IT General
Black Bag review: Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender face off in a sexy and sophisticated spy thriller
For many a movie lover, the promise of the ever-elegant Cate Blanchett and the ruthlessly debonair Michael Fassbender co-starring as spies should be enough to cough up ticket money. That's a powerful pairing of performers who are very well-suited to the sleek and sexy subgenre of espionage thriller. But props to director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter David Koepp for subverting expectations with the distinctly exciting Black Bag.
As they have with the psychological thriller Kimi and the mysterious haunted house movie Presence, this terrific pairing of writer and director has cherry-picked elements of a genre, without submitting to its expectations.
In this case, Black Bag will satisfy spy fans who demand a cast of suave rogues, sexual allure, intense interrogations, exotic globe-trekking, dubious allies, and a powerful MacGuffin that must be kept out of dangerous hands. However, what makes Black Bag a sensational standout is the husband and wife at the heart of it.
Black Bag is a sexy, smart, and cool movie about marriage. Seriously. Credit: Claudette Barius / Focus FeaturesIn movies and TV, marriage is often painted as the death of excitement. Romance-centered comedies frequently end in marriage, suggesting the story of the young lovers is essentially over as soon as they settle down. In dramas or thrillers, marriage is usually only of interest if it is under threat by infidelity, divorce, or murder. But Koepp finds a unique way to explore the thrills of marriage through the spy angle.
Fassbender and Blanchett star as George and Kathryn Woodhouse, a married couple who are not only spies but also a subject of envy and awe in their circle of colleagues because of their "flagrant monogamy."
From their first shared scene together, Fassbender and Blanchett capture this almost egregiously functional marriage by displaying an easy intimacy — but not a dull one. Their hunger for each other is apparent in the steady but intense way George watches her undress; she smiles at his continued attention as she drops her silky clothing to the floor. Where he is stiff and buttoned-up, she is fluid and unbound. They are an odd couple that really clicks, not by chance but by mutual appreciation for each other's quirks. So when a secret mission threatens to come between them, the tension comes less from the potentially catastrophic loss of life and more from the possible ruination of this successful marriage, riddled with steaminess, shared history, and secrets.
Black Bag is a spy movie for grown-ups. Credit: Claudette Barius / Focus FeaturesUnlike the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith, this married couple knows each other are spies, and as such, that each carries secrets that must be kept from the other. Their code word for "I can't talk about that" is simply "black bag." But how do you build a romantic relationship of trust when lies are part of your business?
This is the crux of Black Bag, as George is assigned to investigate Kathryn, and whether or not she has turned traitor by stealing the aforementioned deadly doodad. In an unconventional move that plays perfectly to Koepp and Soderbergh's strengths as storytellers, George's first move in his mission is to invite Kathryn and the other four suspects over for a dinner party. Their guests just happen to be a pair of young, hot-blooded couples who all met at the agency. While the main plot is George tracking down the traitor, the subplot focuses on these three romantic relationships, and how each copes with the pressures of each other's secrets.
Explosions, chases, and subterfuge will all play a part in Black Bag, satisfying some genre expectations. But the biggest thrills come from George, in his even-handed, almost monotone delivery, slyly pushing his guests' buttons to see who will blow up. This becomes not just one deliciously manipulative dinner scene but a trio of sequences set across tables, each amping up the stakes and suspense as George toys with his prey.
A crackling supporting cast adds to Black Bag's shine.As one might expect. Blanchett is a vision as a sophisticated spy who can wear a silk gown with the same grace she can curse out a workplace antagonist. Fassbender is her perfect scene partner, playing a foil to her slinking certainty with a firm but not wooden resolve. Though outwardly austere, he projects an intensity of thought so rigorous, you can practically hear the gears churning in his mind.
To this dynamic, the supporting ensemble of Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, and Regé-Jean Page are sublime additions. Playing peers and rivals, Burke carries a world-weary swagger as an agent battling his demons, while Page has a dashing carriage and a sharp tongue. Harris, who portrays the agency's in-house therapist, oozes with intellect but appears weighed down by the burden of dealing with clients trained to lie expertly. Then there's Abela.
The youngest and greenest of this spy group, her character is a technician who still finds the spy game a romantic thrill, even when the realities hit her like a knife to the heart. She's the sharpest contrast to the others, as they all have varying degrees of a cool facade. She's a gorgeous nerd who craves a life of excitement and love, and she looks desperately to George for guidance on how to achieve both. But how that plays out is not by the book.
A terrifically in-tune cast brings together Koepp's rigorous dialogue with a vicious veracity and vulnerability. Soderbergh smartly embraces an almost chilly visual aesthetic, similar to Kimi's, which reflects the atmosphere at an agency where lovers are pitted against each other. The cool color palette and static camera angles make the sizzling performances practically explode off the screen, whether characters are fighting, flirting, or going in for the kill — metaphorical or literal.
In the end, Black Bag comes together cleanly and compellingly, offering an engaging spy thriller that's about much more than global dynamics or stealthy stunt scenes. At its core, it's a story of two people who are still madly in love and fighting for each other. That gives Black Bag an edge. Koepp and Soderbergh have built a rare movie marriage that's exciting because its spouses still excite each other, and yeah, they're also spies.
As soon as Black Bag was over, I felt that dizzying high one gets from a proper spy thriller, the rush of vicarious adrenaline from the case cracked and the day saved. But I also had the deep urge to see this movie again immediately. Because as generous as the filmmaker and stars are with slathering this story in George and Kathryn's mutual attraction, I couldn't get enough. I wanted to go back to feel the thrill of their love for each other all over again.
Opus review: Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich face off in offbeat thriller
A cult-centric popstar thriller that quickly falls apart, Mark Anthony Green’s debut feature, Opus, features hints of ideas about journalism and celebrity that never fully come to the fore. A tale of a music writer attending the listening party of a long-awaited return album from an ‘80s mega star who’s been in hiding for the past two decades, the film’s supposed eeriness is marred by dramatic disconnect. Even its basics are hard to follow, when tracking them should be the easiest thing in the world.
As a former GQ columnist, Green brings occasional insight to magazine newsroom politics. However, the rest of his story is visually and narratively malformed. The performances are mostly enjoyable, especially John Malkovich as the aforementioned returning glam rock idol, but they end up in service of a deeply confused movie that has little, if anything, to say.
What is Opus about? Credit: Anna Kooris / A24An early scene in the film, a casual lunch date between novice music writer Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri) and her long-time friend Kent (Young Mazino), establishes core tenets about the former’s character. She’s talented but withheld, never letting anyone close to her as she guards a persona she fears is unremarkable and middle-of-the-road. Unfortunately, neither Kent nor this entire emotional setup ends up factoring into the movie in the slightest, which quickly moves on to its tale of an icon’s surprise return after decades away.
The character dynamic that really matters is Ariel, a Black woman, being overshadowed and dismissed by her smiling, white male boss Stan (Murray Bartlett), especially when the two of them are among a select handful invited to visit the isolated ranch of the returning Moretti (Malkovich), a pop icon whose stature the film portrays in amusing ways. After his comeback album is announced in a YouTube video by his long-time publicist (Tony Hale), the singer’s history is neatly condensed for us in the form of a globe-spanning montage celebrating his return, made up of news stories and social media posts which heavily center his posters, famous bobbleheads and other valuable memorabilia. This makes his presence — and really, his absence — feel tactile. All of this set to his iconic ‘80s dance ballad, “Dina Simone,” a fictitious earworm sung by Malkovich himself. It’s not hard to see why he was once so beloved.
Alongside paparazzo Bianca (Melissa Chambers), influencer Emily (Stephanie Suganami), talk show host Clara (Juliette Lewis) and former music rival Bill (Mark Sivertsen), Ariel and Stan receive invites by courier, after which they’re flown out to a nondescript desert, then bussed 50 miles to Moretti’s sprawling, gated compound, home to a creativity-worshipping faith known as the Levelists. Part spa, part Jonestown, and part Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, the dustbowl getaway is populated by acolytes of various ages all dressed in navy blue robes. This cult-like group serves at Moretti’s beck and call, with actors like Amber Midthunder and Tatanka Means handing the guests strict instructions on the weekend’s activities — a dinner, a massage, nothing too out of the ordinary — while younger, pre-teen members of the pseudo-religious fanhood engage in painting and other arts and crafts.
The arriving journos are also stripped of their electronics to “preserve the integrity of the experience,” one of several red flags that only Ariel seems attuned to. However, as members of their group go missing one by one, the film’s framing of these supposedly strange events doesn’t quite serve this Get Out-esque narrative, in which only Ariel sees through the Matrix-code of Moretti’s constructed reality.
The cult saga in Opus is visually malformed. Credit: Anna Kooris / A24The biggest flaw in the film’s construction is the blurry boundary between what the camera sees and what Ariel notices. Instructed by Stan to take notes when she should be writing her own article, Ariel isn’t blinded by Moretti’s celebrity and jots down her observations on the surrounding sycophancy. However, what she finds off-putting is, more often than not, the result of mere quirks that the other guests aren’t necessarily wrong to dismiss, while any doubts about the group’s safety arise through information only the audience is given. And yet, despite this disconnect, we’re expected to invest in Ariel’s attempts to convince Stan and the others that something strange is afoot; we know that she’s right, but she has little reason to believe the things she’s saying, so it can’t help but feel like crying wolf.
There are certainly strange happenings in the movie’s margins, á la Ari Aster’s Midsommar, but rather than the film’s protagonist being slowly drawn into a mystery, or discerning oddities no one else sees, the cult’s more disconcerting behavior is visible only to the camera, and thus to the audience, but not Ariel. Sometimes it’s not even clear what, if anything, she actually sees even when faced with disturbing revelations (like the fate of a fellow guest), owing to off-kilter visual framing and editing that yanks us away from the action far too quickly. While rightly she notes the Levelists’ beliefs as out of the ordinary — they worship creativity above all else, and consider it divine — the premise as seen through her eyes is never quite unnerving.
The movie’s aesthetic shortcomings pile up the further it goes on. Each guest is chaperoned around the compound by a specific cult member, and when skirmishes arise between Ariel and her assigned Levelist, an entire fight scene unfolds off screen. Not long after, a chase scene on ATVs hops and skips around in time and space, as though the production had either failed to shoot enough footage for these moments, or they had to be somehow rescued in the edit, and this was the best possible outcome. It’s bizarre to watch, given how incomplete the movie feels, and how it obscures the one tenet that ought to be central to a story such as this: the controlled reveal of information.
Opus has no bigger picture. Credit: Anna Kooris / A24The flaws in the film’s moment-to-moment construction go hand-in-hand with its lack of a macro point of view. The film is, on its surface, akin to Mark Mylod’s The Menu, wherein people semi-related to the world of a renowned artist (Ralph Fiennes’ gourmet chef Julian Slowik) are drawn into an elaborate series of games or traps stemming from his warped worldview. While Opus pulls back its curtains in much the same way, what it reveals is shockingly empty.
Malkovich adds enigmatic layers to Moretti as best he can — the actor appears to have had fun in the role — but at no point does the character seem like he has any kind of coherent plan or outlook. When harm inevitably comes to the guests, it often seems random and coincidental, and when it’s time for Moretti to express his twisted reasoning, the result is a series of long, drawn-out monologues that barely connect to the events as they unfold on screen. All of this makes you ask: What is Opus even about?
There are, on occasion, hints of racial subtext — the professional dynamic between Ariel and Stan is realistic and familiar — but none of this extends to the larger premise, given the cult’s multiracial makeup. Moretti may be an esoteric figure, but even his late-era-Kanye musings on genius and celebrity feel distinctly ordinary. No real-world element in the film is ever magnified enough to function as satire, leaving Opus in a lukewarm middle ground, where ideas never evolve, and character drama seldom extends beyond what someone (usually Ariel) observes or experiences in-the-moment.
The real tragedy here is that the premise of Opus has potential. The world of celebrity worship is fertile ground for a tale of religious fervor, and Edebiri has the kind of frank, matter-of-fact timing that feels tailor-made for emphasizing the bizarre. However, the film’s scattered pieces never allow even its minor strengths to enter the spotlight for too long. The little that works ends up shackled by lousy, scattershot filmmaking that saps the movie of all tension, insight, and fun.
UPDATE: Mar. 13, 2025, 2:08 p.m. EDT "Opus" was first reviewed out of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. This review was first published on Feb. 2, 2025, and has been updated for its theatrical release.
Seth Meyers roasts Trumps White House Tesla ad with clips of him dissing electric cars
Late Night host Seth Meyers has continued to take aim at President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's "desperate and embarrassing infomercial" for Teslas at the White House, presenting several clips of the former explicitly disparaging electric cars over the past couple of years.
SEE ALSO: Seth Meyers gleefully roasts Trump and Musk's Tesla adTesla staged a personal showroom for Trump on the White House lawn on Tuesday, with the president making a show of buying a new Model S Plaid in response to the company's falling stock prices. Trump's purchase and promotion of the cars was a deliberate show of support for his close ally and Tesla CEO Musk. As Meyers noted, it also flew in the face of the anti-electric vehicle stance Trump has maintained for years.
"Not only was this flagrantly corrupt," said Meyers. "But this entire gambit, it all depends on Trump convincing his MAGA supporters to buy Teslas after spending months telling them on the campaign trail, 'Electric vehicles suck.'"
He then proceeded to play a collection of clips of Trump doing just that, with the now-president claiming that "they don't go far, they cost a fortune," and "they don't work in the cold."
"Oh yeah, these people definitely sound like they're gonna buy a Tesla," Meyers quipped in response to a crowd at a past Trump rally booing electric vehicles.
Roomba maker iRobot could be dead within a year
iRobot could soon be out of business, the Roomba's creator admitting that there's "substantial doubt about [its] ability to continue as a going concern." It's a drastic fall for the company whose Roombas were once synonymous with robot vacuums in general.
Revealed on Wednesday, iRobot's dire assessment came as part of its financial results for Q4 2024, which showed that revenue had fallen by 44 percent compared to the same time the previous year. Comparative results for the full financial year weren't quite as bad, with revenue dropping a little over 23 percent from $890.6 million in 2023 to $681.8 million in 2024. Still, those aren't numbers iRobot wants to see shrink at all.
SEE ALSO: iRobot just completely overhauled its lineup with 8 new Roombas for 2025Of course, iRobot has been attempting to address the problem for a while. Acknowledging the company's struggles, iRobot noted that since a January 2024 restructuring it had cut over half its staff, decreased spending on marketing, reduced inventory, and lowered the price of its products by overhauling its research and development model.
The company also pointed to the recent unveiling of its 2025 lineup, with CEO Gary Cohen calling it the "largest product launch in iRobot's history." Even so, iRobot admitted that its future could very well depend upon how this lineup performs over the next year.
"[T]here can be no assurance that the new product launches will be successful due to potential factors, including, but not limited to consumer demand, competition, macroeconomic conditions, and tariff policies," wrote iRobot. "Given these uncertainties and the implication they may have on the Company's financials, there is substantial doubt about the Company's ability to continue as a going concern for a period of at least 12 months from the date of the issuance of its consolidated 2024 financial statements."
The news sent iRobot's stock plummeting, ending 35 percent down when markets closed on Wednesday. The fall continued on Thursday, with iRobot's shares closing nearly a further 25 percent down. As of writing, iRobot's shares are priced at $3.06, less than half of their value on Tuesday before the financial results were released.
iRobot's poor financial results follow the collapse of a $1.4 billion acquisition deal with Amazon last January. Initially signed in 2022, both parties terminated the deal due to antitrust concerns from the European Union. In a statement at the time, iRobot said that the acquisition had "no path to regulatory approval in the European Union, preventing Amazon and iRobot from moving forward together." Now it seems iRobot may not be able to move forward at all.
The company is hopeful that its overhauled lineup of robot vacuums will facilitate revenue growth and help get it back on track. However, iRobot's financial struggles will likely cause potential customers to think twice before picking up a new Roomba. If it can't turn itself around, some people may end up without access to support or spare parts for their brand new gadget.
Severance Season 2, episode 9: Why does Jame Eagan say Helly tricked him?
A lot happens in Severance Season 2's penultimate episode, but as things heat up with Mark's (Adam Scott) attempted rescue of his wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman), there's also a weird moment between Helly (Britt Lower) and her dear old dad.
No, not the mildly disturbing egg scene at the beginning — their brief interaction in the Lumon offices right at the end.
So what does Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry) say, and why does he say it? Let's recap.
SEE ALSO: 'Severance' is borrowing a brilliant idea from 'Terminator 2' What happens at the end of Severance Season 2, episode 9?Towards the end of the episode, Helly (Britt Lower) is in the Lumon offices on her own, memorising the directions to the exports hall, which Irving (John Turturro) hid for Dylan (Zach Cherry) to find on the back of a poster. Suddenly, Eagan pops up behind her in the doorway like some creepy old ghost.
"You tricked me," he whispers. "My Helly."
Helly shoves the note under her keyboard and turns to him, looking more baffled by his presence than anything else. The scene ends with her muttering, "What the fuck?"
She has a point. Why is Jame Eagan on the Severed Floor, and what does he mean when he says that she "tricked" him?
Why does Jame Eagan say Helly "tricked" him?At first it seems that there are a few possible explanations for Jame's comment. The first is that he knows what Helly is doing; he's seen her memorising the note, and he knows she has something planned. But if that's the case, why would someone as high up as he is go all the way to the Severed Floor to confront her himself? It also briefly crossed my mind that Helly might actually still be her Outie in this scene going undercover again, and that Jame knows she's pretending to be her Innie. But this feels too convoluted to be true — that twist has already happened once, after all — and the fact that he calls her "Helly" (coupled with her reaction to seeing him there) implies that she is still the Innie Helly we know and love.
Is it possible that Jame's main motivation is just to see his daughter in her severed state? To try and make some sense of why she did what she did in the Season 1 finale? This seems the most likely explanation, but we won't know for sure until next week.
Severance Season 2 is now streaming on Apple TV+, with a new episode every Friday.
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The Wheel of Time cast on the most anticipated relationships of Season 3
Rosamund Pike and Josha Stradowski are joined by The Wheel of Time cast and showrunner Rafe Judkins to do a deep dive of the show's most exciting relationships of Season 3.
6 Things an Xbox Handheld Needs to Do to Replace My Steam Deck
I play most of my games on an Xbox plugged into a 65-inch OLED TV in the living room. Despite this comfy setup, I caved and finally bought a Steam Deck in late 2024, and I’m so happy that I’ve started padding my neglected Steam library once again.
The Light Phone 3 Wants to Free You From Modern Distractions
Have you ever wished you could just swap out your phone full of apps and features and go back to the simpler times where you just texted or called people? Light has a product line that fulfills the exact purpose, and its latest phone, the Light 3, is as minimalist as it gets, but I'm honestly failing to see the long-term market vision here.
6 Reasons to Buy a 4K Monitor
4K monitors are some of the highest resolution monitors you can buy for a desktop setup, and that means you're usually going to pay quite a premium! So is it worth it?
Get a PlayStation 5 Slim with Astro Bot on Sale Today
The PlayStation 5 is closer to the end of its lifespan than it is from the time of its launch in 2020, but it has received a few upgrades and it has a healthy ecosystem of games. If you don't have yours yet, you can get yourself a neat discount on one—and you'll even get a free game on top, too.
5 Ways to Get the Benefits of a Mechanical Keyboard Without the Noise
Curious about mechanical keyboards but put off by the loud noise that makes them impractical in a quiet office or bedroom? Let me walk you through various keyboard options so that you can enjoy the benefits without the disruptive click-clack.
American Sweatshop review: A cyberthriller for the doomscrolling age
Have you ever seen something online you just couldn't shake? Sometimes a video rolls across our FYP or timeline that's inexplicably violent, and before we can blink or look away, it's scorched into our brains. Now, imagine if your job was to not look away. You'd be a content moderator, underpaid to watch one revolting video after another to determine if they meet your company's dubious user guidelines. This is the modern hell of the sharp and smart thriller American Sweatshop.
Riverdale's Lili Reinhart stars as Daisy, a young woman whose days are spent approving or deleting videos shared on an unnamed social media website. Her work requires closely watching and judging videos of strangulations, fatal falls, and worse, to determine if they are within the bounds of that site's terms of service. Shaking it off is part of the job, or so says a corporate culture that treats humans like interchangeable machines. But once Daisy sees a particularly gruesome video involving a woman, a hammer, and a nail, she can't just bounce back. Plagued by the memory of what she saw, she needs to find out if the video was real and who's responsible — whatever it costs.
Twisted and character-driven, American Sweatshop will have you sweating as you peek between your fingers for what happens next.
American Sweatshop explores the inhumanity of the corporate internet."Remember, we're not censors; we're moderators," declares Daisy's boss (Christiane Paul), as she smoothly spouts the corporate speak that promises to promote freedom of expression while casually avoiding moral rigor. It's the kind of speech you might hear Mark Zuckerberg give on a podcast. But here she's coaching her room of agitated moderators, coolly laying out when some slurs can be approved instead of deleted, without daring to say a slur herself. And this reflects the clever trick American Sweatshop pulls, which keeps it from falling into the muck it criticizes.
SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg wants more 'masculine energy' in corporate AmericaDirector Uta Briesewitz has a storied career as a TV helmer, working on such hit shows as Severance, Black Mirror, and Stranger Things. She understands tension, specifically what the audience must see and what they need not. Like the critically acclaimed horror thriller Red Rooms, American Sweatshop won't make a spectacle out of the inhumane videos found online. Instead, the script from Matthew Nemeth gets the idea across by revealing telling video titles like "fetus in blender" or showing office workers having raucous meltdowns, with one in particular saying they'd all be better off if he set the office building on fire.
For the video that torments Daisy, Briesewitz will show glimpses, implying key details, like a woman on a dirty mattress and an old white man playing voyeur as an aggressor in snakeskin boots raises a hammer. We'll hear the woman scream. The horror comes not from seeing what happens in the video, but from witnessing the blasé response some characters have to watching the video — including a cop Daisy entreats for help.
American Sweatshop has a Severance sense of humor.Beyond the troubling mystery at their respective cores, Severance and American Sweatshop both wring dark laughs out of the corporate apathy that oppresses Daisy and her co-workers. However, this film is not as heightened as the popular Apple TV+ show, which makes it hit even harder.
Beyond the snarling manager of this "sweatshop," there's a futile counselor (Tim Plester) who has nothing to offer except nine minutes of break time and half-hearted coping tools. When there's a concern that too many of these employees are passing out or freaking out during their shifts — i.e. negatively impacting productivity — a surly exec scolds about a lack of resources before suggesting a morale-boosting event, like an after-work pub hang — with a cash bar. This is the kind of late-stage capitalism joke that cuts so deep because it feels too real.
Walking this line of dark humor and mind-snapping tension, Reinhart's co-stars provide supreme support. Daisy experiences a steady, stressful psychological decline, as she goes from smoking pot and meditating to cope with the horrors she witnesses at work to vigilante justice. Meanwhile, Daniela Melchior plays her chicly stoic work bestie whose idea of real talk is often jolting. Bringing a volatile energy, Joel Fry plays the office bad boy who seems always on the brink of a blow-up. And Jeremy Ang Jones offers a wide-eyed naivete as the office newbie, so green and sweet that his co-workers are taking bets that he'll be the next to snap.
SEE ALSO: 'Road House' stars Daniela Melchior and Arturo Castro crack each other up playing 'Say Action'Thematically, they are a thoughtful progression chart of employee burnout. Yet, through whispered support at their desks, heart-to-hearts over hard-earned lunch breaks, or drunken confessions on the aforementioned night out, they knit a web of relationships slippery yet sturdy. This creates an authenticity to their work environment, urging the audience to understand how banal the setting for psyche-scarring trauma can be, with the worst of humanity just one click away.
Through this cutting humor, American Sweatshop urges us not to look away from the nerve-fraying suspense as Daisy steps away from her keywords and chases down the evil rooted in the real world. Yet, Nemeth rejects the glossy Hollywood expectations of a vigilante justice tale. Daisy won't become abruptly a genius strategist or a master computer hacker, destined for an action-packed, explosive finale. She'll fumble and make glaringly bad decisions. And yet each feels natural, mimicking the slippery slope of a grim internet rabbit hole. One weird discovery just keeps pulling us in deeper and deeper, and we not only lose track of time but also what we sacrifice of ourselves as we keep digging. The final reveal is at once sickening and satisfying.
American Sweatshop is a cool and riveting thriller that gets under your skin, creeping up your spine to bend your brain. Like the internet videos that are its grim inspiration, it's not easy to shake off the chills American Sweatshop triggers.
American Sweatshop was reviewed out of its premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival.
How to View Tonight’s “Blood Moon” Total Lunar Eclipse
A blood moon, properly called a Total Lunar Eclipse, will appear on the evening of March 13th and the early hours of March 14th—they're rare, so you don't want to miss it. Here's everything you should know about when and where you can view the blood moon, and why the moon appears red.
Notepad in Windows 11 Is Getting More Copilot AI
The new Notepad update, version 11.2501.29.0, comes with two main features. The first one is a summarization tool, and the second is the Snipping Tool helping you make boxes and arrows more professionally.
The Latest Steam Competitor Is Google Play Games
Google Play Games on PC started off as a way to play Android games on Windows computers, with your purchases, save files, and other data synchronized across PC and Android devices. Now, Google is turning it into a full-fledged competitor to Steam, the Microsoft Store, and other PC game stores.
Anker Soundcore Launches a Newer, Better Set of Open-ear Earbuds
Anker Soundcore is now offering its AeroClip Clip-On earbuds. Announced in January, the earbuds' open-ear "ring" design allows you to hear your surroundings and provides a stable fit when exercising or performing other physical activities.
I Host My Single-Player Minecraft Worlds on a Server, Here’s Why
I love Minecraft. But, more than playing it at my desk, I love playing Minecraft anywhere I am. Here's why I keep my single-player world on a server instead of just my local desktop.
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The latest rumors about the Nvidia RTX 5060: Release date, specs, pricing, and more
Customers looking for a budget-friendly graphic card from Nvidia are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the final members of its RTX 50 Series graphics card. With all that interest, we’ve already seen a number of leaks and rumors about what to expect.
There has still not been an official announcement, so for the time being, alleged leaked specs are all we have. The RTX 5060 is allegedly coming with 8GB of VRAM, although later rumors say that a 12GB model may also exist. The RTX 5060 Ti will likely have two variants, one with 8GB and one with 16GB. All four cards are rumored to come with a 128-bit memory bus, putting them on par with the RTX 4060 and 4060 Ti. There is also an RTX 5050 rumored to be coming with 8GB of VRAM.
Pricing on the cards hasn’t been revealed, but a Chinese retailer appears to have listed the cards, giving us our best glimpse yet. Per the website, the RTX 5060 with 12GB of VRAM would go for around $525, while the Ti variant is listed at around $600 once the prices were converted from Chinese yuan to U.S. dollars.
SEE ALSO: Where to buy Nvidia RTX 5070 at launchVideoCardz notes that these prices are likely for AIB models — like Asus, Asrock, etc — and not the actual MSRP. The prevailing opinion is that the RTX 5060 series of cards will sell for close to what the RTX 4060 series sold for, which would put prices at $299 for the base 5060 up to $499 for the RTX 4060 Ti. At those prices, it makes the RTX 5070 look pretty good at its $550 MSRP, assuming you can find one at that price.
It had been rumored that Nvidia would be announcing the final members of its RTX 50 Series graphics cards on Thursday. It turned out that this time, it was only a rumor.
The original rumor was posted by VideoCardz, which reported that Nvidia would finally announce the most budget-friendly members of the RTX 50 Series graphics cards, including the RTX 5060, 5060 Ti (8GB), and another RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB of VRAM.
To their credit, VideoCardz did own up to their error, stating on their website that “it appears our information was incorrect; Nvidia has not announced the RTX 5060 series on March 13. We regret the error.” The publication did initially report, however, that Nvidia had reached out to the media about the cards, so they could still be coming soon.