Convoluted

Final Fantasy XIV left beta testing and launched its full build today on Xbox Series X|S, ushering in a whole new group of players ready to explore the length and breadth of Eorzea and beyond. These Xbox players, however, have one extra obstacle the rest of us don’t — FFXIV Coins. FFXIV Coins are the new currency introduced with the debut of the Xbox version, available from the Microsoft platform’s store. They’re only redeemable on Xbox, and players need them for purchasing items in the Online Store, paying their…

I have a large collection of physical video games. Each passing year, this somewhat prosaic characteristic becomes more and more notable, both in terms of uniqueness and — considering the age of much of my collection, coupled with the unyielding passage of time — complexity. With the trajectory of video game distribution hurtling toward a digital-only future, my insistence on preserving some of its history keeps me connected to the objects and, more importantly, the experiences they contain in a way that a digital library…

China Evergrande Group’s weak controls and poor management decisions were to blame for a funding arrangement that ultimately led banks to seize $2 billion of deposits held by a subsidiary, an independent investigation found.The property giant used deposits from six units of Evergrande Property Services Group Ltd., a separate Hong Kong-listed company, to borrow money between late December 2020 and early August 2021, when the developer was in need of capital. It was part of a complicated…

Author and film-maker Rebecca Miller isn’t known for humour exactly, but she brings a sprightly sort of sweetness and preposterous innocence to this quirky-naive romantic comedy that she has written and directed, something with wit and fun but also ultimately an almost childlike seriousness - like a Woody Allen movie or a screwball but played at two-thirds of the speed and with fewer cynical wisecracks.The excellent cast brings a prosecco sparkle. Peter Dinklage is Steven Lauddem, a celebrated opera composer, difficult,…

via Lionsgate By design, action thrillers aren’t exactly beholden to such trivialities as logic, common sense, and a story that seamlessly connects a set of increasingly far-fetched set of dots, but The Next Three Days would have arguably turned out a great deal better had it not opted to play everything with such a solemnly straight face. A remake of 2008’s acclaimed French feature Anything for Her, the Hollywood reinvention recruited an all-star cast featuring Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Olivia Wilde,…

With this earnings season mostly in the rearview mirror, CNBC's Jim Cramer on Thursday cut through common C-suite jargon, an attempt to help investors make sense of management commentary.In particular, the "Mad Money" host focused on four words or phrases that have been thrown around a lot recently:"Measured""Elongated""Excess inventory""Clearing events""We've had so many convoluted explanations for disappointing quarters that it's almost impossible to tell what's really going on," Cramer said, before going on to explain…

The first reactions to Jurassic World Dominion have been shared online, and it’s fair to say people are slightly underwhelmed. The action-adventure film, which follows on from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and is the sixth overall film in the Jurassic Park franchise, is released in cinemas this week.For the first time since the original Jurassic Park, the trio of original leads (Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum) will be reuniting on screen, alongside characters from the more recent films such as Chris Pratt’s Owen…

via Universal Fans of a certain generation have a soft spot for Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces, the demented and incredibly convoluted action thriller that didn’t find a great deal of love from critics or at the box office, but went on to become a staple of home video in the years following its initial release in January 2007. To indicate the enduring popularity of the balls-to-the-wall shoot ’em up, not only is the movie’s 62 percent user rating on Rotten Tomatoes over twice as high as the 30 percent critical…