20th Century FoxTable of ContentsTable of ContentsA Dogs Way Home (2019)Breaking (2022)Alien 3 (1992)Welcome to the final weekend of 2024. This is the home stretch, and the hiatus between holidays as we countdown to New Years Day. Chances are, youve probably seen Nosferatu, Wicked, or A Complete Unknownby now. If thats true, and you need something else to watch, dont fret. Luckily, Hulu has a newly arrived drama to help you pass the time, as well as two other films that are exiting soon.Our picks for the three great Hulu movies that you need to stream this weekend include a heartwarming animal film, a gut-punch of a drama based on a true story, and an underrated sci-fi action flick.Recommended VideosNeed more recommendations? We also have guides to the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max,andthe best movies on Disney+.RelatedSony PicturesSince this is the holiday season, its only fitting to start this weeks list with a family-friendly flick. A Dogs Way Home follows the story of a pit bull named Bella (whose inner voice is provided by Bryce Dallas Howard). Bella doesnt look like a typical pooch of her breed, and she was lovingly raised by a cat before she was adopted by Lucas Ray (Jonah Hauer-King) and his mother, Terri (Ashley Judd).When an overzealous animal control officer, Chuck Millits (John Cassini), threatens to impound Bella and have her put down, Lucas sends her to live with his relatives 400 miles away. But since Bella is unwilling to be parted from her owner, she embarks on a long and dangerous journey home that will take her years to complete. This film is leaving Hulu on December 31, so catch it while you can.Watch A Dogs Way Home on Hulu.Bleecker StreetBreaking is a new arrival on Hulu that flew under the radar when it was released in 2022. This film is based on a true story about Brian Brown-Easley (John Boyega), a Marine who took a bank hostage in 2017 by claiming that he had a bomb in his backpack. Brown-Easley isnt a typical robber, because hes not out to steal from the bank. He wants what hes owed from his VA check and he feels the need to share his story with the world.Brown-Easley suffers from PTSD, which played a role in setting up this desperate situation. While holding bank tellers Estel (Nicole Beharie) and Rosa (Selena Leyva) hostage, Brown-Easley is contacted by police negotiator Eli Bernard (Michael K. Williams), a man who shares his military background. But even with a sympathetic ear on the other line, Brown-Easleys story seems destined to end badly for him.Watch Breaking on Hulu.20th Century StudiosLooks like the xenomorph caught Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) under the mistletoe again. There are no holiday references in Alien 3, but since this film is also leaving Hulu at the end of the month, its worth revisiting David Finchers feature film debut. In the aftermath of Aliens, Ripley is despondent to learn that she is once again the only survivor after her ship crashes on a remote prison outpost.Game of Thrones Charles Dance co-stars as the prison doctor, Jonathan Clemens, while Charles S. Duttons Leonard Dillon acts as a spiritual guide for the all-male prison. Ripleys presence is disruptive to the men, but not as much as the lingering Facehugger alien that survived the same crash that brought her to the outpost. Once the Facehugger implants an egg in a dog, Ripley and the prisoners are trapped with the creature. And they dont have any weapons they can use against it.Watch Alien 3 on Hulu.Editors Recommendations

Table of ContentsTable of ContentsBeau is Afraid (2023)King of New York (1990)Bottoms (2023)The holiday season is, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the busiest for Amazon as a company. While most people know the company primarily for its massive online marketplace, it also has a pretty impressive library to peruse.If youre looking for a great movie to watch this weekend, weve pulled out three titles from Prime Video that you might not realize are worth your time. Whatever youre looking for, you can hopefully find it in one of the three titles below.Recommended VideosWe also have guides to the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu,the best movies on Max,andthe best movies on Disney+.RelatedBeau Is Afraid | Official Trailer 2 HD | A24Ari Aster has made a number of generally surreal movies, butBeau is Afraidis undeniably the strangest. The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as a paranoid loner who takes a strange and quixotic journey home to visit his mother.The movies penchant for flights of fancy can be alienating, butBeau is Afraidis unafraid to burrow deeply into the anxieties of its central character from the second it starts. Few movies in the past decade are more likely to induce a panic attack, and while that may not sound like high praise, it absolutely is.You can watchBeau Is Afraidon Amazon Prime Video.King of New York US Trailer (Abel Ferrara, 1990)Its easy today to think that Christopher Walken was only ever a comedic figure. All you need to do to dispel yourself of that notion, though, is watch a movie likeKing of New York. In the film, Walken plays a drug lord who, after being let out of prison, is determined to reconquer the territory he once held.His goal, which is to give the money he consolidates to those who most need it, adds a fascinating wrinkle to this crime thriller, even as he comes to understand that donating his dirty money and getting out of the game is not as simple as he suspected.You can watchKing of New Yorkon Amazon Prime Video.BOTTOMS | Official Red Band TrailerOne of the great comedies of the 2020s, BottomsAlthough the movies final act may or may not leave you satisfied, its impossible to deny the movies sheer entertainment value, and the fact that it works far more often than it doesnt.You can watchBottomson Amazon Prime Video.Editors Recommendations

The president-elect saysthe potential ban of the social-media giant can be avoided through negotiated resolution.

When the BBC aired a special, colorized edit ofThe Daleks to celebrateDoctor Whos 60th anniversary last year, aside from the actual edit down to a shortened runtime, the serial was largely left as-is, aside from a cute trailer at the end to tease the next 60 years of adventures in time and space. With its second takethis time on Patrick Troughtons iconic exit as the Second Doctor in The War Gamesthings got very different. Very different. Airing on BBC 4 in the UK earlier this week, the special colorized TV movie take onDoctor Whos final black-and-white storytaking a four-hour saga and trimming it down to just 90 minutestook the opportunity to weave in answers to questions Who fans have had for years at this point, creating something of an insane checklist of pointed references and acknowledgements to the shows future that are now, in some ways, definitive parts of Doctor Whos ever-evolving continuity. Heres three of the biggest tweaks and changes added to the proceedings. The War Chief and the Master BBC Arguably the biggest theory played with, The War Games in color made in particular one connection between the original story andDoctor Whos immediate future much more explicit: that one of the serials major antagonists, the War Chief, was none other than an incarnation of the Master himself. Throughout the War Chiefs appearances in the colorization, the newly updated soundtrack incorporated contemporary Who composer Murray Golds iconic Master Vainglorious themeand when the War Chief is executed by the Time Lords upon their arrival in the climax of The War Games, you can even briefly hear the telltale sound of Doctor Whos modern regeneration SFX as his body is being dragged away. While it was always established in the original story that the War Chief was a renegade Time Lord, for years ancillary material and novelizations have bandied back and forth over the idea that he is an early incarnation of the Time Lord that would eventually take on the mantle of Master (the implication now being that he did so initially with Roger Delgados incarnation of the character). Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke, who wrote The War Games, went on to note in their own Doctor Who Target episode novelizations that the Master and the Doctor were the only renegade Time Lords to ever flee Gallifrey with their own TARDIS, implying that the War Chief and the Master were, indeed, one and the same. But later original novels as part of the Virgin New Adventures books would also treat the War Chief as a distinct character, one who survived the events of The War Games and would eventually regenerate into different incarnations, as would Big Finish audio dramas that established earlier incarnations of the Master separate from the War Chief.The Trial and the Faces of the Doctor BBC Once particularly random alteration in the climax of the story comes during the Time Lords trial of the Doctor. After concluding in agreement with the Doctor that there were many perils across the universe worth confronting in spite of their non-intervention policies (embellished here from the original with extra clips from other Doctor Who stories), the Time Lords still choose to punish the Doctor with exile on Earth and a forced regeneration, offering the Doctor several choices of potential visages. However, in the colorization, these facesall of which the Doctor still refuses for various reasonsare no longer just random unknown identities. Instead, the Doctor is offered the chance to regenerate into the faces of several of their future incarnations beyond the third Doctor, as the Time Lords project images that we know are in fact the Twelfth (rejected as too old), Tenth (too skinny), Thirteenth (too young), and Eleventh (simply described as that wont do at all!) Doctors. This one is a particularly weird addition, considering there wasnt really any particularly theorization or desire that these faces had a particular connection to the Doctor beyond the Time Lords offering them up to him in the moment. Its not likeDoctor Who hasnt explored the idea of the Doctor having incarnations beyond ones we were already familiar withweve had plenty of examples from the infamous faces glimpsed in The Brains of Morbius to contemporary Whos addition of incarnations like John Hurts War Doctor between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors, or Jo Martins Fugitive Doctor and other incarnations prior to William Hartnells Doctor. But its a funny joke in the moment that the Doctor has little desire to have any of several faces we know they eventually end up with later on in life.The Second Doctors Regeneration (and UNIT Dating) BBC The War Games colorization climaxes with an almost completely new addition, using rotoscoped footage of Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwees Doctors to establish the actual moment of the second Doctors regeneration. Here, after the trippy sequence of the Doctors face contorting across a shadowy void from the original serial, the action cuts to inside the TARDIS, where, sitting in a chair as he hears flashes of his departed companions, the Doctor braces himself as he glows with regenerative energy, transforming into his next incarnation. As we recently covered, the second Doctors off-screen regeneration has been covered in other ancillary material outside of the show itself (no Time Lord-sanctioned scarecrow execution squads this time, alas), but now the moment itself has been brought in line with depictions of regeneration as seen in Doctor Whos modern era, for better or worse. But that canonization isnt the only fannish nod the new scene makes. As the newly regenerated Doctor checks to seewhen exactly hes landedbefore we cut to Pertwees first scene from Spearhead From Space, collapsing out of the TARDIS into the Oxley Woodsthe TARDIS displays briefly flicker back and forth between the years 1970 and 1980. This in and of itself is a nod towards another long-running Doctor Who fan theory, the so-called UNIT Dating Controversy. Although many of the Third Doctors adventures appear to be contemporary to their broadcast in the early 1970s, two mentions of dates surrounding the career of one of his closest allies, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewartthe 1968 Second Doctor story The Invasion, which establishes the existence of UNIT and promoted Lethbridge-Stewart to his famous rank of Brigadier, which is set around 1979; and the 1983 Fifth Doctor story Mawdryn Undead, which states that Lethbridge-Stewart retired from UNIT in 1976throw continuity into disarray.Theres been several attempts to at least acknowledge, if not exactly fix, the perceived continuity error over the years across both the TV show itself as well as other tie-in media (Doctor Who at the time, for the most part, largely treated the Third Doctors time on Earth as taking place in a similar timeframe to its broadcast), so while this isnt the first time theres been nods on-screen to the controversy, its the first time in a while weve seen it explicitly addressed, even if the answer is, hilariously, to have the TARDIS throw its metaphorical hands up in confusion. What Do These Changes Mean forDoctor Who? At least in the case of both stories adapted so far so far, the colorizations are not the only way to experience these serialsboth the original versions of The Daleks and The War Games are available on physical media and streaming at this point, so despite the confirmations this latest colorization has brought with it, anyone who wants to see the original stories sans-embellishment can do so.While on the surface a lot of these changes and retcons are minor in the grand scheme of things, the fact that the scope of these colorizations has quickly grown between The Daleks and The War Games beyond cosmetic embellishment and condensation paints an intriguing picture for what future colorizations could tweak, as each new colorization brings with it an attempt to make even more connections acrossDoctor Whos vast, and often contradictory, continuity. Just what stories could come nextand what changes could come with themremains to be seen. As always with Doctor Who, time will tell. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, whats next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Melt some snow off your windows with this heart-warming NordVPN deal. NordVPN Basic is now 74% off for the 2-year plan with 3 extra months. The price is a measly $2.99/mo, which is the cheapest youll ever pay for this revolutionary VPN.However, NordVPNs Holiday appreciation hardly stops there. The provider offers a few more discounted plans, all brimming with exciting features, thousands of servers, and support for all your devices.Interested in securing your online presence and venturing into the new year happier than ever? Heres how you can get your NordVPN deal immediately.Get NordVPN At 74% Off While It LastsNordVPN Holiday Saving Frenzy: All Deals ExplainedOur team of experts agrees that NordVPN is the most reliable VPN you can get. However, you dont have to pay a fortune.If youre looking to save tremendously on it, NordVPN offers three ultra-popular plans, all 74% off:Basic at $2.99/mo with 3 extra months $80.73 upfrontPlus at $3.89/mo with 3 extra months $105.03 upfrontPrime at $7.89/mo with 3 extra months $213.03 upfrontAll three are awesome in their own right and can be obtained below.The Basic plan offers VPN features like a Double VPN, a kill switch, IP leak protection, 7,000+ servers, and more. However, paying a little more for Plus gets you Threat Protection Pro!This means you caninstantly block ads with this VPN and kill trackers and malware.The Prime Plan greases the gears even more by including NordLocker + NordPass + NordProtect. This bundle is essentially a password manager with encrypted cloud storage and data protection.NordProtect also wipes clean data broker databases, preventing further harm to your privacy.You Can Also Save Big on Annual PlansApart from 2-year plans, NordVPN includes their 1-year variants:Basic at $4.59/mo with 3 extra months $68.85 upfront, 60% offPlus at $5.49/mo with 3 extra months $82.35 upfront, 63% offPrime at $9.49/mo with 3 extra months $142.35 upfront, 69% offIf short-term plans suit you better, dont hesitate to grab these.Regardless of your choice, NordVPN packs a 30-day money-back guarantee, so the entire package is risk-free. If you end up not liking it, get a refund. If not, enjoy the time of your life!NordVPN Features BreakdownThe features youll get are plan-dependant but the basics are the same:7,000+ servers in over 113 countriesCertified no-logging policyAutomatic kill switchDouble VPN serversUnblocking Netflix and BBC iPlayerLimitless torrentingApps for all devices10 simultaneous connections24/7 round-the-clock support, and more.NordVPNs qualities are far too numerous to be discussed in depth. We have a dedicated NordVPN review if youre interested in that.At the price of roughly three quids, you cant go wrong with the worlds #1 VPN. Remember it can only get more expensive after that, once this juicy discount expires.View at NordVPN

When you level in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete, you'll sometimes unlock several animals that can potentially be invited to your campsite or cabin. Agnes is one of the 12 pigs you can meet in-game. If you've been consistent with leveling, then you should have Agnes unlocked in no time. However, like every other animal in Pocket Camp Complete, you'll need to craft the requested furniture and have the right friendship level before she joins your campsite/cabin.

Anime possesses an uncanny ability to craft complex characters, and its villains are no exception. More often than not, these so-called "villains" have motives that stem from personal tragedy, misguided ideals, or systemic oppression. Unlike traditional narratives where antagonists are purely evil, anime often seeks to humanize its villains, presenting them as flawed individuals shaped by circumstances.

Cannibals are the main type of enemy in Sons of the Forest, alongside different types of mutants. There are six types of Cannibals Regular, Dirty, Masked, Brute and Titan that spawn as either male or female variations. All Cannibals have their own distinctive characteristics that make them difficult to deal with, but players can craft high-end weapons to fend them off easily.

As a holiday treat, Bluesky is finally adding trending topics to its site and app, although they're currently in beta. The feature is a Twitter (now X) classic and has been on Threads for about nine months, so it's a no-brainer for any new social media site trying to play catch up. However, Bluesky's implementation is a bit cleverit lets you disable the feature entirely, and respects your muted keywords.How to disable trending topics on BlueskyAt the moment, Bluesky's trending topics feed is in testing, so you may not see it right away (I didn't). To check if you have it, tap the search button in Bluesky's website or on the app. If the feature has rolled out to you, you'll see trending posts below the text box. They're not listed in any sort of order or priority, so just expect a loose collection of popular keywords rather than an organized list.Personally, I'm not a huge fan of trending topics, since they push me to engage in conversations I might prefer to avoid, and it's always unclear how genuine they areis there actually news worth discussing, or is the algorithm just suggesting I help pump up posts on a particular topic it thinks I like?Fortunately, for people like me, it's possible to disable Bluesky's trending topics feature altogether. Disabling it is as simple as clicking the X button next to the Trending list, but for more detailed control, go to Bluesky's content and media settings page (Settings > Content and media) to access the trending topic toggle.It's not entirely clear if Bluesky's trending topics are as personalized (re: useless) as those on X, but we do know they aren't filtered by region, at least yet. According to Bluesky, the feature is currently only available only in English. Importantly, your muted keywords are also hidden from your list of trending topics. This way, you won't be forced to see posts about politics or other topics that you might want to avoid. Other ways to see trending posts on BlueskyThe new feature, while no doubt handy to some, isn't the only way to find trending topics on Bluesky. For user-generated options, go to Bluesky's Feeds page and search for "trending." This will reveal other feeds that track trending posts on the social network, such as Trending News, Blacksky: Trending, and Trending Links. You can add these feeds to your profile and even set one as your default if you wish.If that doesn't cut it, try using Sill, which allows you view only the links shared by people you follow. Sill lets you view the most popular posts first, and if you follow lots of popular accounts, you can use the service to keep a tab on Bluesky's hottest topics.

The Consumer Electronics Show, known as CES, is the premiere annual event for consumer brands debuting new products. The sheer size of the event, which takes over Las Vegas from January 5 to 10, is hard to wrap your head around, as is the breadth of products represented there. Smart home technology makes up a big enough slice of the pie to have its own section of the event, this year at The Venetian. In some ways, when we talk about what we hope to see at CES, were actually saying what we hope to see for the next year, because most things at CES aren't quite ready for the mass market just yet. While Ive been getting sneak peeks at what a lot of companies are going to be releasing for CES in 2025, there are still a few types of products I really hope I'll get to see more of. More types of sensors for better automationSensors are a key part of a smart home toolbox, serving as a trigger for various actions. Their utility depends on two factors: that they work reliably, and that the automation software offers enough flexibility in how you can use them. There's still a lot of room for both these factors improve. There are lots of brands that offer sensors with spotty reliabilityparticularly those that measure water and temperature. So generally, Id like to see more big brands in this space release basic sensors (motion, light, presence, temperature, and water) that can be trusted.Beyond improving what we already have, there are some newer spaces I'd love to see smart sensors explore. With the explosion of smart lights that I expect us to see at CES, Id love better and more sensitive light sensors that can sense a color shiftI dream of being able to run an automation where my robot mop is triggered by a sensor recognizing the white tiles are no longer white due to dirt, for example. Id also like sensors that compare indoor and outdoor air quality with greater detail about where air issues are coming from, and weight sensors that can be used to run automations based on how much weight changesfor instance, a sensor on food and water dishes that can tell me how much my dog ate and drank today.We already know that the most trusted name in sensors, Aqara, is rumored to release a new presence sensor. As exciting as that is, Id love to see even more sensors from themones that push into new areas of representation like Ive named above.Key improvements in robot vacuums and mowers, pleaseThis year, I've played with an untold number of vacuums, a bunch of lawnmowers, and even a few personal robots like the Enabot. I expect were going to continue to see robot vacuums leap forward this year, as they have the past few. I expect well see absurd levels of suction power, and the robots are going to start to develop a whole new set of skills. We had one stair-climbing robot last year, so I expect well start to see more robots with that sort of dexterity. Switchbot started to play with the idea of a robot vacuum as a household butler, shuttling water from the source to humidifiers, and I predict it'll continue to build that idea out. If the robot can shuttle water, what else can it move for you? What Id like to see in robot vacuums is consistency in high-end modelsby now they should all have a compartment for cleaning fluid on board the charging dock, and they should all have the ability be to directed by remote control in the app. Id like to see robot assistants for vacuums go away entirely: theyre unhelpful, unrefined, and just another unwanted voice in my house. Instead, Id like robot vacuums to better integrate with existing voice assistants.Also, I'd love to see robot vacuums take on baseboards. I'm sure this seems small, but brands are obsessed with how close their robots get to the wall, and yet they ignore the baseboards, which remain filthy and ignored. Narwal has started to address this, although in the most basic way, by attaching a muff to the robot that sweeps against the baseboard, but it's not enough. I predict well see a ton of robot lawnmowers this year, which is exciting. I predict that like the Yarbo and Mowrator, most lawnmowers will also start to do more, including collecting and dumping of leaves. What I hope to see is more stability in mid-large size models, with beefier wheels that can handle dips and hills with ease, but with a tighter turn radius that doesn't tear up your lawn. I would love to see a fleet of small robot lawnmowers, perfect for tiny lawns, and for them to be sold at tiny prices. I would not like to see more lawn printing, which allows you to mow designs into your lawn. Though it sounded exciting, it turned out to be pretty silly in practice.Will we finally get our personal robots this year? Remember Ballie, from Samsung? Id love this to be the year actual personal robots make it into the consumer market in a real way. So far, Im unimpressed with those Ive tried. I have an Enabot that is supposed to follow my dog around, but so far, it just runs into my washing machine over and over again. Personal robots dont have to do it all yet, but I truly think these robots could work for emotional support and a light physical assist in housework or technological chores. But for that to happen, a brand has to (please) get a good one to market already.Better smart lighting throughout the entire homeOver the last year, smart home tech has deeply infiltrated the new construction and retrofit market. Its not enough to have a smart bulb or a lamp on a smart plug, now everything from recessed lights to under cabinet lights topermanent outdoor lights are smart. I hope we continue to see growth in the retrofit market, which benefits renters.Ive noticed a massive uptick in entertainment lighting in the last yearfloor lamps that can change to any color, bendable foam lights that resemble neon lights, even light curtains. After falling in love with my glowing Nanoleaf lights, Id love to see more exploration in LED smart lights for inside the home and office that look like they're for adults, not just kids. Theres really no reason any light in your home should only be able to be tuned to white anymore, and when all your lights can play together as one to engage in shifting color schemes, your whole house becomes a big light therapy factory.Where else can smart locks possibly go?Every time I think smart locks have been all figured out, something new comes out that improves things yet again. The first facial recognition locks came out this year, and then the palm print lock, and now, it looks like Eufy is going to announce a lock with palm recognition. It feels like Star Trek.My biggest wish for smart locks is that they get better about retrofitting older homes, which arguably need the security the most. There are still many kinds of older locks that have few or no smart lock retrofit options. Id also like to see some smart locks that look like many of our homes do: stately and refined instead of cold and modern. Better, more secure smart camerasThis year, smart cameras took on a few trends: 24/7 continuous recording, which is more informative than the clips we were used to getting. We also saw an explosion of off-grid cameras which worked well and only needed solar power. The downside of these cameras is the amount of data they use, since theyre not connected to wifi.Id like to see better compression of that video on off-grid cameras so they become more usable. Id love to see the cameras get smaller and less visible, too. At this point, Im only interested in PTZ (point, tilt, zoom) cameras, and wonder why anyone would buy something else, so Id like to see less of the static viewpoint cameras, too. Finally, I hope to see better security around these cameras, with real ways to secure the feeds.Standards, hubs, and automationI dont want this, really, but I expect we will see tons of brands try to relaunch their hubs as multi-hubsthat is, platforms that control not just that brand's devices, but allows them to integrate and interact with all your devices across brands. Most people utilize Google, Apple, or Amazon for this. Personally, I would prefer to see brands focus on exceptional integration with major multi-hubs that already exist. Of course, Id like to see Matterthe connection standard that was supposed to revolutionize smart home by getting rid of all your smart hubs and apps so you only needed oneutilized in all new devices as a connection method. Matter has been slow to adoption, but I still believe in its potential.Id also like to see automation get easier with our assistants and multi-hubs. While AI has started to play a role (Google has recently added Gemini as a possibility for automation help, but I found it clunky), automation remains pretty one-note for most users. It's a lot of "if this happens, do that." Its difficult to execute multi-step automations or dependent automations with more than one condition. Id love to see that change.