entertaining

When a course is ready to serve, Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) stands upfront and gives a resounding clap. All his chefs take position immediately. The echo of the clap is almost like a wake-up call for his select group of diners--get ready, you're in for a treat of a lifetime. The same applies for Succession director Mark Mylod's wickedly entertaining The Menu, which is a dish best served cold. The less you know about the multi-course punishment prepared in store, the better. (Also read: Anya Taylor-Joy did all her…

Not a robot so much as a hi-tech Frankenstein’s monster, stitched together with bits of Robocop and Terminator, but cheekily enjoyable just the same. This is a sci-fi chiller co-written by horror experts Akela Cooper and James Wan and directed by Gerard Johnstone. M3gan, or Model 3 Generative Android, is an eerily self-possessed blond tweenage girlbot, voiced by Jenna Davis, a state-of-the-art toy from the near future developed as a personal passion project by engineer Gemma (Allison Williams, from Get Out and HBO’s…

NvidiaOn Tuesday, Nvidia announced at CES that its high-performance GeForce Now cloud gaming service will be coming to vehicles in North America, Europe and other parts of the world.  The first automakers to partner with Nvidia to make GeForce Now available in its vehicles are Hyundai Motor Group, BYD and Polestar. Software-defined car owners will now be able to access a full PC-gaming experience in the comfort of their own cars. Front-seat drivers will be able to stream games while the car is parked and passengers…

And also Anthony Marzano Paradox Interactive has proudly announced that the grand strategy sequel Victoria 3 has sold over half a million copies since its release back in October on PC and Mac platforms. “We want to thank all Victoria 3 players!” exclaimed Paradox Interactive in a celebratory tweet. “With 500k games sold since its release a little over a month ago, this is one of the most successful Paradox launches ever!” We want to thank all Victoria 3 players! With 500k games sold since it's release a little over a…

John Carpenter’s The Thing, from 1982, is now getting a re-release and it’s pretty scary and entertaining stuff, though I always get the feeling that nothing in it lives up to the tremendous opening section. An American scientific expedition, marooned in the Antarctic frozen wastes, is set upon by a group of crazy Norwegian scientists intent on killing a runaway dog, which turns out to be the physical form taken by a shape-shifting alien invader, set to infect them all. The tension of that beginning is superb, and the way…

2009 saw the release of Orphan, and with it the debut of Isabelle Fuhrman as big-brown-eyed 9-year-old Esther, an orphan from Russia adopted by an American couple who recently lost their baby. Charming and intelligent, Esther is all they could ask for until strange events and accidents occur. In a shock twist, it is revealed that Esther’s identity is that of a 30-something-year-old grifter and killer who has left a pile of bodies in her wake. The twist in Orphan was a clever one that set it apart from other killer-kiddie…

The revelation that the Tory MP Chris Pincher disgraced himself in the Carlton Club – that bastion of Conservative exclusivity – has shone the spotlight on the secretive world of London members’ clubs. Anyone who has walked past the hulking Victorian edifices of privilege that lurk in St James’ Street and Pall Mall will have their own opinions about the desirability of our elected representatives spending their leisure time drinking and dining among their peers in them.Popular imagination places their membership somewhere…

By Mark Meszoros | (Willoughby, Ohio) News-Herald “Elvis” isn’t your ordinary biopic. The new film about rock ’n’ roll icon Elvis Presley — told through the lens of his two-decade-plus partnership with his increasingly duplicitous manager, Colonel Tom Parker — is an elaborate web of complex shots, outside-the-box editing and exquisitely executed music integration. And you wonder why we don’t get movies from Baz Luhrmann more often? “Elvis” — directed and co-written by the Australian filmmaker whose last big-screen work…

While the rather surprisingly robust box office performance of Top Gun: Maverick has shown, once again, that all really is back to normal on the big screen blockbuster front, as a sort of precautionary measure, a more-stacked-than-usual summer season of streaming has also kicked off. There are shows with budgets the size of movies, from Stranger Things to Obi-Wan Kenobi to the upcoming She-Hulk and Ms Marvel, and films like The Gray Man, Prey, Secret Headquarters and Spiderhead, all slick enough to be major theatrical…

There may be a seemingly endless supply of podcasts available today, but it can be difficult to find ones that toe the line between style and substance.They do exist, though. Here’s a shortlist of fact-filled podcasts that are interesting, informative, and—best of all—entertaining.You’ll laugh. You’ll learn. And you’ll be glad you added them to your podcast player.Stuff You Should KnowWith a name like Stuff You Should Know, this podcast better deliver. Thankfully, it does.New episodes drop nearly daily, last around 45…