Entertainment
Perfect, R-Rated 1970s Crime Thriller Is A Heist Turned Media Circus
By Robert Scucci
| Published
After watching 1975’s Dog Day Afternoon critically, and for the first time as an adult, I might have to go out on a limb here and say that Al Pacino is my favorite comedian. I remember passively watching this one on cable when I was a kid, but the minor details were fuzzy, and I was long overdue for a proper rewatch. I could give you the usual spiel about how Dog Day Afternoon is based on a real-life hostage situation orchestrated by John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile, but I’ve made my feelings clear about how source material is used countless times, and that applies here as well.
Fully understanding that creative liberties are always taken in this context, I’m simply here to watch a movie for entertainment’s sake, and I’m actually disappointed with myself for not getting to this one sooner. It’s billed as a biographical crime drama for obvious reasons, but it’s funnier than it has any right to be thanks to Al Pacino’s portrayal of a bank robber who is completely out of his depth. If anything, it plays more like a comedy of errors, where each escalation creates even more unintended spectacle.
Failure To Prepare Is Preparing To Fail
Dog Day Afternoon wastes no time getting into its heist, and it deliberately avoids showing any of the planning that took place beforehand. You’ll soon see why, because it’s painfully evident that Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino), Sal Naturile (John Cazale), and Stevie (Gary Springer) are grossly unprepared to rob the First Brooklyn Savings Bank in every conceivable way. For starters, they clearly didn’t do any kind of loyalty test, because Stevie immediately changes his mind and bolts.
Sonny then struggles to pull his gun out of the flower box he used to smuggle it inside the bank, which does nothing to make him look intimidating. He’s further humbled when he realizes the bank already completed its daily cash pickup, leaving him and Sal with just over a thousand dollars to show for their efforts. Frustrated, Sonny sets fire to the bank’s ledger, which attracts outside attention and quickly results in the police surrounding the building. With no exit strategy, Sonny and Sal are forced to hold everyone hostage while they try to figure out what to do next.
As the hours tick by, the press becomes an increasingly dominant presence outside, and Detective Sergeant Eugene Moretti (Charles Durning) urges Sonny to step out for negotiations. Sonny, having no real grasp on bank robbing protocol, insists on running everything by Sal first. Through these conversations, Sonny’s true motive comes into focus. He was trying to raise money for his lover Leon’s (Chris Sarandon) gender reassignment surgery, only to learn that his actions may have made Leon an accessory to the crime.
Pacino’s Comedic Timing Is Next Level
Before Sonny starts making demands for a jet to stage his escape, Dog Day Afternoon truly shines thanks to how Pacino carries himself throughout the ordeal. Sonny is borderline bumbling in his attempts to control the situation, and it’s the small throwaway moments that really sell it. When a hostage asks if they can use the bathroom, Sonny casually asks another teller where the bathroom is. That’s not a question a competent bank robber should ever be asking, because a competent one would have cased the place weeks or months earlier.
Whenever Sonny is presented with a counteroffer to one of his demands, he averts his eyes and mutters that he needs to consult with his partner before locking the bank down again. The earnestness behind Pacino’s portrayal of a man who is wildly unqualified for the situation lands so well because of how seriously he plays it. The humor is further amplified by just how bored the hostages seem to be. They quickly realize they’re not in immediate danger and mostly just wait things out, humoring Sonny as he continues to dig himself deeper.
Holding a near-perfect balance between crime thriller and comedy of errors, Dog Day Afternoon remains such a satisfying watch because of how fully Al Pacino commits to the premise. In Sonny’s mind, this is deadly serious business. For the audience, the comedy comes from watching someone this ill-equipped try to control a situation that keeps slipping further away from him, and it’s still a joy to watch unfold over 50 years later.
Dog Day Afternoon is streaming for free on Tubi as of this writing.
Entertainment
NYT Strands hints, answers for February 5, 2026
Today’s NYT Strands hints are easy if you love groups.
Strands, the New York Times‘ elevated word-search game, requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There’s always a theme linking every solution, along with the “spangram,” a special, word or phrase that sums up that day’s theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.
By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.
If you’re feeling stuck or just don’t have 10 or more minutes to figure out today’s puzzle, we’ve got all the NYT Strands hints for today’s puzzle you need to progress at your preferred pace.
NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Quint-essential
The words are related to numbers.
Mashable Top Stories
Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained
These words describe bundles of the same number.
NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?
Today’s NYT Strands spangram is vertical.
NYT Strands spangram answer today
Today’s spangram is Give Me Five
NYT Strands word list for February 5
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Weekdays
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Vowels
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Toes
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Oceans
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Give Me Five
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Senses
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Boroughs
Looking for other daily online games? Mashable’s Games page has more hints, and 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 Strands.
Entertainment
The Muppet Show's Return Is Ruined By Filling It With Sly Adult Content
By Joshua Tyler
| Published
In a world gone mad, we could all use a little simple, silly, innocent fun. It’s the perfect time for a revival of The Muppet Show, and, on the surface, that’s exactly what Executive Producer Seth Rogen has given us.
His new version of the classic variety series on Disney+ looks, sounds, and feels exactly like the iconic Jim Henson series from the 1970s and 1980s. On that front, it’s a triumph. A perfect production.
Except, there’s one big difference, and it’s this: Jim Henson’s version was the ultimate in wholesome, family-friendly entertainment. Seth Rogen’s version only pretends to be.
It’s normal for family-targeted shows to work in a couple of edgy jokes that’ll go over the heads of little kids who might be watching with them. That’s part of the fun for parents. However, what would you think if instead of one or two sly adult references in your Pixar movie, there were twenty? Or thirty? And what if all those sly adult references were only about one specific inappropriate thing? At what point would you start thinking… hey, is this Pixar movie trying to tell my kids something?
Because that’s exactly what The Muppet Show is doing. It’s only thirty minutes long, but I counted at least ten references to various kinds of sex in those thirty minutes. Actually, not just references, most of them seemed to specifically revolve around celebrating full-on, willful cheating.
There’s a joke where Sabrina Carpenter tells Kermit she likes kink. There’s an entire sketch that totally revolves around Piggy cheating on her lover. After that, it’s back to Sabrina Carpenter so she can brag to Kermit about banging a married man.
Then there’s a segment with Maya Rudolph where she seems to be sort of getting frisky with a grumpy Muppet in the audience. Oh, and two of the musical numbers are popular songs about sex. Though the second one is sung entirely by rats, and it’s hilarious. The third song has Piggy replace Kermit as the object of Sabrina Carpenter’s desire.
There are more, and to Seth Rogen’s credit, I guess, they’re all structured in a way that little kids probably won’t realize what’s going on. But it’s a significant portion of the show, which is a very weird thing to do for your debut episode of The Muppet Show. It’s not the jokes themselves so much as the volume of them, crammed into a short thirty minutes of otherwise perfect Muppet silliness.
I get and support the desire to work in some sly adult jokes for the parents; it’s a family show, not a kids’ show. But why are they all sex references? And why are there so many of them?
The best parts of The Muppet Show are when it does fully get away from sex and cheating and engages in sillier gags. My favorite was a setup early in the episode where a Beaker mishap leads to eyeballs bouncing all over the Muppet theater. That, in turn, snowballs into Maya Rudolph being pronounced dead, and ultimately ends in a classic saxophone gag buried in the end credits.
It looks and feels so much like The Muppet Show that I worry parents won’t realize their kids are being fed a steady stream of sexualization, or whatever it is. In an era when people are already wary of Disney’s tendency towards showing inappropriate content to minors, filling the debut episode of your attempt to revitalize the greatest family television show of all time with adult references is, to say the least, a very odd decision.
All the elements are there for The Muppet Show to be the right thing at the right time, if Seth Rogen can just get control of his libido. Maybe they’ll fix it in the second episode. Who am I kidding? This is a Disney show. Of course they won’t.
THE MUPPET SHOW REVIEW SCORE
Entertainment
Wordle today: Answer, hints for February 5, 2026
Today’s Wordle answer should be easy to solve if you’re a birdwatcher.
If you just want to be told today’s word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today’s Wordle solution revealed. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
Where did Wordle come from?
Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once.
Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.
What’s the best Wordle starting word?
The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.
What happened to the Wordle archive?
The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles was originally available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it, but it was later taken down, with the website’s creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times. However, the New York Times then rolled out its own Wordle Archive, available only to NYT Games subscribers.
Is Wordle getting harder?
It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn’t any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle‘s Hard Mode if you’re after more of a challenge, though.
Here’s a subtle hint for today’s Wordle answer:
To dive.
Mashable Top Stories
Does today’s Wordle answer have a double letter?
The letter O appears twice.
Today’s Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with…
Today’s Wordle starts with the letter S.
The Wordle answer today is…
Get your last guesses in now, because it’s your final chance to solve today’s Wordle before we reveal the solution.
Drumroll please!
The solution to today’s Wordle is…
SWOOP
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle 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? See hints and answers for today’s Strands.
Reporting by Chance Townsend, Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.
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 Wordle.
NYT Strands hints, answers for February 5, 2026
Celtics' 3-point barrage too much for Rockets
