Entertainment
Netflix's Frenetic, Extremely R-Rated Thriller Is A Late-Night Crime Spiral
By Robert Scucci
| Published
I think the most upsetting thing about movies involving average people who need a second chance is how little it actually takes to turn their lives around. 2003’s The Big Empty centers on a man who puts himself in increasingly dangerous situations because somebody offered him $27,000 to be a bag man. Mel Gibson’s Payback (1999) is about a man who goes to hell and back for $70,000 that was stolen from him. Most people, if given that kind of money with no strings attached, could wipe out a car payment, a maxed-out credit card, or finally finish paying off their student debt.
Those who are slightly more fortunate could use it as a down payment on a house. Or, if you’re like Lynette (Vanessa Kirby) from 2025’s Night Always Comes, you save up the exact amount you need to avoid eviction, only for your mother to blow it on a brand new Mazda, effectively putting you out on the street if you can’t recoup the cash in less than a day.
The entire movie plays out like a run of the worst possible luck, escalating to the point of no return, with no support system in place to bail Lynette out. If I had to compare Night Always Comes to another recent film, it’s the perfect spiritual companion to the Safdie brothers’ 2017 release, Good Time. The difference is that Good Time hinges on bad decisions made by a bad person, while Night Always Comes is a series of bad decisions made by somebody pushed into desperation by her upbringing and lack of reasonable social safety nets.
Can’t Catch A Break
When Night Always Comes first introduces Lynette, she’s already at her lowest point, but she still finds ways to make things exponentially worse for herself. She’s working a string of menial jobs, saving every dollar so she can purchase the house her family is renting. Her older brother Kenny (Zack Gottsagen) has Down Syndrome, and she’s more of a parent to him than anyone else. Their mother, Doreen (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is emotionally absent and apathetic, so the responsibility of keeping the family afloat falls squarely on Lynette.
When Lynette finally scrapes together $25,000 for the down payment, she’s horrified to learn Doreen spent it all on a new car. David (J. Claude Deering), the owner of the house, tells her she has until 9:00 am the next morning to come up with the money before he sells the house to someone else. Not willing to go down without a fight, Lynette, who has a checkered past, slips back into old habits to recoup her losses. That decision sends her spiraling through the seediest corners of Portland, Oregon, digging herself deeper into a criminal life she doesn’t necessarily approve of, but understands might be the only way out.
Desperate, Lynette returns to sex work, which leads to her stealing a former client’s car. She tracks down her old friend Gloria (Julia Fox), who owes her money but refuses to pay. Gloria is doing well for herself as a live-in mistress to a corrupt politician, and while she won’t help financially, she does let it slip that he keeps a safe full of valuables in his closet. That pushes Lynette to reach out to her coworker Cody (Stephan James), an ex-con who knows how to crack safes.
Following a straightforward chain of “this happened, then this happened,” Night Always Comes keeps pushing Lynette deeper into Portland’s criminal underworld, with Kenny tagging along because there’s no one else to care for him in the middle of the night. Along the way, we learn about Lynette’s past as a runaway forced into sex work by her then-boyfriend Tommy (Michael Kelly) when she was still a teenager. It’s tragic, but it also makes it easier to sympathize with someone who has clearly been dealt a bad hand and run out of honest ways to course correct.
As expected, nearly every plan Lynette comes up with in Night Always Comes backfires epically, but she refuses to quit. Not with stakes this high. Not when her mother’s impulsive decisions are about to put her on the street and send Kenny into state care.
A Spiritual Successor To Good Time
If you’ve seen Good Time, Night Always Comes will feel familiar. In that film, Robert Pattinson’s Connie, who also has a cognitively impaired younger brother, goes on a crime spree that spirals out of control over the course of a single night. Where the films diverge is motive. Connie exploits his brother because he believes the law will go easier on him, while Lynette makes every decision with the intent of protecting Kenny, even if those decisions are deeply flawed.
What makes this harder to watch is that Lynette is actually trying. She works hard, tries to break the cycle she was born into, and attempts to do things the right way. But as the radio bumpers at the start of the film point out, most families are a couple car repairs and one missed shift away from losing everything. The film doesn’t excuse her behavior, but it does make a strong case for how quickly desperation can push people into choices they never thought they’d make when their back’s against the wall.
It does get a little heavy-handed by the third act, but Night Always Comes remains a solid watch. Vanessa Kirby and Zack Gottsagen stand out, largely because the family dynamic is so off-kilter. A younger sister acting as a parent to her older brother, while their actual mother sits on the sidelines, completely disconnected from the damage she’s causing, makes for inherently compelling storytelling.
It’s not an easy watch, and the ending lands in unresolved territory. It’s neither tragic nor triumphant, which might frustrate anyone hoping for a clean resolution. But life rarely works that way, and neither does this movie. You can sympathize with someone trying to escape a nightmare before it swallows her whole, or judge her as if you’d somehow make better choices in the same situation.
Night Always Comes is a Netflix Original and is available to stream with an active subscription.
Entertainment
The Sci-Fi Thriller That Killed Director's Career Deserves Another Look
By Brian Myers
| Published
The 2009 thriller The Box had all the makings of a Hollywood hit. A-list stars (Cameron Diaz, Frank Langella, James Marsden), a $30 million budget, and a hot new director to take the lead. However, the lukewarm reception at the box office and the mediocre critical response to The Box led director Richard Kelly’s career to take an almost immediate nosedive. Fifteen years later, streaming maks it possible for viewers to get a second look at a film that deserves a lot more credit than it originally received.
Kelly had scored a major success several years leading up to the production of The Box, serving as director and screenwriter for the sleeper hit 2001 film Donnie Darko. However, in the years since The Box was released, Kelly has only had a handful of projects in the industry.
Some of this has been attributed to his own admission of wanting to prove to studios that he’s worthy of another modestly budgeted film, and some due to sheer bad luck. Kelly was set to work on a crime film titled Amicus with Sopranos star James Gandolfini, only to have the actor die from a heart attack in 2013 before the project could be started.
The Box’s Moral Conundrum
If you’ve never seen The Box, you’ll likely be intrigued by the storyline alone. Married couple Norma and Arthur Lewis (played by Diaz and Marsden, respectively) are approached by a disfigured stranger (Frank Langella) who gives them a mysterious box. Press the button inside the box, the stranger promises, and you’ll receive $1 million in cash.
However, the stranger reveals a caveat to receiving the prize money. Press the button, and someone that they do not know will die. The plot of The Box takes a good number of unpredictable twists and turns after Norma presses the button, and the young family sees a horrific fate unfold before their very eyes.
The Twilight Zone Episode
The Box was conceived from a short story written by acclaimed horror and science fiction writer Richard Matheson in 1970. Matheson’s original story, Button, Button, was turned into a radio show in the late 1970s. In 1986, a screenplay was written based on the story for an episode of the revived version of The Twilight Zone.
The theatrical version of Matheson’s story debuted in 2009 and wasn’t a favorite of critics. Though Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars, other critics cited poor editing and the sense of the film being more of a pet project for Kelly as reasons for their dislike of The Box. Audiences at the time largely agreed as box office receipts led to barely making back the film’s budget.
The Box is certainly worth a look 15 years later, despite the lack of enthusiasm it received in 2009. The soundtrack alone should tempt a good number of curiosity seekers. Win Butler and Regine Chassagne of the pop band Arcade Fire teamed with composer Owen Pallett for a film score that more than redeems any of the film’s minor shortcomings that critics pointed out.
As of this writing, The Box can be rented or purchased on-demand through Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Apple TV+, and Fandango at Home.
Entertainment
FIFA World Cup schedule today: Games, kickoff times, livestream info for July 5
Table of Contents
The 2026 World Cup weekend excitement reaches a crescendo today with two heated matches: Norway vs Brazil followed by England vs Mexico.
It all kicks off at 4 p.m. ET, with the first game taking place in the United States and the second taking place in Mexico City, where the hometown fans will have the opportunity to cheer on their national team in a decisive match.
Read on to learn where and when the games are being played, as well as how best to watch them.
FIFA World Cup schedule today: July 5
How to watch FIFA World Cup games today
Watch Brazil vs. Norway
Fan-favorite Erling Haaland, Norway’s 6’5″ giant center forward, is proving himself one of the game’s most unstoppable forces, but he will have his work cut out for him against the more experienced Brazil team, led by their all-time top goal scorer, Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior. Legendary soccer manager and current coach of the Brazil team, Carlo Ancelotti, known as “Don Carlo” to the soccer faithful in Brazil, will battle Norway’s Ståle Solbakken in what is sure to be a chess-like battle of wits between the two master strategists.
Live coverage will be on Fox and Fox One. Peacock will carry the live Spanish-language coverage.
Mashable Top Stories
Watch Mexico vs. England
Coming into Sunday’s match, Mexico has not allowed a single goal in the entire tournament thus far, the only team to have held their opponents scoreless going into the round of 16, but if they’re going to continue this streak, they’ll have to shut down the two-pronged attack of Harry Kane (now the nation’s top scorer in the history of the World Cup!) and top-tier midfielder Jude Bellingham, who has already racked up four goals and one assist in England’s journey to the top.
And for this match, there’s an added twist: Mexico will have home-field advantage in Mexico City, one of the loudest venues in all of soccer. ¡Olé!
Live coverage will be on Fox and Fox One. Peacock will carry the live Spanish-language coverage.
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More live streaming options
Live TV cable replacement
Not interested in signing up for a standalone streaming service like Fox One or Peacock? You can sign up for a live TV cable replacement service, like YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV.
These services carry over 100 live channels, but run off a WiFi connection. You’ll get live access to Fox and FS1, plus a whole lot more. Here are some options to consider:
Watch the World Cup for free with a VPN
It’s possible to watch the World Cup for free on international services like ITVX, BBC iPlayer, NOS, or RTÉ. Our global World Cup watch guide can walk you through the process.
You will need a VPN to live stream the World Cup on these free streaming services. We recommend ExpressVPN — a Mashable-tested service and an Official Tournament Supporter of the FIFA World Cup in the U.S., Canada, and Europe — as our VPN of choice for sport. It offers servers in 105 countries, a user-friendly app available on all major devices, a speedy connection, and up to 10 simultaneous connections.
$12.99 only at ExpressVPN
Entertainment
Marvel Icon Punished For Having A Huge Bulge
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Have you played Marvel Rivals? If you can get over the fact that it’s basically a reskinned version of Overwatch, it’s a lot of fun. This is a hero shooter where you take control of a character from the wide world of Marvel. There are a variety of team-based multiplayer modes; this variety, along with the fact that the game is free-to-play, keeps players coming back for more. How do the developers make money, though? Simple: they charge players for “skins” which completely change the look of the character. Many skins are modeled after famous outfits from the comics, and others are modeled after character designs in the MCU.
Whatever their original inspiration was, though, all of these skins have one thing in common: they are way hornier than you’d expect them to be. There are plenty of revealing outfits that pair perfectly with thirsty character designs that players can’t stop drooling over. Unfortunately, players recently discovered that the game had gone a little too far with Captain America’s latest summer skin. You see, the skin gave Cap a bulge so big that it messed up some of his in-game animations. This caused the Chinese developer to do the unthinkable: they shrunk Captain America’s penis, and they waited until the Fourth of July to do it!
The Battle Of The Bulge
Every year, Marvel Rivals developer NetEase Games releases skimpy summer swimwear outfits for various characters. This may seem like just a cheap way to appeal to gooner gamers, but it’s arguably a throwback to the ‘90s, when Marvel similarly appealed to horny comic book nerds with thirsty swimsuit specials. Captain America got an especially scandalous skin this summer, one that was basically short shorts and a skimpy tank top that showed off his hairy, muscled chest. Normally, fans would be panting about Cap’s thick legs and arms, but this skin made them fixate on something else: the comically huge bulge of the character’s penis.
Seriously, this thing wobbled with its own physics. While fans were both excited and scared (scaroused, if you will), some wondered if Captain America having such a huge package was an accident. Like, maybe the character model got tweaked in such a way that its pelvis was extending outward, giving the appearance of a much larger bulge. At any rate, it definitely seemed to be a mistake. In the game, Cap has an emote that echoes the recording in Spider-Man: Homecoming where he pulls out a chair and then sits in it. Previously, players activating this emote with the summer skin encountered a bug: Cap’s big, floppy unit clipping right through the chair!
Now, without making any kind of official announcement, NetEase games seems to have fixed the issue. While Captain America still has an impressive bulge, it’s not as obscenely huge as it once was. Furthermore, it no longer clips through the chair when players use the aforementioned emote. All’s well that ends well, right? Sort of. While the timing could be a coincidence, many players couldn’t help but notice how the Chinese developer waited until Independence Day to shrink Captain America’s weiner down to size. Do y’all really think this will even slow down an aroused Cap, though? It’s like the man says: he can do this all day!
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