movie Archives

Gifts that give them something to do

🏡 And they won’t even have to leave the house.

Stop spending hours in the candle aisle trying to guess what scent they like. They can make their own with this kit!
A cozy cup holder is great for movie lovers … or anyone who doesn’t want to tear apart an entire sectional looking for a lost remote.
You’ll have the hottest gift of the day with a hot sauce-making kit. Maybe pair it with a gallon of 2%.
A dream decoder ($16) might help them figure out why they keep dreaming about pugs wearing tuxedos.
For the person who loves YouTube and podcasts more than crafting, these headphones sound as good* as models three times the price.
A sushi-making kit (23% off, $8), because paying $16 for a California roll at a restaurant is lunacy.
Channel Columbo with a fun murder mystery game (33% off).
This cookbook (29% off) has 100 recipes straight from Disney’s parks. And yes, it has the Magic Kingdom Dole Whip. Mmm.
This book (34% off) is like paint-by-numbers but with stickers. Even I can do that!

We may earn a commission from purchases, but our recommendations are always objective.

🎬 Want to watch a movie on YouTube? Search for the title and the word “movie,” like “Oppenheimer movie.” You’ll get the option to buy or rent if it’s not available for free.

Trapped in a Waymo — May 3rd, Hour 3

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Mike Johns got stuck in a robotaxi on the way to the airport. I talk to him about what happened. Plus, why kids are losing it over the Minecraft movie, how AI just took over prompt engineering, and new updates on Kim Kardashian’s 2016 robbery.

🐓 Cluckin’ wild: The Minecraft movie is meh, but Jack Black’s unhinged chicken ballad, “Steve’s Lava Chicken,” shot up to # 78 on Billboard’s Hot 100. It’s now the shortest song ever to hit the famed list, clocking in at 34 seconds, making it both a record and maybe a cry for help for our attention spans. Listen here, you have been warned.

$301 million

What A Minecraft Movie raked in over its opening weekend. It’s the biggest debut ever of a video game adaptation, even surpassing The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Critics are split, but with numbers like these, it’s a blockbuster.

Reel look: Want to bring movie magic home? Turn on your TV’s Filmmaker Mode to tweak the color, contrast and frame rate to match the director’s vision. You can find it on Hisense, LG, Philips, Samsung and Vizio. Head to your picture settings and select picture mode. Don’t forget the popcorn.

☁️ Your cloud library: Ever rented a movie digitally, only to find the DVD buried in your closet? Libib helps you catalog all your physical media like movies, music, books and games. Just scan the barcode and the app (iOS, Android) fills in the info. Their free plan lets you track up to 5,000 items in the cloud.

Trapped in a Waymo — May 3rd, Hour 3

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🍿 Minecraft mayhem: Minecraft meets real-life survival mode. Teens are going wild for the new Minecraft movie, shouting, tossing snacks, spraying lotion on seats and someone even let live chickens loose. Why? Many kids got hooked on the game during the pandemic. Now they’re letting all that nostalgia loose in the form of chaos. Talk about a block party!

🍿 Sup, movie buffs: Wanna dish about your favorite films? Say hello to Letterboxd. It’s like Goodreads but for cinephiles. This free site lets you rate, review, keep a diary of your watch list, and even follow friends to see what they’re loving (or hate-watching).

💔 Tinder swindler alert: A Portland woman lost over $40,000 after falling for a scammer she met on the app. They talked for a week before he asked for money, saying he had no family to help, sealing the con with a fake photo of himself in a hospital bed. Tinder’s basically a financial thriller with worse dialogue than a Lifetime movie.

🎬 Better foreign films? On May 9, AMC is screening the Swedish sci-fi movie Watch the Skies that’s been visually dubbed into English using AI. Instead of just swapping voices, the AI tool TrueSync adjusts the actors’ lip movements to match the English audio perfectly. Say goodbye to cringey, mismatched voice-overs. The first sentence you should learn when learning a foreign language is, “My friend is paying.”

🎬 Keeping it reel: Gen Z is ditching big-budget TV and movies for social media content. They say it feels more real, more relevant and they trust creators over celebrities. Barry helped produce a feature film over a decade ago (Frontera — Watch it!), and it was tough then. Today? Getting a movie made is like climbing Everest in flip-flops.

🧠 How every zombie movie starts: Scientists recently revived activity in a dead pig’s brain by pumping it full of a special chemical cocktail designed to mimic blood flow. The result? Brain cells started producing proteins and showing signs of life, but it wasn’t conscious. Now they want to try this on a human brain. Personally, I can think of a few better ways to spend science funding that don’t sound like a prequel to The Walking Dead.

Your time matters: Before you start a book, show or movie, see how many hours you’re locking yourself in for. For books, use How Long to Read. It has millions of books. For movies, try Bingeclock, and for TV show times, head to Tiii.me.

Alexa+ is ready for a price: The new Amazon AI can guess a movie based on clues. Ask for “that one with the sparkling vampires,” and it pulls up “Twilight.” It’s getting integrated with thousands of apps, too, so you can do things like order an Uber without lifting a finger. I expect more skills for $240 a year!

Smart homes are getting smarter: Look into the future. New millimeter-wave (mmWave) tech detects movements so subtle, the sensors know when you’re breathing. You’ll be able to program them to dim the moment you plop down on the sofa for movie night. (Yeah, I thought that, too.) I wonder if you stop breathing, will your lights call 911?

💬 Netflix search is smart: You don’t have to know the name of the show or movie to find it. You can type in an actor, genre or term, too — or go total spy mode and check out the secret Netflix category codes.

More like Cost of Duty: How much money does it take to make a video game? Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020) had a $700 million budget, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) cost over $640 million. For perspective, the “Avengers: Endgame” movie only cost $356 million to make. If they’re spending that kind of money, they’re making three times that at least.

Let AI plan your movie night

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Stuck between a romance or an action movie? Artificial intelligence can help you pick the perfect one. Here’s how.