“In 2013, filmmaker Steven Soderbergh retired from directing movies. During his brief time off from the theatrical film business, he helmed every episode of an acclaimed television series (The Knick), directed an off-Broadway production (The Library), published a novella on Twitter (Glue), and even began importing and selling his own brand of Bolivian liquor (Singani 63). Clearly, the guy likes to stay busy, always seeking out the next creative challenge to take on or the latest artistic puzzle to solve....

“Earlier in May, Sony announced that it will be working with Netflix to develop a TV series adaptation of the Horizon Zero Dawn franchise, and now rumors of more details have surfaced. According to Giant Bomb‘s Jeff Grubb, the new series will be named Horizon 2047 and run in parallel with the games.” Read more at HypeBeast Is the Obi-Wan Kenobi series breaking established Star Wars canon? Read more at The Mary Sue A new trailer for Jordan Peele’s latest film Nope gives a closer look at the acclaimed writers’ take on an alien movie....

Read more at Thrillist. Residents of a neighborhood in Kraków, Poland mistakenly identified a croissant in a tree as a terrifying beast. Read more at Mental Floss. HBO Max is giving The Batman‘s Jim Gordon his own show with a new spinoff series Gotham PD. “HBO Max is bringing the Batman heat with a spinoff series, Gotham PD, which will focus on police commissioner James ‘Jim’ Gordon. Gotham PD is a prequel to Matt Reeves’ 2022 Batman film, which is itself sort of a prequel since it’s set during the first year of the superhero’s career as a crime fighter....

Computer, enhance. Well, fellow Internet weirdos, ask and ye shall receive. Marvel released a new trailer for Loki on Wednesday, and featured front and center is our new fave “Miss Minutes.” Give the trailer a look below. Entering into the Time Variance Authority is an unmooring experience. Thankfully, Miss Minutes and her inexplicable Southern drawl is here to help orient Loki. Loki is, of course, unimpressed with Miss Minutes’ orientation abilities and the TVA’s authority....

So far as that goes, Lost Ark is one of those RPGs that benefits from shockingly well-balanced classes that all bring something interesting to the table. Whether you’re a PvE player, a PvP player, or like to dive into both modes, it’s easy enough to pick the Lost Ark class that just “feels” right to you and learn to do well with them. You’re almost always better off picking the class that you enjoy playing the most over a class that you don’t really enjoy but suspect might be “better....

Before you can start searching for the Dalian Orchard’s storehouse, you first need Connie’s Orchard Storage Key, which is a random drop in the Flowering Orchard area west of Sien Inn. Just keep farming those mobs, especially Orchard Keepers, until you find it. Then, use the key to accept the quest, which is where the fun really starts. The quest description states you are looking for a locked warehouse on the “north side” of the orchard....

Lost in Space Episode 9 Through eight episodes of television, Lost in Space’s charm and joie de vivre has outpaced some of the ridiculousness of its premise. The introduction of Dr. Smith: Master Mind Manipulator has necessitated the charactes sometimes act far dumber than they really are. Still, the amount of storytelling fun onscreen has often made those mischaracterizations seem like unfortunate, yet tiny blips. Now in season one’s penultimate episode, the inconsistencies, poor logic, and general campiness completely throw of the “fun-to-dumb” ratio and the show follows up its best episode with its worst....

Simon (Nick Robinson) and his friends are seniors, counting down the days until high school is over. But Simon is also counting down until he can go off to college and finally come out, away from his lifelong friends and close, loving family. Complicating all of this is an anonymous post from “Blue,” another closeted guy at Simon’s school, on the school’s PostSecret/Whisper/Yik Yak-style site. Simon begins emailing Blue, his only gay friend – there’s another gay kid at school, Ethan, but he’s femme and flamboyant in a way that makes Simon uncomfortable....

As romcoms go, Love Actually is certainly ambitious, telling nine different stories over the course of two hours, which makes it even more unbelievable that Richard Curtis originally wanted there to be a whopping fourteen storylines. The ones that made the cut range from the slightly icky to full-blown swoon fests, so let’s rank them to find out which is the most romantic Love Actually storyline: 9. Harry, Karen and Mia There is no romance here at all....

Because, yes, we once again have a Disney movie about a sea creature or two who want to be part of your world, and once again the main character dodges fishermen, inquisitive snoops, and the judgment of his parents. While Luca does do some things differently—particularly by celebrating young friendships and the sheer gorgeousness of the Italian coast—it cannot help but appear lesser when compared to the legacies it stands on, both at Walt Disney Animation and Pixar....

Luke Cage lacks the eye-popping martial arts choreography of Daredevil or the heart-pounding psychological terror of Jessica Jones. The nighttime seediness of the Marvel’s fictional version of Hell’s Kitchen is replaced by the summery daytime promises of NYC’s resurgent Harlem neighborhoods. But like its predecessors, Luke Cage boasts an excellent cast, tremendous atmosphere, and a willingness to go places that other Marvel Studios productions can’t. And it brings a few fun twists to the party, too....

“Madame” Gertrude Rainey was the “Mother of the Blues,” but the world knows her as Ma. She wasn’t the first woman to sing the blues. She’d actually heard it while playing vaudeville, tent shows, and cabarets. Rainey wasn’t even the first woman to record the blues. She began recordings when she was 38 in 1923, three years after Mamie Smith’s Feb. 14, 1920 recordings of “That Thing Called Love,” “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down,” and “Crazy Blues” for Okeh Records in New York City....

Manifest Season 3 Episode 2 Secrets abound in Manifest season 3, and the promise of a payoff when those secrets are revealed is enticing in the extreme. Again, there’s always a few bumpy moments when the callings clunkily manipulate characters into their convenient narratives, but once everyone is in place, the story really has a chance to shine. Even minor details, like the fact that Zeke can read Saanvi’s mental state remarkably well these days, evoke curiosity and wonderment about how these developments will play out....

The latest effort is the excellent Mare of Easttown, starring Kate Winslet as the titular small town Pennsylvania detective with an affinity for Wawa hoagies. Mare of Easttown wrapped up its story superbly in its seventh and final episode Sunday night. The case of Erin McMenamin’s murder has been wrapped up definitively and Mare and her community have begun the process of trying to recover from the trauma. The conclusion of the story is logically and emotionally satisfying to the point where there doesn’t appear to be a need for any future seasons of the show....

If the above paragraph doesn’t already make you rush to pre-order Spider-Man: Miles Morales, perhaps the gameplay video (courtesy of Game Informer) will: I would not want to be at the wrong end of that cat’s paw. If you know, you know. While we only get a very short snippet of actual combat, there’s at least one combo you’ll be able to activate to get your feline companion involved. Here’s hoping there’s a Spider-Cat solo section hidden within this game....

To have this as the first step in the long-awaited Phase 4 of the MCU is a ballsy move. A move forced because of the worldwide COVID situation, but a ballsy move regardless. How do you even explain the concept of the show to someone who is taken in by the commercials or sees the icon on the Disney+ menu? Avengers: Infinity War also had a lot of baggage going in, but even that was easily explained as, “all the heroes team up to stop the big villain from gathering all the special power-ups before it’s too late....

While it’s going to be interesting to see whether or not time has healed those wounds enough to allow fans to reappraise Mass Effect 3 and its ending, it’s also worth noting that Mass Effect 3‘s Extended Cut isn’t the only “alternate ending” that exists. In the nine years since Mass Effect 3‘s release, we’ve heard stories about other endings to Mass Effect 3 that just never became the canonical conclusion for one reason or another....

Moonage Daydream is Morgen’s third pop-music documentary, following the Rolling Stones film Crossfire Hurricane (2012), and Montage of Heck, his 2015 dive into the tragic trajectory of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. For that film, he used home recordings, drawings, and journals for an inquisitive contemplation of the inner artist. Morgen’s approach to Bowie is even more unconventional. There are no talking heads, stretches of the film play out like a concert taping, others appear in fragments and splashes of sound and vision....

April 2020 in the United States was pretty terrible for almost everyone and everything. We all know why. No need to rehash it. Unless, that is, you sunk your time and money into collecting and selling basketball cards. If you did, you were one of the beneficiaries of the strongest surge for the hobby in its history. “The month of April was the busiest month that … the basketball card industry has ever seen, and by double,” says Geoff Wilson, founder of Sports Card Investor, which offers advice on investing in the hobby and a data analytics platform....

Despite spending the rest of their time driving SUVs, sending their kids to private school and buying-to-let, there’s a tranche of the population who, for two weeks a year, give socialism a whirl. For a fortnight in a rented Mediterranean villa, they and their pals share the means of production, distribution and exchange – chiefly in the area of making lamb tagines – and attempt to live communally. It rarely goes smoothly....