Entertainment
Patrick Stewart's Extremely R-Rated Thriller Is A Punk Rock Battle Against Nazis
By Robert Scucci
| Updated
Having spent the entirety of my late teens and 20s playing music at dive bars with local bands, I went into 2015’s Green Room totally blind, not even knowing what it was about. In my experience, green rooms are simply a place for the talent to hang out and eat stale chips, have a drink, and keep their gear safe while mingling after their set. Green Room shows its namesake in a much more brutal fashion, as the titular hangout happens to be the site of a murder that a band walks in on, resulting in the club owner holding them hostage while he figures out what to do with them.
An incredibly violent horror thriller in all the best ways, Green Room is fast-paced and brutal, drenched in feedback and shotgun blasts, and best of all, features a cold, calculating, and menacing Patrick Stewart as the resident bad guy who wants total control of the situation. Add a killer punk rock soundtrack and some good old-fashioned Wolfenstein-level Nazi beatdowns into the mix, and that’s really all you need to be sold on Green Room.
Picard Goes Hard in Green Room
Green Room centers on Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner), who are on tour with their band, The Ain’t Rights. After a last-minute cancellation on their self-funded Pacific Northwest tour, they book a replacement show at a skinhead-owned Portland bar run by Darcy Banker (Patrick Stewart). The club itself is a front for a drug operation, posing as a punk venue to keep the authorities at bay.
After playing their set, The Ain’t Rights head back to the green room, not knowing they’re about to walk in on a dead body. During the show, Emily (Taylor Tunes) was stabbed to death by Werm (Brent Werzner), a member of the venue’s house band, Cowcatcher. Pat makes the fatal mistake of calling the police, which sets off a chain reaction of events that results in The Ain’t Rights being held hostage by Gabe (Macon Blair) and Big Justin (Eric Edelstein), the bartenders who are clearly the muscle of the operation.
The skinheads tip off Darcy, their leader, who decides it’s in everybody’s best interest to kill Pat, Sam, Reece, and Tiger so there are no material witnesses to the murder that happened on his property. What Darcy isn’t prepared for is the band fighting back.
An Intense Escape Operation
Armed with whatever objects they can use as weapons, a fire extinguisher being the most obvious example, the band decides to make a break for it. Unfortunately, they don’t have the same kind of firepower as the members of Cowcatcher or the rest of the bar’s employees. They’re locked down inside a Nazi compound and severely outnumbered. Amber (Imogen Poots), Emily’s friend who is also trying to leave the skinhead group without being killed, helps them orchestrate an escape, knowing full well that there will be casualties along the way.
Darcy knows that everything he’s built will be compromised if The Ain’t Rights get out alive. His plan to stage a breaking and entering gone wrong is the most reasonable solution he can come up with. Patrick Stewart shines here as a menacing antagonist who never raises his voice, but clearly has more bite than bark. While Darcy has succeeded with schemes like this in the past in the name of self-preservation, he’s finally met his match after underestimating the people he’s trying to silence.
Green Room is an intense watch, but it’s absolutely worth your time if you want to see a band that thrives on chaos bite off more than it can chew. Whether they’ll need to make lineup changes by the end is something I’ll let you discover on your own, but go into this knowing that everybody involved is taking a beating at some point. If you’re ready to rock while taking out a Nazi or two, then Green Room, currently streaming on Netflix, should be next on your watchlist.
Entertainment
Bumble quietly removes option for men to message first in Mexico and Australia
The dating app Bumble has been known for “women making the first move” (messaging first) in straight matches since its 2014 launch. Now the company is reversing a more recent change to let men message first — but only in a couple of areas.
Last week, Bumble announced that it’s removing the Opening Moves feature in Mexico and Australia. The feature has been removed automatically for those users.
Opening Moves was introduced in 2024 as a way for men to send the first message to women and was advertised as a way to lessen exhaustion with dating apps. The company’s former CEO Lidiane Jones led the charge after taking over from founder and first CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, who shortly thereafter returned to the CEO role after Jones held the position for only a year.
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While the reputation of dating apps overall has been slipping in recent years due to burnout and bad actors, Bumble has been especially hit financially. The company laid off 30 percent of its workforce last year, and its stock price has fallen 95 percent from its IPO as of this writing.
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Bumble seems to be returning to its original ethos even amid legal challenges. The Observer reported Bumble introduced Opening Moves following lawsuits and legal threats in California, claiming that the app discriminated against men, according to sources familiar with the matter. The Observer states that the company is starting to remove Opening Moves in Australia and Mexico due to lower legal risks in those markets.
“At Bumble, we regularly test and innovate our features to foster healthy, respectful connections while staying true to our women-first mission and prioritizing member safety,” a Bumble spokesperson told Mashable. “Supporting our community as they go from match to message is a key part of that work. As with all testing, we evaluate our learnings before considering a wider rollout, ensuring any changes continue to meet our community’s needs and deliver a positive experience for our members.”
Entertainment
Erupcja trailer: Charli XCX stars in explosive sapphic romance
Charli XCX is going from pop star to movie star with a string of films, including the queer fantasy 100 Nights of Hero, the mockumentary The Moment, and the sapphic romantic drama Erupcja.
Charli XCX co-wrote the script for Erupcja with director Pete Ohs and co-star Lena Góra. Set in Warsaw, the film focuses on two women, a local florist named Nel (Góra) and a tourist named Bethany (XCX), who has repeatedly crashed her love life. But this time, Bethany’s brought her current boyfriend Rob (Will Madden), who is looking for the perfect moment to propose.
In my review out of the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is quoted in the above trailer, I cheered: “Shot with the kinetic yet poised cool of the French New Wave, this Polish production feels timeless. Its scenes play out with enough specificity for audiences to hook in, but enough ambiguity that they can feel like a dream. There’s a touch of fairy tale to that. Ohs keeps his characters curious and fluid, refusing to shove them into easy-to-define roles of hero and villain. Instead, Erupcja embraces the feral nature of love, messy and wondrous…. Erupcja is a thundering rumble of drama and romance, leaving its audience excited and rattled.”
Erupcja opens in theaters April 17.
Entertainment
Samsung finally sets a date: Galaxy Unpacked is coming Feb. 25
Our long national nightmare is over. We finally know when Samsung is going to show off the Galaxy S26 lineup.
The Korean tech giant confirmed that the next Galaxy Unpacked livestream will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 10 a.m. PT (9 a.m. ET). The event is in San Francisco this year, and it’s widely expected that Samsung will show off three new Galaxy S26 phones.
As per usual, you can watch the event on Samsung’s website or Samsung’s YouTube channel.
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Mashable will be at the event and reporting live on all of the announcements, so keep checking back for the latest updates on Galaxy Unpacked.
Hosting the event this late in February is highly unusual for Samsung, which usually launches its next-gen Galaxy phones in January. It’s not really clear why Samsung took as long as it did to put Unpacked together this year, as it doesn’t seem like the S26 lineup is doing anything too wild to shake up the formula, though production delays and the global memory shortage may be factors.
All reports point to the usual lineup (S26, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra) returning this year, with typical upgrades like a newer processor and bigger batteries.
It also wouldn’t be surprising to see some camera upgrades or new AI features, and we’ve already reported on a ton of S26-related leaks and rumors. We’ll all find out together in a couple of weeks.
Topics
Samsung
Samsung Unpacked
Bumble quietly removes option for men to message first in Mexico and Australia
Erupcja trailer: Charli XCX stars in explosive sapphic romance
