Entertainment
Perfect R-Rated Thriller On Netflix Is Tom Hardy's Best Performance
By Robert Scucci
| Published
I hate talking on the phone. When my parents call, my first question is, “Why didn’t you text me first to see if I’m even taking calls today?” Not because I don’t like my parents. Quite the opposite. I just don’t like filling awkward silences with small talk, and I’ve never been good at idle chit-chat, even with people I care about. Tom Hardy’s Ivan Locke in 2013’s Locke, on the other hand, can dial and talk with such urgency and fluency that if he hosted a seminar about proper phone etiquette, I’d probably pay $50 to attend.
Considered by many to be one of Hardy’s best performances, Locke is a tense thriller set entirely in his car as he takes a 90-minute drive to the hospital to witness the birth of the child he conceived during an extramarital affair. There are no cutaways showing what the people on the other end are doing. It’s just Tom Hardy in a car, shifting gears, barreling down the highway, dialing, and either confessing his sins or giving critical instructions, depending on who’s on the line.
A Tense, 90-Minute Drive
When we’re introduced to Ivan Locke, he’s tense but fully in control of his faculties. Though Locke is billed as a psychological thriller, there’s no unreliable narrator here. You have every reason to take him at his word. Is he stressed? Absolutely, and for good reason. A production foreman about to oversee one of the largest concrete pours in European history, his life is falling apart in every measurable way, and he’s trying to reckon with past mistakes as all of his stress points converge on this single evening.
The primary source of stress Ivan Locke faces is the premature birth of the child he conceived with former colleague Bethan (Olivia Colman). An otherwise faithful man, Ivan had a moment of weakness during a three-month job, and that lapse resulted in Bethan’s pregnancy. Though he hasn’t seen her since, he’s haunted by the fact that his own father abandoned him. Even without romantic feelings for Bethan, he refuses to let his child be born fatherless.
Because Bethan’s water breaks on the eve of the biggest job of his life, Ivan has to pass the torch to his trainee Donal (Andrew Scott), which understandably irritates his boss, Gareth (Ben Daniels), who promptly fires him for jumping ship at the last minute. Between phone calls to Donal, who is known to drink heavily after 5 p.m. and needs to ensure critical elements are in place for the pour, Ivan calls home, confesses his infidelity to his wife Katrina (Ruth Wilson), and attempts pleasantries with his sons Eddie (Tom Holland) and Sean (Bill Milner), who he hasn’t yet told the full story.
As the phone in his BMW lights up with voicemails, missed calls, and calls waiting on the other line while he navigates toward the hospital, Ivan Locke also lectures his absent father as if he were sitting in the passenger seat. It’s his way of confronting his demons and reassuring himself that although his life as he knows it is effectively over, he’s doing the right thing.
Top-Tier Voice Acting
While it may sound boring to watch a man talk on the phone in his car for 90 minutes, Locke is anything but. Whether he’s delivering life-shattering news to his wife, reassuring the mother of his new child, getting chewed out by his boss, chewing out his trainee, or comforting his sons, he remains calm and controlled while having conversations that would give any reasonable person a heart attack.
Tom Hardy doesn’t do all the heavy lifting alone. Everybody he speaks to carries their emotional weight through dialogue without ever appearing on screen, which is no small feat.
While critics often call Locke Tom Hardy’s best performance, the only thing that complicates that assessment for me is Mad Max: Fury Road. Sorry. I know it’s a completely different kind of movie and comparing them is apples to oranges, but if we’re talking about the singular best thing he’s ever done, I’m siding with the greatest action movie of all time. Coming in as a very close second, Locke, which technically doubles as a road thriller, is absolutely worth your time if you want to see how to handle the hardest conversations of your life without completely losing your cool in the process.
Locke is streaming on Netflix.
Entertainment
How Charisma Carpenter's Horrific Childhood Accident Led Buffy The Vampire Slayer To Nearly Kill Her
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
One of the earliest events in The Empire Strikes Back is Luke Skywalker being attacked by a Wampa on Hoth. It’s a sobering moment signaling a more serious sequel. Even though Luke saved the entire galaxy in the first Star Wars movie, he got nearly taken out by some local wildlife in the second.
However, that sudden Wampa attack also had an important purpose: it helped provide an in-universe explanation for why our hero’s face looked different. You see, Mark Hamill had gotten into a car accident, and the onscreen attack helped cover up the fact that the Luke Skywalker actor had facial reconstruction surgery.
Using an onscreen incident to explain an actor’s real-life scars is a pretty clever trick. It’s also one that was used in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though most fans never noticed.
In the episode “Lovers Walk,” Cordelia falls onto a piece of rebar, leaving the character with a nasty scar. A few years back, Cordelia actor Charisma Carpenter revealed that this was a case of art imitating life, as she was impaled by rebar (and subsequently gained her own gnarly scar) at the tender age of five years old!
A Girl Walks Into A Rebar
“Lovers Walk” was a Season 3 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that focused on wacky romantic drama. Spike is trying to use a love spell on Drusilla to make his old girlfriend love him again. Resident witch Willow, meanwhile, is having an emotional affair with Xander, despite the fact that she’s dating Oz and he’s dating Cordelia. After they are kidnapped and believe they will die, Willow and Xander share their first kiss; a horrified Cordelia sees this and runs up some stairs in disgust. Unfortunately, the stairs collapse, and she is impaled on some rebar. She survives, but Sunnydale’s ultimate mean girl is left with a major scar.
When “Lovers Walk” first aired, this seemed like nothing more than a classic case of misdirection. The audience is worried about Willow and Xander dying, and the last thing they expect is for would-be rescuer Cordelia to nearly get killed. But in 2019, Charisma Carpenter revealed that she had suffered a very similar injury when she was a small child. In retrospect, it seems that this very specific event may have happened to Cordelia to explain away Carpenter’s real-life scar in case it ever appears onscreen again.
Giving The Fans What They Want
On X, Carpenter responded to a fan who felt bad about scars on their body. “Hey Kiddo, late 2 this tweet but I want U 2 know I get scar shame. I have a thick, wide scar about 4″ on my belly. I was 5 when I was impaled by a rebar,” she wrote. “My scar is a part of my story, but it’s not who I am. It doesn’t define me. It makes me unique. Just like urs makes U unique.”
It’s a fairly touching response, one that shows just how much this Buffy the Vampire Slayer actor cares about her fans. But it also provided us with an answer to a decades-old fan question: in a show filled with vampires, werewolves, and other nasty demons, why the heck was Cordelia injured by something as simple as some rebar? Now we know that, for whatever reason, the Buffy producers wanted to give the character a scar that corresponded to Carpenter’s own injury.
Even though Charisma Carpenter’s scar didn’t make many more prominent appearances onscreen, the producers were likely thinking ahead. Soon, the actor would be one of the leads in the popular Buffy spinoff Angel, and they had no way of knowing if future episodes would require her to show where she is scarred.
Thanks to the rebar incident in “Lovers Walk,” they didn’t have to worry about covering that old injury up. But they might never have thought to do this if nearly two decades earlier, George Lucas hadn’t thought to explain Mark Hamill’s own scars by having his Luke Skywalker character get injured onscreen!
Entertainment
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Cosplays As Ugly Misfit In Raunchy 80s Sci-Fi Adventure
By Robert Scucci
| Updated
Back in the 80s, being ugly on screen basically meant throwing a pair of glasses and some baggy clothes on a smokin’ hot babe. The most blatant case of this, at least to my knowledge, is 1988’s Alien from L.A., starring Kathy Ireland, who not only appeared in 13 consecutive Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues, but also landed on the cover three times.
In the movie, which plays like a strange combination of The Wizard of Oz and Journey to the Center of the Earth, our hero sets out to find the lost city of Atlantis, rescue her missing father, overcome her alleged homeliness, and show her surface-dwelling ex-boyfriend what he’s missing out on, all before riding off into the sunset on her new dude’s motorcycle.
Ironically, Alien from L.A., a direct-to-VHS outing, was followed by its straight-to-video sequel, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1989). After watching this one, I don’t think I’ll be watching that one. But it exists, and both titles are streaming on Tubi, so you can do whatever you want with that information.
These Glasses Are Holding Me Back!
Alien from L.A. is insulting to your intelligence in just about every way. We’re introduced to Wanda Saknussemm (Kathy Ireland), a woman who clearly hits the gym nine days a week, has long, flowing hair, and legs for days. If only it weren’t for those pesky glasses that are supposed to convince the viewer she’s a dud, as if no mortal man has ever fantasized about a sexy librarian. She also speaks in an incredibly squeaky voice that becomes a running joke.
Anyhow, her boyfriend Robbie (Don Michael Paul) dumps her for not being adventurous, whatever that means, and this sends our covert hottie on a soul-searching excursion to Zamboanga, North Africa, in search of her long-lost father, Professor Arnold Saknussemm (Richard Haines). As the legend goes, Arnold disappeared while searching for the lost city of Atlantis, claiming the city is of alien origin.
While digging through her father’s belongings, Wanda falls into a seemingly bottomless pit and eventually ends up in a strange underground society inhabited by miners who have never breached the surface. Though these inhabitants look just like humans, they refer to Wanda as an alien. Soon enough, she learns what’s truly at stake, but only after a bounty is placed on her head for invading their community.
What follows is a series of events involving a miner named Gus (William R. Moses), a shadowy government conspiracy led by General Rykov (Janie Du Plessis) tied to her imprisoned father, a steady stream of jokes about Wanda’s squeaky voice (it’s an affectation, she can stop talking like this whenever she wants), and a hunky rogue agent named Charmin’ (Thom Mathews).
Truly Terrible, But Also Kind Of Fun
After sitting through Alien from L.A., I’m still not sure what to make of it. It’s contrived, overtly campy, and the hero’s journey never fully clicks. When the film finally wraps, Robbie sees Wanda in a bikini and suddenly realizes he was dating a stone cold fox the entire time. Of course, this happens after Wanda wakes up from her “dream” and, in a clear callback to The Wizard of Oz, says as much.
If the movie has anything going for it, it’s the set design, which is actually pretty neat in that kitschy, low-budget way. Think foam rock formations with dry ice pumping behind them, along with some surprisingly fun city shots that give everything a cartoony vibe. Throw in Deep Roy’s Mambino character with the comically long eyelashes that are never explained, and you’ve got a bizarre viewing experience that won’t teach you anything new and might actually make you a little dumber in the process.
As of this writing, you can stream Alien from L.A. and its sequel, Journey to the Center of the Earth, for free on Tubi.
Entertainment
This $100 Microsoft Office 2024 deal won’t bill you next month
TL;DR: Microsoft Office 2024 Home and Business includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote with a one-time license, now $99.97 (reg. $249.99).
$89.97
$249.99
Save $160.02
There’s a good chance you use Microsoft Office more often than you realize — possibly more than some of your go-to apps. There’s also a good chance you’ve been paying for it just as consistently. This Microsoft Office 2024 Home and Business lifetime license offers a one-time alternative, now on sale for $99.97 (reg. $249.99).
For a set of apps you open this frequently, paying month after month can start to feel a bit unnecessary — especially when a one-time license is an option. This version includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote, which covers most of what people actually use on a day-to-day basis. It doesn’t come with Teams, but it does integrate with it, so you can still jump into chats, share files, and sit through meetings as needed.
Mashable Deals
Office 2024 doesn’t offer drastic differences, but instead builds on what’s already familiar with some useful upgrades along the way. Performance has been improved, particularly in Excel, where handling large datasets and multiple workbooks feels smoother. PowerPoint now supports recording presentations with voice narration and video, including live camera input, which can be useful for remote work or presentations.
Word also gets a few AI-assisted features, like suggestions for completing sentences and generating content based on context. Across the suite, AI tools can help with formatting, summarizing text, translating content, and pulling out key information.
All in all, this bundle offers the same set of tools most people are familiar with, just with a few updates that make everyday tasks a bit easier.
Mashable Deals
Originally $249.99, you can get Microsoft Office 2024 Home and Business for Mac or PC for $99.97 for a limited time.
StackSocial prices subject to change.
How Charisma Carpenter's Horrific Childhood Accident Led Buffy The Vampire Slayer To Nearly Kill Her
Blue Jays DH George Springer departs after HBP
