Latest news with #Oculus
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
'Absolute beast': This discounted power bank packs huge capacity for just $16
Getting stuck with a dead phone when you're out and about is never fun (and using public chargers can be a little sketchy). Make sure you're not caught at 0% again with the top-selling Iniu Portable Charger — it's down to only $16 right now. The handy little device is powerful enough to recharge an iPhone 8 up to 3.6 times and AirPods Pro about 13 times. The Iniu charger usually goes for $22, making it a juicy 27% off. Compared to similar power banks, this is an absolute steal, especially for something with 10,000mAh of power. This matches the best price on the web, so no need to look elsewhere. When your device is dead, having a power bank on hand can truly save the day. Iniu has a lot of faith that you'll love this portable charger (and the adorable paw print indicator goes a long way); a three-year warranty is included. The power bank supports fast charging and can boost an iPhone to 78% in just one hour. The gadget's 15-layer SmartProtect system eliminates the risks of overheating, overvoltage and other mishaps that might damage your devices. It features three separate ports (two USB-A, one USB-C), which means you can charge up to three devices at once. It's also a multitasker, and one that may come in handy as it doubles as a flashlight. And finally, that cute paw print? It's a charge indicator (and, in our and many reviewers' opinions, a serotonin-booster), letting you see how much power is left at a glance. Wild! More than 61,000 fans have given the Iniu charger a flawless rating. "This battery is an absolute beast," proclaimed a reviewer. "I've had it for years and it still works fantastically. Even dropped and cracked it; it outperforms other batteries I've had. They come and go and this has been ole reliable." One shopper said this gizmo made a family trip a much better experience. "I bought this for Disney and I would say it is absolutely the most valuable thing I bought for the trip," raved a grateful buyer. "I've since used this on long days at the zoo and on a long hiking trip where my phone would have died and my map would have disappeared." Another fan used it to express their sports fandom: "I've purchased at least six of these," one shopper said. "We are Penn State University fans and the paw print lighting up looks like a Nittany Lion paw. The battery charges easily, and it works great. The paw print shows how much battery power you have, and it's large. Very convenient! No more guessing or looking for little tiny lights. The flashlight has come in handy as well." Again, the paw print is a big hit: "I bought this to take on vacation with me. My grandson used it for his Oculus when his batteries died and it lasted for hours of him playing. ... It is quick to recharge [and] I love the paw print that shows how much of a charge it has as well." One reviewer said that while the power bank works great, it can take a while to charge. "Great bang for the buck," the shopper wrote. "The only downside is that it takes a long time to charge fully (about two hours), but it's something I can sacrifice for the price." Another said that the power bank is just a tad heavier than they expected. "I have had this charger for three years, and it is still holding up perfectly. It takes a while to charge (I usually charge it overnight), but it's worth it. The only complaint I have about it is that it is a bit heavy, but I guess it comes with the power it holds." And while you're saving your devices, you may want to keep track of them too with this incredible Apple AirTags deal. If you have Amazon Prime, you'll get free shipping, of course. Not yet a member? No problem. You can sign up for your free 30-day trial here. (And by the way, those without Prime still get free shipping on orders of $35 or more.) The reviews quoted above reflect the most recent versions at the time of publication.
Perth Now
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Karen Gillan plotting secret directing project with Mike Flanagan
Karen Gillan is working on a secret directing project with Mike Flanagan. The Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle star previously worked with the moviemaker on his 2013 horror Oculus and they have reteamed for upcoming Stephen King adaptation The Life of Chuck - and Karen has now revealed she's hoping to step behind the camera to direct "one of my own creations" in a joint venture with Flanagan. She told The Hollywood Reporter: "Oh gosh, this is going to be so annoying. I can't actually talk about what it is, but I'm teaming up with Mike again on one of my own creations, which is really exciting. "Something that I will direct for sure, perhaps act in at the same time. I don't know how I do this to myself, but here we are again. "That will be my main focus next. I have a few other things in development that are my original ideas. It's more of a focus on original stuff right now." Karen added that she's keen to direct more projects and she also wants to learn how to edit films. She explained: "What I love and want to do more of is filmmaking - in the sense of creating the story, filming it, directing it, maybe being in it as well, editing it or with an editor. "I don't know how to edit myself, but being in that part of the process is amazing. That is where I definitely see my career headed now. It feels like I'm in a little bit of a new chapter." Karen went on to reveal she's taken inspiration from the directors she's previously worked with including Flanagan and James Gunn. She said: "I've gotten to work with so many directors and so many brilliant ones, so I've taken all kinds of little things that I never would've known about. "One of the best directors to work with actors that I've experienced is James Gunn. He's so good with actors. He's really respectful of the work that actors do, which really just feels nice. "He's one of those brilliant football coaches, where he's a different coach to each actor. [That's] an exercise in psychology. Who needs what and when? How do I give it to them? He is absolutely amazing at that."
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘It almost killed me': Horror maestro Mike Flanagan looks back at career-making hits from ‘Gerald's Game' to ‘Hill House' to ‘Life of Chuck'
The Life of Chuck is easily Mike Flanagan's least scary offering, which is interesting to note considering the new adaptation of Stephen King's novella is set around the pending apocalypse. What it is, however, is Flanagan's coziest and most gentle offering, which helps explain why the drama won the highly coveted People's Choice award at last fall's Toronto International Film Festival – and could ride a wave of strong reviews into this fall's Oscar race. Prior to Chuck, of course, Flanagan has worked exclusively in the stuff of nightmares, becoming one of the horror's world's most revered writer-directors thanks to genre favorites on screens big (Oculus, Hush, Doctor Sleep) and small (Gerald's Game, The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass). More from GoldDerby 'A Minecraft Movie' sets streaming premiere date, Matthew Conaughey reteams with 'True Detective' writer, and more of today's top stories 'I feel so lucky to be part of it': Tim Bagley on finding love, laughter, and belonging in 'Somebody Somewhere' Inside the comedy pressure cooker: How 'SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night' exposed the madness behind the magic of 'Saturday Night Live' In our latest edition of The Gold Standard, Flanagan looks back at 20-plus years of filmmaking, from his humble beginnings on the shoestring-budgeted debut Absentia to a horrific experience making Haunting of Hill House to his award-wining latest offering Chuck, whose cast includes Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, and Mark Hamill . He even picks his favorites. Flanagan used crowdfunding to finance his $70,000 debut, a supernatural scarer about a pregnant woman (Courtney Bell) whose husband mysteriously reappears after a seven-year absence that was immediately embraced by horror sites like Fangoria. So when I made when I made that one, I was working full time as a reality TV editor, and I was working a day and a night job to try to stay afloat in L.A. I'd lived in L.A. for eight years at that point, and had given myself five years to try to make something happen and get some traction, and it hadn't worked out. We used Kickstarter, which was still in its beta testing phase, it was brand new. And we shot it with available light on a Canon 5D Mark II in my apartment with a crew of eight people over two weeks. I remember feeling at the time, like one way or another that was either going to be my last movie, or it would kick something open. … It radically changed my life. I don't think Absentia would have done anything like what it did without Fangoria. Fango ran a feature piece on it, and instantly drove the audience to it. I was incredibly lucky in that I found the horror community to be so welcoming and enthusiastic about not only Absentia, but it was the same with the Oculus short (2006) before that. That was kind of championed only by Bloody Disgusting and Dread Central and Fango, and that really made all of the difference. I don't think Oculus would have been able to go forward if not for the way the horror press and the horror blogs held up Absentia and kind of demanded attention on it. … There are few fandoms as connected and passionate as the horror fandom, and they'll carry you all the way home if you let them. Flanagan was given a much more robust $4 million budget for his sophomore feature Oculus, starring Karen Gillan and Brenton Thwaites as adult siblings convinced that an antique mirror was responsible for the deaths that destroyed their childhoods. After premiering at TIFF, the Blumhouse and WWE-produced feature grossed $44 million. Flanagan also met his future wife Kate Siegel on the project. I was terrified going into Oculus. I was excited. I still think of it as my first real movie. I didn't know what I didn't know. I was suffering from constant imposter syndrome, and this feeling like any second now, they'd look around and figure out I had no idea what I was doing, and I was making it up as I went — which I still feel to this day, frankly. But I remember it being a time of enormous anxiety, but also it was so thrilling. It was so exciting to be on a real set with a real crew and with the equipment. And I'm a huge fanboy, so Karen Gillan was right here and Katee Sackhoff was right there, and I'm a major Whovian and Battlestar fan. And so I was geeking out every day to be working with them. There was one ghost in particular, who really, really changed my life. I remember, at the wrap party, sitting down and talking to Kate kind of for the first time outside of that type of work. And talk about life-changing. But yeah, Oculus for me was an incredible school. It was one of the most educational experiences of my life. And it kind of broke open this whole other level for me because it was released theatrically, which today I don't think it would have been. And Stephen King watched it and tweeted about it, and I about died. I mean, just completely, completely floored [by] that whole experience and going around doing the doing the press tour and going to the premieres overseas and seeing it with an audience, it was insane. There was a screening of it that WWE did where Hulk Hogan riled up the crowd and introduced the movie. It was bizarre. ... I still felt, though, that as quickly as that had happened, it could go away. And I better have another movie ready, another movie ready, another movie ready. Every one of those movies for that five -year period felt like this could be the last one. Flanagan sure had some more movies ready. The filmmaker premiered THREE different movies in 2016: Blumhouse's Hush (about a mute woman terrorized in the woods), Before I Wake (starring Jacob Tremblay as a kid with some very problematic nightmares), and Ouija: Origin of Evil (the prequel to 2014's Ouija). It's a little misleading because we shot Before I Wake before Oculus was released and because [its original distributor] Relativity went under, it was stuck in limbo for years. So really it was only Hush and Ouija that were back to back. And Before I Wake was released with them. But it would have been impossible to do all three in that time frame. But yeah, fortunately for me now, and unfortunately at the time, Relativity Media was going bankrupt and we had no idea, and so the movie didn't come out. But I had to be in prep on something new when I was in post on something, it was a compulsion and it was out of fear that whatever I just worked on was going to fail. And if I wasn't already working on a new thing, that would mean my career would just stop. And so I had to overlap them and keep it moving. And that was a panicked feeling I had that didn't let up for years. Like I was still feeling that way rolling into Doctor Sleep, like where it's like, 'Better keep going, better keep going.' Because if I stop and look down, I'm going to fall out of this career and it'll be over. And it took me a lot of years to finally look behind me and go, 'Oh no, I'm okay. I can go on vacation for a week and it's all right.' But it took a long time. This buzzed-about Netflix thriller starring Carla Gugino as a woman whose husband dies while she's handcuffed to a bed in a remote cabin marked Flanagan's first collaboration with legendary scribe Stephen King, whose 1992 novel the film was based on. He had tweeted about Oculus and that blew my mind. And then he tweeted about Hush. And at that point it was like, 'Can we do this?' And Gerald's Game was such a crazy project because no one had made it, and the book had been out for so long. I think the expectation on Steve's part was that no one was ever going to make it. And so between Oculus and Hush, that's what made him say, 'Yep, you can you can have it.' But back then, there was no communication with Steve at all. It was all [through] his agent, he gave me the rights. I sent the script out for approval. I heard that Steve had approved it, but I didn't actually communicate with Steve until after the movie was done. And when he saw the finished film, he sent me an email of his reaction to the movie. And I still have it framed in my office. But that was the first time we actually communicated. That movie also changed a lot of things for me because it didn't just start my relationship with Steve, but it also really propelled me [because] it was a Netflix original, and it really embedded me at Netflix in a very meaningful way. Now tight with Netflix, Flanagan teamed with Amblin Entertainment and Paramount Television to land his first series on the streaming giant — an incredibly well-received fright fest about adult siblings reckoning with the haunted house of their childhood. It took a massive toll on the writer-director, however. It's another case of I didn't know what I didn't know. I really wanted to get into television because I thought that was where some of the boldest storytelling was happening, and that you had time to really dig into character, which is my favorite part of what I do. Netflix was at a period of time in its evolution where they were really kind of defying the norms of the television industry and taking chances that other studios weren't, including taking a horror filmmaker who had never been involved with a TV show at all, and letting him be the showrunner and direct all 10 episodes of a show. That's crazy. And again, I don't think it would happen today. But Netflix was really cavalier back then about that. And so was I, because I didn't know what I didn't know. I had that same kind of defensive feeling where if this is my first foray into television, I have to empty the missile silos at it. I had to direct every episode because succeed or fail, I wanted it to be on my terms. It was as much about fear of it not going exactly as I wanted it to go as it was about anything else. And I learned an awful lot about television, about longform storytelling in a real crash course. And it almost killed me. I lost 45 pounds during production. Over 100 days of straight production. No breaks. Weekends were spent in prep… I think I went five months without a single day off at one point. I really overdid it. But that's what it took to direct 10 episodes all block shot like a feature. I almost didn't survive it. And, yeah, it turned out to again be a project that radically changed my life and leveled me up in a serious way. But it came at an enormous cost with that one… It remains to this day the hardest and most brutal production experience I've ever had. And I didn't enjoy it. I [came] out of Hill House bleeding and never wanting to go back. Flanagan did quickly return to television, however — multiple times. But he learned how to pace his himself and refine his approach on the Hill House follow-up Bly Manor, Midnight Mass (his Salem's Lot-esque thriller), Midnight Club (following eight haunted terminally ill young adults) and the Edgar Allen Poe-inspired Usher. I got smarter about not trying to do it all. I only directed one episode of Bly Manor, and I was there for all of it. But I got much better at delegation, and I got much, much better at enlisting other filmmakers and giving them ownership over it as well. By the time Midnight Mass came around, I had kind of forgotten [the trouble of Hill House]. It's like childbirth. You forget. You forget the pain. And so by then I was like, 'I want to do all the episodes again. But it was only seven episodes, so that one didn't almost kill me. That was a wonderful experience. It was really hard, but I think that was the right amount. And then I would kind of modulate it. You know, I did two episodes of Midnight Club, I did four episodes of Usher. I got better at figuring out what a human workload was for me. And I got a lot better at embracing the collaborative nature of television and surrounding myself with people I trusted to shoulder a lot of that weight. And now I'm about to do my sixth series [King's Carrie], and I'm completely relaxed about it. I feel like I've I figured that out. But Hill House was a trial by fire. And I wasn't qualified. Today I would have been like, 'You want to be a showrunner, spend some time in a writers room first.' You want to direct all ten episodes of a series, you need to understand what that really means. You should maybe do half of that. And so I've learned a lot, but I kind of ran face first into that one. I wouldn't have the fortitude today to do it. I was also young enough that I was able to kind of hang on by my fingernails in a way I don't think I would be able to do today. Flanagan has called Doctor Sleep one of the other most daunting experiences of his career because of how seriously he took the responsibility of bridging the gap between King's book The Shining and Stanley Kubrick's classic 1980 adaptation, which the author famously hated. So with Doctor Sleep, I met Steve for the first time when I showed him the movie. We brought the finished movie to Bangor [Maine] and screened it for him before anyone else saw it. And I sat with him in an empty theater and watched Doctor Sleep. ... And I was terrified of his reaction, because I know how he feels about The Shining, but he loved the movie. And then after that, I'd say we became friends, we became friendly, and then we were in more regular contact. And I've seen him in person a bunch since then. And he came to the Chuck premiere, which is really neat. But after that we started texting back and forth and just kind of being in touch. READ: The Flanagan-King pipeline continued with Chuck, which follows a terminally ill man (Hiddleston) in reverse-chronological three acts as he has deeply profound impacts on certain strangers that he meets. The thing about The Life of Chuck that was so exciting for me, I read the novella back in April 2020. So right after the shutdown, I felt like the world was ending outside the window back then. And when I started reading it, I didn't think I could keep reading it. It hit so close to home. But I'm so glad I did, because by the end of the story, I was crying with joy and optimism and this incredibly surprising, gentle kind of reassurance that the story provided and I was looking back at my life in a whole different way. I shut the book and turned to Kate, and I said, 'If I get to make this, it's probably the best movie I'll ever get to make.' And I emailed Steve and kind of begged for the story. He had just given me the rights to The Dark Tower so he said, 'Not right now.' He likes to only have one thing at a time, so it doesn't slow anything down. And The Dark Tower proved to take a lot longer to get on its feet than we imagined. It's still happening, but it's taking its time. It's a juggernaut. And so there was time to do Chuck and I got to ask again a few years later. And he said, 'Are you sure? That's a strange one.' And I was like, 'That's why I like it.' And he let me run with it. And it's my favorite movie I've ever, ever worked on in my life. I know it's a major departure. But that's one of the reasons I loved it, and this was always meant to just be a little movie that I wanted to leave in the world for my kids when I'm gone. In TV, the one that came most from the heart was Midnight Mass. And for my features, this is it. And I kind of feel like that feeling I've always had of, 'What if your career goes away? What if Hollywood doesn't want you anymore?' If that happens now … I'd be crushed, of course, but I'd walk away being like, 'I got to do Midnight Mass and Chuck. I'm good.' Those are those are my favorites. Best of GoldDerby Stephen King movies: 14 greatest films ranked worst to best 'The Life of Chuck' cast reveal their favorite Stephen King works, including Mark Hamill's love of the 'terrifying' 'Pet Sematary' From 'Hot Rod' to 'Eastbound' to 'Gemstones,' Danny McBride breaks down his most righteous roles: 'It's been an absolute blast' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Kate Siegel, Michael Trucco, Katee Sackhoff, Rahul Kohli, Tim Bagley & Heather Graham Among New Additions To Amazon's ‘Carrie' TV Series
EXCLUSIVE: Mike Flanagan has added 14 recurring guest stars to the cast of Carrie, his series for Amazon MGM Studios based on the iconic debut novel from Stephen King. Character details are under wraps. Many of the actors are veterans of Flanagan ensembles across projects like The Fall of the House of Usher, Midnight Mass and Oculus, including Kate Siegel, Michael Trucco, Katee Sackhoff, Rahul Kohli, Crystal Balint, and Danielle Klaudt. Newcomers to his circle on this project include Heather Graham (Chosen Family), Tim Bagley (The Perfect Couple), Tahmoh Penikett (The Madness), Mapuana Makia (Doogie Kamealoha M.D.), newcomer Rowan Danielle, Naika Toussaint (Washington Black), Delainey Hayles (Interview with the Vampire), and Cassandra Naud (Influencer). More from Deadline Titus Welliver To Star In 'The Westies' MGM+ Series Chloë Sevigny Joins Peacock Series 'The Five-Star Weekend' 'The Pickup' Trailer: Eddie Murphy & Pete Davidson Are Armored Truck Drivers In Amazon MGM Action Comedy Summer Howell will play the title role, as previously announced. The cast will also include Siena Agudong, Matthew Lillard, Samantha Sloyan, Alison Thornton, Thalia Dudek, Siena Agudong, Amber Midthunder, Josie Totah, Arthur Conti, and Joel Oulette. Set to serve as writer, executive producer and showrunner, while also directing select episodes, Flanagan's series reimagines the story of misfit high-schooler Carrie White, who has spent her life in seclusion with her domineering mother. After her father's sudden and untimely death, Carrie finds herself contending with the alien landscape of public high school, a bullying scandal that shatters her community, and the emergence of mysterious telekinetic powers The eight-episode series comes on the heels of four Carrie films, the most famous being Brian De Palma's from 1976, which starred Sissy Spacek. Trevor Macy will also exec produce, with Amazon MGM Studios producing. Siegel is repped by Paradigm, Elysian Heights, and VanderKloot Law; Trucco by Innovative Artists and Prime Talent Media; Sackoff by Innovative, Ascend Artist Representation, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman; Kohli by Artists First and McKuin Frankel Whitehead; Graham by RMS Production, Paradigm and Yorn, Levine, Barnes; Bagley by Artists & Representatives and Framework Entertainment; Penikett by RED Management and Brave Artists Management; Balint by Connekt Creative and D2 Management; Makia by Principals Talent Management and SK Management; Danielle by Peak Talent Management; Klaudt by Principals Talent; Toussaint by Thruline and MoGood Talent; Hayles by The Artists Partnership and Myman Greenspan Fox; and Naud by Play Management. Best of Deadline 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More Men of Steel: Every Actor Who Has Played Superman - Photo Gallery 'Michael' Cast: Who's Who In The Michael Jackson Biopic
Engadget
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Engadget
Palmer Luckey's ModRetro Chromatic portable console is now a thing you can actually buy
There's a new (ish) retro console on the block. The ModRetro Chromatic had a soft launch last year but is now "permanently in stock" for consumers. This is another machine that runs Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges, like the beloved Analogue Pocket and others. The Chromatic features a magnesium alloy build, so it should take a licking. It also features a backlit screen — something the original Game Boy lacked. As a matter of fact, Nintendo didn't fully embrace backlighting technology until midway through the life of the Game Boy Advance. The console was designed by Palmer Luckey and was originally sold in a limited run last year. Today's release includes a new colorway and the choice of a sapphire glass display for increased durability. There are also a bunch of new accessories, like a rechargeable power bank, and some nifty software features. It can now natively stream to Discord, Mac or PC, without any additional hardware and there's a new firmware tool to update games. The Chromatic runs proprietary cartridges, in addition to Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. There are a handful of new games arriving with this release, including a metroidvania called Dark Plague . Each console ships with Tetris , just like the original Game Boy. The standard release costs $200, but the model with the sapphire glass display costs $300. New games price out at $40 and old-school Game Boy carts are available on eBay, at garage sales and maybe buried in ancient couch cushions. There are a couple of caveats here. First of all, this doesn't emulate games, as cartridges are required. It only handles Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. The Analogue Pocket, for instance, can also play Game Boy Advance titles and a separate adapter brings other consoles into the mix. — Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) May 1, 2025 There's also the creator himself. Palmer Luckey is a controversial figure. He founded Oculus and helped bring VR to the masses, sure, but recent years has found him running a military defense contracting firm called Anduril Industries. This company has been involved with designing a "virtual" border wall complete with hundreds of surveillance towers, building AI tools for military use and, most recently, making wearables that allow soldiers to interact with AI-powered weapon systems. He's become a big player in the defense space, securing $6 billion in global government contracts. You'll have to decide if you want to indirectly contribute to that cause by giving him $200 or $300 to pick up a portable console. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
