It started in 2020. Or that’s where the wax-breadcrumb trail seems to lead: Back to the early days of the pandemic that forced everyone to take up hobbies, and then all the days afterward that gave them time to perfect those hobbies. Among those hobbies was candle-making. And eventually, food-shaped candle-making. Now, you can get a candle that looks like a martini. Or a piece of cake. Or a sausage. Or a bowl of cherries. And you can get them from many, many brands. In fact, it might be possible to get a candle in the shape of almost anything. (Is it cake or is it a candle?) The only problem with the trend, as far as we can tell, is that most of these candles seem too magnificent to burn. But they also seem primed to ritualize: How about a cake candle that you light only on each birthday? Trying not to eat sugar for a year? Buy a candle that looks like dessert, and light it 365 days from now. The world is your oyster-shaped candle.Below are a few of our favorites to get your collection started. 1InfinCreats Fruit Loops Candle Bowl$20 at AmazonThis bowl of Fruit Loops has the benefit of a vanilla scent. The candle sits inside a real glass bowl with an actual metal spoon, drop it on the table amid bowls of actual Fruit Loops and it'll seem even more realistic. 2Fried Chicken$38 at gohar.worldOn the quirkier end of the spectrum are these fried chicken thighs. Put them on a cake platter in the middle of a table for dramatic effect. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below3The martini$22 at EtsyStrikingly realistic, right? This martini comes in a glass that could conceivably be refilled (though we don't recommend it). Try serving these two guests, unlit, before the actual cocktails come out. The gag potential for food-shaped candles is high. 4Riviera Spaghetti Lobster Candle$70 at Moda OperandiThis wax candle was handmade in Italy by a family of wax shapers that goes back six generations. But it's not actually recommended to light this candle and we're happy to preserve its adorable look.Advertisement - Continue Reading Below5Sandwich Candle$40 at cloveandcreek.comOnce upon a time, kids wanted six-foot-long subs (or hoagies or Italians, depending on the region) for their birthday parties. Problem was, kids could never finish six feet of sandwich. Solution: The candle sub. No soggy buns. 6Tinned Fish Candle$26 at shopgenara.comIt comes in a paper wrapper! And a real tin! Bonus, it does not smell like fish, but "garden-fresh tomato leaf." Ideal for picnics and that friend who went through a tinned fish phase a couple years ago.Advertisement - Continue Reading Below7Fruit Bowl Food CandlesNow 45% Off£33 £18 at choosingkeeping.comThis cornucopia is handmade in Italy. And though it will be hard to see them go, the spectacle of melting fruit is sure to be a hit at your next dinner party. 8Nissin Nissin Cup Noodle Candle$12 at japantrendshop.comLooking for a clever gift? Try this hyper-real Cup of Noodles candle. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below9Hot dogs and fries (with pickles)$46 at EtsyPerfect for barbecues, this hot dog candle kit is a decor wink that looks just like summer.10Espresso Pot Candle$32 at John DerianAn espresso pot candle that sadly does not smell like coffee. But, it'll still fool anyone in your kitchen.Advertisement - Continue Reading Below11T-Bone Steak Candle£75 at choosingkeeping.comThis T-bone steak calls to mind Dutch vanitas paintings, wherein perfectly rendered organic matter is depicted gently rotting, alluding to the brevity of life. Pair a steak with fruit candles, baguette, and cheese, and invoke this still-life tradition in the middle of your dinner table. No conversation starters required. 12The Olive Candle$30 at bignightbk.comMaybe not as realistic as some of the others, but the charm of this olive is undeniable. Bonus, it has a nice smell (without a base of brine): "neroli, jasmine, and orange blossom."Advertisement - Continue Reading Below13The croissant$12 at EtsyBreakfast foods and candles go together like jam and jelly. This croissant, made from soy and beeswax, brings the full equation. 14Cherries (Set of 10)$32 at bignightbk.comOf all the food-shaped candles out there, these win "most likely to be burned" because how cute would they look on top of a cake? Advertisement - Continue Reading Below15Cupcake$78 at gohar.worldWax lends itself to the seductive ripples of well-spread frosting, no? Stack a tray full of these candle desserts at your next festive gathering. Looking to create a centerpiece for your farm-core picnic? Try corn candles. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below17Mushroom Candles$16 at EtsyThere's a seasonal quality to mushrooms that make them just right for a fall dinner table setting. 18Ramen$37 at EtsyPerhaps you'd like something more high end than the Cup of Noodles candle. Here, we present a ramen bowl version. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below19Iced Coffee $35 at EtsyThankfully, these candles look and smell like iced coffee. Perfect for a morning pick-me-up. 20Banana Split Candle$46 at John DerianWhich kid in your life needs this candle immediately? We say all of them.

For nearly 10 years I have written about science and technology and I’ve been an early adopter of new tech for much longer. As a teenager in the mid-1990s I annoyed the hell out of my family by jamming up the phone line for hours with a dial-up modem; connecting to bulletin board communities all over the country.When I started writing professionally about technology in 2016 I was all for our seemingly inevitable transhumanist future. When the chip is ready I want it immediately stuck in my head, I remember saying proudly in our busy office. Why not improve ourselves where we can?Since then, my general view on technology has dramatically shifted. Watching a growing class of super-billionaires erode the democratizing nature of technology by maintaining corporate controls over what we use and how we use it has fundamentally changed my personal relationship with technology. Seeing deeply disturbing philosophical stances like longtermism, effective altruism, and singulartarianism envelop the minds of those rich, powerful men controlling the world has only further entrenched inequality.A recent Black Mirror episode really rammed home the perils we face by having technology so controlled by capitalist interests. A sick woman is given a brain implant connected to a cloud server to keep her alive. The system is managed through a subscription service where the user pays for monthly access to the cognitive abilities managed by the implant. As time passes, that subscription cost gets more and more expensive - and well, it’s Black Mirror, so you can imagine where things end up. Titled 'Common People', the episode is from series 7 of Black MirrorNetflix The enshittification of our digital world has been impossible to ignore. You’re not imagining things, Google Search is getting worse.But until the emergence of AI (or, as we’ll discuss later, language learning models that pretend to look and sound like an artificial intelligence) I’ve never been truly concerned about a technological innovation, in and of itself.A recent article looked at how generative AI tech such as ChatGPT is being used by university students. The piece was authored by a tech admin at New York University and it’s filled with striking insights into how AI is shaking the foundations of educational institutions.Not unsurprisingly, students are using ChatGPT for everything from summarizing complex texts to completely writing essays from scratch. But one of the reflections quoted in the article immediately jumped out at me.When a student was asked why they relied on generative AI so much when putting work together they responded, “You’re asking me to go from point A to point B, why wouldn’t I use a car to get there?”My first response was, of course, why wouldn’t you? It made complete sense.For a second.And then I thought, hang on, what is being lost by speeding from point A to point B in a car? What if the quickest way from point A to point B wasn't the best way to get there?Depositphotos Let’s further the analogy. You need to go to the grocery store. It’s a 10-minute walk away but a three-minute drive. Why wouldn’t you drive?Well, the only benefit of driving is saving time. That’s inarguable. You’ll be back home and cooking up your dinner before the person on foot even gets to the grocery store.Congratulations. You saved yourself about 20 minutes. In a world where efficiency trumps everything this is the best choice. Use that extra 20 minutes in your day wisely.But what are the benefits of not driving, taking the extra time, and walking?First, you have environmental benefits. Not using a car unnecessarily; spewing emissions into the air, either directly from combustion or indirectly for those with electric cars.Secondly, you have health benefits from the little bit of exercise you get by walking. Our stationary lives are quite literally killing us so a 20-minute walk a day is likely to be incredibly positive for your health.But there are also more abstract benefits to be gained by walking this short trip from A to B.Walking connects us to our neighborhood. It slows things down. Helps us better understand the community and environment we are living in. A recent study summarized the benefits of walking around your neighborhood, suggesting the practice leads to greater social connectedness and reduced feelings of isolation.So what are we losing when we use a car to get from point A to point B? Potentially a great deal.But let’s move out of abstraction and into the real world.An article in the Columbia Journalism Review asked nearly 20 news media professionals how they were integrating AI into their personal workflow. The responses were wildly varied. Some journalists refused to use AI for anything more than superficial interview transcription, while others use it broadly, to edit text, answer research questions, summarize large bodies of science text, or search massive troves of data for salient bits of information.In general, the line almost all those media professionals shared was they would never explicitly use AI to write their articles. But for some, almost every other stage of the creative process in developing a story was fair game for AI assistance.I found this a little horrifying. Farming out certain creative development processes to AI felt not only ethically wrong but also like key cognitive stages were being lost, skipped over, considered unimportant.I’ve never considered myself to be an extraordinarily creative person. I don’t feel like I come up with new or original ideas when I work. Instead, I see myself more as a compiler. I enjoy finding connections between seemingly disparate things. Linking ideas and using those pieces as building blocks to create my own work. As a writer and journalist I see this process as the whole point.A good example of this is a story I published in late 2023 investigating the relationship between long Covid and psychedelics. The story began earlier in the year when I read an intriguing study linking long Covid with serotonin abnormalities in the gut. Being interested in the science of psychedelics, and knowing that psychedelics very much influence serotonin receptors, I wondered if there could be some kind of link between these two seemingly disparate topics.The idea sat in the back of my mind for several months, until I came across a person who told me they had been actively treating their own long Covid symptoms with a variety of psychedelic remedies. After an expansive and fascinating interview I started diving into different studies looking to understand how certain psychedelics affect the body, and whether there could be any associations with long Covid treatments.Eventually I stumbled across a few compelling associations. It took weeks of reading different scientific studies, speaking to various researchers, and thinking about how several discordant threads could be somehow linked.Could AI have assisted me in the process of developing this story?No. Because ultimately, the story comprised an assortment of novel associations that I drew between disparate ideas all encapsulated within the frame of a person’s subjective experience.And it is this idea of novelty that is key to understanding why modern AI technology is not actually intelligence but a simulation of intelligence. LLMs are a sophisticated language imitator, delivering responses that resemble what they think a response would look likeDepositphotos ChatGPT, and all the assorted clones that have emerged over the last couple of years, are a form of technology called LLMs (large language models). At the risk of enraging those who actually work in this mind-bendingly complex field, I’m going to dangerously over-simplify how these things work.It’s important to know that when you ask a system like ChatGPT a question it doesn’t understand what you are asking it. The response these systems generate to any prompt is simply a simulation of what it computes a response would look like based on a massive dataset.So if I were to ask the system a random question like, “What color are cats?”, the system would scrape the world’s trove of information on cats and colors to create a response that mirrors the way most pre-existing text talks about cats and colors. The system builds its response word by word, creating something that reads coherently to us, by establishing a probability for what word should follow each prior word. It’s not thinking, it’s imitating.What these generative AI systems are spitting out are word salad amalgams of what it thinks the response to your prompt should look like, based on training from millions of books and webpages that have been previously published.Setting aside for a moment the accuracy of the responses these systems deliver, I am more interested (or concerned) with the cognitive stages that this technology allows us to skip past.For thousands of years we have used technology to improve our ability to manage highly complex tasks. The idea is called cognitive offloading, and it’s as simple as writing something down on a notepad or saving a contact number on your smartphone. There are pros and cons to cognitive offloading, and scientists have been digging into the phenomenon for years.As long as we have been doing it, there have been people criticizing the practice. The legendary Greek philosopher Socrates was notorious for his skepticism around the written word. He believed knowledge emerged through a dialectical process so writing itself was reductive. He even went so far as to suggest (according to his student Plato, who did write things down) that writing makes us dumber. “For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.” Wrote Plato, quoting Socrates Almost every technological advancement in human history can be seen to be accompanied by someone suggesting it will be damaging. Calculators have destroyed our ability to properly do math. GPS has corrupted our spatial memory. Typewriters killed handwriting. Computer word processors killed typewriters. Video killed the radio star.And what have we lost? Well, zooming in on writing, for example, a 2020 study claimed brain activity is greater when a note is handwritten as opposed to being typed on a keyboard. And then a 2021 study suggested memory retention is better when using a pen and paper versus a stylus and tablet. So there are certainly trade-offs whenever we choose to use a technological tool to offload a cognitive task.There’s an oft-told story about gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. It may be apocryphal but it certainly is meaningful. He once said he sat down and typed out the entirety of The Great Gatsby, word for word. According to Thompson, he wanted to know what it felt like to write a great novel. Thompson was infamous for writing everything on typewriters, even when computers emerged in the 1990sPublic Domain I don’t want to get all wishy-washy here, but these are the brass tacks we are ultimately falling on. What does it feel like to think? What does it feel like to be creative? What does it feel like to understand something?A recent interview with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, reveals how deeply AI has infiltrated his life and work. Not only does Nadella utilize nearly a dozen different custom-designed AI agents to manage every part of his workflow – from summarizing emails to managing his schedule – but he also uses AI to get through podcasts quickly on his way to work. Instead of actually listening to the podcasts he has transcripts uploaded to an AI assistant who he then chats to about the information while commuting.Why listen to the podcast when you can get the gist through a summary? Why read a book when you can listen to the audio version at X2 speed? Or better yet, watch the movie? Or just read a Wikipedia entry. Or get AI to summarize the wikipedia entry.I’m not here to judge anyone on the way they choose to use technology. Do what you want with ChatGPT. But for a moment consider what you may be skipping over by racing from point A to point B.Sure, you can give ChatGPT a set of increasingly detailed prompts; adding complexity to its summary of a scientific journal or a podcast, but at what point do the prompts get so granular that you may as well read the journal entry itself? If you get generative AI to skim and summarize something, what is it missing? If something was worth being written then surely it is worth being read?If there is a more succinct way to say something then maybe we should say it more succinctly.In a magnificent article for The New Yorker, Ted Chiang perfectly summed up the deep contradiction at the heart of modern generative AI systems. He argues language, and writing, is fundamentally about communication. If we write an email to someone we can expect the person at the other end to receive those words and consider them with some kind of thought or attention. But modern AI systems (or these simulations of intelligence) are erasing our ability to think, consider, and write. Where does it all end? For Chiang it's pretty dystopian feedback loop of dialectical slop. “We are entering an era where someone might use a large language model to generate a document out of a bulleted list, and send it to a person who will use a large language model to condense that document into a bulleted list. Can anyone seriously argue that this is an improvement?” Ted Chiang

If you've ever wondered where loofahs come from, take a trip with us.   Image: Penpak Ngamsathain / Getty Images Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. If you’ve spent most of your life under the impression that loofahs are some type of sea sponge and that these scratchy natural scrubbers are the last thing you’d want to use on your body on a daily basis, you’re not alone. But in fact, the Luffa Aegyptiaca (often known as loofah in the U.S.) is the taxonomic name of a species of gourd that grows on land, and it’s a genetic descendant of the wild cucumber. What’s more, if it’s locally grown with minimal processing, it’s plenty soft enough for not just your skin, but plenty of other applications, too. What is a luffa? In the States, you’d be excused for not being familiar with this unique plant, as luffa is far more popular in Asia and tropical regions. In fact, very few farmers grow the plant commercially for the American market—there are just two farms in the country and, according to Brooklynn Gamble, farm supervisor at The Luffa Farm in Nipomo, California, both are located in the West Coast state. But the plant isn’t endemic to countries this far north, so cultivating it requires lots of care and attention. Luffa plants growing on vines at The Luffa Farm. Image: Courtesy of The Luffa Farm Fortunately, luffa farmer Deanne Coon was willing to offer both, which is how The Luffa Farm was born in 2000 after growing the plant as part of a friend’s biology class experiment and then spending nearly two decades experimenting. Thanks to Nipomo’s location in a decidedly non-tropical climate, Coon had to account for things like cooler seasons (she grows in greenhouses), coastal winds (also greenhouses) and gophers (she grows plants in pots instead of directly in the ground).  Now semi-retired, she and a team run the small farm peppered with avocado and citrus trees and decorated with quirky custom yard art. They also offer tours during open hours so visitors can learn a little something about luffa. Guests saunter through a steamy greenhouse where long green gourds that resemble zucchini hang from trellises in impressive quantities. They learn that while some Asian cultures raise smaller varieties that are green, tender, and edible when young, it’s not popular as a culinary ingredient in the U.S. And when they inquire about why crispy brown gourds are still hanging on the vine, they learn that luffa isn’t harvested until well after you think it’s dead. “When it’s completely brown and dry we cut it off the vine,” Gamble explains. Only then, and after it is peeled, will it finally be recognizable as the fibrous exfoliating sponge many know and love. In areas of Asia, the luffa fruit is used in culinary dishes. Image: Courtesy of The Luffa Farm It’s what’s on the inside that matters Getting to that point, however, takes time and unique biological functions that aren’t visible to the naked eye. It takes six to nine months after planting luffa seeds for them to be ready to harvest, Gamble explains (longer in winter, shorter in summer). It takes three to four months just for slim green baby gourds to start sprouting from reaching vines and the male flowers, which are necessary for pollination, to bloom.  Once that happens and pollination is complete, the squash are technically edible and ripe for picking. The inner fruit tends to be slimy like okra, so it’s a bit of an acquired taste. However, there are certainly recipes from around the world that incorporate this nutritional veggie. But The Luffa Farm isn’t in the business of unpopular produce, so the fruit is left on the vine where it can grow as large and heavy as the trellised vines can handle, Gamble continues. As that happens, the interior plant fibers act as the veins that feed water and nutrients to the seeds, the care of which is the plant’s number one directive. Those veins get thicker and denser to nourish the seeds as the gourd grows. When the gourd gets too big—about the size of an oversized zucchini—the vine, which can grow 30 to 40 feet in any direction, cuts off the water supply to the whole fruit in order to redistribute resources to other plants on the vine that are still growing. “As the vine sucks the water out and recycles it, [the gourd] dries up,” Gamble describes. When that happens, instead of rotting like most other produce, the luffa turns from deep green to yellow to brown and hard. When that happens, the gourd feels light as air because all the liquid and vegetable matter has dried up, leaving only a fibrous network of cellulose inside the now-hard, shell-like skin. That’s when it’s time to harvest. The skin is cracked open and the seeds, which can be replanted, are shaken out. Harvesters soak the whole gourd in water for five minutes, which rehydrates the thin layer of vegetable residue on the underside and then “the skin so it slides right off,” Gamble says. What’s left over is an airy, light, sponge-like spidery network of plant fibers that make an excellent natural multi-purpose sponge that’s pliable when dry and even softer when wet. That’s what makes it such an attractive option among skincare enthusiasts. Not all luffa are created equal If that doesn’t sound at all like the rigid, compressed luffa you see for sale at your local health food store, you’re not wrong. Most luffa are imported, and since they’re a plant, they must be treated beforehand to ensure they won’t transport bugs, disease, or other agricultural blights, Gamble explains.  “Those heat treatments in particular are what damage the fibers,” she states. It shrinks the otherwise light and loose cellulose structures and makes the luffa hard, compact, and less pliable. Compromising the structure also makes them more prone to bacterial growth, because they don’t dry out as easily or completely between uses. Luffas grown and sold at The Luffa Farm. Image: Courtesy of The Luffa Farm Luffa grown in the U.S., like the ones from The Luffa Farm, don’t have to be treated with anything since they’re not imported from overseas. They just get a quick rinse before they’re sold. As a result, they’re softer, more pleasant on skin, more versatile, and longer lasting. One might last up to a year of regular use. Plus, because they’re highly porous, “they don’t create the same breeding ground for bacteria,” Gamble offers. A plant with unlimited uses But exfoliating isn’t all these plants are good for. On the contrary, Gamble says there are many uses for luffa. Softer varieties can be used as a facial sponge in place of a washcloth. They can even be tossed in the washer for a deep clean, though you should avoid putting them in the dryer. They make excellent dish sponges and pot scrubbers. Gamble uses one on her stainless steel stove.  A wet luffa makes quick work of washing your car, too, especially when it comes to scrubbing bugs off your grill, Gamble recommends. The fibers won’t even scratch the finish. They’ve even been used as insulation in mud brick houses and as industrial filters and may have inspired a sunlight-powered porous hydrogel that could potentially purify water. The best part: untreated luffa sponges are compostable, making them an eco-friendly alternative to synthetic sponges. “They are so unique as a plant,” Gamble says, a truly multifunctional and sustainable natural product whose uses go far beyond bath time exfoliation. And yes, it’s one that grows on land, not underwater.

Each week on Polygon, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home. This week, Mickey 17, the science fiction comedy from Oscar-winning Parasite writer-director Bong Joon Ho, starring Robert Pattinson as an expendable clone, gets copied onto HBO Max following its March theatrical debut. Netflix has a full slate of releases, with the Academy Award-winning Brazilian drama I’m Still Here and Fear Street: Prom Queen, the fourth horror flick in the franchise based on the R.L. Stein books. Guy Ritchie fans can check out his adventure film Fountain of Youth on Apple TV Plus, and you can rent Wolfs to watch George Clooney and Brad Pitt team up again. Here’s everything new that’s available to watch this weekend. New on Netflix Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds Genre: DocumentaryRun time: 1h 31mDirector: Matt Wilcox The documentary takes viewers inside the cockpit of the U.S. Air Force’s demonstration squadron, which has been touring the country since 1953 to perform feats of aerial acrobatics and family-friendly military propaganda. The Netflix original, produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, features interviews with the daredevil pilots, explaining how they train to show off the capabilities of the F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets with complex synchronized maneuvers. Fear Street: Prom Queen Genre: HorrorRun time: 1h 30mDirector: Matt PalmerCast: India Fowler, Suzanna Son, Fina Strazza There’s just two days to go until senior prom 1988, and the most popular girls at Shadyside High are fighting over the title of prom queen. But the race gets shaken up as candidates start disappearing. Expect a lot of gory kills. Matt Palmer (Calibre) co-writes and directs the slasher film, which is the fourth in a series based on R.L. Stein’s Fear Street books. I’m Still Here Genre: Political dramaRun time: 2h 15m Director: Walter SallesCast: Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, Fernanda Montenegro As a military dictatorship takes over Brazil, congressman and father of five Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) is arrested and disappears. His wife, Eunice (Fernanda Torres) spends decades searching for answers and justice. I’m Still Here won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, and Torres won a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination for her performance. New on Apple TV Plus Fountain of Youth Genre: Action adventureRun time: 2h 5mDirector: Guy RitchieCast: John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, Stanley Tucci Guy Ritchie puts his spin on Indiana Jones in this Apple original, where estranged siblings Luke (John Krasinski) and Charlotte Purdue (Natalie Portman) go on a globe-trotting adventure to chase the legendary source of eternal life. The film was shot on location in London, Cairo, Vienna, and Bangkok, and is packed with chase scenes, gunfights, and puzzles. From our review: If Fountain of Youth kept up the simple fun of its first few scenes, it could have been a solid tribute to the adventure genre. But James Vanderbilt and Guy Ritchie’s attempt to find some profound meaning in the search for lost treasure never really works, because their characters are too thin to make their emotional catharsis meaningful. New on Hulu The Last Showgirl Genre: DramaRun time: 1h 25mDirector: Gia CoppolaCast: Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista After three decades of donning a sparkly costume and feathered crown to perform in Le Razzle Dazzle on the Las Vegas strip, Shelly Gardner (Pamela Anderson) learns the show will be closing in two weeks, pushing her to reassess her life and try to figure out her future. Anderson was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in the melancholy film. New on HBO Max Mickey 17 Genre: Science fictionRun time: 2h 17mDirector: Bong Joon HoCast: Robert Pattinson, Naomie Ackie, Mark Ruffalo Desperate to get off Earth, Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) volunteers to become an expendable, a crew member who is cloned over and over again to assist with space exploration in the latest science fiction film/vicious critique of capitalism from Oscar-winner Bong Joon Ho. Mark Ruffalo plays the buffoonish leader of a planned colony, whose ambitions come into conflict with the creatures living on the frozen planet. New on Shudder The Surrender Genre: HorrorRun time: 1h 35mDirector: Julia MaxCast: Colby Minifie, Kate Burton, Chelsea Alden The Surrender starts as a family drama with Megan (Colby Minifie of The Boys) returning home to help her mother Barbara (Kate Burton) care for her terminally ill father and deal with the issues that drove them apart. But when Robert (Vaughn Armstrong) finally dies, Barbara plans a resurrection ritual instead of a funeral, and the horror really begins. New to digital The Legend of Ochi Genre: Fantasy adventureRun time: 1h 36mDirector: Isaiah SaxonCast: Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Watson, Willem Dafoe A24’s family-friendly movie used complex puppetry to bring its titular adorable monkey-like creature to life. Set in a remote area of the Carpathian mountains, the film follows lonely 12-year-old Dasha (Emily Watson), who goes on a quest to return a baby ochi to its family, defying her father Maxim (Willem Dafoe), who thinks the mythological creatures are vicious beasts that should be hunted down. The Trouble with Jessica Genre: Dark comedyRun time: 1h 29mDirector: Matt WinnCast: Shirley Henderson, Alan Tudyk, Rufus Sewell Cash-strapped Sarah (Shirley Henderson) and Tom (Alan Tudyk) are having one last dinner party for their old friends before selling their London home, but one of those friends, Jessica (Indira Varma) almost ruins everything when she hangs herself in the garden. Two couples band together to try to cover up the death and avoid spooking the buyer as things get increasingly out of hand. Until Dawn Genre: HorrorRun time: 1h 43mDirector: David F. SandbergCast: Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Odessa A’zion A teen investigating her sister’s disappearance leads a group of her friends to a mysterious mansion in an abandoned mining town, and they get stuck in a time loop where they’re brutally murdered in a different way each night. Reminiscent of The Cabin in the Woods, David F. Sandberg’s love letter to the horror genre (and only very lose adaptation of the 2015 video game Until Dawn) builds tension as the group puzzles together how to survive the night. The film is only available for digital purchase as of May 23, with no date set yet for digital rental. From our review: There’s way too much going on in Until Dawn. Director David F. Sandberg tried to make a faithful-ish adaptation of the popular 2015 video game, a Groundhog Day-style repeating-day movie, a comedy, a drama with something to say about trauma, and a love letter to every horror subgenre ever, all at the same time. But the byproduct of all this ambition is a movie that never quite finds an identity, and winds up feeling more generic than inspired. Wolfs Genre: Action comedyRun time: 1h 48mDirector: Jon WattsCast: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Amy Ryan Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts reunites George Clooney and Brad Pitt as a pair of lone-wolf fixers who both get called in to dispose of the same body. But when the job gets messier than expected, they’re forced to grudgingly work together to survive the night.

The end of Squid Game is coming to Netflix. The streamer’s biggest series ever in terms of worldwide viewership concludes its run with the upcoming third season, which is the far and away biggest title that is getting added by Netflix in June.Also coming to Netflix in June: The return of FUBAR, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s very fun action comedy series, as well as as a new Tyler Perry movie and a Justin Willman magic special. Plus there’s a trio of documentaries grouped under the name Trainwreck: One about the Astroworld tragedy, one about infamous Toronto major Rob Ford, and one about the so-called “Poop Cruise.” How much you want to bet the thing that’s called Poop Cruise goes to #1 on the Netflix top ten chart?Here’s the full list of what’s coming to Netflix in June 2025:Avail. 6/1/25The American Barbarian Bee Movie The Birds The Blues Brothers The Devil's Own Dune (1984) The Equalizer Family Plot Focus Frenzy The Great Outdoors Hitchcock Hop The Legend of Zorro The Man Who Knew Too Much Neighbors15. Now You See Me (2013)Summitloading...Now You See Me Now You See Me 2 The Nutty Professor Pokémon The Series: XY Pokémon The Series: XY: XY: Kalos Quest Pokémon The Series: XY: XYZ Rear Window The Theory of Everything The Town U-571 Us VertigoAvail. 6/3/25Sara - Woman in the Shadows -- NETFLIX SERIESThe suspicious death of her son pushes a former secret agent back into action, investigating a series of crimes that grows increasingly sinister.Avail. 6/4/25Criminal Code: Season 2 -- NETFLIX SERIESAn elite Brazilian Federal Police unit takes on a ruthless criminal gang in a deadly game of wits.Eva Lasting: Season 3 -- NETFLIX SERIESAs the gang graduates, their newfound freedom brings Camilo a new set of drama — and yearning — for Eva. 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Start SlideshowStart SlideshowWe all know there is no Mission: Impossible without Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) ultimately saving the world from a nuclear disaster, a bombing, or anything some nutcase came up with that day. He is the central figure, one whom an entire universe revolves around. But, it would be a shame if you watched years of Mission: Impossible films and didn’t realize that it’s truly the cast of characters around Hunt that make him who he is, and thusly, made this franchise what it has become.Hunt would’ve been dead years ago if Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) weren’t opening prison doors for him, or monitoring the security systems inside the world’s most secure buildings. Beyond their operational importance, villains like Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and August Walker (Henry Cavill) give powerhouse performances while also pushing Hunt to the edge of his limits. Some of the best lines are uttered by people other than Hunt. And the emotional stakes of each film typically are from these side characters.In honor of the unsung heroes, here are the most irreplaceable supporting characters in Mission: Impossible history.Previous SlideNext Slide2 / 21List slides19. Rick Meade (Aaron Paul) List slides19. Rick Meade (Aaron Paul) Image: Paramount PicturesAaron Paul was in Mission: Impossible? Yes, I’ve seen every movie multiple times and still have that reaction sometimes. A weaselly slacker-looking version of him briefly appears as the brother of Julia Meade-Hunt (Michelle Monaghan) at her engagement party to Hunt. His main contributions are to appear slovenly next to Hunt and unintentionally aid in her kidnapping. The energy that would make him famous as Breaking Bad’s Jesse Pinkman is tightly bottled up and kept under wraps for his few lines of dialogue. -Ethan GachPrevious SlideNext Slide3 / 21List slides18. Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys Meyers)List slides18. Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys Meyers)Image: Paramount PicturesOne of the biggest missed opportunities of the Mission: Impossible franchise is abandoning Ethan Hunt’s most charismatic teammate ever in Declan Gormley (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). In the underrated Mission: Impossible III, he avoided gunfire and the blades of gigantic wind turbines while piloting a rescue helicopter with the same cool he displays while charming angry drivers in a traffic stop he’s created as a diversion with the smoothest Italian you’ll ever hear in this franchise. Was he memorable? Yes. But, since Ethan and his team went on to thwart bigger threats without him, he wasn’t what you’d call an essential part of the franchise.Previous SlideNext Slide4 / 21List slides17. Mission Commander Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins)List slides17. Mission Commander Swanbeck (Anthony Hopkins)Image: Paramount PicturesA virtuoso acting talent such as Sir Anthony Hopkins being near the bottom of any movie list has nothing to do with his performance and everything do with his character’s utility. Appearing briefly in Mission: Impossible II as the sly and wise Mission Commander Swanbeck, Hopkins’s standout scene with Cruise is one of the coolest mission briefings in the history of the franchise. You can feel the confidence Swanbeck exhibits when he tells Hunt, a man who previously broke into Langley, “This is not Mission Difficult, Mr. Hunt. It’s Mission: Impossible.” Alas, Hopkins’ talents were wasted on a character so replaceable he was only used for one scene.Previous SlideNext Slide5 / 21List slides16. Jane Carter (Paula Patton)List slides16. Jane Carter (Paula Patton)Image: Paramount PicturesDitching MI3's JV squad of expendables, Ghost Protocol put Paula Patton in the shoes of operative Jane Carter, a woman who’s out for revenge against the hitwoman who killed her partner. The movie doesn’t give her a lot to work with but she matches Cruise’s energy with a physical performance that sees her go toe-to-toe with assassin Sabine Moreau (Léa Seydoux) assassin on the 130th floor of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa and seduce feisty telecoms billionaire Brij Nath (Anil Kapoor). She completed the mission with full marks but failed to leave much of a memorable impression on the series beyond that. - Ethan GachPrevious SlideNext Slide6 / 21List slides15. Franz Krieger (Jean Reno)List slides15. Franz Krieger (Jean Reno)Image: Paramount PicturesI’ve always felt that any globe-hopping espionage movie that lacks a grizzled Frenchman is missing something, that certain je ne sais quoi. Maybe that’s because I first fell in love with spy movies in the ’90s thanks to the one-two punch of 1996’s Mission: Impossible and 1998’s Ronin. As Mission: Impossible’s Franz Krieger, although we’re initially meant to think he’s a basically good member of Ethan Hunt’s new crackerjack team, he feels like bad news from the beginning and only confirms our suspicions before the end. Reno skillfully gives off just enough of a sleazy vibe to set off our alarm bells, and his presence makes us wary of possible threats to Ethan not just from outside the team, but from within it as well. Most importantly, though, with Reno’s presence in the mix, it gives the film that authentic espionage movie flavor, the stuff of cigarette-smoke-filled safehouses, narrow European streets, and potential treachery lurking around every corner. — Carolyn PetitPrevious SlideNext Slide7 / 21List slides14. Max Mitsopolis (Vanessa Redgrave)List slides14. Max Mitsopolis (Vanessa Redgrave)Image: Paramount PicturesIn order to clear his name and identify the real mole in the original Mission: Impossible, Ethan must track down an enigmatic figure known only as Max with whom the mole had dealings. Given that Max is a shadowy and powerful arms dealer, we might be expecting a Keyser Söze type—a menacing, larger-than-life underworld kingpin who you feel would just as soon put a bullet in your head as let you walk away from a meeting alive. So it’s a wonderful surprise when the hood is pulled from Ethan’s head at his first meeting with Max and we instead see the great Vanessa Redgrave, who plays Max as enigmatic, yes, but also effervescent—a woman who can both fix Ethan with a cold intellectual stare as she asks him probing questions and gush about how much she adores his brazen confidence. Redgrave gives Max tremendous depth; she’s fiercely intelligent, deeply private (“I don’t have to tell you what a comfort anonymity can be in my profession; it’s like a warm blanket.”), and not without warmth herself. She establishes in that very first film that this franchise’s take on the world of international intrigue won’t just trot out the usual stereotypes for its villains but will offer something smarter and more surprising—figures whose power comes not from their skills with firearms or the ruthless deployment of violence but from their intellect and ability to negotiate with others to secure what they want. — Carolyn PetitPrevious SlideNext Slide8 / 21List slides13. John Musgrave (Billy Crudup)List slides13. John Musgrave (Billy Crudup)Image: Paramount PicturesYou can usually see a double cross coming a mile away in Mission: Impossible. Not when John Musgrave is silently mouthing instructions only a restrained Hunt can understand, and before he slips him a knife to set himself free. With Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s overwhelmingly dastardly performance as Owen Davian distracting us, and Laurence Fishburne’s ambiguously snarly depiction of IMF director Theodore Brassel misdirecting us, Crudup’s slick performance slipped his nefarious intentions through our detection like a snake in the grass. Without Crudup, Mission: Impossible III is predictably one-dimensional, and the outstanding torture scene fake-out with a captured Hunt and his wife Julia (Michelle Monaghan) has less of a punch. Musgrave is the logic behind the madness, and also an essential part of the film. He just isn’t as integral to the franchise as the 12 characters ahead of him.Previous SlideNext Slide9 / 21List slides12. Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton)List slides12. Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandie Newton)Image: Paramount PicturesMission: Impossible II doesn’t work without Thandie Newton being seductive while maintaining her agency, and being cunning without being unrealistically fearless. As Nyah Nordoff-Hall, she’s a professional thief who carries the emotional weight of a pretty emotionless action flick featuring more gunfire than kisses. Nyah held her own whether she was feigning attraction to a psychopathic capitalist looking to profit off killing people with the Chimera virus, or she was dangerously flirting with Ethan Hunt by racing cars with him along a cliff. Few characters not named Ethan Hunt mean as much to any Mission: Impossible movie working as Nyah Nordoff-Hall.Previous SlideNext Slide10 / 21List slides11. Solomon Lane (Sean Harris)List slides11. Solomon Lane (Sean Harris)Image: Paramount PicturesSolomon Lane is probably the smartest Mission: Impossible villain ever. The rogue MI6 agent disillusioned with the global power structure was always one step ahead of Ethan Hunt, an agent so capable, he’d previously infiltrated both Langley and the Vatican without being detected. From the moment he appeared onscreen as the man who’s infiltrated Hunt’s mission delivery system and trapped him, we knew we were witnessing a rare villain. He framed the IMF, manipulated CIA double-agent August Walker (Henry Cavill), and formed the shadowy Syndicate of former agents. Beyond being evil, he sounded evil, with a gravelly whisper that made every threat feel like a dark premonition. He was so good at being bad that he was the villain for two separate Mission: Impossible movies, making him one of the most invaluable baddies in the franchise’s history.Previous SlideNext Slide11 / 21List slides10. Theodore Brassel (Laurence Fishburne)List slides10. Theodore Brassel (Laurence Fishburne)Image: Paramount PicturesTo be honest, IMF director Theodore Brassel would’ve made this list simply for uttering the two coldest sentences I’ve ever heard in a Mission: Impossible movie. With Ethan Hunt strapped to a gurney after being suspected of going rogue and getting IMF agent Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell) killed, Brassel can see the disdain shooting out of Hunt’s eyes and doesn’t blink in the face of it. Instead he tells him, “You can look at me with those judgmental, incriminating eyes all you want. But, I bullshit you not: I will bleed on the flag to make sure the flag stays red.” Even as a one-off in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Fishburne’s incredible performance as Brassel made him a character you could never forget. Without him, Mission Impossible 3 wouldn’t be what it was.Previous SlideNext Slide12 / 21List slides9. Julia Meade-Hunt (Michelle Monaghan)List slides9. Julia Meade-Hunt (Michelle Monaghan)Image: Paramount PicturesYou can’t possibly think you can replace the only woman to ever make globe-trotting, death-defying secret agent Ethan Hunt settle down for even a second. Julia’s irresistible appeal had a man known for jumping off motorcycles and escaping car explosions helping with a dinner party like a suburban dad with a license to kill. Depending on how you view Ilsa Faust, Julia is arguably the most important woman in Hunt’s life, and thus the most important woman in this male-dominated action film franchise. She’s Hunt’s emotional weak point, one that Owen Davian presses on to bring him out of hiding in Mission: Impossible III, the only person Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) goes out of his way to train to be a spy, and one of the main reasons the water supply of a third of the world’s population wasn’t poisoned in Fallout. Beyond that, Michelle Monaghan plays her with a grounded realism that makes her the most relatable character in a movie franchise full of people meant to be extraordinary in the best and worst ways. Without Monaghan’s performance as Julia Meade-Hunt, Ethan Hunt would be nothing more than a means to an end for the audience. With her, he’s a fully formed man with stakes beyond the mission he chose to accept.Previous SlideNext Slide13 / 21List slides8. Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny)List slides8. Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny)Image: Paramount PicturesThe screenplay for 1996’s Mission: Impossible was co-written by David Koepp and Chinatown scribe Robert Towne, and while I have no way of knowing exactly which elements of the script each was responsible for, I’ve always suspected that it was Towne who made the character of Kittridge so memorable. If any character in Mission: Impossible speaks with the kind of hard-boiled language that made 1974's Chinatown a neo-noir classic, it’s Eugene Kittridge. Kittridge is a higher-up at the IMF who believes Ethan is a mole and a traitor, and he will seemingly do just about anything, including making life much more difficult for Hunt’s family, to get him to surrender. At one point, he coldly tells Ethan that “dying slowly in America can be a very expensive proposition” and later, he pragmatically informs a subordinate that “everybody has pressure points. You find something that’s personally important to him, and you squeeze.” But it’s more than the great dialogue he gets to spout that makes Kittridge so compelling; it’s the performance by Henry Czerny, who plays Eugene as a tense, tightly coiled bureaucrat whose ruthless dedication to following the letter of institutional procedure has blinded him to Ethan’s innocence and humanity. After his knockout appearance in the first film, Kittridge disappeared for decades, finally resurfacing in Dead Reckoning, though he didn’t have any moments that reminded us the crackling tension he and Hunt generated when they butted heads way back in 1996. Here’s hoping Final Reckoning rectifies that. — Carolyn PetitPrevious SlideNext Slide14 / 21List slides7. William Brandt (Jeremy Renner)List slides7. William Brandt (Jeremy Renner)Image: Paramount PicturesOut of everyone who’s been on Ethan Hunt’s team, there have only been two who I felt could match his tactical skills: Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and William Brandt, played by Jeremy Renner. His spy skills are so embedded into the core of who he is that when he was pretending to be an analyst, he instinctively ripped a gun out of Hunt’s hand and pointed it at him quicker than you could sneeze. Without him, Hunt would’ve been captured by the CIA when he was on the run in Rogue Nation and the entire fake meeting to intercept a nuclear launch control codebook would’ve failed in Ghost Protocol. Outside of Hunt, he’s the only person who can both play the bureaucracy game, explaining to the government why the IMF is essential when the need arises, and get his hands dirty by beating up terrorists. To put it plainly, William Brandt isn’t someone you can replace easily.Previous SlideNext Slide15 / 21List slides6. August Walker (Henry Cavill) List slides6. August Walker (Henry Cavill) Image: Paramount PicturesThe man jumped out of a plane and got knocked unconscious by a bolt of lightning, all to keep his double agent cover intact. How the hell do you replace someone like that? On the right day, August Walker is the second most villainous character in Mission: Impossible history for his mixture of unflinching stoicism and charismatic yet radicalized ideological thinking. First off, he’s probably the only villain in the entire series that physically pushed Hunt to the limit in a fight across multiple rooftops. Secondly, he fools multiple government officials and agents whose entire jobs are to be intelligent. Lastly, he might be the single most handsome person to ever step foot on a Mission: Impossible set, which makes his dastardly double cross so jarring to some. He’s also the central antagonist in the greatest Mission: Impossible stunt ever. His presence only lasted one movie, but his impact will never be forgotten.Previous SlideNext Slide16 / 21List slides5. Jim Phelps (Jon Voight)List slides5. Jim Phelps (Jon Voight)Image: Paramount PicturesJon Voight’s Jim Phelps is the only character in the Mission: Impossible films to be directly carried over from the television series that inspired it, though on the show, as played by Peter Graves, Phelps was never anything less than virtuous and dedicated to the job. This let the film subvert the expectations of viewers in 1996, who wouldn’t have anticipated that the noble Phelps would be revealed as the double-crossing villain behind the deaths of nearly every member of Ethan’s team. Jon Voight plays both sides of the coin to perfection, believably projecting the seasoned, fatherly veteran in the opening scenes before everything goes sideways, and then making us understand how Phelps could have fallen so far and grown so disillusioned with the institutions to which he’s given so much of his life after Ethan puts the pieces together. Though it’s been nearly 30 years since that fateful betrayal, it remains the most memorable and emotionally affecting plot twist reveal in the entire series. One gets the sense that it haunts Ethan still, that perhaps part of what spurs him on to be such an extraordinary agent is having witnessed firsthand, in the fall of Jim Phelps, what he might become if he were to stop prioritizing other people’s lives over his own. —Carolyn PetitPrevious SlideNext Slide17 / 21List slides4. Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson)List slides4. Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson)Image: Paramount PicturesNo one has provided a better foil for Hunt, or a better match for the gravity well around Cruise’s onscreen presence, than Rebecca Ferguson. Her double-crossing femme fatale Ilsa Faust consistently keeps everyone off balance, bringing an undercurrent of chaos and intrigue to every scene she’s a part of. Ferguson also managed to go three movies without ever fading into the background as simply another prop to assist in Cruise’s one-man action star show. She’s the cold, unbending edge the series sometimes lacks, and the only person who managed to consistently keep up with Cruise and often outpace him. It’s a crime she won’t be back for Final Reckoning. - Ethan GachPrevious SlideNext Slide18 / 21List slides3. Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman)List slides3. Owen Davian (Phillip Seymour Hoffman)Image: Paramount PicturesLet’s get this out of the way: Owen Davian is the greatest villain in Mission: Impossible history, and Mission: Impossible III is criminally underrated. Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a maniac with an air of inevitability. He rarely gets flustered, and always speaks with the calm, self-assured tone of a doctor that already knows that all of your options for survival are in their hands. The opening scene alone, in which he threatens to shoot Ethan’s wife in front of him and isn’t the least bit persuaded by Hunt’s trained trickery, is the most intense scene in all of Mission: Impossible. He made you believe he was going to find Hunt’s wife and make her bleed. He made you believe he was going to escape seemingly impenetrable law enforcement custody. He made you believe he was real. That is the highest honor any actor can receive. The late Phillip Seymour Hoffman turned Mission: Impossible III into an acting masterclass.Previous SlideNext Slide19 / 21List slides2. Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) List slides2. Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) Image: Paramount PicturesPegg’s Benji Dunn and his nervous wit feel so integral to the DNA of Mission: Impossible now that it’s hard to believe the character wasn’t even introduced until MI3. From the lab to the field, Pegg’s perfect comedic timing and effortless guilelessness give every increasingly bonkers scheme and highwire stunt the all-important “oh my god I can’t believe we’re doing this!” sidekick energy. He’s the innocent, wide-eyed Kombucha face to Ving Rhames’ exhausted eye-roll and Tom Cruise’s winning smile. From MI5's “A minute ago you were dead!” to casually telling Hunt to jump off a cliff in Dead Reckoning, Pegg can turn from traumatic shock to deadpan Brit on a dime. No matter how bad the writing gets, it always works when it’s coming out of Pegg’s mouth. - Ethan GachPrevious SlideNext Slide20 / 21List slides1. Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames)List slides1. Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames)Image: Paramount PicturesLuther Stickell is the rock-solid and dependable foundation of the Mission Impossible franchise, showing up in every film. Whenever Ethan needs help unlocking a secure door or hacking a mainframe, Luther is there to do the job and make a few jokes. It’s clear that Luther deeply trusts Ethan and likewise, Ethan sees Luther as probably his closest ally and confidant. Plus, it’s pretty awesome to be friends with one of the coolest dudes around. -Zack Zwiezen

Like the alluring mythological creatures from which it draws its name, Netflix's Sirens wears a tempting facade, but conceals something darker at its core.That facade draws on the pleasures of shows like Big Little Lies and The White Lotus: great actors — Julianne Moore! Meghann Fahy! Milly Alcock! — facing off against a backdrop of picturesque mansions and beaches. As in those series, showrunner Molly Smith Metzler (Maid) also looks to tackle thornier topics of class and trauma. Yet these subjects rarely get the depth they deserve, brushed over by a haphazard plot that delivers soapy fun, if not much else.What's Sirens about? Meghann Fahy and Milly Alcock in "Sirens." Credit: Macall Polay / Netflix Sirens kicks off with the world's most misguided edible arrangement. Devon (Fahy), fresh off her second DUI and learning her father (Bill Camp) has early-onset dementia, has appealed to her absent younger sister Simone (Alcock) for help. Simone's response? A basket of melon and berries, and a card telling Devon to "keep your chin up." The subpar gift and empty platitude are enough to make Devon travel several hours, rotting fruit in hand, to the luxurious island where Simone works as assistant to wealthy philanthropist Michaela "Kiki" Kell (Moore). You May Also Like Simone doesn't just manage the staff who run Michaela's lavish Cliff House estate. The working relationship between the two is deeply personal — and frankly, creepy. Boundaries don't exist for them: Simone drafts Michaela's sexts to her husband Peter (Kevin Bacon). The pair share gum in order to have fresh breath. If this is raising red flags for you, you're not alone: Devon is horrified by Simone's bond with her boss, and she's ready to drag her sister kicking and screaming from Michaela's grasp. But as a scrappy working-class interloper in Michaela's wealthy world — over the all-important, party-filled Labor Day weekend, no less — Devon is at a major disadvantage. As she attempts to protect her sister, dark secrets about their past (and dark rumors about Michaela's) come to light, prompting a whirlwind of dramatic revelations that ultimately don't hold the weight they should. Mashable Top Stories Stay connected with the hottest stories of the day and the latest entertainment news. Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up! Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy, and Milly Alcock are great in Sirens, but is it enough? Julianne Moore in "Sirens." Credit: Macall Polay / Netflix Sirens is at its best when it's a dark comedy with a touch of soap opera, and much of that comes down to Moore, Fahy, and Alcock's performances. Moore and Alcock make a perfect pair, channeling Stepford Wives creepiness in their pastel getups and matching athleisure sets. Alcock's Simone simpers and preens for her boss, while Moore commits fully to Michaela's frigid cult leader vibes. (Whether Michaela's bird preservation society is actually a cult is one of the mysteries Sirens presents, even if the resolution isn't particularly satisfying.)Fahy's Devon, meanwhile, is a wonderfully prickly contrast to Simone and Michaela's rich girl acts. She's raw and unapologetic, unafraid to call out Michaela's bizarro rituals. When she and Simone are together, that rawness rubs off on Simone, too, highlighting their sisterly connection and the pain the two shared during their traumatic upbringing. Related Stories Discussion of that trauma results in some of Sirens' biggest tonal swings, as the show ranges from send-ups of the superficial rich — Glenn Howerton excels as Michaela and Peter's sleazeball neighbor, for example — to clichéd explorations of mental health, like Simone's panic attacks. Also predictable? Sirens' examination of unbalanced, predatory power dynamics within relationships. As soon as Bacon's Peter shows up on the scene, it's clear what will play out between him, Michaela, and Simone. The show treats this arc as culminating in a revelatory plot twist, but it feels more tired than anything.Sirens isn't without interesting ideas. In keeping with the "sirens" motif, all three women are treated as monstrous at some point in the show's five-episode run, even though they're often at a disadvantage. (Especially Devon and Simone.) The mythological theme extends to a solid running joke in which two of Devon's loser suitors follow her around, as if lured by her siren song, despite her annoyed rejections of them. These contrasts between people perceiving Sirens' leads as near-mythic beings versus their actual, unfulfilling realities result in the show's most fascinating moments. But with only five episodes, Sirens fails to probe these contrasts as much as it could, and its song ultimately falls flat.Sirens is now streaming on Netflix. Topics Netflix

The fuse has been lit and the mission has been accepted. That’s right folks, it’s time for a new Mission: Impossible film. Final Reckoning, the latest entry in the popular action franchise, arrives in theaters this week. But if this new film has you all excited about the series again and you want to play a Mission: Impossible video game, well, bad news: It’s been over 20 years since the last one. That’s not cool. It’s time for a new MI game!Suggested ReadingNintendo Switch 2 Price Is Set at $450 for Now, But Could Go Higher Share SubtitlesOffEnglishSuggested ReadingNintendo Switch 2 Price Is Set at $450 for Now, But Could Go Higher Share SubtitlesOffEnglishNintendo Switch 2 Price Is Set at $450 for Now, But Could Go HigherThis article was originally published on July 13, 2023. It has been updated as part of Kotaku’s Mission: Impossible Week. The Mission: Impossible franchise technically started as a spy-themed television series from the 1960s, which got a sequel series in the ‘80s. But when most people talk about the Mission Impossible franchise in 2025, they are likely referring to the long-running action film franchise starring Tom Cruise that has grown into something much larger and over-the-top than the old TV shows. These films, which began in 1996, typically showcase Cruise risking his life in at least three or four large stunts and also, bizarrely, have only gotten better with each release. A globe-trotting action-adventure franchise that makes tons of money, is loved by critics, and has a massive fanbase seems like ideal material for a video game adaptation. Oddly, that’s not been the case.Since the beginning of the franchise, only five Mission: Impossible video games have been released. (Confusingly, four of them are just named Mission: Impossible.) The first game launched in 1990 for the NES. The second game was released the following year for DOS. These two were based on the 1980s sequel series that aired on ABC.Then in 1998, two years after the first Tom Cruise film, another Mission: Impossible game launched on the Nintendo 64. This one has some fans, and played a lot like a third-person spin on Rare’s popular GoldenEye 007 game. Two years after that, right before the second film hit theaters, a very short and not-good Mission: Impossible game landed on Game Boy Color. However, this game did include a neat feature that let players use the Game Boy as a remote control. Atari / PlayscopeTimeline Finally, in 2003, Mission: Impossible — Operation Surma launched on PlayStation 2 and later GameCube. This third-person action-adventure spy-thriller takes place between the events of Mission: Impossible II and the third film, but is also never directly referenced in the films and doesn’t even feature the likeness of Tom Cruise. It was essentially a Metal Gear Solid/Splinter Cell clone and in 2025 has been mostly forgotten, like the rest of the M:I video games.It’s time for a new Mission: Impossible video gameAnd…that’s it! After 2003, we stopped getting new Mission: Impossible games. I understand that the film series hit a six-year lull between the second and third, but afterGhost Protocol, the franchise kept getting bigger and better with each entry. 2018’s Mission: Impossible Fallout is probably the best film in the series. (Dead Reckoning, sadly, couldn’t keep the trend going.)And yet, even as the franchise grows bigger and bigger, no new video games are on the horizon. What a shame! So many moments in recent MI films feel almost like setpieces from AAA video games of the last decade. It makes sense to me that this series would translate well into a modern video game.I understand that over the last decade or so, we’ve stopped getting crappy games based on popular films. And I’ve been mostly fine with that, as the vast majority of games based on films were awful and not worth playing. Then again, Hitman devs, and a new Avatar one from Ubisoft, so it’s not like games based on movies are impossible to make these days.And I think a Mission: Impossible game—if done right and given enough time and resources—could be amazing. Honestly, a game where you just recreate all the famous and dangerous stunts from the films would be great, like a new Stuntman but based entirely on Mission: Impossible scenes. Actually, it’s been a long time since we got a good Stuntman game, too.Okay, new plan: Someone convince the right people to fund the development of a new Stuntman-like game based on Tom Cruise’s wildest Mission: Impossible stunts. That’s the game I want. Thank you.

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. A smelly, sometimes toxic “killer belt of seaweed” might put a damper on Floridians’ Memorial Day weekend plans. Sargassum is back just in time for the unofficial start of summer and this year’s influx of the brown algae would be record breaking at 31 million tons.  What is Sargassum? Sargassum is a genus of large brown seaweed. As a seaweed, it is also a type of algae. It floats along the ocean in island-like masses and does not attach to the seafloor the way that kelp does.  According to NOAA, this brown algae is abundant in the world’s oceans. It has many leafy appendages, branches, and its signature berry-like structures. These round “berries” are actually gas-filled structures called pneumatocysts. They are primarily filled with oxygen and add buoyancy to the plant structure and allow it to float on the surface of the water, similar to a life jacket.  Importantly, Sargassum provides food and a floating habitat for several marine species including various fishes, sea turtles, marine birds, crabs, and shrimp. Some animals, like the sargassum fish will spend their whole lives around Sargassum’s gas-filled floats and the seaweed is a nursery area for some commercially important fishes, including mahi mahi, jacks, and amberjacks. Smaller fishes, such as filefishes and triggerfishes, reside in and among brown Sargassum. CREDIT: NOAA/Life on the Edge Exploration. Is it harmful to humans? When Sargassum washes up on shore, it begins to rot. That rotting triggers the production of hydrogen sulfide gas, which smells like rotten eggs. These odors themselves are not harmful to humans when inhaled in well ventilated areas like the beach. But the gases can accumulate enough to cause harm if they are breathed in within enclosed spaces.  “Hydrogen sulfide can irritate the eyes, nose, and throat,” writes Florida’s Department of Health in St. John’s County. “If you have asthma or other breathing illnesses, you will be more sensitive to hydrogen sulfide. You may have trouble breathing after you inhale it.” Coming into contact with the jellyfish or other stinging organisms embedded in the rotting seaweed can cause rashes on the skin. Any workers for volunteers collecting and transporting the seaweed should wear gloves, boots, and gas-filter half masks for protection. 2025’s mega bloom In Florida and the Caribbean, Sargassum season runs from April to August, with June and July as the peak months for setting in along the shoreline. However, the blobs have been spotted along shorelines since March this year. The bloom has already broken its own size record set in June 2022 by 40 percent–and is still growing. The annual bloom now stretches over 5,500 miles of ocean between Africa and the Caribbean and weighs an estimated 31 million tons.  “Sargassum goes from being a very beneficial resource of the North Atlantic to becoming what we refer to as … a harmful algal bloom, when it comes ashore in excessive biomass,” Brian LaPointe, a research professor at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, told CNN. “What we have seen since 2011 are excessive inundation events all around the Caribbean region, the Gulf, as well as the South Florida region.” Why is this year’s bloom so big? Increasing ocean temperatures due to climate change is one of the reasons for such a large bloom. The Atlantic and waters around Florida have seen record-breaking high temperatures in recent years, creating ideal conditions for the seaweed to thrive. The excess nitrogen in the water from the burning of fossil fuels or dust from the Sahara is believed to be one of the forces behind this supercharged bloom. An experimental tracking map from NOAA for May 6 through 12, showing where sargassum is likely to wash ashore in Florida. CREDIT: NOAA Scientists can use satellites to track the seaweed and issue warnings if needed. The CariCOOS Sargassum map shows that the bulk of the bloom is currently east of Puerto Rico, but it has already been spotted along Florida’s Atlantic coast. NOAA encourages anyone who encounters Sargassum on the beach to report it with this form.