Production on Amazon's Fallout series is set to start later this year, and the cast is taking shape. Walton Goggins is taking on one of the lead roles, according to Deadline.
Amazon Studios hasn't revealed which character Goggins is portraying, but reports suggest he's playing a ghoul. A ghoul, in Fallout parlance, is someone who was mutated due to radiation exposure as a result of a nuclear war.
Goggins is perhaps best known for his work on Justified. He's currently appearing in HBO's The Righteous Gemstones and he'll soon feature in Apple TV+ series The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey.
Amazon announced the Fallout series in 2020, so although development has taken a while, things are coming together. Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy of Westworld fame created the show, and Nolan will direct the pilot episode. The executive producers include Bethesda's Todd Howard, the game director of Fallout 3 and Fallout 4.
Audiences will get another chance to watch CODA, the first Apple Original movie nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, in theaters. Apple is re-releasing the film, which is about a deaf family, in a limited run of free screenings with open captions. Directed and written by Sian Heder and featuring a primarily deaf cast, the film received three Oscar nods in total. Heder, who adapted the movie from a French film called La Famille Bélier, is also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Troy Kotsur is also nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and is the first deaf man to earn that distinction.
The film follows Ruby (played Emilia Jones) , a high school student who navigates life as the only hearing member of a deaf family in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Kotsur plays her father, a struggling fisherman attempting to connect with his daughter. Ruby’s mother is played by Marlee Matlin (best known from Children of a Lesser God and The L Word), and her older brother is played by Daniel Durant, who starred in the 2015 Broadway revival of Spring Awakening.
The screenings will run in all major cities in the US and London, beginning Friday, February 25 through Sunday, February 27. You can view a list of showtimes and theater locations here.
There are worse movies than Uncharted, especially when it comes to the seemingly cursed genre of video game adaptations. But as I struggled to stay awake through the finale — yet another weightless action sequence where our heroes quip, defy physics and never feel like they're in any genuine danger — I couldn't help but wonder why the film was so aggressively average.
Sony Pictures
The PlayStation franchise started out as a Tomb Raider clone starring a dude who wasn't Indiana Jones. But, starting with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, the games tapped into the language of action movies to put you in the center of innovative set pieces. They were cinematic in ways that few titles were in the early 2010s. But going in the opposite direction — bringing aspects of those games into a movie — doesn't work nearly as well.
Director Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Venom), along with screenwriters Rafe Lee Judkins, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, have crafted an origin story for the treasure hunter Nathan Drake (Tom Holland). It hits the notes you're expecting — his childhood as an orphan, his first team-up with his partner Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), and a globe-trotting treasure hunt that defies logic — but it's all just a Cliff's Notes version of what we've seen in the games. And for a franchise that was already a watered-down version of Indiana Jones, a movie adaptation just highlights all of its inherent flaws. Watching Uncharted made me long for the basic pleasures of Nicholas Cage's National Treasure – at least that Indy clone had personality.
Even the iconic action scenes don’t hit as hard. The film opens mid free-fall, as Drake realizes he just fell out of a plane. Discerning viewers will instantly recognize the sequence from Uncharted 3. We watch as he hops across falling cargo (and wonder if that’s even possible while everything is falling), but the entire scene feels like Tom Holland is going on the world’s most extreme Disney World ride. Without the rumble of the Dualshock 3 controller in my hand, and my responsibility over Drake’s impending death, there just aren’t any stakes. It’s particularly unexciting compared to what we’ve seen in the recent Mission Impossible movies. Tom Cruise (and skydiving camera man Craig O'Brien) jumped out of an actual plane several times for our entertainment!
Still, it's somewhat surprising that this adaptation exists at all. Sony has been trying to develop an Uncharted film since 2008, starting with a loftier iteration by arthouse auteur David O. Russell. That version was going to star Wahlberg as an older Nathan Drake, as we see him in the games, and focus on the idea of family. But the project ended up changing hands several times over the last decade. By the time it was actually gearing up for production in 2020, Wahlberg had aged out of the starring role and into the older sidekick spot. (Sorry, Super Cool Mack Daddy, it happens to all of us.)
After we've seen so many video game films completely miss the mark, like Resident Evil: Welcome to Racoon City and Assassin's Creed, I'm starting to wonder if there's some sort of secret to making a good adaptation. Different audiences want different things, after all. Game fans typically want to see the characters and sequences they love so much legitimized on film. Discerning movie geeks may be comparing adaptations to other, usually better, films. And studio executives just want existing intellectual property that they can churn out to an undiscerning public.
There are a handful of memorable video game films, but they mostly seem like flukes. The original Mortal Kombat was iconic because of its killer soundtrack and (at the time) cutting-edge special effects. Werewolves Within doesn't have much to do with the VR title it's based on, aside from its name. And Sonic the Hedgehog was a blast, but that was mostly due to its lead performances.
As an avid gamer and cinephile, I'll never give up on hoping for successful adaptations. But it could just be that the two mediums are a bit incompatible. A film can never capture the interactive magic and freedom you get from a game. And when you're playing something, heavy-handed cut scenes and direction can often take you out of the experience (unless you’re Hideo Kojima, in which case gamers will argue it’s all a work of genius).
With its cinematic roots, Uncharted had a better shot at a decent adaptation than most games. It’s just a shame that, for a series that’s about exploring new lands and discovering forgotten treasure, it offers nothing new.
Kanye West says fans won't be able to stream his next album on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music or YouTube Music. He plans to release Donda 2 exclusively on his $200 Stem Player, a portable device that makes it a cinch for users to remix music.
"Today, artists get just 12 percent of the money the industry makes," West, who claimed he rejected a $100 million deal from Apple, wrote on Instagram. "It’s time to free music from this oppressive system. It’s time to take control and build our own."
His fans might not find it easy to listen to Donda 2 legally, however. West said 67,000 units of the Stem Player are currently available, though another 3,000 are being manufactured every day.
The device can be used as a regular music player to listen to music as the artist intended. Those who want to play around with songs can control the volume on four different tracks or stems. With Donda 2, West says, users will be able to play just the vocals, drums, bass or samples, or any combination of those. The Stem Player also allows users to add effects and create loops they can reverse, speed up or slow down. Owners can upload other songs to the device through the Stem Player website.
West brought his last album, Donda,to the Stem Player, but it's available to stream elsewhere too. As with pretty much everything West says, it's worth taking this announcement with a grain (or an entire shaker) of salt until he actually releases Donda 2, which appears to have 22 tracks. Even so, it's not impossible to imagine the album winding up on other platforms later.
Nintendo is addingThe Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask to the Switch Online Expansion Pack lineup on February 25th. The classic title was first released for the Nintendo 64 in 2000, was the second Zelda game to feature 3D graphics and became one of the best-selling games at the time. It also received critical acclaim for its gameplay, writing and visuals that showed an improvement from its predecessor, Ocarina of Time.
Majora's Mask picks up from where Ocarina of Time left off, with Link finding himself in a parallel world to Hyrule called Termina. There, he learns that the mask is being used to summon the moon and destroy the world within three days.
Link is dragged into the world of Termina, where the moon is falling from the sky!
Nintendo launched Expansion Pack in October 2021 as a higher subscription tier for Switch Online. It costs $50 a year for an individual membership, or $30 more than a basic subscription. In addition to being able to enjoy the perks of basic Switch Online, Expansion Pack members are also able to access the Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis titles the gaming giant adds to its library. Plus, it gives them access to a copy of Happy Home Paradise, a $25 Animal Crossing: New Horizons DLC.
Ocarina of Time was one of Expansion Pack's launch title. Players reported experiencing emulation issues, such as bad input lag, shortly after the tier's debut, but Nintendo has released some improvement updates since then.
Facebook rebranded itself as Meta in order to fully embrace virtual reality via the Oculus platform, so how is that actually going? The company reportedly told employees that its primary social VR platform for the Oculus Quest headset, Horizon Worlds, has grown ten times to since December, according to The Verge.
Meta's chief product officer Chris Cox said that since Horizon Worlds was rolled out widely in early December in the US and Canada, its monthly user count has expanded to 300,000 people. That includes both Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues, a separate live event VR app with the same mechanics, a company spokesperson confirmed. It doesn't include the VR conferencing app Horizon Workrooms, however.
It’s time. 10,000 worlds have already been created. Drop in and play, build or just hang out. The possibilities are endless. pic.twitter.com/VWc83PkuDV
Horizon Worlds was first launched as an Oculus social platform called Facebook Horizon back in 2019, and launched into beta later on. Users appear as avatars with an upper body only, and can build their own custom worlds. Earlier this week, Meta announced that 10,000 of those worlds have been built so far and its Facebook group for creators numbers over 20,000.
The company seems intent on avoiding issues like harassment rampant in Facebook, having introduced "personal boundaries" to Horizon Worlds and Venues earlier this month. It's also dealing with technical issues as some users couldn't access Horizon Venues during a virtual Foo Fighters concert.
Still, growth so far seems solid, given that access to the site currently requires an Oculus Quest headset, with the latest Quest 2 model priced at $299. However, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta planned to bring a version of Horizon Worlds to mobile phones later in 2022 in a bid to expand the user base. Depending on how well that works, it could provide a big boost to membership.
Apple has commissioned famous Korean director Park Chan-wook to create a short film as part of its "Shot on iPhone" campaign. Park, perhaps best known for the action thriller flick Oldboy, used an iPhone 13 Pro to shoot a 20-minute fantasy martial arts movie entitled Life Is But a Dream, which the tech giant has released on YouTube.
The film starts off with horror-like elements after an undertaker digs up a grave to steal a coffin and awakens the ghost of a swordsman, who then awakens the ghost of a hero who fell after saving the undertaker's village. After that, it becomes a blend of action, romance, dark comedy, dancing and pansori, a Korean genre of musical storytelling.
Apple has also released a behind-the-scenes clip alongside the short film showing Park and his crew using an iPhone 13 Pro on gimbals and mounts for the shoot. The crew specifically praised the phone's ability to quickly shift focus, blur the background and shoot in low light. In the behind-the-scenes footage released alongside the film, Park said it's a story he's always wanted to tell and that he didn't have a specific camera in mind when he conceptualized it.
In the initial pitch for Star Trek, way back in 1964, the series was described as “Wagon Train to the Stars.” This was mostly in reference to its sense of exploration and discovery, but it also hints at something else that would become a hallmark of the series: the travel. Lots and lots of travel. It may take days, weeks or, in the case of shows like Voyager, years, for the crew to get to their destination and as such, it allows plenty of time for adventure and character growth. However, new technologies introduced in shows like Discovery and Prodigy have eliminated that travel time, fundamentally changing the nature of their plots.
That’s keenly on display in this week’s episode of Discovery, where the ship must continue their pursuit of Cleveland Booker and Ruon Tarka. Last week we discovered that the planet-killing Dark Matter Anomaly was basically a piece of mining equipment from an unknown species, and Book and Tarka’s desire to destroy it would make for a very unpleasant first contact, one that could potentially start a war. The pair had already stolen a prototype spore drive and fitted it into Book’s ship, meaning they now had access to the ability to leap across the galaxy in seconds. As the only other vessel in the fleet with a working spore drive, this meant the USS Discovery was now in the uncomfortable position of hunting down one of its own.
CBS
Some of the episode is focused on the crew’s feelings about this; Admiral Vance can’t trust Michael to hunt down her boyfriend so he even assigns Commander Nhan to the mission to step in if things get messy. There’s even some dialogue between minor crew members like Nielsen and Rhys and how they feel about the whole thing. It’s nice to see them get some screen time, but it also shows how little we get to hear from them in a typical Discovery season.
Consider how many classic episodes of the franchise took place during, or were about a long trip between planets. It’s in the title of the original series’ “Journey to Babel,” where we meet Sarek for the first time and get to see the relationship between him and his son Spock. “Data’s Day” is a Next Generation episode about a typical day in the life of Commander Data, which also involves transporting a diplomat while there’s also a wedding on board the ship. This was the first appearance of Keiko O’Brien, a character who would later go on to play a large role in Deep Space Nine when her husband was part of the main cast.
CBS
Meanwhile, the chances for our recurring characters to shine have been few and far between. Last week’s installment did have Owosekun kicking ass, but not in any way that really gave us deeper insight into her character, with her best development remaining “New Eden” back in season two. We haven’t even seen Jett Reno much this year, though that’s due to actress Tig Notaro avoiding travel during the pandemic. The background character that’s gotten the most development thus far is Airiam, who had an entire episode dedicated to her — because she was about to die.
The immediate travel time also makes itself felt with the main cast, who get to return to familiar locations on a regular basis. Starfleet Headquarters, Earth or any of the various planets the ship has visited before — nothing is off the table for a drop-in, which means that past storylines and characters like Admiral Vance can be readily revisited. That leaves even less time for the audience to get to know the rest of the crew.
CBS
It’s an interesting contrast with Prodigy, which also features super-fast engine tech, the protostar engine. It’s not instantaneous like the spore drive, but it does cut a journey that would have taken Voyager 70 years down to mere days. It’s a natural outgrowth of all the technological development we saw during Voyager’s seven seasons, as opposed to the quantum leap that the spore drive represented to Discovery’s 23rd-century setting.
But even with faster travel times, Prodigy can still focus on character development due to simply having a smaller recurring cast to deal with. On the Protostar it’s just the six kids and their holographic Janeway, and a lot of their time is spent in transit by virtue of the plot — they were on the run from the Diviner and thus couldn’t stay in one place very long, and when the show returns from its hiatus they’ll be running from the flesh-and-blood Janeway. In my interview earlier this month with showrunners Dan and Kevin Hageman, they also said they didn’t want the vessel to just be zipping around, either; there will be limits to what the ship can do, which leaves plenty of time for even more character development. (Even Murf is due for a character arc.)
CBS
After the cursory hand-wringing Discovery jumps straight into the action, with a game of cat-and-mouse as Book and Tarka pursue the DMA and the USS Discovery pursues both the DMA and Book’s ship. It’s a bit exciting, though loaded with technobabble: They can’t outrun each other so the show needs to find sci-fi tricks to keep the chase interesting. But the bulk of the action is still focused solidly on Michael, Book and Tarka, pushing a lot of the usual teamwork and ensuring character interaction usually found in Star Trek shows to the background. It’s still an interesting story, to be sure — it’s just not one that serves its recurring characters very well.
According to Deadline, Forbes Entertainment and EOne are teaming up to produce two projects — a scripted series and a documentary — around bitcoin money launderers Heather "Razzlekhan" Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein. Both projects will lean on Forbes' reporting, but the twist is that Morgan was also a Forbes contributor for several years. It won’t be the only studio working on the story, either. Netflix is already making its documentary on the billion-dollar bitcoin launderers. I look forward to the rap segments.
Sony has launched a contest for the chance to finally get your hands on a PS5. Over the next few weeks, Sony will release 14 unique codes resembling the PlayStation controller across its sites, social media channels and even at high-profile events in sports, gaming, film and music. Finding them doesn't automatically mean you win a console: Each code will only give you the opportunity to enter a draw to win a PS5, but if you’ve been unable to get the new console, perhaps you're willing to jump through all these hoops.
While Alienware’s newest x14 isn’t quite as powerful or configurable as its larger siblings, it offers strong performance and a vibrant 144Hz screen in a deliciously sleek chassis. And if you really like traveling light, the x14 even supports charging over USB-C by default. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, expect short battery life during gameplay. However, the smart move would be to wait a month or two for competitors to release their latest 14-inch laptops. Both Razer and ASUS are coming out with refreshed versions later this spring. We gave it an 85.
It’s admitted to finding purchases for transport routes in Iraq controlled by the terrorist group.
Ericsson's CEO told Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri the company may have made payments to the Islamic State (ISIL/ISIS/Daesh) terrorist group for its operations in Iraq. According to Bloomberg, CEO Boörje Ekholm said the telecoms giant has identified "unusual expenses dating back to 2018."
The first major No Man's Sky patch of the year has arrived. Among other things, Hello Games says the Sentinel update improves the space exploration sim's AI and introduces a buildable AI mech. You can put an AI pilot in your Exomech and have it follow you and help out in battles. Players can build a drone companion, too.
New York City has the lowest average rider rating.
Uber riders can now see how many one-star and five-star ratings they're getting. The platform's Privacy Center, which debuted last month, shows riders and drivers a breakdown of their ratings. The company also revealed which major US cities have the highest and lowest average rider ratings. Drivers typically dish out higher ratings in San Antonio, St Louis and Nashville. Riders tend to get the lowest ratings in New York City, followed by Seattle and Washington, DC. If you’ve got a dire rating, Uber offers up a handful of tips, encompassing safety and common decency, to help you bump up your average.
As Apple pushes on with its anti-tracking features on iOS, and Google continues to refine its Privacy Sandbox for serving targeted web ads without third-party cookies, it's time for Android. Google announced today it's starting a "multi-year initiative to build the Privacy Sandbox on Android.” It’s early days, and the company is in the design and testing stage, but it said developers can "review our initial design proposals and share feedback on the Android developer site."
Don't expect to watch HBO's The Last of Us series any time soon. Channel programming president Casey Bloys told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview that the adaptation of Naughty Dog's apocalyptic games won't air in 2022. Bloys didn't commit to a release date, but he noted filming was still underway in the western Canadian city of Calgary.
The series stars The Mandalorian and Narcos veteran Pedro Pascal as the grizzled survivor Joel, while Game of Thrones' Bella Ramsey plays the teen Ellie. The games' Merle Dandridge plays the resistance leader Marlene, while Gabriel Luna (True Detective) and Anna Torv (Fringe) respectively play Joel's brother Tommy and the smuggler Tess. Nick Offerman also has a guest role. The high-level plot largely mimics that of the first game — Joel is tasked with escorting Ellie to an organization searching for a cure to the brain infection that ravaged humanity, but the journey becomes far more complicated.
The timing will have HBO's The Last of Us debut long after the game's sequel. Expectations are already riding high, though. On top of the cast, the show is written and executive produced by Chernobyl's Craig Mazin and Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann. In theory, the series will both buck the trend of so-so game adaptations and give Sony's PlayStation Productions studio some extra credibility.
