Month: October 2019

While the 2016 DC movie Suicide Squad was a big box office success, it wasn’t exactly met with a warm reaction from critics and fans. With a rushed production, extensive reshoots, and a behind-the-scenes battle over the film’s tone, the results were a muddled mix of comedy, thrills, and superhero action; despite the commercial results, it’s telling that DC have chosen to reboot Suicide Squad rather than make a direct sequel. Nevertheless, there was one element that many fans could agree worked, and that was Margot Robbie’s portrayal of Harley Quinn.

Will Smith and Jared Leto might have taken top billing as Deadshot and Joker, but it was Robbie that stole the show. She perfectly captured Harley’s playful mix of innocence, intelligence, and homicidal lunacy, and delivered the defining on-screen portrayal of this iconic DC villain. So it was no surprise when it was reported that Robbie was set to return to the role. Despite rumors that we might get a direct Suicide Squad sequel–or even a Joker and Harley movie–in September 2018 it was confirmed that Harley’s next appearance would be in Birds of Prey.

This all-female vigilante superhero team first appeared in DC’s comic books 1996; it started as a team-up between Black Canary and Oracle (aka Barbara Gordon), but soon expanded to include a variety of other members. While there was a short-lived Birds of Prey TV show in the early 2000s, almost no one remembers this, making a new big screen version an exciting prospect. With an impressive cast, screenwriter, and director, hopes are high that the movie will deliver the dark laughs, wild action, and eye-popping visuals suggested by the promotional material so far.

So here’s everything we know so far about Birds of Prey–or to give the movie its full title, Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)…

When is Birds of Prey released?

Birds of Prey hits theaters on February 7, 2020.

What’s with that title?

In November 2019 it was announced that the movie actually had a much longer title than expected: Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). This was revealed via a picture of the script’s cover, and was initially presumed to be a pastiche of the title of 2014’s Oscar-winning movie Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).

In an interview with Movie Fone, Margot Robbie explained the reasons for the lengthy name. “It’s not a very serious movie, so we thought the title should reflect that,” she said. “Like, Birds of Prey makes it sound very serious, and [the subtitle is] kind of like Harley adding her, like, ‘Hey, don’t worry. I’m in this too.'”

Who’s in the gang?

Birds of Prey has an impressive cast. The star is, of course, Margot Robbie, who will reprise her role as Harley Quinn from 2016’s Suicide Squad. The rest of the cast includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim, 10 Cloverfield Lane) as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell (True Blood) as Black Canary, Rosie Perez (The Dead Don’t Die, Do The Right Thing) as Renee Montoya, Ella Jay Basco (Veep) as Cassandra Cain, Ewan McGregor (Star Wars, Doctor Sleep) as Black Mask, and Chris Messina (Sharp Objects) as Victor Zsasz.

Who’s the director?

The director of Birds of Prey is Cathy Yan. This will be Yan’s second movie, following her acclaimed 2018 drama Dead Pigs. She is the first Asian woman to helm a US superhero movie. In an interview last year, Yan spoke about why she was the right person for the job. “I immediately loved the script and it felt like something I could really do,” she said. “It felt very much like my own voice. I could not put the script down, it had so much dark humor to it which a lot of my work does, and there are themes of female empowerment which are so strong and relatable.”

Who’s the writer?

The screenplay for Birds of Prey is by Christina Hodson. The British screenwriter also penned last year’s Transformers spin-off Bumblebee and has been attached to another two upcoming DC movies–the long-delayed Flash movie and a Batgirl film. In an interview with Total Film, Hodson explained that Margot Robbie had spoken to her about writing Birds of Prey before Suicide Suqad had even been released. “She’s a comic book fan,” Hodson said about Robbie. “Obviously, you know, it’s not a traditional team-up. So then it was about finding fun, inventive ways of doing that. Warners were very supportive in terms of letting me go off-leash.”

What’s the story?

The trailer doesn’t give away too much about the main plot, but we do know that Harley has now split up from Joker, moved on from the Suicide Squad, and teamed up with the new all-female gang. They come into conflict with crime boss Roman Sionis, AKA Black Mask. It has been rumored that the story revolves around Black Mask’s attempts to retrieve a diamond stolen from him by Cassandra Cain–we’ll find out for sure in February.

R-rating!

Birds of Prey is set to join Logan, Deadpool, and Joker in having an R-rating, as opposed to the PG-13 that most comic book movies carry. In May 2018, Robbie described how she intended the movie to be an “an R-rated girl gang film,” and she subsequently confirmed the plans for the rating in an interview this June.

Is there a trailer?

The first full Birds of Prey trailer for was released this week. This follows the first teaser, which was released back in January, when the movie was in production. For more, check out GameSpot’s full trailer breakdown here.

The Surface Pro series has been coasting on incremental improvements for a while now, but the Surface Pro X is breaking that pattern by steering away from Microsoft’s tried-and-true formula.

At face value, the Surface Pro X is a far slimmer device than any Windows tablet Microsoft has made previously. Measuring in at just 11.3 x 8.2 x 0.28, holding the device feels like a jumbo sized iPhone 8 Max with a four times larger display.

Surprisingly, though, the Surface Pro X isn’t any lighter than the also newly introduced Surface Pro 7, both devices weigh in at the same 1.7 pounds. However, the Pro X’s slimmer profile and curved edges definitely feel more pleasing to hold in your hands thanks to the Pro 7’s sharp angles.

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Among the many new activities that Destiny 2: Shadowkeep brings are those tied to the Lectern of Enchantment. This device is located near Eris Morn on the moon and presents you with bounties and Nightmare Essence quests. These allow you to farm for superior versions of certain armor and weapons. One of the weapon quests, Essence of Failure, consists of several steps to earn the Arc Logic auto rifle, including one that requires you to find a special item. Here’s where the Captive Cord is located and what to do.

Each of these Essence weapon quests gives you a named location for where to find the item you need. In this case, it tells you the Captive Cord is found in the Lunar Battlegrounds, but you won’t find that on the in-game map. The area you’re looking for is the one from the very first mission of the Shadowkeep campaign. Once you’re reasonably close to it, you’ll receive an objective marker that guides you right to it. Here are step-by-step instructions to get there.

Where To Find Captive Chord

• Spawn at the Sorrow’s Harbor landing zone
• Get on your Sparrow, head right toward the southeastern exit, which takes you across a bridge
• Keep moving forward and you’ll be notified you’ve entered the Lunar Battlegrounds
• Pass through this next area by going straight and to the right
• When you enter the next area, you’ll see a wrecked dome structure and a building with a series of antennae and satellite dishes
• Jump up to the third floor of the satellite building and you’ll find the cord on the right side

Finding the Captive Cord is only one of three steps for this quest, though it is the only one with any ambiguity to it.

Essence of Failure Quest Steps

• Activities Completed (patrols, public events, Lost Sectors on the moon)
• 50 Auto Rifle kills
• Captive Cord found

Finish all three steps and you’ll net yourself the Arc Logic auto rifle. If you don’t like the rolls you get on it, you can reacquire the Essence of Failure quest from the Lectern. When replaying the quest, you’ll only need to complete the first two steps–you won’t need to find the Captive Cord again. However, the quest itself costs one Phantasmal Core, which in the early going are not easy to come across. They drop as rewards for some of Eris Morn’s bounties, or you can buy them from the Lectern in exchange for 20 Phantasmal Fragments, which you’ll earn by killing Nightmares. They can also be purchased for 25 Helium Fragments, the moon’s planetary material.

Stephen King has written a wide variety of horror stories over the decades, and family lies at the heart of many. From the relationship between Carrie and her mom to the characters torn apart by grief in Pet Sematary or the Losers’ Club in It, King remains fascinated by the way family units deal with terrifying threats, whether external or internal. King himself is a family man whose sons–Joe Hill and Owen King–are writers themselves. In the Tall Grass was his second collaboration with Joe; published in two parts in Esquire magazine in 2012, it once again deals with dads, moms, and siblings in a fight for survival against supernatural forces. It’s also the latest King story to be adapted to the screen, and the movie version hits Netflix this week.

In the Tall Grass has a simple premise. A young, pregnant woman named Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) and her brother Cal (Avery Whitted) are passing through rural Kansas on their way to San Diego. While taking a break by the side of a huge field, they hear a boy crying for help, claiming to be lost in the tall grass. Becky and Cal enter the field and find themselves separated and also lost, unable to find a way out. Soon they realise that there are others in the grass with them, and that strange things are happening.

This is a great set-up for a spooky yarn, and it’s easy to see why writer/director Vincenzo Natali was drawn to it. Natali made his directing debut with a classic of claustrophobic scares–the 1997 sci-fi favorite Cube–and the first 20 minutes of In the Tall Grass are suspenseful, scary, and stylishly shot. Once we move into the field, the camera stays close on the characters, letting the grass surround them and creating a sense of increasing unease. Natali crosscuts between Becky, Cal, and Tobin (Will Buie Jr.), the young boy, and uses sound to increase the disorientation as their voices move, seemingly impossibly, around the field. We feel real fear for their situation, which is increased by the fact that Becky is visibly pregnant. Daylight horror is a difficult thing to pull off, and for a while, Natali does so masterfully.

But what makes the first section so effective–the claustrophobic supernatural mystery of being trapped in a field that seems to have its own rules of time and space–ultimately becomes an issue as more characters and subplots are introduced. We meet Tobin’s parents Ross (Patrick Wilson) and Natalie (Rachel Wilson, no relation), who have been trapped in the grass for some time. Ross, in particular, seems remarkably unconcerned by the situation, and as the film continues, it becomes clear that the threat isn’t just the fact they cannot leave the field. Patrick Wilson uses his natural charm to win the audience’s sympathy, then shows a darker side that we don’t see very often from the actor.

Unfortunately, nothing else that the movie offers is very interesting, and it quickly stops being scary. Some intriguing initial ideas, such as the time loops that seem to exist within the grass, are largely abandoned for repetitive and formulaic scenes of the characters being chased round the field by one of the group who has gone bad. Becky is the only character given any particular depth or backstory, but the only thing the arrival of her ex-boyfriend at the midway point accomplishes is providing yet another unsympathetic potential victim. Explanations of the field’s supernatural power, which seems to derive from a huge rock, are frustratingly vague, and hints at some wider Lovecraftian mythology are underdeveloped. Mystery and ambiguity can be a powerful weapon for horror filmmakers, but here these elements just comes across as poorly explained rather than deliberately abstract.

There are a lot of Stephen King movies and shows around at the moment, and the huge success of It: Chapter 2 has ensured that this situation won’t be changing any time soon. In the Tall Grass is hardly the worst of recent adaptations, especially when compared to the woeful Dark Tower movie or the mercifully short-lived TV version of The Mist. But it’s yet further proof that not everything the great man writes–or co-writes–necessarily works on the screen. In the Tall Grass might provide a few chills for undemanding fans gorging on horror movies throughout October, but will be quickly forgotten as the next dozen King adaptations roll around.

Reviewed at Fantastic Fest 2019.

A string of copyright termination notices in the past year could mean that certain movie studios lose the exclusive rights to popular ’80s franchises like Terminator, Die Hard, Predator, and more.

It’s all part of a legal trend with roots from back when these major franchises were finding their footing. As The Hollywood Reporter writes, Congress amended intellectual copyright law in the late 1970’s to allow creators to grab the IP back from studios after a few decades. After 35 years, termination notices can be served up to their controlling parties.

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Preacher’s TV run comes to an end with Episode 10 “End of the World.” Ryan shares his favorite easter eggs from the series finale!

Season 3: Meltdown has officially begun in Apex Legends, bringing a bunch of new content to the battle royale game. One of the more noteworthy changes is the introduction of a brand-new map, World’s Edge, which sees the Legends fight it out on a massive battlefield of ice and fire. Hidden within that map are mysteriously locked vaults, all of which hide high-level gear. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any way to open them–or at least, not just yet.

First teased in the Apex Legends Season 3 gameplay trailer, the vaults are scattered throughout World’s Edge. One is in an underground tunnel called The Mine Pass, which connects The Train Yard to the field just outside Fuel Depot. You can find another in the cavern that connects The Geyser to the settlement, located between Capitol City and Overlook. The third vault is also hidden in a tunnel–this one in the cliffs that separate Lava City and Sorting Factory. We’ve circled the locations in the map below.

The problem, of course, is that all the vaults are locked. In the aforementioned trailer, it was implied that you’d need to destroy one of the flying loot ticks that populate spots on World’s Edge for a random chance of getting a key that opens the vault. Perhaps we’re just plain unlucky here at GameSpot, though, as we haven’t found a key after smashing quite a few ticks.

However, the keys themselves may just not be obtainable yet. If you go up to the door of any of the vaults, you’ll see a timer that’s counting down to Wednesday, October 9 at 10AM PT / 1PM ET / 6PM BST–a little over a week after Season 3 went live. There’s no indication as to what the timer specifically entails, but we’re assuming it’s counting down to when players will be allowed to open the vaults. If that’s the case, we most likely still have a few days before keys start dropping from ticks.

Given the contents of each vault–a collection of purple- and gold-tier body armor, helmets, knockdown shields, backpacks, and weapon attachments–whichever team gains access to them first will have a tremendous advantage for the rest of the game. So perhaps Respawn is delaying access to the vaults to give players enough time to become acquainted with the new map and have a general understanding of the new Charge Rifle, hop-up attachments, and gameplay changes. Granted, Season 3 hasn’t been live for very long. We could be missing something and there may be a way to speed up the timer and open the vaults right now. We’ll keep looking.

In the meantime, Season 3 introduces plenty of unlockables to work towards, with new recon character Crypto possessing 40 skins and the Meltdown battle pass introducing over 100 rewards–including a cool-looking legendary Pathfinder skin and smoking hot legendary Lifeline skin. Apex Legends is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

Playing Sayonara Wild Hearts‘ best levels is an intangible, hard-to-describe feeling. When the art, the movement, and the music all come together in a track, it’s absolutely captivating. But it’s also fleeting, and I spent the majority of my time playing Sayonara Wild Hearts chasing that feeling. It came through in a few standout levels, but for most of the game, I found myself on the verge of falling in love with songs only to fall short of that high.

It’s an interesting kind of music game. The main goal is to simply flow with the music, rather than hit a series of precise rhythm-based inputs or dance along to beats. Crystalline hearts line the paths you ride (or fly) through, and often, following the hearts is the best way to get through a level safely without scrambling to avoid oncoming obstacles. Timed inputs are reserved for flashier moves–big jumps, deft dodges, graceful attacks–and these sequences are all scripted, so all you have to do is hit the button somewhat on time and then watch as the moves play out to the music. The camera and forward movement, including your speed, are automatic, too, leaving you to move only from side to side with rare exception. This all lends Sayonara Wild Hearts a dreamlike feel; you are both participant and observer, somewhat in control but mostly just along for the ride.

Initially, the dreaminess of Sayonara Wild Hearts is enchanting. The scripted moves, which often come during fight sequences against brightly colored antagonists, have a distinct magical-girl flair. Dodging an attack becomes a balletic leap, a flurry of punches culminates in an explosion of color, and even punch-induced vomit (in one level) is so colorful and abstract that it flows seamlessly with the overall aesthetic. Some levels are bathed in electric neons, while others are more pensive, dark blue interdimensional affairs. And yet all of them, even at their most bright and exciting, are tinged with melancholy, largely due to the heartbreak-infused pop soundtrack–it’s the kind of music that, if it were to come on in a bar, would make you feel incredibly lonely but also kind of like dancing.

When this all works together, it really works. My favorite level, Dead of Night, closely matches the music with the action and, as a result, the song has impact. During the buildup, you ride your motorcycle through the forest, weaving between trees and picking up hearts while all is calm. Ahead of you are four masked enemies; they strike a group pose, and then, right as the drop hits, their three-headed wolf tank appears and the mini-boss-like sequence begins. You slide side to side to dodge attacks, then hit X with the prompt to leap over the tank as the music swells. It’s timed beautifully, and you feel a sort of abstract sadness as the singer belts, “I’m the only one alive in the dead of night,” and the tank slides, defeated, on the forest floor. You’ve “won,” but it’s bittersweet.

Most of the levels, however, aren’t as finely tuned. A lot of times, the timing-based moves feel offbeat, like you should hit them a moment or two early or late to really be in-time with the music–or like they aren’t really set to the tempo at all. It makes it hard to get into a lot of the songs, even though the soundtrack as a whole is excellent, and distracts from the overall spectacle of a level–you have to watch the prompts’ visual cues rather than listen for the right timing most of the time.

Movement, too, can disrupt the flow of things. It can be hard to line yourself up properly for hearts, turns, and jumps; you might find yourself a little bit to the right or left of where you thought you’d be. This is largely caused by the independent camera, which sometimes leaves you blind going into turns or unsure of how obstacles and collectibles will line up. The highly stylized, dreamy feel of each level also leaves some ambiguity as to the placement of things. I found myself wishing there were either fewer obstacles or tighter controls; while the flowy feel of moving side to side fits the aesthetic perfectly, it’s hard to stay in the zone when you’re constantly tipping the analog sticks slightly to better line yourself up.

Each level continues into the next not like tracks on an album would, but with short breaks in between. On top of that, the main story mode kicks you to the menu after each level to see your score and select the next song. There is a seamless mode of these same levels in the extras section, and the broken-up structure lends itself well to mobile or handheld play–but the story is the first mode you’re introduced to, and it’s only about the length of a long album. Where you might listen to an album all the way through at least once before jumping around and picking songs, you do the opposite in Sayonara Wild Hearts, and that saps it of its momentum.

On repeat playthroughs, I found myself getting more and more used to Sayonara Wild Hearts’ quirks and better appreciating each level as I gained the muscle memory for them. Only a few hit me like Dead of Night did, and those levels are stellar. But the rest are either forgettable or somehow discordant, whether because of movement issues or strange timing. I wanted to get lost in the daydream it presented, but I kept getting ripped back to reality, just a bit more melancholic than when I started.