists, and two Strategists. This arrangement gives teams enough frontline presence to contest other players and protect convoys, enough damage output to win fights, and ensures equal healing to sustain pushes and survive enemy pressure.

The problem arises when too many players gravitate towards the same role because of the lack of options in other roles. A team with four Duelists might seem intimidating in theory, but without enough healing or frontline protection, those damage dealers often struggle to stay alive long enough to make any impact in a match.

That’s why many hero shooters encourage balanced role distribution through matchmaking systems or evenly spread role design. Marvel Rivals has neither.

For Marvel Rivals, team comps are entirely up to player choice. There can be a team of all healers for all anyone cares (and from experience while that is fun, it doesn’t yield the most winning results).

In theory, the freedom allows for creativity and experimentation, but in practice it often leads to teams overloaded with Duelists as they are typically the most favored role in team-based shooters.

Now compare this system to Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch, which utilizes a role queue system that requires teams to enter matches with one Tank, two Damage heroes, and two Supports. Players choose their preferred role before matchmaking begins, ensuring not only that every team starts with a functional composition but players maintain freedom of choice as well.

While some players dislike the restrictions that role queues can sometimes impose, it largely eliminates the chaos of entering a match only to discover four teammates instantly locked DPS heroes.

This issue becomes even more noticeable when comparing the makeup of each game’s roster. Marvel Rivals currently has 11 Stratigests, 13 Vanguards, and 27 DPS heroes.

Compared to Overwatch that, while having a nearly identical roster size at 52 heroes, distributes the roles much more evenly: 11 Tanks, 13 Supports, and 18 DPS heroes. While damage dealers remain the largest role in both games, one clearly dominates the roster compared to the other.

The result is a compounding problem for Marvel Rivals players that is much more frustrating than mutants. The game lacks both a system that guarantees balanced team compositions and, more frustratingly, continues to add DPS heroes to a role that players are already most likely to pick.

The last Marvel Rivals season that didn’t introduce a new Duelist was season 5 in November 2025. For those unfamiliar with the game’s update structure, each season is split into two major content drops: an X.0 update that kicks off the season with a new hero and an X.5 midseason update that introduces additional content and one more hero.

Season 5 expanded the roster with Rogue as a Vanguard and Gambit as a Strategist, giving tank and support players fresh options while keeping the game’s role distribution in check.

Since season 5, every new hero added to Marvel Rivals has been a Duelist. Three straight seasons of damage-focused additions might not sound significant at first, but when Duelists already make up the largest role in the game, every new DPS hero added pushes the roster further out of balance.

The issue isn’t that Duelists shouldn’t be added at all, either. Marvel has no shortage of iconic damage-dealing characters, and many fans have been waiting for heroes like Cyclops to arrive. What’s frustrating is that NetEase continues to prioritize DPS heroes despite having a massive pool of potential Vanguard and Strategist candidates to choose from.

Marvel’s universe is filled with characters who could easily fit the tank and support roles. For the former, characters like Doctor Doom, Luke Cage, Ghost Rider, She-Hulk, and Carnage are some fan suggestions that have been thrown around on r/marvelrivals Reddit, the first of which being nearly confirmed for the future thanks to leaks and in-game teaser appearances. For the latter, characters like Silver Surfer, Nightcrawler, Wiccan, Quicksilver, and Vision have also been wished for.

Which makes the current trend of DPS-heavy seasons so puzzling. Marvel Rivals isn’t running out of characters to add, nor is it limited by the source material when it comes to assigning roles. In fact, NetEase has already shown a willingness to get creative with role design, with characters like Ultron being reimagined as a Strategist despite being one of Marvel’s most notorious villains.

Whether the developers pull from The Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-Men, or Marvel’s extensive roster of villains, there are countless characters who could help strengthen the game’s Vanguard and Strategist lineups while generating just as much excitement as Duelist reveals.

Cyclops was a welcome addition to Marvel Rivals, and, again, there’s nothing inherently wrong with adding popular damage-dealing characters. However, if NetEase wants to improve match quality and keep players invested for the long haul, future roster expansions should place a greater emphasis on tanks and supports.

The game doesn’t need fewer mutants, it simply needs more reasons for players to choose something other than DPS.

Who Remembers That Peter Parker Is Spider-Man in Brand New Day?

At the end of 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) cast a spell that ensured no one would remember Peter Parker or that he is the MCU’s friendly neighborhood webslinger, but in Sony’s upcoming fourquel, Brand New Day, there is someone who remembers Spidey’s secret identity.

Brand New Day star Tom Holland, who is reprising the role of Spider-Man once more this summer, recently teased to IGN that the real villain of the movie is “still very much a secret” and “unlike anything we’ve seen in one of these movies before”, while also confirming that “one person” remembers Peter Parker after the events of No Way Home, stopping short of naming the character in question. Still, we have a few ideas.

Our first guess is the Hulk, and with good reason. Though Hulk seems to be in smash mode when it comes to Spidey in the latest Brand New Day trailer, and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) clearly doesn’t recall ever meeting Peter, his Jade Giant counterpart has a history of remembering secret identities, not just in the Brand New Day comics, but elsewhere, too.

In Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee’s Sentry comic book series for Marvel, Bob Reynolds (portrayed by Lewis Pullman in the Thunderbolts movie) begins to remember the Void after wiping everyone’s memory and tries to warn everyone that the Void is coming. However, no one remembers who he is, except one hero: Hulk. Having been hidden inside Banner during the memory wipe, Hulk’s memories remained intact. Could this be the case with Peter’s identity as well? After all, we do see Banner wearing a gamma inhibitor device that completely suppresses his Hulk transformation—for a while, at least.

Yet, like many of you, we’ve also heard the rumors that Sadie Sink is playing the X-Men mutant Jean Grey in Brand New Day, and that she will turn out to be the “secret” villain of the film. In the Marvel universe, magic and psionics are often written as distinct. Strange’s spell may well have worked on someone like Jean initially, but she’s powerful. Canonically, she can both alter mental pathways to repair psychic trauma and restore hidden memories. It’s totally possible that by the events of Brand New Day, Jean knows exactly who Peter is.

Of course, there are other (way more obvious) MCU characters who may know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. We just might not have all the pieces of the puzzle yet. Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher, seems to know exactly who Peter is in Brand New Day if we take the movie’s trailers at face value. There may also be other cameos in the movie that have yet to be revealed. If Doctor Strange doesn’t show up in this one, Wong (Benedict Wong) still might, as he’s done in a handful of other MCU projects. It’s far more likely that the Sorcerer Supreme himself is immune to spells cast on his memory, and he’s been keeping tabs on Earth’s Mightiest (potential) Heroes since the events of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

One more interesting possibility remains, and that’s the piece of the Venom symbiote that Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) left behind in Peter’s universe in the post-credits of No Way Home. While Brock was returned to his own universe (where people hate “murderer” Spider-Man), the piece left behind will possess its own memories, which may not have been affected. The symbiote may well have found a new host by now and could have reminded them of what was lost during Strange’s spell.

It’s fun to speculate, but we’ll find out for sure when Spider-Man: Brand New Day is released on July 31.

Movie Scenes That Still Give Us the Chills Each Time We Watch Them

Movie fans will rewatch their favourite films over and over again with a joyful smile, remembering how it felt to watch those moments for the first time. Certain scenes, however, hold the same impact no matter how many times you watch them, making them particularly special.

Here, we’ve gathered the scenes that have most impacted audiences in cinema, although it is only a small selection. Even if your standout moment isn’t here, you won’t be able to deny the iconic nature of these moments, what they meant to cinematic history, and the power they still hold over audiences.

For Frodo – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

After three films of buildup, Aragorn turns to his friends and says, “For Frodo.” The charge that follows remains one of fantasy cinema’s most emotional and inspiring moments.

Bullet Time – The Matrix

The first time Neo bends backward to dodge bullets changed action movies forever. Combined with the music and visual effects, the scene still feels like witnessing cinema reinvent itself in real time.

Maximus Reveals Himself – Gladiator

After winning in the arena, Maximus removes his helmet and announces his identity to Commodus. The mixture of triumph, rage, and fear makes it one of the most satisfying reveals ever filmed.

Barbossa Steps Into the Moonlight – The Curse of the Black Pearl

Captain Barbossa’s warning about ghost stories becomes unforgettable when moonlight reveals his skeletal form. It’s a perfect combination of atmosphere, visual effects, and delivery that still lands today.

I Just Want to Go Home – Moon

The emotional weight of Moon builds toward a heartbreaking realization. The simple desire to return home becomes devastating once the full truth of Sam Bell’s situation is revealed.

Jake Understands the Setup – Training Day

Sitting at the kitchen table, Jake slowly realizes he’s been abandoned by Alonzo. The scene is terrifying because the danger arrives through understanding rather than any particular action.

Yoda Lifts the X-Wing – The Empire Strikes Back

Yoda effortlessly raising Luke’s sunken X-Wing remains one of the defining moments of Star Wars. John Williams’ score elevates the scene into something genuinely awe-inspiring.

Gandalf Returns at Helm’s Deep – The Two Towers

As dawn breaks over Helm’s Deep, Gandalf appears exactly when hope seems lost. The combination of visuals, music, and payoff makes the sequence impossible not to feel.

The Ceasefire – Children of Men

A crying baby briefly halts a brutal urban battle. Soldiers and civilians alike stop to stare in silence, creating one of the most powerful and unexpectedly moving scenes in modern cinema.

The Stranger in the Background – The Strangers

One of horror’s most effective scares requires no loud noise. A masked stranger quietly appears behind Liv Tyler’s character and simply watches, creating unbearable tension through stillness alone.

Michael Emerges from the Darkness – Halloween

Laurie backs against a wall, unaware that Michael Myers is standing behind her. His pale mask slowly materializes from the darkness, creating one of horror’s most iconic images.

My Boy – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The return from the graveyard is horrifying, but Amos Diggory’s realization that Cedric is dead is what truly breaks the audience. His cries transform a fantasy adventure into genuine tragedy.

The T-Rex Escape – Jurassic Park

The lack of music makes every sound matter. Rain, footsteps, and the creaking fence combine to create a sequence that remains one of the most suspenseful scenes ever filmed.

The Opening Interrogation – Inglourious Basterds

Colonel Hans Landa’s conversation with the farmer begins politely and grows increasingly terrifying. The tension is almost unbearable because everyone involved understands the danger long before violence begins.