Entertainment
Netflix's Tense And Tragic 2000s Thriller Is A Manipulative Family Fraud
By Robert Scucci
| Published
Sometimes a thriller is just a little too on the nose, and it loses its ability to generate suspense because you already know all of the beats going into it. 2001’s The Glass House is a masterclass in setting you up for what you already know is going to happen, which is a shame because it’s acted and shot well, but its screenplay never allows the viewer to read between the lines. It’s your classic story about two teenagers getting adopted by their wealthy godparents and given a living situation that seems too good to be true.
As you would expect, everything seems too good to be true because it is. The Glass House makes the fatal mistake of laying all of its cards on the table far too early to allow for a satisfying payoff, and since things escalate quickly, its entire premise gets pushed into absurd territory before you even realize that the antagonists have the last name Glass and live inside of a literal glass house. If you find yourself wondering, “What could possibly go wrong here?” you’ll figure it out quickly.
Those Who Live In Glass Houses …
Showing its namesake in both a figurative and painfully literal sense, The Glass House wastes no time setting up its conflict. Sixteen-year-old Ruby (Leelee Sobieski) and her 11-year-old brother Rhett Baker are orphaned when their parents, David (Michael O’Keefe) and Grace (Rita Wilson), are tragically killed in a car wreck after celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary. After the funeral, Ruby and Rhett learn that they’re going to live with Terry (Stellan Skarsgard) and Erin (Diane Lane) Glass, an exceedingly wealthy couple who go way back with the Baker family.
Before transitioning to their new living situation, Ruby is informed by her parents’ trust fund lawyer, Alvin Begleiter (Bruce Dern), that she and her brother will never have to worry about money as adults, thanks to their parents’ smart financial decisions before their deaths.
Almost immediately, you can tell something is off. Terry makes sexual passes at Ruby, while Rhett is bought off with the newest video game systems to keep him distracted from the familial and financial malfeasance that’s about to take place. Terry owns a luxury car dealership, and Ruby witnesses him being threatened by loan sharks after he talks about his new “personal piggy bank.” Erin, a prominent physician in the area, is seen on more than one occasion shooting up drugs and blacking out in the living room, which she always explains away as her daily insulin needed to treat her diabetes.
Though the authorities eventually get involved in The Glass House, there’s not much that Alvin can do when Ruby voices her concerns to him. Ruby’s private conversations with Alvin, the social workers, as well as her personal emails, are seemingly reviewed by Terry ahead of time, resulting in him always having the perfect answer when questioned about the family dynamic by a third party. We know the Glass family is up to no good, and we know Ruby and Rhett are in danger, so there isn’t much tension baked into the movie. The setup makes no other outcome possible, which leaves you hoping there’s something you’re missing that could actually generate suspense.
When In Doubt, Listen To The Film Score
The biggest issue I take with The Glass House is its patronizing sound design and film score. The music itself is fine and exactly what you’d expect from a thriller, but it also serves as a blunt cue for every sinister thing happening inside the Glass residence. Ruby snoops around while Terry watches her every move, waiting to confront her, so of course the string section is brooding and plucky, with the occasional dissonant piano notes stabbing through the mix. Every single crescendo exists to tell you that a jump scare or reveal is coming.
Terry and Erin are picture-perfect during the day, but the second the sun sets, they’re arguing behind closed doors, and Terry starts doing his dirty work. Ruby begins the film as a troubled, directionless student going through a rebellious phase, and then she’s suddenly the most perceptive teenager you’ve ever seen, clocking all of Terry’s problematic behavior and skillfully manipulating her way out of a horrifying home life.
The Glass House, which is supposed to function as a thriller, has zero thrills because every trope is used to its fullest, and all of them lead to their most obvious conclusion. If you’ve never seen a thriller, it works as a solid primer for newcomers or younger audiences because it wears all of its conventions on its sleeve, which isn’t inherently a bad thing if you’re just trying to familiarize yourself with the beats before moving on to something more refined. If you’re already deep into the genre, though, this one probably won’t offer much beyond frustration.
As of this writing, The Glass House is streaming on Netflix.
Entertainment
Ads may be coming to Apple Maps as soon as this summer, report says
Apple Maps might get a fairly big change soon, and it’s one that few people will be excited about.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported this week that Apple will put advertisements in the Maps app on iPhone this summer, with an initial announcement as early as this month. Rather than bombarding users with annoying pop-up ads, it sounds like it’ll be more of a “sponsored search results” sort of thing, so you might see an ad for a specific restaurant or Uber Eats as part of a search query, even when that’s not exactly what you were looking for.
This idea also came up in a report last year, but it sounds like it’s actually happening soon. According to Gurman, the Apple Maps ads would operate similar to ads on Google Maps, with advertisers bidding on search terms like “coffee” or “thai food.”
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Nobody likes it when a previously ad-free app gets ads, but in complete fairness to all involved, Google Maps has had sponsored search results for years, and that hasn’t stopped it from becoming the go-to navigation app. Users will put up with fairly non-intrusive ads as long as the app does its job, which has sometimes been a problem for Apple Maps over the years.
Despite all of that, though, the reception to the idea on social media has been pretty cold. Frosty, in fact.
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Perhaps people are just tired of constantly being advertised to in every part of their lives.
One reason iOS users might be angry? Apple is already reporting record sales in 2026, with Tim Cook calling the demand for iPhones “simply staggering.”
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Apple
Apps & Software
Entertainment
20 noise-cancelling headphones and earbuds deals live ahead of Amazons Big Spring Sale
Best noise-cancelling headphones deals ahead of the Big Spring Sale
If spring is the season of cleaning and rebirth, why can’t that include your old, half-functioning noise-cancelling headphones barely hanging on to half their original battery life?
While Black Friday and Prime Day are generally great times of year to pick up a new pair of headphones, that doesn’t mean you’re left high and dry in the spring, especially thanks to Amazon’s Big Spring Sale.
The sitewide sale starts for its third year running on March 25 and goes all the way through March 31. Prime and non-Prime members alike can enjoy savings, and while this sale is more focused on season-appropriate savings like outdoor gear, home essentials, and cleaning supplies, historically we’ve also seen great deals on tech like noise-cancelling headphones.
Amazon’s Big Spring Sale kicks off on March 25 this year. Here’s how we’re prepping for it.
The Spring Sale isn’t necessarily Black Friday-level, so some early deals are just as good as what you’ll see live during the sale. With that in mind, we gathered 20 of the best noise-cancelling headphones and earbuds deal live ahead of the sale:
Note: any deals with a strike are no longer available at the time of writing.
Best noise-cancelling headphones on sale
$398
at Amazon
$459.99
Save $61.99
Why we like it
Sony’s flagship WH-1000XM6 headphones may not be the cheapest out there, even on sale for $61.99 off. Still, they’re some of the best headphones out there, and certainly one of the best sounding ones, with a great equalizer for fine tuning your listening experience. Add with their solid battery life, excellent ANC, and folding ear cups for some travel portability, and you have some well-rounded headphones. If you’re looking for a cheaper option, we recommend the Sony WH-CH720N.
Check out our full review of the Sony WH-1000XM6.
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More early noise cancelling headphones deals
Best noise-cancelling earbuds on sale
$88
at Amazon
$129.99
Save $41.99
Why we like it
While there are plenty of great noise-cancelling earbuds out there, not all of them can claim to offer a performance that beats that AirPods 4 while costing less than $100. With the Sony WF-C710N on sale for $88, that’s exactly the case. While this isn’t the absolute lowest price we’ve caught these earbuds at (that would be $69.99), you’ll still save an impressive 32% on them. And, you’ll get a pair of earbuds with solid ANC, a comfortable enough fit for at least a few hours of continuous wear, easy to use touch controls, classic well-rounded Sony sound, and 8.5 hours of battery life per charge.
Check out our full review of the Sony WH-C710N.
More early noise-cancelling earbuds deals
Entertainment
iPhone exploit DarkSword has been released in the wild: How to protect yourself
DarkSword, the web-based hacker tool that can be used to steal data from millions of iPhones, has just been published on GitHub for public use. Cybersecurity experts say Russian hacking groups are actively using DarkSword “to fully compromise devices.”
Now that the exploit is public, any would-be cybercriminal can just quickly copy and paste the DarkSword code, take a few minutes to set it up on their web host, and deploy the spyware.
Last week, reports about the new hacker tool called DarkSword sparked so much concern in the security world that Apple was forced to issue a quick response explaining how the company is addressing the threat. The reports came from Google’s Threat Intelligence Group and two cybersecurity firms, iVerify and Lookout.
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What is DarkSword?
DarkSword is an exploit that lets hackers steal data from vulnerable iPhones running outdated versions of iOS.
DarkSword has concerned cybersecurity professionals because it doesn’t require that the hacker’s target download any malware or corrupted files. Hackers can simply download the DarkSword HTML and Javascript and upload it to a compromised website. If a user with an old version of iOS visits the compromised site, their device becomes vulnerable. The hacker can then steal data such as passcodes, emails, private messages, and more from the victim’s iPhone.
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As Lookout reported last week:
In a tangible example of how attacks are evolving, Lookout Threat Labs has discovered DarkSword, a full iOS exploit chain and payload for iPhones running iOS versions between iOS 18.4 and 18.6.2…DarkSword aims to extract an extensive set of personal information including credentials from the device and specifically targets a plethora of crypto wallet apps, hinting at a financially motivated threat actor. Notably, DarkSword appears to take a ‘hit-and-run’ approach by collecting and exfiltrating the targeted data from the device within seconds or at most minutes followed by cleanup.
Google cybersecurity researchers reported that the notorious hacker group UNC6353, which is suspected to have ties with the Russian government, previously deployed DarkSword on compromised Ukrainian government agency sites to target iPhone users within Ukraine.
iVerify told TechCrunch that the DarkSword exploit that’s now in the wild is slightly different but “shared the same infrastructure.” According to iVerify, no iOS experience is needed to run the exploit and it will work “out of the box.”
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As TechCrunch also reported, another X user shared that they were able to hack their iPad mini 6th gen running iOS 18.6.2 with the DarkSword exploit that was just released in the wild.
Apple previously reported on its developer website that nearly 25 percent of all iPhones are still running iOS 18, meaning hundreds of millions of iOS devices are susceptible to this exploit. The current version of iOS is iOS 26.3.1.
How to protect your Apple devices from DarkSword
Google’s Threat Intelligence Group urged iOS users to update their devices to the newest version of iOS, and if that’s not possible, to activate the iPhone’s Lockdown Mode.
Apple also said that it pushed out a critical security update on March 11 for older iOS devices that can’t install the more up-to-date iOS in order to protect these devices from DarkSword. Users with devices running iOS 13 or iOS 14 need to update to iOS 15 to receive these critical protections.
Ads may be coming to Apple Maps as soon as this summer, report says
20 noise-cancelling headphones and earbuds deals live ahead of Amazons Big Spring Sale
