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The 46 Best Shows on Max (aka HBO Max) Right Now (February 2025)
Tue, 18 Feb 2025 20:00:00 +0000
The White Lotus, The Pitt, and Dune: Prophecy are just a few of the shows you need to be watching on Max this month.
Match ID: 0 Score: 35.00 source: www.wired.com age: 1 day
qualifiers: 35.00 (best|good|great) (show|movie)
Kontinental ’25 review – scattergun satire on a tour of Romania’s social ills
Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:30:19 GMT
A bailiff has an identity crisis after a tragedy in Radu Jude’s new film, a scornful polemic on 21st-century Europe set between hope and despair
Once again, Romanian film-maker Radu Jude has given us a garrulous, querulous movie of ideas – a scattershot fusillade of scorn. It is satirical, polemical, infuriated at the greedy and reactionary mediocrities in charge in his native land and wobbling on an unstable cusp between hope and despair. Like his previous film Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (whose lead actor Ilinca Manolache appears briefly in cameo here), Jude takes aim at bad faith and bad taste and takes us on what is almost a kind of architectural tour of Romanian malaise – this time in Cluj – in which he shows us the racism, nationalism, and a pointless obsession in the country’s governing classes with real estate and property development as a kind of universal aspiration. The movie closes with an acid montage of seedy public housing juxtaposed with gated private estates. And like the previous film, there is a repeated visual trope of a woman driving in a car, shown in profile, driving, driving, driving, looking for something – anything.
Kontinental ’25 is loosely inspired by Roberto Rossellini’s Europa ’51, in which Ingrid Bergman’s character is radicalised by a tragedy in her own life – a poster for this is shown in one scene in which our heroine is getting drunk in a cinema bar. Eszter Tompa plays Orsolya, a former law professor who has apparently lost her job and now humiliatingly works as a bailiff. She is now tasked with evicting a homeless, depressed man holed up in the squalid basement of an apartment building bought by a German property firm who intend to raze it to the ground and replace it with a luxury boutique hotel called the Kontinental (a building much bigger than the original and clearly conceived with minimal interest in the existing architectural forms).
Continue reading...Writer-director Osgood Perkins follows up horror hit Longlegs with a tiresome, juvenile adaptation of a Stephen King short story about an evil toy monkey
“Everybody dies and that’s fucked up” is the tagline and emo ethos of snarky Stephen King adaptation The Monkey, a film about the inescapable inevitability yet goofy silliness of death. The writer-director Osgood Perkins, who scored a hit with last year’s Longlegs, knows more about it than most. His father, the actor Anthony Perkins, died of Aids when Osgood was 18 and then his mother, the actor and model Berry Berenson, died in the September 11 attacks as a passenger on Flight 11. Perkins has found a way to work through something so unimaginably awful with a career as a horror film-maker, and his latest, focused on twins cursed by generational trauma is his most obviously personal film yet.
To his credit, Perkins has chosen not to wallow in the grim dirge associated with trauma and the horror genre. The original script for The Monkey had apparently delivered its central conceit – a toy monkey that brings death to those around it – with a straight face, something he found to be discordant, insisting a lighter, comedy-over-horror makeover. But the humour here is far too smug and nihilistic, similar to the grating can-you-believe-we’re-doing-this swagger of the Deadpool series, so happy with itself that it doesn’t really care if anyone else is smiling too. The film has a juvenile middle-finger-up attitude that confuses broad fuck-the-world misanthropy for actual edginess, annoying enough for a scene but close to insufferable for an entire movie. It’s also a tone that doesn’t really work for a King adaptation and when a flash of his earnestness does shine through, it’s uncomfortably out of place, providing more of a jolt than any of the ineffective death scenes which rely on brash and empty Looney Tunes violence. If the aim is numbing us to the shock of a violent death then perhaps the film succeeds but surely we shouldn’t be quite so bored by it too.
Continue reading...Stage and screen actor who appeared in eight of the saucy Carry On films of the 1960s and 70s
Julian Holloway, who has died aged 80, was a prolific television actor and voice artist, and had a stage career that took him to Broadway, but he was best known for appearing in eight Carry On movies.
In later years he freely disowned them. “I am not remotely proud of my involvement in the films,” he said in a 2018 interview with Callum J Phoenix for the Retroboy website, adding that Kenneth Williams – who appeared in more of the productions, known for their saucy seaside postcard humour, than any other actor – once advised him: “Don’t let the stigma of the Carry Ons attach itself to you.”
Continue reading...From uplifting declarations of undying love to shared plates of spaghetti and tearful resignations of what might have been, these are the movie scenes that have touched our readers’ hearts
Last week, Guardian writers shared their favourite romantic moments in cinema – here are some more chosen by readers from around the world.
Continue reading...
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the most popular digital assets today, capturing the attention of cryptocurrency investors, whales and people from around the world. People find it amazing that some users spend thousands or millions of dollars on a single NFT-based image of a monkey or other token, but you can simply take a screenshot for free. So here we share some freuently asked question about NFTs.
NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a cryptographic token on a blockchain with unique identification codes that distinguish it from other tokens. NFTs are unique and not interchangeable, which means no two NFTs are the same. NFTs can be a unique artwork, GIF, Images, videos, Audio album. in-game items, collectibles etc.
A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that allows for the secure storage of data. By recording any kind of information—such as bank account transactions, the ownership of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), or Decentralized Finance (DeFi) smart contracts—in one place, and distributing it to many different computers, blockchains ensure that data can’t be manipulated without everyone in the system being aware.
The value of an NFT comes from its ability to be traded freely and securely on the blockchain, which is not possible with other current digital ownership solutionsThe NFT points to its location on the blockchain, but doesn’t necessarily contain the digital property. For example, if you replace one bitcoin with another, you will still have the same thing. If you buy a non-fungible item, such as a movie ticket, it is impossible to replace it with any other movie ticket because each ticket is unique to a specific time and place.
One of the unique characteristics of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is that they can be tokenised to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought, sold and traded on the blockchain.
As with crypto-currency, records of who owns what are stored on a ledger that is maintained by thousands of computers around the world. These records can’t be forged because the whole system operates on an open-source network.
NFTs also contain smart contracts—small computer programs that run on the blockchain—that give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) aren't cryptocurrencies, but they do use blockchain technology. Many NFTs are based on Ethereum, where the blockchain serves as a ledger for all the transactions related to said NFT and the properties it represents.5) How to make an NFT?
Anyone can create an NFT. All you need is a digital wallet, some ethereum tokens and a connection to an NFT marketplace where you’ll be able to upload and sell your creations
When you purchase a stock in NFT, that purchase is recorded on the blockchain—the bitcoin ledger of transactions—and that entry acts as your proof of ownership.
The value of an NFT varies a lot based on the digital asset up for grabs. People use NFTs to trade and sell digital art, so when creating an NFT, you should consider the popularity of your digital artwork along with historical statistics.
In the year 2021, a digital artist called Pak created an artwork called The Merge. It was sold on the Nifty Gateway NFT market for $91.8 million.
Non-fungible tokens can be used in investment opportunities. One can purchase an NFT and resell it at a profit. Certain NFT marketplaces let sellers of NFTs keep a percentage of the profits from sales of the assets they create.
Many people want to buy NFTs because it lets them support the arts and own something cool from their favorite musicians, brands, and celebrities. NFTs also give artists an opportunity to program in continual royalties if someone buys their work. Galleries see this as a way to reach new buyers interested in art.
There are many places to buy digital assets, like opensea and their policies vary. On top shot, for instance, you sign up for a waitlist that can be thousands of people long. When a digital asset goes on sale, you are occasionally chosen to purchase it.
To mint an NFT token, you must pay some amount of gas fee to process the transaction on the Etherum blockchain, but you can mint your NFT on a different blockchain called Polygon to avoid paying gas fees. This option is available on OpenSea and this simply denotes that your NFT will only be able to trade using Polygon's blockchain and not Etherum's blockchain. Mintable allows you to mint NFTs for free without paying any gas fees.
The answer is no. Non-Fungible Tokens are minted on the blockchain using cryptocurrencies such as Etherum, Solana, Polygon, and so on. Once a Non-Fungible Token is minted, the transaction is recorded on the blockchain and the contract or license is awarded to whoever has that Non-Fungible Token in their wallet.
You can sell your work and creations by attaching a license to it on the blockchain, where its ownership can be transferred. This lets you get exposure without losing full ownership of your work. Some of the most successful projects include Cryptopunks, Bored Ape Yatch Club NFTs, SandBox, World of Women and so on. These NFT projects have gained popularity globally and are owned by celebrities and other successful entrepreneurs. Owning one of these NFTs gives you an automatic ticket to exclusive business meetings and life-changing connections.
That’s a wrap. Hope you guys found this article enlightening. I just answer some question with my limited knowledge about NFTs. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comment section below. Also I have a question for you, Is bitcoin an NFTs? let me know in The comment section below
England begin their Champions Trophy campaign against Australia in bustling Lahore on Saturday and, while recent results have set alarm bells ringing, there is growing optimism that a previously lengthy injury list is at least beginning to ease.
So much so, in fact, that Jos Buttler, the captain, and Brendon McCullum, the head coach, may even be able to select from a fully fit squad for their Group B opener, with all 15 players taking part in their first training session at Pakistan’s National Academy on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Emma Raducanu has insisted “I’ll be OK” after the behaviour of a male spectator caused the British tennis star to pause a match in tears and raised again the issue of security for female athletes.
The 22-year-old spoke of the “difficult experience” she endured during her Dubai Tennis Championships match against Karolina Muchova on Tuesday night, when she was forced to alert officials mid-match to the presence of an individual in the stands who had accosted her earlier in the tournament.
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For some members of the WhatsApp group, speaking out for Palestine and criticizing Israel are tantamount to supporting Hamas.
The post The Columbia Network Pushing Behind the Scenes to Deport and Arrest Student Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.
The cookbook author pumps up the protein in this Neapolitan favourite, with a tin of tuna that elevates the flavour of the capers, olives and passata
This is not so much a recipe as a lifeline: in case of emergency, open pantry door. It’ll require a little forward planning, since you’ll need to have the goods on hand for whenever a puttanesca hankering strikes – but truly, capers and olives should always be in there anyway, because they’re shortcuts to flavourtown. Splashing the tinned tuna in will pump up the protein, too.
Fish in springwater will retain more of its nutrient content and hold its shape better than fish in oil, but if you’d prefer to stick to oil, an olive oil base is what you’re after. When choosing the best fish in tins from a sustainability perspective, look for labels and logos such as a Marine Stewardship Council “blue tick”. As far as fishing methods go, “dolphin-friendly” is just the beginning, so scan for words such as “pole-and-line caught” or “FAD-free purse seine”. Skipjack is the tuna type to look for, then albacore; try to avoid endangered species such as yellowfin, bluefin and big-eye.
Continue reading...In cities along the M5 highway just after the fall of Assad, many expressed relief – along with wariness about the future
Amid the rubble of Saraqib, some of the wall graffiti dating back to its time as a centre of the the 2011 Arab spring uprising remains. “The revolution will go on,” one reads. “Tomorrow the sun rises,” says another.
A week after the astonishing rout of Bashar al-Assad by rebel forces led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, this small town of concrete, red earth and olive groves in Syria’s north-west was a stop on the Guardian’s 280-mile (450km) journey along the M5, the highway threading all of the country’s major cities and six provinces together.
Suffering was palpable everywhere, from children rummaging through bins for food in Aleppo and Homs, to relatives searching for loved ones in Damascus’s prisons, to displaced people still living in tents in Idlib. There are huge challenges ahead for HTS’s transitional government, and in some places, sectarian violence has already re-emerged.
Continue reading...What does ‘As Ever’ mean? And does it involve jam? Do not fear: the Duchess of Sussex is on hand to explain all
In these days of darkness we must take delight where we can find it, and one reliable source is the Duchess of Sussex. In her latest venture, Meghan, who occupies the tricky position of having a large platform and not enough to fill it (see also: Brooklyn Beckham), launched a new lifestyle brand that, she promised in a short video, would be “beautifully weaving together everything I cherish – food, gardening, entertaining, thoughtful living and finding joy in the everyday”. The brand American Riviera Orchard is dead. Long live the new brand, As Ever.
The duchess and her husband, Prince Harry, have to do something and good luck to them, but it’s hard not to study the rollout of As Ever for signs of the widening gap between Meghan’s self-image and how the rest of the world sees her. “‘As ever’,” writes the duchess on Instagram, “means ‘as it’s always been’ or some even say ‘in the same way as always’,” the “some” in this sentence apparently referring to the dictionary definition of a two-word phrase that no one has ever had trouble understanding.
Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...Annual CPI inflation rate hit 10-month high in January in blow to ministers amid rise in food bills and fuel costs
UK inflation accelerated faster than expected at the start of this year, eating into workers’ wages and reducing the chance of an interest rate cut next month.
The consumer prices index (CPI) measure rose to 3% in January, the Office for National Statistics reported, up from 2.5% in December.
Continue reading...Products that enhance the uptake of this neurotransmitter are burgeoning - including drinks that mimic the effects of alcohol, without the hangover. Here’s what happened when I tried them
“Chinese medicine.” “That weird Hungarian liqueur.” “Something my grandad would drink.” The taste test is not going well. Dry January is over and we’re hitting the bottle, but this is not alcohol we’re drinking. It’s theoretically the next best thing: Sentia Black, “a unique blend of functional botanicals, designed for focus and conviviality,” reads the blurb
We’ve been trying it neat, but once you mix it with tonic water it becomes much more palatable – “festive and grownup”, as one of my test subjects puts it. Taste aside, though, does it work? The conversation is certainly free-flowing, but whether it is more “focused and convivial” than it would have been without the Sentia is hard to say. None of us end up dancing on the table or spoiling for a fight, at least. Nor does anyone wake up with a hangover the next morning, so there’s that. Mind you, it is £32 a bottle.
Continue reading...Whose tortelloni are pillows of pasta perfection, and whose taste like postage stamps? Our quick-cook columnist has the answers …
• The best food processors and mixers – chosen by chefs
Shop-bought ravioli and tortelloni are staples in my kitchen – I’ve even been known (with some chutzpah) to serve bowls of the stuff to friends, including well-known food writers, albeit improved with brown butter, crisp sage and hazelnuts, or in my signature ravioli lasagne.
In an ideal packet, I’m looking for a well-seasoned filling, nice and light from the ricotta, and not too processed or stodgy in texture. Similarly, the pasta shouldn’t taste plasticky; the closer it is to homemade, the better.
Continue reading...A weekly email from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake and Rachel Roddy, featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas
Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Meera Sodha and all our star cooks, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent and Jay Rayner.
Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.
Continue reading...Palestinians from Gaza responded with outrage to Trump’s proposal to expel them from their homes.
The post “You Don’t Own Gaza, Donald Trump”: Palestinians Vow to Remain and Rebuild appeared first on The Intercept.
In South Africa, a 36-year-old living with HIV since childhood fears she will lose access to treatment due to Trump’s policy.
The post Global HIV Care Thrown Into Chaos by Trump: “I Will Be Sick and Maybe Die” appeared first on The Intercept.
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, direct to your inbox every Thursday
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday
Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you
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Imagine a world in which you can do transactions and many other things without having to give your personal information. A world in which you don’t need to rely on banks or governments anymore. Sounds amazing, right? That’s exactly what blockchain technology allows us to do.
It’s like your computer’s hard drive. blockchain is a technology that lets you store data in digital blocks, which are connected together like links in a chain.
Blockchain technology was originally invented in 1991 by two mathematicians, Stuart Haber and W. Scot Stornetta. They first proposed the system to ensure that timestamps could not be tampered with.
A few years later, in 1998, software developer Nick Szabo proposed using a similar kind of technology to secure a digital payments system he called “Bit Gold.” However, this innovation was not adopted until Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to have invented the first Blockchain and Bitcoin.
A blockchain is a distributed database shared between the nodes of a computer network. It saves information in digital format. Many people first heard of blockchain technology when they started to look up information about bitcoin.
Blockchain is used in cryptocurrency systems to ensure secure, decentralized records of transactions.
Blockchain allowed people to guarantee the fidelity and security of a record of data without the need for a third party to ensure accuracy.
To understand how a blockchain works, Consider these basic steps:
Let’s get to know more about the blockchain.
Blockchain records digital information and distributes it across the network without changing it. The information is distributed among many users and stored in an immutable, permanent ledger that can't be changed or destroyed. That's why blockchain is also called "Distributed Ledger Technology" or DLT.
Here’s how it works:
And that’s the beauty of it! The process may seem complicated, but it’s done in minutes with modern technology. And because technology is advancing rapidly, I expect things to move even more quickly than ever.
Even though blockchain is integral to cryptocurrency, it has other applications. For example, blockchain can be used for storing reliable data about transactions. Many people confuse blockchain with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.
Blockchain already being adopted by some big-name companies, such as Walmart, AIG, Siemens, Pfizer, and Unilever. For example, IBM's Food Trust uses blockchain to track food's journey before reaching its final destination.
Although some of you may consider this practice excessive, food suppliers and manufacturers adhere to the policy of tracing their products because bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella have been found in packaged foods. In addition, there have been isolated cases where dangerous allergens such as peanuts have accidentally been introduced into certain products.
Tracing and identifying the sources of an outbreak is a challenging task that can take months or years. Thanks to the Blockchain, however, companies now know exactly where their food has been—so they can trace its location and prevent future outbreaks.
Blockchain technology allows systems to react much faster in the event of a hazard. It also has many other uses in the modern world.
Blockchain technology is safe, even if it’s public. People can access the technology using an internet connection.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had all your data stored at one place and that one secure place got compromised? Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to prevent your data from leaking out even when the security of your storage systems is compromised?
Blockchain technology provides a way of avoiding this situation by using multiple computers at different locations to store information about transactions. If one computer experiences problems with a transaction, it will not affect the other nodes.
Instead, other nodes will use the correct information to cross-reference your incorrect node. This is called “Decentralization,” meaning all the information is stored in multiple places.
Blockchain guarantees your data's authenticity—not just its accuracy, but also its irreversibility. It can also be used to store data that are difficult to register, like legal contracts, state identifications, or a company's product inventory.
Blockchain has many advantages and disadvantages.
I’ll answer the most frequently asked questions about blockchain in this section.
Blockchain is not a cryptocurrency but a technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible. It's a digital ledger that records every transaction seamlessly.
Yes, blockchain can be theoretically hacked, but it is a complicated task to be achieved. A network of users constantly reviews it, which makes hacking the blockchain difficult.
Coinbase Global is currently the biggest blockchain company in the world. The company runs a commendable infrastructure, services, and technology for the digital currency economy.
Blockchain is a decentralized technology. It’s a chain of distributed ledgers connected with nodes. Each node can be any electronic device. Thus, one owns blockhain.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is powered by Blockchain technology while Blockchain is a distributed ledger of cryptocurrency
Generally a database is a collection of data which can be stored and organized using a database management system. The people who have access to the database can view or edit the information stored there. The client-server network architecture is used to implement databases. whereas a blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, stored in a distributed system. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, timestamp and transaction information. Modification of data is not allowed due to the design of the blockchain. The technology allows decentralized control and eliminates risks of data modification by other parties.
Blockchain has a wide spectrum of applications and, over the next 5-10 years, we will likely see it being integrated into all sorts of industries. From finance to healthcare, blockchain could revolutionize the way we store and share data. Although there is some hesitation to adopt blockchain systems right now, that won't be the case in 2022-2023 (and even less so in 2026). Once people become more comfortable with the technology and understand how it can work for them, owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs alike will be quick to leverage blockchain technology for their own gain. Hope you like this article if you have any question let me know in the comments section
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