Entertainment
Netflix's Kinetic, R-Rated Car Chase Thriller Will Drive You To The Edge
By Robert Scucci
| Published
When it comes to movies, there are two things I love more than anything else: thrillers and short runtimes. While scrolling through Netflix for a quick late-night watch, I stumbled upon 2017’s Wheelman, which checks off both of those boxes. Some movies just don’t have a lot of story to them, but instead give you a quick glimpse into a day in the life of their characters.
In Wheelman’s case, it’s about a getaway driver who finds himself in an increasingly sticky situation after the bank robbery he helps facilitate, almost as if he’s being set up as the fall guy or diversion for a much larger crime about to unfold. This doesn’t need to be a long, involved story, so it isn’t. The entire movie takes place almost entirely inside a car, with our protagonist trying to figure out in real time exactly what’s going on through frantic phone calls, most of which go straight to voicemail.
There’s no worldbuilding or deep lore in Wheelman. It’s just a guy in a car who knows he’s in trouble, and, even worse, knows he doesn’t have a lot of options, or time, to get out of it. Sometimes, that’s all a movie needs to be, and whenever that’s the case, I’m always here for it.
The Entire Plot In 4 Sentences
Frank Grillo is a getaway driver for hire known only as Wheelman, and he’s instructed by his handler to ditch the bank robbers he’s supposed to help escape after they load the money into his trunk. Thinking that Clay (Garret Dillahunt), the partner who arranged the robbery, has something to do with this setup, Wheelman tries to reach him by cellphone but can’t get a hold of him, all while receiving menacing texts from an unknown sender. Wheelman worries about the safety of his 13-year-old daughter, Katie (Caitlin Carmichael), and, to a lesser degree, his ex-wife Jessica (Wendy Moniz), because they’re mentioned by name and he has no idea who he’s dealing with. As the night progresses, Wheelman learns that Clay is tangled up with competing crime families, putting him in the kind of situation that doesn’t come with a clear-cut exit strategy.
Like I said, Wheelman is a relentlessly tight thriller, mostly involving a guy on the phone trying to figure out his next move. In this case, there’s gunplay, dangerous people, and no obvious solution to our protagonist’s problems. As the film barrels into its second and third acts, the stakes continually rise because we learn more about who’s involved, what they want from Wheelman, and exactly how his family factors into all of it if he doesn’t do everything they say.
The film’s tagline is simply, “Drive Fast. Think Faster,” and there’s really no better way to sum it up. As an avid advocate for shorter runtimes and smaller budgets, I’m here to dispel a very important myth: short runtimes are not for short attention spans. Wheelman is one of those “blink and you miss it” films where every single second counts. Every turn signal, cryptic message, voice in the background of a phone call, and all 286 F-bombs carry weight and continually add to the tension. For $5 million, you really can’t beat a movie like this because it’s an exercise in constant escalation, but it still paces itself in a way that keeps everything grounded in reality.
The Perfect “Guy In A Car” Double Feature
While Wheelman earns its keep as a neo-noir action thriller, it shares a similar setup with 2013’s Locke starring Tom Hardy. In that film, which was also produced for around $2 million and clocks in at just 85 minutes, Hardy plays a construction foreman ditching work the night before the biggest concrete pour of his career because a woman he had an affair with is about to give birth. The entire movie is him driving, calling colleagues and city officials, and making increasingly desperate phone calls home as he breaks the news to his wife and sons.
As boring as Locke sounds on paper, it’s a captivating watch because it’s about a man trying to do the right thing after making a massive mistake. His life as he knows it is over, and he understands that, but he still keeps his composure while flying down the highway, determined to be present for the birth of his child for reasons that don’t initially make total sense, but become clearer as his late-night drive progresses.
Both films are cut from the same cloth, but operate on completely different frequencies. They’re also both streaming on Netflix, so my recommendation is to check them out the next time you want something a little different. Watch Locke for the emotional weight, then pivot over to Wheelman for the thrill of being on the run with a trunk full of money while your family waits on the sidelines, hoping you get to them before some unknown assailant does.
Entertainment
HBO's Most Raunchy, Boundary-Breaking Series Is Streaming Uncensored For The First Time
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
For decades, HBO’s first scripted comedy series, 1990’s Dream On, has been an internet legend. The series was impossible to find anywhere. Not because of the nudity, or the swearing, but the copyrighted movie clips and music. That’s why fans were stunned when it turned up on The Roku Channel, and unlike the version that aired on Comedy Central, it’s the original, uncensored version that aired on HBO.
If you’ve never heard of Dream On, you probably know the show that its creators, Marta Kaufmann and David Crane, put together after the raunchy comedy came to an end. A small sitcom called Friends.
Dream On Took Sitcoms In A Wild New Direction
Friends defined the traditional sitcom, and it would be easy to say that Dream On went the opposite direction and bucked convention, but it doesn’t. The show follows Martin Tupper (Brian Benben), a divorced book editor madly in love with his ex-wife, Judith (Wendy Malick). Martin’s misadventures, involving getting back into the dating pool, trying to co-parent his teenage son with Judith, and navigating a stifling work environment, are all standard sitcom tropes. Except for the constant movie and television clips. And the nudity.
Dream On’s gimmick is that Martin was raised in front of the television to the point that his internal monologue comes out in old black-and-white clips. They range from the opening to “Trojan War” featuring a clip about love from Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone to Marilyn Monroe’s Some Like It Hot. During a single scene, there can be a dozen quick cutaways, sometimes showing Martin’s reactions, other times acting as his responses. It’s a gag that works, and the production team was creative with their choices, digging deep into Hollywood history to find unexpected clips.
Saved From The Dustbin Of History
The plot of each episode doesn’t always revolve around sex, but most of them do. Martin’s dating life is the most unrealistic part of the series. Like Jerry Seinfeld, he has a series of girlfriends far out of his league, but unlike Jerry, he’s shown actually having sex (sometimes with diastrous results). No one on any other 90s sitcom had to face an ethical dilemma in which they discover a video of a popular children’s clown enjoying some adult time. That’s the plot of the Season 4 double-sized opener.
HBO wasn’t yet a media juggernaut when Dream On debuted in 1990, and back then, “HBO Original Programming” was essentially documentaries. The risqué comedy series opened the door for the network’s late 90’s rise with Sex and the City and The Sopranos, and without the misadventures of Martin Tupper, Friends wouldn’t exist as it does today.
Comedy Central aired the series in a heavily edited format, for both nudity and language, from 1996 through 1999, and then that was the last of Dream On. Quietly, the series arrived on The Roku Channel, but it was missing a few episodes. A few weeks later, and even those were ready for streaming, giving everyone complete access to the entire unedited, uncensored series for the first time in decades.
Entertainment
NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for May 17, 2026
The NYT Connections puzzle today is not too difficult if you love a hot drink.
Connections is the one of the most popular New York Times word games that’s captured the public’s attention. The game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for today’s Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
What is Connections?
The NYT‘s latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications’ Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
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Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.
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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
Here’s a hint for today’s Connections categories
Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Mashable Top Stories
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Yellow: A funnel
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Green: To scam
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Blue: A good cuppa
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Purple: An academy
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Vote for your favorite creators today
Here are today’s Connections categories
Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:
Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today’s Connections #1071 is…
What is the answer to Connections today
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Conduit: DUCT, LINE, MAIN, PIPE
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Swindle: FLEECE, HOSE, SQUEEZE, STIFF
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Tea-making verbs: BOIL, POUR, STEEP, STRAIN
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“School” modifiers: GRADE, GRAMMAR, HIGH, PRIMARY
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? Get all the Strands hints you need for today’s puzzle.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Connections.
Entertainment
Sexy, Star-Studded Remake Of The Ultimate Adventure Comedy, Now Streaming On Netflix
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
When I heard we were getting a reboot of Jumanji, I was absolutely filled with dread. The original film was very special to me: it was a master class in acting from the late, great Robin Williams, and the plot about getting stuck inside a board game both frightened and delighted my adolescent self. I assumed any remake of this iconic film would be an insult to Williams and everyone else from the original Jumanji. Plus, the original sequel, Zathura: A Space Adventure, which was such a minor blip on the pop culture radar that I’d bet my board game collection you already forgot it ever existed.
Accordingly, I walked into my local theater in 2017, assuming that Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle would be complete trash and that I would be hate-watching it from beginning to end. To my immense surprise, however, the movie used the original Jumanji as a springboard to tell an innovative and original story featuring a quirky cast that meshed together shockingly well. The result is a modern adventure comedy that’s as funny as it is family-friendly, and you can now stream it on Netflix.
Like A Rock
In Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the titular tabletop adventure has been transformed into a ‘90s video game console that is discovered by some hapless high schoolers. They fire up this retro machine and are instantly sucked into the world of the game, which was heavily inspired by everything from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to the old Pitfall video game. In order to get back to reality, these teens (each stuck inside an adult body) must win the game. That means finding a way to stop its final boss: a mad professor who has taken control of the animals and turned everything in the jungle into a weapon.
The cast of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is eclectic, to put it mildly. Dwayne Johnson does his usual action hero thing, but he mercifully leans into his sillier side to embrace the broad comedy of this cinematic caper. The biggest punchlines come courtesy of two other, very different comedians: Kevin Hart, doing his reliably wacky schtick as a pint-sized sidekick, and Jack Black, playing hilariously against type as a teenage girl stuck in a man’s body. Rounding out the cast is Karen Gillan, the former Doctor Who companion who has now fully embraced her Marvel makeover as a modern action star.
If You Die In The Game, You Die In Real Life
The stakes never feel all that high in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, but that’s actually part of its appeal. This is a perfect movie when you want to grab a beer and just vibe out on the couch to pure, unadulterated fun. It’s great to watch with your friends because you don’t have to take the plot seriously, and everyone you invite over will love at least one member of the quirky cast. As long as your kiddos aren’t too young, this PG-13 movie is fun for the whole family, and if your teens live on Discord, they’ll enjoy the plot about being trapped in a life-or-death video game.
While Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is not the most original movie, it’s a great example of how a film can be greater than the sum of its parts. It’s based on the original Jumanji, and it brings in some of the “kids trapped in a fantastic world” elements of classics like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Its action/adventure elements are basically what you get if you smash the Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises together. Plus, the movie borrows heavily from the modern Marvel formula, with a brisk pace that always finds time for some surprisingly funny quips and unexpected punchlines.
Clean, Dumb Fun
As you can tell, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle isn’t a great choice for anyone looking for a wholly original film. But if you like the movies referenced above, this action-adventure is basically a buffet of genre goodness. Not a high-class buffet, either, but one of those local places that specialize in greasy carb bombs that slow down your heart in a “hurts so good” kinda way. In the spirit of those buffets, Welcome to the Jungle is not exactly a healthy part of your cinematic diet. But for anyone looking to consume a guilty pleasure of film, however, this Jumanji reboot really hits the spot.
Fittingly enough, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is true to the origins of the franchise. This isn’t a movie that will change your life, and it was never exactly in danger of taking home an Academy Award. But like all great board games and video games, it delivers the best kind of distractions in the form of a breezy plot, charismatic cast, and infectious humor. Whenever you’re ready for a much-needed break from the trials and tribulations of our hellworld, here’s some good news: you can now stream Jumanji: Welcome To the Jungle on Netflix.
It should be perfectly safe. After all, there’s no way you could possibly get stuck in this movie for the next two decades, right?
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