The results from the new Buildner UNBUILT Award contest have been shared with Bustler. The inaugural competition gives architects a platform to showcase their unrealized work. Winners shared an incredible 100,000 ($104,000 USD) cash prize.Buildner states: "By honoring unbuilt ideas, we celebrate the purest form of creative exploration, unbounded by practical constraints. These designs push the boundaries of architectural thought, inspiring new approaches to form, function, sustainability, and innovation while serving as catalysts for advancing architectural discourse and future projects."Neri&Hus co-founder Lyndon Neri and Mecanoo's leader Francine Houben led the eight-member jury to select winners of the student award, best presentation award, and the three 20,000 ($20,800 USD) small-, medium-, and large-scale category winners. Joining them were five honorable mention ideas. The deadline to register for the 2025 Unbuilt Award competition is October 30th, 2025.Small-scale categor...

Yoshio Taniguchi, the architect of MoMAs 2004 redesign and expansion, has died at the age of 87. The New York Times reported the news,along with more details about his journey to the surprise 1997 commission win,following his death from pneumonia on December 16th.Taniguchi was born to a prominent architect father in Tokyo in 1937 and studied at the Harvard GSDbefore returning to Japan in 1964. Significant museum projects include the Ken Domon Museum of Photography and the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures at the Tokyo National Museum. His only other American work is the Asia Society Texas Center in Houston. Taniguchi was the secondIsamu Noguchi Award winner and dedicated the Yoshiro and Yoshio Taniguchi Museum of Architecture in Kanazawa in 2019.

Loading up HDR photos and videos can be a great way of showcasing the fancy display on your new phone and testing just how bright it can get. But sometimes, especially at night, you might not want your screen to crank into overdrive with blinding highlights just because someone posted a random video to Instagram in HDR. (Devices are increasingly set to capture video with the increased dynamic range by default, so lets not blame each other.)With its forthcoming One UI 7 update thats currently in beta, Samsung is giving Galaxy phone owners a system-wide kill switch for disabling HDR content. As covered by 9to5Google, theres a new Super HDR toggle in the settings menu. The description automatically adjust the display to show the full range of colors and contrast in pictures taken with Galaxy devices is a bit misleading, since it turns out that toggling this on will keep your display brightness in check across all apps. But thats exactly the end result that Id want.On the iPhone side, Apple currently has no such setting thats specific to HDR. Its possible to avoid HDR content by enabling low power mode on your iPhone, but doing so makes a ton of other system changes that might be overkill. If youre looking for a reprieve from HDR on Instagram in particular, you can disable it in the apps settings in the media quality section. (I take credit for this after complaining about the issue a couple years ago.) That only applies to iOS, though. The option doesnt exist on Android, which makes Samsungs new toggle all the more useful.

Apple senior VP of services Eddy Cue says Apple will not create a search engine to compete with Google as it would cost billions of dollars and take many years, as recorded in a motion to intervene filed with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday. The purpose of the motion is to participate in the penalty phase of the DOJs antitrust case against Google, where as much as $20 billion could be at stake for Apple in its ongoing default search engine deal with Google.The DOJ and Google have disagreed on how to address Googles monopoly on general-purpose search engines, but both parties have tentatively accepted cutting or renegotiating its Apple partnership. Last week Google proposed a three-year ban on strict long-term exclusivity deals involving any proprietary Apple feature or functionality.Cue warns that removing the search deal would ultimately hurt Apple and benefit Google:If this Court prohibits Google from sharing revenue for search distribution, Apple would have two unacceptable choices. It could still let users in the United States choose Google as a search engine for Safari, but Apple could not receive any share of the resulting revenue, so Google would obtain valuable access to Apple's users at no cost. Or Apple could remove Google Search as a choice on Safari. But because customers prefer Google, removing it as an option would harm both Apple and its customers.As reported by MacRumors, Cue said Apple making its own general search engine would be economically risky and suggests AI chatbots are the next big evolution to search. Apple also noted in the filing that it would have to adopt targeted advertising as a core service to make search viable, which would fit badly with its privacy-focused business model.Cue also says that only Apple can speak to what kinds of future collaborations can best serve its users and warns that the DOJs proposed remedies would hamstring Apple from fulfilling its customers needs.

Ensuring the correctness of electronic designs is critical, as hardware flaws are permanent post-production and can compromise software reliability or the safety of cyber-physical systems. Verification is central to digital circuit engineering, with FPGA and IC/ASIC projects dedicating 40% and 60% of their time, respectively, to this process. While testing approaches, such as directed or constrained random testing, are easy to implement, they are inherently non-exhaustive and cannot ensure the absence of critical errors. Formal verification, particularly model checking, addresses these limitations by mathematically confirming whether a design satisfies its specifications across all possible executions. However, methods like BDDs and SAT solvers remain computationally intensive and struggle to scale for complex circuits. Engineers often rely on bounded model checking to reduce computational demands, which sacrifices global correctness over extended time horizons.Formal verification has evolved over decades, with temporal logic playing a key role in describing system behaviors. Based on Linear Temporal Logic (LTL), SystemVerilog Assertions are widely used to define safety and liveness properties. Safety properties are efficiently verified using BDDs, while SAT-based methods scale better for bounded model checking but remain incomplete without achieving impractically high thresholds. Advanced techniques like IC3 and Craig Interpolation improve unbounded safety checking, while Emerson-Lei fixed-point computations and k-liveness extend verification to liveness properties. Verifying systems with complex arithmetic remains challenging, often requiring explicit-state abstractions, inductive invariants, or ranking functions. Originally developed for software termination analysis, ranking functions have been generalized for hardware liveness verification, incorporating non-linear, piecewise-defined, and lexicographic methods to address modern system complexities.Researchers from the University of Birmingham, Amazon Web Services, and Queen Mary University of London have developed a machine learning-based approach for hardware model checking that integrates neural networks and symbolic reasoning. Their method uses neural networks to represent proof certificates for LTL specifications, trained from randomly generated system executions. The approach guarantees formal correctness over unbounded time horizons by employing satisfiability solving to validate these certificates. Experiments demonstrate its effectiveness, outperforming both academic and commercial model checkers in speed and task completion across standard hardware verification problems, contributing to improved safety and reliability in system designs.LTL model checking verifies if all possible sequences of actions in a system (M) comply with a given LTL formula (Phi), which describes the desired temporal properties. The system (M) includes input and state variables, with its behavior determined by transition rules. To check this, (Phi) is converted into a type of automaton called a Bchi automaton (A_Phi). The verification ensures that the combined system (M) and the automaton (A_neg Phi) (representing the formulas negation) have no valid infinite sequences. Neural ranking functions aid in proving termination and are validated using SMT solvers.The experimental evaluation tested 194 verification tasks derived from 10 parameterized hardware designs with varying complexity. A prototype neural model-checking tool was developed, using Spot to generate automata, Verilator for data generation, PyTorch for training, and Bitwuzla for SMT-solving. The tool was benchmarked against industry leaders ABC, nuXmv, and anonymized tools X and Y. It completed 93% of tasks, outperforming competitors in scalability and runtime, although challenges like local minima and extended SMT-check times remain. While generally faster, it struggled with trivial tasks like UARTt due to overhead. The methods limitations include reliance on word-level inputs and risks of dataset bias.In conclusion, the study introduces an approach to model-checking temporal logic using neural networks as proof certificates for hardware verification. Neural networks are trained on synthetic system executions, leveraging their ability to represent ranking functions for fair termination. The method combines machine learning and symbolic reasoning by validating neural certificates with satisfiability solvers, ensuring formal guarantees. Applied to SystemVerilog designs, it outperforms state-of-the-art tools in scalability. Despite the computational demand of SMT solving, the approach is effective with simple feed-forward networks. This marks the first successful use of neural certificates for temporal logic, establishing a foundation for further advancements in model checking.Check out the Paper. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our60k+ ML SubReddit. Sana Hassan+ postsSana Hassan, a consulting intern at Marktechpost and dual-degree student at IIT Madras, is passionate about applying technology and AI to address real-world challenges. With a keen interest in solving practical problems, he brings a fresh perspective to the intersection of AI and real-life solutions. [Download] Evaluation of Large Language Model Vulnerabilities Report (Promoted)

The 2025 AI Revolution: 10 Breakthroughs That Will Change Your Life 0 like December 26, 2024Share this postLast Updated on December 26, 2024 by Editorial TeamAuthor(s): Mukundan Sankar Originally published on Towards AI. From saving lives to reshaping industries, discover the tech thats transforming our future and how to stay ahead.This member-only story is on us. Upgrade to access all of Medium.Photo by Growtika on UnsplashArtificial Intelligence, or AI, has become a reality in all aspects of our lives in the last 2 years and at a rapid pace. The crucial point is that most people have yet to understand its potential fully. Youre missing out if youre not tapping into the latest breakthroughs. AI isnt just a tech trend that will come and go! It is here to stay because of its transformative capabilities to reshape industries! The key-> Stay informed and Continuously adapt to these breakthroughs.In 2024, researchers have unlocked mind-blowing capabilities that could shift your career, business, or even personal life into overdrive. Here is a look into these 10 game-changing innovations and how to use them to advance in 2025!1. AI-Powered Climate Forecasting: Predicting the UnpredictableLets face it: climate change is the monster under the bed, and no one can tame it until now. But heres the good news: researchers at Google DeepMind have developed a neural network called NeuralGCM, which merges AI with atmospheric physics. This model outperforms traditional forecasting tools by predicting long-term climate patterns and extreme weather events faster and more accurately, giving Read the full blog for free on Medium.Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming asponsor. Published via Towards AITowards AI - Medium Share this post

This article contains spoilers for Squid Game Season 2. Easily one of the most anticipated shows of the year, and it feels like with the return of Netflix's smash hit Squid Game we've all received an extra gift this Holiday season. The intrigue-filled story of a kids game inspired death-match enraptured audiences in 2021 and its back with another wild season following Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) as he attempts to take down the wealthy madmen behind the brutally violent game show. Other returning cast members include a cop on a mission to stop the games, Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-joon), and The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) AKA Hwang In-ho who both play key roles in the wild sophomore season. So, now that you've obviously binged the entire show we're here to answer all your questions and explain that wild ending and how it sets up Season 3 of Squid Game which will air next year. Squid Game 2 Ending Explained PlayAfter a season of new and terrifying games, the penultimate season of Squid Game ended with a violent uprising and some shocking character moments which set us on a chaotic path into the third and final season. As Hwang Jun-ho led a crew to find the island where the games take place, it was revealed that there was a traitor among their ranks. The friendlyfisherman (Oh Dal-su) who had been helping Seong Gi-hun search the ocean for the islands was actually a killer. We saw him murdering one of the soldiers in order to hide the fact that he had sabotaged the team's drone, which was the main tool they'd been using to get a better look at the islands where they suspected the games may be taking place. The big question is whether he's a part of the game organization or has an agenda of his own. On the island within the game compound the group vote whether to stay or leave a big change this season is that they are given the opportunity to vote after every game, setting up larger conflicts between the group and it comes to a tie. After a brutal fight in the bathroom reveals that killing your fellow players also ups the prize pot, a violent night ensues. Because he's already played the game, Seong Gi-hun predicts what will happen and gets his allies to hide under the beds and avoid the madness. The killings begin when the side who wants to keep playing waits for lights out and begins to slaughter those who want to leave. After a brutal battle that sees many players including fan fave Se-mi (Won Ji-an) killed Seong Gi-hun uses the chaos in the wake of the riots to ambush the guards playing dead and stealing their weapons. It's a smart gambit that enables many of the players to gain weapons and begin making their way to the top floor to find leadership. Alas, the young navy seal Dae Ho (Kang Ha Neul) freaks out while on a mission for more ammo, hiding in bed and resulting in the group running out of bullets and eventually being captured by The Front Man. This leads to the murder of Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) in front of his best friend Seong Gi-hun, leaving our leading man's fate up in the air and the rebellions chances looking worse than ever. It's clear that this will directly lead into Season 3, which was filmed at the same time as the sophomore season, with the show then split in two. So, as we wait for that next entry here are all our burning questions about what we can expect from Squid Game 3. Why Did the Front Man Enter the Games?NetflixWhile there is precedent for an organizer to enter the games as we saw with Season 1's Player 001 Oh Il-nam (O Yeong-su) this is definitely the biggest question coming out of this season. His interest in Seong Gi-hun and his fight against the games seemed to have at least some truth to it but of course we've now seem him fake his own death in order to escape the game and seemingly reappear behind the mask to murder Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) as way to punish Seong Gi-hun for attempting to rise up against the organizers. So what we need to know before the show ends with its final season is whether or not Player 001 is always a plant. That would seem to be the case now that we've seen Hwang In-ho take the number on too. Was there any reality to the sob story that he told about his family and needing the money? It feels like now that we know people who call the number can also become guards, there's a chance that Hwang In-ho once was a guard who worked his way up to being the Front Man, but will he stay loyal to the game? Most of all, we need to know if it is really him behind the now iconic Front Man mask at the end of the Season. Could he really heartlessly have shot a man who has been his comrade and who he helped survive? Seeing as Jung-bae did see him kill a man, perhaps he's protecting himself. Though as the Front Man it seems unlikely he'd need to. There's a tiny chance he faked his death to potentially help with the uprising from the inside out, but if that's the case then it's unlikely the Front Man we saw at the end was actually him. Will Hwang Jun-ho Reunite with Seong Gi-hun ?Squid Game Season 2 - First Look PhotosEarly on in the second season we saw the parallel storylines of both Hwang Jun-ho and Seong Gi-hun hunting for those who put on the games. For the former it's all about reuniting with his brother and shutting down the operations, for Seong Gi-hun it's about revenge and ending the games by any means necessary. Their inevitable team-up felt like a powerful move towards ending the games, but their plan was at least partially thwarted when the tracker that Seong Gi-hun had implanted in a fake tooth was taken by the games makers and used to put Hwang Jun-ho and his crew on the wrong path but that only worked for so long. Now that Hwang Jun-ho seems closer than ever to uncovering the games, his arrival could save the life of Seong Gi-hun if they make it in time. It'll be interesting to see that reunion alongside Hwang Jun-ho facing down his brother and Seong Gi-hun coming to realize that the man he thought was an ally, Hwang In-ho, is actually the Front Man that he's been hunting all along. This feels like it has big finale energy so keep your eyes out for this being an ongoing storyline throughout Season 3 leading to those final episodes of the series. Can Kim Jun-hee and Myung-gi Really Survive the Games?Squid Game: Unleashed Game Awards Trailer ScreenshotsOne of the biggest twists this season was the reveal that player 222 Kim Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri) had entered the game pregnant by none other than crypto scammer and popular Youtuber Lee Myung-gi (Yim Si-wan) who also happens to be a player in the games. So far Kim Jun-hee has survived with the help of her fellow players and later in the game an alliance with Seong Gi-hun. Now that Gi-hun has been captured and Myung-gi stabbed Thanos (T.O.P) sparking the bathroom fight that inspired the riots, it feels like Kim Jun-hee and her baby are less likely to survive than ever. But Squid Game loves an underdog, and we'd really love to see Kim Jun-hee become one of the winners of the game though it's unlikely it'll be an easy journey. This is especially true with many of her protectors captured by the Front Man and the Guard. When IGN spoke to the duo, Yim Si-wan revealed that the pair's fates are entangled when it comes to where their stories go from here. "The key lies in his relationship with this character Jun-hee, whether he will be able to make amends with Jun-hee to seek out forgiveness from her. I think that dynamic will play a part into how the character develops in season three." Jo Yu-ri agreed, sharing that one of the reasons Jun-hee sided with the rebellion was to protect the man who had gotten her pregnant, even after he'd abandoned her, so there's still feelings there. Will Number 11 End up Turning on the GuardsNetflixOne of the most interesting twists this season has been getting to know the people behind the iconic shape branded guard masks. Spending time with the killers who execute those who fail to win those games has been a really intriguing wrinkle, especially as we learn that the guards are also people who called the number on the business card just like the players themselves. In particular we got a glimpse at what drove guard number 11 AKA No-eul (Park Gyu-young) to make that fateful call. Rather than being deeply in debt like most of the players, No-eul was manipulated into becoming a guard with the promise that the powerful men in charge of the game might be able to help her find the young daughter she left behind in North Korea. It's a heartbreaking story that adds an element of humanity to the guards behind the masks, but we've seen conflict between her and the others who are keeping people alive in order to harvest their organs and make money. It seems like that's a top down scam that at least some of the high-level game makers are in on. No-eul has refused to play, instead killing the losers to put them out of their misery. It'll be interesting to see if her disagreements with her cohorts who brutally attacked her could see her turn on the guards and join forces with the players. What is the Fate of Gi-Hun and the Rebellion? NetflixSpeaking to IGN during a press junket, award-winning Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae explained his reasoning behind why Gi-hun took the dangerous step of reentering the game and leading a rebellion against its leadership. "I believe that Gi-hun felt that he can no longer stop the game being just fair and square the normal way he would play the game because he knows that there's someone that really knows him well, and this guy's manipulating and rigging the game," He said. "So that's why he chose to lead a rebellion because he realizes that he no longer has other ways to put an end to this whole game." But, as we see in the final moments of the series the rebellion apparently collapses with the death of Jung-bae and the capture of Gi-hu. When we spoke to series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, he had this to say about the ending of the series and what fans can expect in Season 3. "All of his attempts to end the game come to a complete failure by the end of the second season. And the heavy price that he needs to pay because of that failure is having to lose his very best friend whom he loves dearly in the hands of the front man," he explained. He continued. "So the story that starts in season three is going to be about what happens to Gi-hun from that point on. And another character that's very critical in that moment would be Dae Ho who fails to go back and return to the team with the magazine because of his immense fear and as a result contributes to the total failure of the rebellion. So what's going to happen between him and Gi-hun, what is the result going to be of his wrongdoing and of his cowardice and what kind of emotional state is going to be in? All of that will be the most entertaining factor to look out for as you watch the story unfold." Rosie Knight is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything from anime to comic books to kaiju to kids movies to horror flicks. She has over half a decade of experience in entertainment journalism with bylines at Nerdist, Den of Geek, Polygon, and more.

Nothing screams Christmas quite like gothic horror. In his first project since 2022's The Northman, Robert Eggers returns with cinematographer Jarin Blaschke for a remake of 1922's Nosferatu. The Lighthouse alum Willem Dafoe also returns for what Siddhant Adlhkada's review describes as "one of the finest, most viscerally exciting works of horror this year."Whether you're planning a Babyratu double feature or want to stream the original silent film, here's everything we know about how to watch Nosferatu. PlayHow to Watch Nosferatu: Showtimes and Streaming StatusNosferatu just released in theaters. You can find showtimes near you at the main theater links below: Nosferatu (2024) Streaming Release DateNosferatu will eventually stream on Peacock (instead of Netflix or Max) because the film's distributor, Focus Features, is a subsidiary of NBC Universal. Previous Focus Features releases from 2024, The Bikeriders and Conclave, were in theaters for about seven weeks before streaming. Assuming the vampire follows a similar timeline, Nosferatu should arrive on Peacock by mid-February 2025. What Is Nosferatu About? Dracula: The Original 1897 EditionThere are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights. Bram Stoker, DraculaSee it at AmazonThe new Nosferatu movie is a remake of the German 1922 silent film directed by F. W. Murnau, which itself was an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula trying to avoid copyright issues. Here's the official synopsis for the new Eggers adaptation: A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.Where to Stream the Original Nosferatu MoviesBesides the original 1922 silent film, there's also a (notoriously long) 1979 adaptation of Nosferatu directed by Warner Herzog. Both are available online for free, and you can check out your streaming options below: Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922): Black and White: Philo (free)In Color: Prime VideoTubi (free) Nosferatu the Vampyr (1979): Prime Video (free)Tubi (free)Nosferatu Cast Nosferatu was written and directed by Robert Eggers, with cinematography from Jarin Blaschke and a score by Robin Carolan. The movie stars the following cast: Bill Skarsgrd as Count OrlokNicholas Hoult as Thomas HutterLily-Rose Depp as Ellen HutterAaron Taylor-Johnson as Friedrich HardingEmma Corrin as Anna HardingWillem Dafoe as Prof. Albin Eberhart Von FranzRalph Ineson as Dr. Wilhelm SieversSimon McBurney as Herr KnockNosferatu Rating and RuntimeNosferatu is rated R for bloody violent content, graphic nudity and some sexual content. The movie runs for a total of two hours and 12 minutes. Play

What if Santa was buff and had a paramilitary security team? What if imaginary friends were real? What if someone gave someone else scars like, out in space? On a rebellious moon?These are all great questions, and they can all be answered simply by watching some of the most critically panned movies of 2024. Yes, were taking a look back at the year that was in movies that were found wanting. Here youll see flicks that IGN rated a 4 out of 10 or lower. And 4 means Bad so - yes - youre going to see what lies beyond just being plain bad and itll be up to you to decide the true difference between the slightly hyperbolic Awful (3), Painful (2), and Unbearable (1).(Hopefully) The Last DancePlayGetting raked over the coals by critics doesnt necessarily mean youre gonna be a total financial bomb, so well kick off our 4s with Venom: The Last Dance. It was a cinematic colonic in most aspects, sure, but also a humble winner at the global box office. When all is said and done Venom 3 will have garnered close to $500 million, which is not too shabby for a movie IGNs Tom Jorgensen said had two left feet. Furthermore, despite a few moments of fun, Tom said in his review that this third Venom entry was torn between its responsibilities to big-budget comic book moviemaking and a more-focused genre story of a boy and his alien, ultimately delivering a lackluster Lambada (timely dance reference!) Other 4s include the newly released-to-streaming Dear Santa, which marked a reunion between Jack Black and the Farrelly Brothers while also marking, according to Jesse Hassengers review, a misguided mess full of deeply questionable story choices. Blumhouses Afraid proved that you cant just do M3GAN without M3GAN. This preposterous smart house thriller was Zillow Gone Mild. And you know what else isnt scary? Ice. But thats what the Ghostbusters both generations of Ghostbusters, that is squared off against in Frozen Empire. Everyone knows you dont fight ice, you just bolt from it. Like Jake Gyllenhaal did in The Day After Tomorrow when he outran cold. You were unlikely to see Rebel Moon toys on store shelves, unlike last year when they were basically overstocked due to no one buying them.Both The Garfield Movie and Argylle proved that this was not the year for animated cats, whether they were staunch Monday haters/lasagna lovers or just terrible looking CGI caught up in a sluggishly paced idea-dump of a spy caper, as our review put it. And if youre longing for more computer-generated critters, then look no further than John Krasinskis IF, which A. A. Dowd wrote in his review was full of trite platitudes, lacking any real insight into the adventures of growing up. So not even the all-star cast including Ryan Reynolds, who had a blockbuster year otherwise could win us over. IF almost did as poorly on Rotten Tomatoes as 1996s Bogus, which had Grard Depardieu as the kids imaginary friend. So if your $100 million kids movie isnt any better than a film where Haley Joel Osment mourns his dead parent by palling around with an invisible French magician, then you need to take everything back to formula.More 4s here than you can shake a stick at: Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1, Kevin Costners dream project, probably had its producers thinking Chapter 11 (amirite?), while Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate, My Spy: The Eternal City, The Union, My Oni Girl, Role Play, A Family Affair, and Wicked Little Letters all got blammod with the Bad label. Meanwhile, Brad Pitt and George Clooney were unable to handsome their way out of Siddhant Adlakha calling their John Watts streaming movie, Wolfs, half-baked with little humor or heart in his review. PlayThis holiday season you were unlikely to see Rebel Moon toys on store shelves. Not like last year when they were, basically, overstocked due to no one buying them. Thats because Zack Snyders two-part sci-fi epic not only failed to resonate on a pop-culture level but also, you know, critics s*** all over it. And the second half of the story, The Scargiver, which landed in April, got a 4, just like Part 1 did before it. As Hanna Ines Flint put it in her review, The Scargiver delivers a half-baked conclusion to a well-trodden story with flimsy character studies and lackluster action.Crisis on Infinite UghhWarner Bros. Animation also contributed heavily to our 4 rankings, dropping both Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part Two and Three in 2024. Both released on digital, 4K UHD, and Blu-ray, these two movies concluded this particular adaptation of the famous 80s DC Comics storyline, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Part Two, reviewed by Jesse Schedeen, was called a lackluster follow-up to an already flawed opening act while Part Three, reviewed by Hayden Mears, was stamped with messy, forgettable, and a poor send-off for Kevin Conroys Batman. Damn, thats harsher than when Joker called Batman Fatman. Honestly, Id never recover. BLANDora nope. Wait! PanSNOREa! (Nailed it!)Borderlands: Games to Movie ComparisonThe Borderlands movie didnt get the lowest score here at IGN, as it kicks off our 3s, but its gonna get the spotlight here for sure. Not just at IGN where stalwart soldiers have been covering the game franchise for a whopping 15 years, but in Hollyweird in general, where it now stands alongside famous flops that can be called out by name. Yup, its Waterworld levels of disaster. And that just sucks because a good-ass movie could be mined from Borderlands. You wouldnt even need A-listers and/or Oscar-winners to star in it (though that was a particularly odd cherry on top). You just need to keep the Vault Hunters as Vault Hunters and have them run around shooting everything while cracking wise and taking lives. Not the overcooked lore-blunder we got, featuring a miserably Frankensteind script, weeks of reshoots, two years of sitting on the shelf, and Cate Blanchett sounding like shes in a different movie than everyone else. Or is she in the right movie and everyone else is wrong? Who can say? If there was ever a time to do one of those hypothetical one character is human and every other character is a Muppet movies, this was it. A miserably Frankensteind script, weeks of reshoots, two years of sitting on the shelf, and Cate Blanchett sounding like shes in a different movie than everyone else.An abysmal waste of a beloved franchise that takes a kooky band of murderous misfits and drains the life out of their first adventure together, is what Matt Donato wrote in his review. The franchises trademark gallows humor gets steamrolled while its uniquely deranged themes are replaced by recycled blandness geared toward mass marketability. Borderlands tried too hard to be Guardians of the Galaxy but thats never what the games were, despite some similarities on paper. And now were left with a catastrophic disappointment that plays like hacked-to-pieces studio slop.Red ThreePlaySpeaking of studio slop Red One. The Rocks big holiday dud that, well, may get forgotten and forgiven quickly because of how HUGE Moana 2 is. So while Red One which was originally supposed to be a streaming movie for Prime Video (and certainly feels like it) is underperforming, Dwayne Johnsons big animated sequel is kicking ass and taking names. Still, Red One, our second 3 here, features mismatched stars with a whole lot of shockingly inconsistent special effects, preaching a sentimental yuletide message even as it looks like the height of soulless commercialization. A.A. Dowd also mentioned, in his IGN review, that only those who find the thought of Santa needing a bodyguard or the North Pole becoming a high-tech compound inherently hilarious are guaranteed many laughs from this largely charmless holiday blockbuster.By the way, by the time this article goes up Red One will probably be on Prime Video. Where it shouldve entered the world to begin with.The other 3s from 2024 were Netflix slog Damsel, the haphazard Harold and the Purple Crayon, and horror prequel The Strangers: Chapter 1, which Lena Wilson called in her review a mind-numbing reboot with stupid main characters that pales in comparison to 2008s The Strangers (and even 2018s The Strangers: Prey at Night).The Power of Christ Compels 2PlayNothing was given a 1 this past year (fingers crossed for an Unbearable in 2025) but there are a couple 2s, both coming from the world of horror. Tarot wound up making a nice profit despite being a lazy Final Destination knockoff and The Exorcism, starring Russell Crowe, was light on frights and high on bewildering edits. As Jarrod Jones wrote, The Exorcism is compromised by its unfortunate postproduction saga producing undercooked genre crud. But lets not forget, just last year Russell Crowe was in The Popes Exorcist, which was shlocky but fun, in an unlimited breadsticks kind of way. So if you simply must watch Maximus Decimus Meridius vanquish demons, thats the way to go. Plus, he rides a scooter while Faith No Mores We Care A Lot blasts in the background and not much more is needed for true cinema.What were the worst movies of 2024 in your opinion? Lets discuss in the comments!

This article contains spoilers for Squid Game season 2.The stakes of Squid Game season 2 somehow feel even higher than the last. With Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) returning to the games in an effort to bring them down from the inside, he soon discovers that, despite his warnings, the promise of potential wealth that the games offer is still too great for most people to resist. So when his plan falls through, he decides to take the fight to the top, inspiring rebellion amongst some of his fellow players.Its a gripping, action-packed series of events in the last two episodes, and yet the season ends so abruptly, it feels like were missing an episode or two. I was fortunate enough to get to watch the season early as a journalist, and even I found myself Googling how many episodes were meant to be in this season to make sure I had actually watched them all. After the perfectly-bookended start and end to season 1, the end of season 2 may be unexpected, but thankfully its not without reason.How Many Episodes Are in Squid Game Season 2?Season 2 of Squid Gameseries creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, this season and season 3 were originally conceived as one chapter of this story. Thats how I wrote it, he says. But in the process, it came out to be too many episodes. So I thought itd be better to divide it into two.Given that Hwang lost teeth due to the stress of making Squid Games first season, its completely understandable that he would want to break up the story into more manageable chunks. But at the same time, it is a shame that more than seven episodes is considered too many in todays TV landscape.How Does Season 2 of Squid Game End?After convincing some of the other players to join him in taking the fight to their wealthy overlords upstairs, Gi-hun gets closer than he ever has to getting justice for those he lost. He and Jung-bae (Lee Seo-hwan) find themselves in a stand-off with pink-suited soldiers and things arent looking good.The entire group is running out of magazines for their guns, and decide its ultimately better to split up. They send Young-il (Lee Byung-hun) and a couple others after Gi-hun and Jung-bae for support while Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul) and then Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon) go to scavenge more magazines from the first wave of soldiers in the players quarters. It doesnt take long for Young-il who we know is the masked man from season 1, Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hun) to betray them. After killing the men hes with, and an impressively-quick costume change, the man in the mask shoots Jung-bae point blank, but lets Gi-hun live to deal with the consequences of his uprising.Dont get me wrong. This ending is far from anti-climatic. But after how beautifully the first season was able to begin and end a chapter of this story, this ending feels awfully abrupt. Things were left open enough at the end of season 1 for the story to continue, but at the same time season 1 didnt end mere moments after an epic shootout with a lot of characters futures still up in the air. Thankfully, we wont have to wait quite as long between seasons 2 and 3, as the final chapter of Squid Game is set to drop in 2025. Hopefully season 3s beginning will justify this abrupt stopping place in the story, and give us a moment to catch our breath as we find out what fresh hell, punishments, new games await Gi-hun and the surviving players.All seven episode of Squid Game season 2 are now available to stream on Netflix.