Entertainment
R-Rated, Punk Rock Horror Thriller Is As Violent As It Is Loud
By Robert Scucci
| Published
If you know anybody who’s in a struggling band, or are in one yourself, and you get one of those offers that seems way too good to be true, you should force yourself to be the voice of reason, even if everybody in your orbit will hate you for being so cynical. Opportunities that require you to sign over your rights to your own intellectual property in a 365 deal are never what they’re cracked up to be, and you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to reclaim your art through expensive legal proceedings. Or, if you’re like the struggling punk band Suicide Disease in 2024’s Director’s Cut, you load up the van and drive out to the middle of nowhere because an eccentric videographer has offered to direct your debut music video for free.
In this case, you don’t really have to worry about copyright issues when all is said and done, because all signs suggest you won’t make it through the weekend alive anyway. As much as you’d like to get a cut-rate deal on an otherwise expensive endeavor, you have to think about what the offering party stands to gain from the exchange. You may not want to hear this, but sometimes a contract or written agreement is necessary if you want to protect your livelihood, and sometimes even your life.
A Punk Band With Nothing To Lose
Director’s Cut opens with a struggle that any somewhat serious musician will encounter at some point in their hobby or career. The band Suicide Disease has found their passion project in a state of flux, mostly due to lead vocalist Jay’s (Tyler Ivey) rotten attitude. Jay looks like the kind of guy who writes poems about pain in his Moleskine, but doesn’t have the vocabulary to sound like anything other than an angsty eighth grader. He also looks like he’s spent way more money on tattoos than vocal lessons.
When the rest of the band, John (Greg Poppa), Menace (Brandy Ochoa), and Juan (Louis Rocky Bacigalupo), confront him about the fate of the project, they immediately clash over how they should move forward. Jay wants to write more songs, while the band wants to play more shows. They can’t get better gigs until they have a larger catalog, but they’re too broke to take the current show on the road. That leaves them stuck in local band purgatory for the foreseeable future.
In a desperate move to keep the band together, Jay reveals that he’s received an offer to shoot a music video for free. The man making the offer, known only as Mister Director (Louis Lombardi), has a sizable social media following and a body of past work that suggests he might actually be legit. In a last-ditch effort to keep the band alive, they unanimously decide to haul their gear out to rural Pennsylvania, where Mister Director claims to have access to an abandoned mansion.
Honestly, There Are Way Worse Venues Out There
If you’ve ever spent any time inside a punk venue, you know you risk your life every time you step into the bathroom, and that the stage meant for five people and all of their equipment usually has the same footprint as a twin-sized bed. With that in mind, crashing at an empty mansion doesn’t seem like a bad gig, especially if somebody’s helping you out for free. This assumption is what pushes Director’s Cut into fully unhinged territory.
Almost immediately, Jay feels like something is off and has second thoughts about the whole project, which understandably irritates everyone else in the band since this was his idea in the first place. After exchanging pleasantries with Mister Director and his bruiser of an enforcer, Babs (Lucy Hart), the band commits to the shoot because they truly have nothing left to lose. At least that’s what they think.
Things take a hard left when Mister Director explains that he plans to film each band member individually before editing everything together in post-production. While each member waits their turn, nobody else is allowed on set. By the time the drums and guitars are supposedly finished, it becomes painfully clear that Suicide Disease is going to need some lineup changes if anyone is still breathing by the end of the weekend.
Pushing itself firmly into slasher territory, Director’s Cut gets violent fast, and once it does, there’s no turning back. Mister Director technically has a strong aesthetic vision for the video. Unfortunately for the band, that vision involves everyone staying at the mansion getting murdered in increasingly brutal fashion. Babs is a constant threat whether she’s on screen or lurking just outside the frame. Mister Director is wheelchair bound, so she handles most of the physical work, but the menacing bulge in her pants is what will probably unsettle you the most if I’m being honest.
Be Wary Of The Deals You Make
While Director’s Cut’s storyline is intentionally ridiculous and completely over the top, writer-director Don Capria based the concept on his own experience working as an artist manager for years. He wanted to address the risks young, naive artists take early in their careers when they’re presented with one-sided, exploitative deals. By pushing that idea to its most extreme conclusion, Capria turns Director’s Cut into a cautionary tale about the music industry and how easily it can chew you up if you’re careless about who you trust.
While it’s highly unlikely that you or any local band you know will be lured into a mansion and murdered by a psychotic director, it’s always in your best interest to question any deal that feels off. But if you’re able to hold your own and defend yourself, what happens in Director’s Cut, currently streaming for free on Tubi, isn’t nearly as bad as sitting through a local band showcase on a Tuesday night.
Entertainment
This Microsoft Office 2021 and Windows 11 Pro bundle drops to under $50
TL;DR: A lifetime license for Microsoft Office Professional 2021 bundled with Windows 11 Pro is on sale for $44.97 (reg. $418.99) through Feb. 22 at 11:59 p.m. PT.
$44.97
$418.99
Save $374.02
Microsoft Office remains a fundamental software for work and school, but subscription fees aren’t for everyone. For those who prefer a one-and-done approach, this bundle pairs a lifetime license for Microsoft Office Professional 2021 with Windows 11 Pro for $44.97 (reg. $418.99) through Feb. 22 at 11:59 p.m. PT.
Office 2021 Professional delivers the core suite that remains central to many daily routines: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Access, and Teams. These are full desktop versions, which are ideal for those who want offline access and a traditional layout. The familiar ribbon interface streamlines document creation and analysis, offering customization for layouts, fonts, and formatting. For those who don’t need cloud-first tools, Office 2021’s setup is a practical advantage.
Mashable Deals
The bundle’s other half is Windows 11 Pro, Microsoft’s current professional-grade operating system. Along with a streamlined design, it offers productivity and security features like BitLocker encryption, Windows Sandbox, Hyper-V virtualization, and advanced account controls. Copilot, Microsoft’s AI assistant, is also integrated — ready to summarize web pages, generate drafts, answer questions, or change settings from the taskbar.
This is a one-time purchase, not a Microsoft 365 subscription, so it does not include ongoing feature updates or cloud storage perks. Hardware requirements are modest — 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage — but users should still check compatibility before upgrading.
Mashable Deals
This deal is well-suited for professionals, students, or small-business owners who prefer to own their software and skip subscription extras. If you fall into that group, $44.97 is a stellar price for securing both Office tools and Windows 11 Pro with no recurring fees. For those weighing their options, this bundle offers value and simplicity in one purchase. Get it today at this low price until Feb. 22 at 11:59 p.m. PT.
StackSocial prices subject to change.
Entertainment
The Iconic, R-Rated 90s Video Game That's Screaming For A Film Adaptation
By Robert Scucci
| Published
If you grew up in the 90s playing first-person shooters on MS-DOS, you probably have fond memories of sneaking in sessions of Duke Nukem 3D. While we never had gaming consoles in my household, my parents had no qualms about me playing PC games like Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein. For reasons I will never fully understand, Super Mario Bros. was forbidden fare, but blasting space demons and zombies with rocket launchers and mowing down Nazis with machine guns was considered a perfectly acceptable way to spend a rainy afternoon.
I think the real reason was that my parents did not want to spend money on a console when we already had a perfectly good computer sitting in the family room. In retrospect, I kind of respect that decision. It meant I had access to adventure puzzle games like The Seventh Guest and Myst, along with the above-mentioned shooters that were absolutely not meant for kids my age.
In 1996, Duke Nukem 3D was everywhere, and I remember watching my dad get hooked on it one weekend in his office. I could hear explosions and laughter through the door, which naturally made me curious. That was my introduction to a game that was wildly inappropriate for a kid, but I was lucky enough to have parents who let me watch R-rated action movies as long as we talked about why certain behaviors on screen were not meant to be copied in real life.
That brings me to the real heart of this article. Why, in the year 2026, do we still not have a Duke Nukem movie? The property feels tailor-made for an R-rated action comedy. It is violent, self-aware, and ridiculous. There are strippers and aliens, pigs dressed as cops, lizard troopers, and catchphrases pulled straight from films like Aliens, Dirty Harry, They Live, Jaws, and Pulp Fiction. Duke Nukem 3D is routinely cited as one of the greatest video games ever made, and the franchise reportedly generated well over a billion dollars by the early 2000s. A faithful adaptation would go absolutely gangbusters.
A Simple Yet Effective Action Hero
A movie based on the Duke Nukem character would not be difficult to pull off because the story is intentionally lean. Duke arrives in Los Angeles aboard his space cruiser, ready for a much-needed vacation. His ship gets shot down by aliens who have invaded and taken over the city, and he is understandably irritated about having to clean up their mess. Armed with his Mighty Foot and an arsenal that includes shotguns, triple-barrelled chain guns, grenade launchers, and pipe bombs, Duke tears through Assault Troopers, Pig Cops, Battlelord Sentries, and Enforcers.
What truly sets Duke Nukem 3D apart from its contemporaries is how interactive the environments are. Duke crawls through air vents, blows apart buildings by hitting detonation switches that are just laying around willy-nilly, kicks fire hydrants and drinks from water fountains to power up, and even tips strippers for a quick show before getting back to work. It is juvenile, excessive, and completely unapologetic. When Duke says he is here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, a quote attributed to Roddy Piper in They Live!, he means it.
The amount of controversy the game attracted from special interest groups over its content is exactly why Duke Nukem would thrive as an R-rated action comedy today. With the right creative team attached, the tone does not need to be reinvented or overhauled at all.
Attempts Have Been Made
There has never been a shortage of interest in bringing Duke Nukem to the big screen. As early as 2001, when the franchise was riding high, Threshold Entertainment attempted to get a feature film off the ground, but it never made it out of development. Another effort surfaced in 2008 from Max Payne producer Scott Faye, though that version stalled just as quickly.
The closest we came to a Duke Nukem movie was in 2018, when Paramount Pictures and Platinum Dunes were having discussions with John Cena to take on the lead role. It was a near-perfect casting choice, but the rights were in transition at the time, and the project was quietly shelved.
The most recent development came in 2022, when Legendary Entertainment announced that it had acquired the rights to produce a Duke Nukem film, with Cobra Kai creators Josh Heald and Jon Hurwitz attached. Since then, updates have been scarce, which unfortunately feels par for the course for this franchise.
If it takes another five years for anything concrete to happen, so be it. I just hope Cena is still able to step into the role. Projects like Ricky Stanicky have already proven that his comedic timing is a perfect match for a character like Duke Nukem. The image of him kicking a fire hydrant for health before tossing a pipe bomb into a movie theater and getting frisky with the ladies deserves to exist outside of my imagination.
What this movie needs is simple. Enemies that respawn endlessly, one-liners delivered without restraint, and waves of identical henchmen getting obliterated as Duke reluctantly fights his way back to vacation. This does not need to be high art. It needs to be an ultra-violent alien invasion, solved by the coolest video game character to ever appear on a computer screen.
Entertainment
Keanu Reeves' Sci-Fi Stoner Comedy Is Secretly The Best Sequel Ever
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure proved to be a breakout smash, appealing to sci-fi fans with its time-traveling plot and appealing to general audiences with its affable stoner comedy. The movie (the first big role for former John Wick icon Keanu Reeves) soon got a sequel, one that broke all the rules and subverted all of our expectations. You can now stream this underrated film for free on Tubi and discover for yourself why Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) might secretly be the best sequel ever made.
The premise of Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is that the titular duo are inexplicably responsible for creating a future utopia, but a bad guy who wants to stop the party sends robot duplicates to kill our heroes in the present day. These bad bots actually succeed, throwing Bill and Ted to their doom before these would-be rock stars can win a local Battle of the Bands. But these two meatheads won’t let a little thing like death keep them down, and once they run into a new frenemy in the afterlife, they realize that their bogus journey is just beginning.
Sci-Fi’s Slacker Dream Team Returns
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey has a tight cast of excellent performers, including George Carlin (best known outside this franchise for Dogma) as a groovy mentor from the day after tomorrow. The Grim Reaper is played to hilarious perfection, by William Sadler (best known for Shawshank Redemption), while Alex Winter (best known Adulthood) plays one half of the titular time-trippers. The other is played by Keanu Reeves, who transformed the notoriety of this franchise into headlining roles in action masterpieces like The Matrix and John Wick.
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey wasn’t so bogus for audiences: against a budget of $20 million, this film earned $38 million. This was less than the original movie, and Bogus Journey was considered a minor failure until it earned a cult following on home video and streaming. That cult following helped this movie get a sequel, and 2020 (the pandemic? Talk about a bogus journey!) saw the release of the long-awaited Bill and Ted Face the Music.
Declared DOA By The Critics
When Bill& Ted’s Bogus Journey came out, many reviewers decided this sequel was totally heinous. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 56 percent rating, with critics acknowledging that this follow-up film had the same sense of humor as the groundbreaking first film and the same cast giving the script everything they had. They just felt like this second trip to the well delivered diminished returns compared to their original romp through time and space.
However, the movie impressed certain reviewers more than others, including legendary film critic Roger Ebert. In his review, Ebert said that Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is “the kind of movie where you start out snickering in spite of yourself, and end up actually admiring the originality that went into creating this hallucinatory slapstick.” This is a solid take, and the movie is filled with so many deliciously stupid punchlines that it’s easy to forget how smart the setup to these jokes really is.
A Sequel That Raises The Stakes
I’ll actually go one better than the late, great Ebert and say that Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is secretly the best sequel ever made. It would have been insanely easy to just give us a lame retread of the first film, with our not-so-dynamic duo traveling to more time periods and teaming up with more historical figures. Instead, the sequel zigs wherever you expect it to zag, sending our boys to Heaven and Hell in sequences that further our understanding of these characters in unexpectedly complex ways.
It helps that Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey adds fun new characters, including both the evil robots and the Grim Reaper. William Sadler is always game for genre work, and he turns his Reaper into the best kind of comic figure: a man who takes himself way too seriously. Watching him get his butt kicked in board games is hilarious, and by the end of the movie, he proves himself to be the ultimate third wheel of Wild Stallyns, a band that might just save the world.
A Hauntingly Good Sequel
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey will appeal to sci-fi fans looking for something more lighthearted to watch, but it also has undeniable mass appeal thanks to its witty writing, rapid-fire jokes, and affable cast. It’s the kind of movie you can put on at a party, and people can vibe out with between conversations. But it’s also the kind of movie you can watch on your own to enjoy its surprising depth, sophistication, and craft.
Will you agree that Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey is the best sequel ever made, or would you like to send this ‘90s classic on a one-way trip to the past? The only way to find out is to stream this quirky comedy for free on Tubi. If nothing else, this is the perfect way to see how future action icon Keanu Reeves got his start!
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