Entertainment
Sam Jackson's R-Rated Reboot Of The Sexiest ‘70s Series Is Now Free To Stream
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Samuel L. Jackson was already a Hollywood legend when he was cast in the MCU, and his screen time as Nick Fury helped him gain even more fans around the world. Those movies also cemented Jackson as an actor most likely to appear in major blockbusters. Because of this, it’s easy for fans to overlook the smaller roles he had over the years, especially the ones that he played before he donned the iconic leather jacket and eyepatch.
However, long before he rocked that eyepatch, Samuel L. Jackson wore an Armani suit and revived a franchise that was almost too sexy for the ‘70s. In 2000, he starred in Shaft, a movie adaptation of the iconic blaxploitation series starring legendary performer Richard Roundtree. If you’re ready to see Jackson play a private dick who’s a sex machine with all the chicks, you’re in luck: Shaft is streaming for free on Tubi, and this grounded action thriller is perfect for those looking for an alternative to modern superhero slop.
The Ultimate Private Eye
The premise of Shaft is that the titular character is a police officer struggling to bring to justice a criminal who managed to escape years ago. When it looks like the justice system will fail to convict this man, Shaft resigns, becoming a detective who no longer has to play by the rules. That gives him the freedom to hunt the criminal by any means necessary, but thanks to the other man’s wealth and influence, he may very well put Shaft in the ground long before this disgruntled directive can put his target behind bars.
For a movie that most modern movie lovers have never even heard of, Shaft is stacked with big names, including Vanessa Williams (best known for Ugly Betty) as a detective eager to help Shaft out with his decidedly off-the-books investigation. The sneering villain of the film is played by Christian Bale (best known for The Dark Knight), who does a pitch-perfect job as the guy you love to hate. Other supporting characters in the film are played by Toni Collette, Jeffrey Wright, and Busta Rhymes, with original Shaft actor Richard Roundtree making a truly crowd-pleasing cameo.
The biggest star of Shaft, though, is Samuel L. Jackson, whose swagger and style help him portray one of the sexiest characters to ever grace the small screen. The original Shaft TV show was pure ‘70s bliss, and its titular character soon became famous as the ultimate embodiment of masculinity. It seemed impossible at the time that anybody could successfully fill the shoes of Richard Roundtree, and the fact that Jackson does so with such confidence and panache is a testament to his capabilities as the most intense leading man in Hollywood.
An Early Aughts Hit At The Box Office
Shaft proved to be a reliable hit once it landed in theaters, earning $107.2 million against a budget of only $46 million. While the film is hardly the biggest blockbuster Samuel L. Jackson ever headlined, its success helped establish his reputation as one of the most bankable stars in all of Hollywood. It took nearly two decades, but in 2019, this first film got a sequel featuring Jessie T. Usher as the son of Jackson’s Shaft; unfortunately, this movie proved to be a critical and commercial bomb.
When Shaft came out at the turn of the century, it impressed reviewers wanting a throwback to the meat-and-potatoes storytelling of the ‘70s. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a rating of 67 percent, with critics praising the film for its clever and consistently entertaining update of the ultimate blaxploitation TV show ever made. They particularly commended Samuel L. Jackson for his cool and charismatic performance in his most stylish movie since Pulp Fiction.
Growing up, I was a bit too young to be a fan of the Shaft TV show, and I knew the character only by his outsized reputation. Initially, I worried that this might hurt my ability to enjoy Shaft as a movie because the character had attained a kind of mythic reputation in my head. How, I wondered, could any modern performance live up to the legendary detective I had built up in my mind?
The Coolest Cat In Hollywood
Fortunately, my worries proved needless: not only did Samuel L. Jackson bring this character to perfect life, but the film as a whole was remarkably accessible to newcomers thanks to its straightforward plot and amazing performances. You don’t exactly have to be steeped in Shaft lore to understand that Christian Bale’s character is a scuzzball and Jackson’s titular detective is here to put the other man in his place. Other than that, all you have to do is sit back and soak in the rich world created by director John Singleton, the same man who helmed both Boyz n the Hood and 2 Fast 2 Furious.
When you’re ready for a spicy slice of nostalgia, you can stream Shaft for free on Tubi. Outside of Pulp Fiction, this is arguably the best showcase of Samuel L. Jackson’s talents before he decided to assemble the Avengers in the most successful cinematic universe ever created. If nothing else, Shaft is a fascinating reminder to movie lovers that long before Jackson fought Loki onscreen, he tangled with the scariest cinematic foe of them all: Batman!
Entertainment
Skate developer Full Circle announces layoffs ahead of new game release
Full Circle, the gaming studio behind the new iteration of Skate, has recently announced a restructuring involving layoffs at its headquarters in Burnaby, British Columbia. Founded in 2021 as a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, Full Circle is just the latest in a series of AAA gaming studios to be hit by layoffs, with Ubisoft Toronto laying off 40 employees last week.
In their public-facing announcement, entitled “skate.’s Next Chapter,” the company lamented that the people affected by layoffs “are talented colleagues and friends who helped build the foundation of skate,” while shouting out the “tens of millions” of people who have explored the Early Access version of skate. released last September. “To our departing teammates: thank you. skate. exists because of your hard work and dedication to the craft.”
The original Skate games were released in the late 2000s for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and marketed as more realistic skateboarding games compared to the rival Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series. Fans responded well to the tight controls, inventive city settings, and fun soundtrack, which won the first Skate game the “Sports Game of the Year” award at the 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, and resulted in commercial success, but the series had been on indefinite hold until the announcement of skate. (known among fans as Skate 4), which was to be a live-service game built around a sandbox-style multiplayer experience, a move that didn’t sit well with many long-time fans of the series.
Mashable Light Speed
While the latest Skate game has not yet had a final release, the Early Access version has been available to fans for almost half a year now, and early reviews are mixed. Critics have pointed to the inclusion of microtransactions ($25 clothing for your digital character), the online-only gameplay restriction, and the homogenized character design, while others have praised the free-to-play accessibility.
We don’t yet know how many employees lost their jobs at Full Circle, as the company was not forthcoming, but the parent company, EA, lost approximately 5% of its workforce in 2024, during its last round of layoffs. As for the fate of skate. after these layoffs, much is still unknown and the game still doesn’t have a final release date.
Entertainment
Xiaomi 17 Ultra hands-on: The cameraphone with a monstrous zoom
Xiaomi’s Ultra line of phones has always been about one thing: Peak camera performance. The new Xiaomi 17 Ultra, launched ahead of MWC 2026 in Barcelona, pushes the boundaries once more, though it suffers from similar setbacks as its predecessors.
Note that there was no Xiaomi 16 Ultra; the company decided to skip that number and go straight from the Xiaomi 15 and 15 Ultra to Xiaomi 17 and 17 Ultra, likely to “catch up” with Apple, whose latest models also bear the number seventeen. Despite the change, the new Xiaomi phones are very much an evolution of last year’s flagship models.
On the phone side of things, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is an extremely capable Android smartphone, with a 6.9-inch, 120Hz OLED display, a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, 16GB of RAM, 512/1024GB of storage, and a 6,000mAh battery with 90W fast charging and 50W wireless charging. It comes in three colors: Black, White, and the sparkly Starlit Green (Xiaomi sent me a black unit, but the Starlit Green looks way cooler).
The 6.9-inch OLED display is excellent.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Where the Xiaomi 17 Ultra differs from the regular Xiaomi 17, which also debuted here in Barcelona, is mainly in screen size (6.9 vs. 6.3 inches), and the camera. The Ultra’s got a massive, Leica-branded camera array on the back, with a 50-megapixel main camera, a 200-megapixel telephoto camera, and a 50-megapixel ultra-wide camera, coupled with a 50-megapixel selfie camera on the front.
At 8.29mm thickness and 218 grams of weight, it’s the thinnest and lightest Xiaomi Ultra phone ever.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
The 200-megapixel, 75-100mm telephoto camera gives this phone otherworldly zoom capabilities, with up to 17.2x of “optical-level zoom.” I’ve tried it out, and was able to take usable photos at 100x zoom or more, far beyond in the distance than what my naked I could see.
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Left:
This is what the XIaomi 17 Ultra’s telephoto camera can do.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Right:
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Venture that far out, and AI takes the reins quite heavy handedly, which you’ll see in the way the system recreates the letters of a sign you took in the distance. Still, if you like the idea of having a camera that can take sharp photos of a flower that’s a hundred yards away, this is the phone to do it with.
Left:
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Right:
The zoom on this phone is so good, it’s worth providing another example. It’s like having a set of binoculars.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
To add an exclamation point to the phone’s camera capabilities, Xiaomi also sells two optional photography kits which consists of two different cases that turn the phone into something that really looks like a compact camera, and add a few buttons, visual details, and battery life to the mix. The smaller Xiaomi 17 Ultra Photography Kit makes more sense to me as the phone still retains somewhat normal dimensions; the two-part Xiaomi 17 Ultra Photography Kit Pro makes it a bit too big for my taste.
The photography kits look cool, but they make the phone a lot bulkier.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
The kits, as cool as they may be, illustrate the most obvious drawback of this phone: it’s too much of a camera. It’s top heavy, has a smaller battery than the regular Xiaomi 17, and – due to its massive camera bump on the back – doesn’t support Xiaomi’s wireless, magnetic battery. Don’t get me wrong, this is one powerful phone, but it’s primarily aimed at photography enthusiasts. Kudos to Xiaomi for making the Ultra lighter than ever, though at 218 grams it’s still not exactly lightweight.
If you want your Xiaomi 17 Ultra to be a little more…Leica, there’s a special version just for you, shown as a surprise announcement during Xiaomi’s big unveiling in Barcelona. Called the Leica Leitzphone, it shares most of the specs with the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, but has a somewhat retro design which calls to mind classic Leica cameras, and a couple of Leica-specific photography modes.
This one is for the Leica fans.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
It also has one extra feature: The ring surrounding its camera bump can be rotated to increase or decrease zoom. I’ve tried it out, and it appears to be quite precise, though you do have to be careful not to place your fingers in front of the lens while shooting.
The Xiaomi 17 Ultra starts at 1,499 euros in Europe; there’s no info on U.S. availability yet. The Leica Leitzphone is starting at a hefty price of 1,999 euros, and it will be available in select markets and locations.
Topics
Mobile World Congress
Xiaomi
Entertainment
Xiaomis new hyper car concept has the strangest cockpit weve ever seen
Xiaomi likes to bring cars to Barcelona; the company gave us the first glimpse of its SU7 Ultra supercar during last year’s MWC in March.
This year, however, Xiaomi has unveiled something that’s pretty far out there, even by its own standards. Called the Xiaomi Vision Gran Turismo, it’s a hypercar that was designed to go really fast while slicing through the air in a way not many cars (or race cars, for that matter) can (Xiaomi says it’s been “sculpted by the wind”).
It feels kinda empty in there.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
The company will bring the concept car to its MWC show floor in Barcelona on March 2, presumably when we’ll learn more about its powertrain, acceleration, battery, and other trivialities. Today, however, Xiaomi was mostly focused on how the air flows through the car, using a variety of wind tunnels and channels (and even a moving part on the car’s bottom) to make it more efficient.
The wheels and wheel covers are special, too.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Even the car’s wheels have special covers that are (somehow) magnetically set in place so they don’t rotate while the car moves, as that would also increase drag.
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I bet your car doesn’t have a cocoon-shaped sofa.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
Inside, it gets even nuttier. The seats are out; instead, you sit in a “cocoon-shaped sofa” with an x-wing steering wheel with five tiny displays, some of which apparently double as (contextual?) buttons. Most of the things you associate with a traditional car are gone; instead, it’s you in that sofa-shaped cockpit, that steering wheel, and the road. The car’s a two-seater, so don’t expect to bring your family on a trip in this one.
Fortunately, you might be able to get a cocoon-shaped sofa/cockpit for your home.
Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable
In fact, most people probably won’t be able to afford a car like this, but Xiaomi’s got you covered, as it plans to release a gaming console/cockpit shaped just like the car’s cockpit, so you can race around in your own little cocoon in the relative safety of your home.
We don’t know how fast it goes. We don’t know where the batteries are, given that the car appears to be mostly wind tunnels under that cockpit. We don’t know if it’s ever going to make it to market. But boy, does it all look cool.
We’ll hopefully find out more on March 2 when that show floor opens, so stay tuned for pics and videos.
Topics
Mobile World Congress
Xiaomi
LAFC capitalize on red cards, blank Dynamo 2-0
Skate developer Full Circle announces layoffs ahead of new game release
