Feed aggregator

In his previous two movies—2020’s Caveat and 2024’s Oddity—Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy has proved himself horror’s biggest proponent of cursed objects and haunted places. His dark fairy tale-style of storytelling weaves together oddball characters, shady criminal mysteries, supernatural comeuppance, and big, bulgy eyeballs. I, for one, love all this stuff. McCarthy’s new movie, Hokum, takes and refines all of these elements, with a clearly bigger scale which includes a Hollywood star, Adam Scott. The result has more shine but no less macabre, ghostly fun.

NEON

Both Caveat and Oddity took place in houses, each with their own vibe of creepiness. Hokum moves the action to a rural hotel which is both bigger and more ornate than you’d expect and rundown and behind the times. It has the feel of a smaller Irish Overlook Hotel, but one with people actually there. McCarthy’s horrors are at once familiar and inexplicable, common yet unknowable, and always a mix of the eldritch and the everyday. And boy, let me tell you, Hokum has some absolute top-tier, A-level scare moments.

In Hokum, Scott plays a horror writer named Ohm Bauman. He’s a fairly miserable man who lives alone and is a dick to everyone. When he hits a bit of a wall with his latest book, he decides to travel to Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes at the very hotel at which they spent their honeymoon. Bauman “endears” himself to members of the staff, especially bartender Fiona (Florence Ordesh), and meets the drug-using drifter Jerry (David Wilmot) who lives in a campervan out in the woods.

The hotel, however, has more than few secrets. The owner and management have locked and chained the honeymoon suite, owing to their belief that the ghost of a witch haunts it. You get things like that in Irish folklore. Some, like Jerry, fully believe in such tales. When members of the hotel staff start disappearing, Bauman and Jerry decide they need to get inside the honeymoon suite and face whatever dark nightmares might reside.

NEON

Hokum is, first and foremost, a blast. I had such a good time, even as I was tensing up and jumping at the various scares. McCarthy does a terrific job of keeping the audience on their toes in terms of what kind of scare will hit them next. Hit plots are often a bit too twisty for their own good, and that is true here, but the main throughline, coupled with the gorgeously grim setting and variety of scary stuff, makes up for any narrative bagginess. That really is my major complaint, and luckily, it doesn’t spoil the movie.

Adam Scott is one of my favorite actors working today. Through roles in Parks and Rec and Severance, he’s a hero I feel I can always root for. But let us not forget what a perfect asshole he can play, as he did for so many years earlier in his career. He brings a lot of that to play Ohm Bauman, especially in the first half. Just an absolute piece of crap to most of the people he meets. But, naturally, as the movie goes on and we spend more time with him, we get a small window into why he is the way he is.

Hokum once again exemplifies McCarthy’s ability to create mood and atmosphere through the geography of the setting. The hotel feels lived-in, each room and corridor has its own distinct look. The honeymoon suite is basically a haunted house within a haunted house. I have to wonder if McCarthy had a particular place in mind when writing the script and tried to replicate it with the set. Or, did he tailor the scares to the set once it was built? Either way, it’s such a triumph. One specific scare is one of the best I’ve seen in years. McCarthy always gives us at least one banger per movie, and he sure did it here.

NEON

I love it when a voice in horror grows without changing their ethos. Getting NEON on board, plus a Hollywood star, doesn’t make Hokum any less Irish or any less weird. Ghosts, witches, and an effed-up, bug-eyed donkey man. I loved it all. Like the best haunted houses, this one gives you plenty of chills while you can’t help smiling.

⭐ (4 of 5)

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post HOKUM Is a Delightfully Chilly Haunted Hotel Flick (Review) appeared first on Nerdist.

Noscroll wants to cure doomscrolling with an AI bot that reads the internet for you.

Sean Plankey has requested to withdraw his name to run the U.S. cybersecurity agency after a tumultuous year of chaotic temporary leadership.

The US Army announced this week that it has successfully 3D-printed a drone-based warhead prototype, and successfully used that weapon to make something explode.

In a press release, the military called the weapon “a lightweight, powerful, and lethal warhead that could be deployed from a small, agile drone.” In a video posted April 21 and captioned only “Multi-Purpose,” a drone blows up a makeshift bunker on a military testing site. 

3D-printed drones and drone-based weapons are fairly new, and they’re having a bit of a moment in the American military limelight. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who President Donald Trump calls “the drone guy,” told lawmakers last week he has learned a great deal from Ukraine’s use of cheap and easily replicable drones, and is eager to apply those lessons to the United States’ wars. (Per reporting from The Economist in 2023, Ukraine has also used ChatGPT to build bombs.)

The Ukrainian military has “fundamentally changed the approach to warfare,” Driscoll said during a congressional hearing Thursday. Iran, too, has reportedly used cheap Shahed drones—$20,000 each—to take out million-dollar American and Israeli missiles. Now, the US may adopt similar technology. “The United States Army is a beacon of transformation,” Driscoll said. “Imagine what we could do if we weren’t bound by the red tape!” 

This latest 3D-printed warhead, called the BRAKER, is part of a larger push towards high-tech, cheap munitions. At SpaceX’s Stargate campus in mid-January, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth urged the military and weapons-tech contractors to “accelerate like hell.” And as the Pentagon budget is slated to crest $1 trillion for the first time ever this year, the military is pushing to triple drone-related spending to $74 billion. 

As the United States continues to bombard Iran—killing thousands of people, and spending, at last count, nearly $60 billion doing so—the military is looking for cheaper ways to mass-produce war from a distance. That might be why US News and World Report thinks drone stocks are worth buying. 

All the Typhoons, everywhere, all at once

A majority of China-linked threat actors are using compromised routers and IoT devices worldwide, turning this gear into proxy networks to carry out further intrusions, steal sensitive data, and disrupt victim organizations’ operations, according to a joint 10-country advisory.…

Artisan may be known for their bold “Stop Hiring Humans” campaign but the reality is every founder needs to assemble the right team if they want to scale.

With the weekend nearly here, check out things to do around Santa Cruz County with a recommendation from Lily Belli and a specially curated list from Lookout’s BOLO events calendar.

The post Best of Santa Cruz County arts & food events this weekend, April 23-26 appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.

OpenAI says its latest model offers increased capabilities across a broad variety of categories.

Paolo Zampolli epitomizes why so many people hate the Trump administration.

Zampolli serves as Donald Trump’s US special envoy for “Global Partnership” and is mired in controversies over this year’s World Cup, Jeffrey Epstein, and, according to the New York Times, ICE.

He’s a shining example of people alleged to be scammer and abusers have weaseled their way into using Trump’s global platform for their own nefarious purposes. Let’s take a look.

The World Cup

On Wednesday, Zampolli told the Financial Times he made a suggestion to Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino that Iran be replaced by Italy at this summer’s World Cup. The soccer tournament will be played in the US, Canada, and Mexico, and both the US and Iran have expressed concerns that it would not be possible for Iran, which is currently at war with Israel and the United States.

“I’m an Italian native and it would be a dream to see the Azzurri at a US-hosted tournament. With four titles, they have the pedigree to justify inclusion,” Zampolli said to the Financial Times (“Azzuri” is a nickname for the Italian national sports team, which has won the competition four times, but has failed to qualify for three successive tournaments). Zampolli is an Italian-American but has no apparent association with Italian soccer or the World Cup.

The Financial Times suggested that Zampolli’s idea was designed to improve US and Italy relations after Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned Trump’s bizarre remarks about Pope Leo XIV over the war in Iran.

You may be wondering: Why is an American envoy attempting to lobby on behalf of Italy instead of the US?

Zampolli reposted the Financial Times‘ Tuesday story on X and, late Wednesday night, posted two screenshots of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reporting his World Cup proposal. 

“Firstly, it is not possible, secondly it is not appropriate,” Italy’s sports minister, Andrea Abodi, told LaPresse. “You qualify on the pitch.”

“The attempt to exclude Iran from the World Cup only reveals the moral bankruptcy of the United States, which is afraid even of the presence of eleven young Iranians on the field of play,” the Iranian embassy said. A spokesperson for Iran’s government said Wednesday that Iran is prepared to play at the World Cup, according to the Associated Press. 

According to the BBC, FIFA is not planning to replace Iran with Italy. 

In other words, everyone hates the Trump administration. 

Jeffrey Epstein

Zampolli, a former head of a modeling agency in the ’90s, claims that he introduced Donald and Melania Trump and helped the first lady obtain a work visa in the mid-’90s. He even told the Daily Mail he was prepared to testify before Congress following Melania’s public denial earlier this month of close connections to Jeffrey Epstein, including that it was the convicted sex offender introduced her to Donald Trump. Melania Trump called for a congressional hearing to allow survivors of Epstein’s abuse to testify. 

Zampolli has his own ties to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. He and Epstein discussed and later failed in their bid to purchase the agency Elite Model Management in 2004, and according to the Daily Beast, became a partner of Maxwell’s environmental charity and nonprofit organization, the TerraMar Project, that described itself as focused on protecting oceans. Maxwell launched the project in 2012 but the organization was dissolved in December 2019, following Epstein’s arrest in July of that same year.

ICE

Last month, the New York Times reported that Zampolli sent a request to David Venturella, an ICE official, to put his ex-girlfriend Amanda Ungaro, who is Brazilian and was arrested on charges of workplace fraud, in ICE detention. Zampolli had been in a custody battle with Ungaro over their son.

The Times obtained communication records demonstrating that Venturella contacted ICE’s Miami office to make sure agents would take Ungaro from a Miami jail where she was being held, an order that Venturella said was important to an individual closely connected to the White House. Ungaro was placed in ICE custody and deported, but, according to the Times, it remains unclear whether Zampolli’s request led to Ungaro’s deportation.

Mr. Zampolli denied asking ICE to detain Ungaro, saying he only asked Venturella about the status of her case.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to the Times that Ungaro was detained and deported due to an expired visa and her fraud charges. “Any suggestion that she was arrested and removed for political reasons or favors is FALSE.”

Neither the US State Department nor the Kennedy Center immediately responded to a request from Mother Jones for Zampolli’s comment on the Financial Times and New York Times stories. (The Office for Global Partnerships is an office within the US State Department and Zampolli is on the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center, as appointed by President Trump.

Sensing a pattern? If Zampolli does get a role in organizing the World Cup, fans, players, journalists, and other travelers may be subjected to the Trump administration’s brutal immigration policies. 

Three vendors matched to three sites

The US Department of the Air Force (DAF) has selected three companies for possible nuclear microreactor projects at three of its installations under a program aimed at improving energy resilience if the electricity grid goes down.…

According to an internal memo, Meta plans to begin its sweeping layoffs on May 20.

It’s really not a good time for iconic female characters from the ’90s to make a comeback, is it? First, Hulu canceled its much-anticipated Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival, much to the anger of loyal fans. Now, it seems that Alicia Silverstone sadly won’t be returning as Cher Horowitz in a streaming series revival of Clueless. Peacock has stopped development on its revival of Clueless, deciding against moving forward with the project. Former Gossip Girl creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, along with Dollface creator Jordan Weiss, were producing this new version. Clueless IP owner Paramount and CBS Studios will apparently shop the series elsewhere.Paramount Pictures

The original Clueless was one of the most era-defining movies of the ’90s, with everything from the lingo to the clothes penetrating pop culture. It put Paul Rudd on the map as an actor, not to mention Donald Faison and the late Brittany Murphy. So anticipation was high to see where the brilliant but ditzy Cher would end up as an adult. But, it seems Peacock simply lost interest. Over the last year, several high-profile projects with iconic ’90s female leads have been announced, then scrapped. Last month it was Buffy, now it’s Clueless. There was also a Melrose Place revival announced, focusing on the original show’s women. But that one is probably quietly canceled, too.

The message here, intentional or not, is that Hollywood doesn’t really want to see ladies who were sex symbols in their youth as older adult women and possibly mothers. After all, Dexter, Scrubs, and several other shows from the past have come back to big ratings, but they all focused on male leads. We’re not nuts to sense a pattern here. Hopefully, another streamer takes an interest in Clueless. Hopefully, someone at one of these streamers will realize that life doesn’t end at forty for the likes of Buffy Summers or Cher Horowitz. As if.

The post The CLUELESS Revival Series Is Canceled at Peacock appeared first on Nerdist.

A rendering shows an apartment building at Mission and Otis streets in Santa Cruz proposed by local developer Andy Goldberg. (Workbench)

SANTA CRUZ >> A proposal to demolish a medical office building in Santa Cruz at the corner of Mission and Otis streets and replace it with a six-story, 60-unit rental apartment building faces opposition from neighbors and from those concerned about the potential displacement of medical professionals.

All but two of the more than 20 residents who spoke Tuesday at an online community meeting were against the project, proposed at 926 and 930 Mission St. 

The building would contain a mix of studios, two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments, five of which would be reserved for “moderate income” renters and five for “very low income” renters. Income limits are set annually by the state.

(function() { window.mc4wp = window.mc4wp || { listeners: [], forms: { on: function(evt, cb) { window.mc4wp.listeners.push( { event : evt, callback: cb } ); } } } })(); Stay informed on Santa Cruz County’s biggest issues. Santa Cruz Local’s newsletter breaks down complex local topics and shows residents how to get involved. Email address:
mc4wp.forms.on('subscribed', function(form) { // gtag.js if(form.id == '6954') { gtag('event', 'subscribe', {'event_category': 'newsletter_prompt', 'event_label':'top_of_story'}); } }); Leave this field empty if you're human:

The building would also have ground-floor commercial space, bicycle parking, solar panels, a 14-space parking area and other amenities. 

Jamileh Cannon, owner and co-founder of Santa Cruz-based Workbench, the project’s architect, said Tuesday that more than half of Santa Cruz renters pay at least 30% of their income toward housing, and that more than a third of Santa Cruz renters pay at least 50% of their income toward housing.  

“If we build more, then demand decreases and price growth slows,” Cannon said. Already, she said, rents in Santa Cruz County are starting to level off, “which is amazing for our community.”

Cannon said that the city of Santa Cruz must approve thousands of additional units by 2031 to meet its state-mandated housing goals.

She said she expected the new apartments would attract university students, as well as young professionals, couples and older singles looking to downsize.

At the meeting, several neighbors brought up traffic, parking, privacy and safety concerns, as well as concerns about the building’s size, shadows, architectural design and potential effect on property values.

“I share your concerns over the proposed height of this building, abutting up to a single family-home neighborhood, the lack of a setback, and the lack of parking,” said City Councilmember Scott Newsome, who is up for reelection and faces a challenger in the June primary. 

“A sentiment I’m hearing more often from the community is that people are for housing, but they also feel that certain developers have shown they’re not willing to responsibly wield the power the state has handed them,” Newsome added. 

In recent years, state laws meant to address California’s housing crisis have largely stripped power from local authorities to deny or change proposals for housing.

A Santa Cruz resident who identified herself as a health-care provider in the building set to be demolished said “this will put us in a really tough position.” 

Another woman who said she’s a patient at a chiropractor office onsite asked where the medical professionals would go once displaced by this housing project. “It’s very inconsiderate of the developers to destroy their practice and deprive the community of such needed service,” she said.  

Local real estate developer Andy Goldberg, a frequent partner of Workbench, is behind the project. Once a formal application is filed, a public hearing will take place before the zoning administrator or planning commission. 

This project is one of several multi-story apartment buildings expected to be built on Mission Street in Westside Santa Cruz. Current proposals include an eight-story, 60-unit building on Mission Street between Bay and Trescony streets, a six-story, 67-unit building on Mission and Dufour streets, a three-story, 21-unit building adjacent to Mission Hill Middle School and a five-story, 48-unit building at the site of the Food Bin and Herb Room on Mission and Laurel streets. 

In general, multi-story apartment complexes in Santa Cruz have proved contentious. Three of Workbench’s projects, for example, are now being fought over in court.

Questions or comments? Email info@santacruzlocal.org. Santa Cruz Local is supported by members, major donors, sponsors and grants for the general support of our newsroom. Our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support. Learn more about Santa Cruz Local and how we are funded.

Learn about membership Santa Cruz Local’s news is free. We believe that high-quality local news is crucial to democracy. We depend on locals like you to make a meaningful contribution so everyone can access our news. Learn about membership

The post 60-unit Mission Street apartment building attracts early opposition in Santa Cruz appeared first on Santa Cruz Local.

What are you doing to solve the memory crisis?

If you follow PC hardware prices, you’ll know AI demand has pushed memory prices higher as manufacturers prioritize memory for datacenters. To deal with that, you can pay through the nose, buy less memory, or ... try to build your own DRAM.…

'Differentiated, but open'

Google Cloud Next  Google Cloud’s Andi Gutmans said that the company holds a structural advantage over its largest rivals in the race to win value from AI agents in the enterprise, arguing that no competitor currently combines cloud computing infrastructure, frontier AI models, and a data platform under one roof.…

Laura Spivak, an organizer with Washington County Indivisible, has spent the past few months trying everything to stop the construction of an ICE detention warehouse only five miles from her home. 

“We’ve protested, we’ve written and called, we’ve fought legal battles,” she said at a press conference Thursday in support of the Ban Warehouse Detention Act, a bill Rep.Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)  is introducing to prohibit the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from using taxpayer funds to purchase, convert, or operate commercial warehouses as immigration detention centers. Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) introduced a similar bill in the Senate two weeks ago. 

Spivak has found some success fighting the warehouse detention center in her backyard. Last week, a judge agreed to temporarily block the construction of a Williamsport, Maryland facility, where ICE planned to jail up to 1,500 people. But without more help, Spivak fears that this will only be a temporary victory. 

The Ban Warehouse Detention Act, Spivak said, “prevents local politicians from colluding with DHS to convert warehouses into detention camps, and prevents them from shutting out the voices of residents like us.” 

As of February, the Department of Homeland Security planned to spend over $38 billion dollars purchasing 24 warehouses across the country, in order to detain up to 92,000 people. So far, they have purchased eleven.

Spivak thinks that money could be better-spent doing pretty much anything else. Williamsport’s local library needs renovation, its school buildings need modernization, and investing in tourism could bring prosperity to the town’s historic district. “A prison camp will not help Williamsport develop economically,” she said. “It will drive down property values and bring shame to a town that deserves a helping hand, not a federal slap in the face.” 

In early April, the Department of Homeland Security said they would pause the purchase of any new warehouses while conducting an internal review of facilities purchased under recently-fired Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. But a pause, Tlaib said Thursday, is not enough. 

“We need to save lives right now,” Tlaib said. She has been in contact with immigrants held in warehouse detention in Michigan, she said: some of them have been held for months after signing letters stating their willingness to leave the country; others are becoming sick due to the conditions in the facilities. 

“A young lady that was in the facility for over a year at 33 years old, and never had a seizure before, had a seizure because of malnutrition and sleep deprivation,” Tlaib said. “I mean, this is a form of torture.” Immigrants at one GEO-group-owned facility in North Lake, Michigan, have launched a hunger strike demanding access to adequate food, medical care, and legal representation. 

The local-level pushback against ICE, meanwhile, continues: there are rapid-response networks in every major city, where residents alert each other to the presence of ICE officers and gather resources for immigrants in their communities. Online maps show current and future detention warehouse purchases planned in communities across the country. And wherever ICE plans to build a facility, protests tend to follow.

Under Tlaib’s draft bill, no agency may “Establish, operate, expand, convert, or renovate any warehouse, industrial facility, tent, soft-sided structure, modular unit, or similar building or structure for the purposes of housing, processing, or detaining individuals under civil immigration authority.”

“Human beings do not belong in warehouses,” said Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Il.). “From Arizona to New Hampshire, even Republican local elected officials oppose these warehouses. Not one penny of our tax dollars should be going towards these massive detention centers.”

The max size is now 2MB and max resolution is 4000x4000.

If a worker's years of service at Microsoft plus their age equals 70 or more, they will be eligible for a voluntary retirement buyout.

Push to protect minors risks hitting everyone online

Proton's boss has waded into the age verification fight with a warning that sounds less like child safety and more like an identity checkpoint for the entire internet.…

Era thinks that we will see many form factors of AI hardware, including glasses, rings, and pendants