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A star of “The Office” comes to our office to answer your most pressing questions about tech.

Young Mazino is such a cool customer that even dropping a (sort of) spoiler for The Last of Us Season 2 while on The Tonight Show barely phases him.

In the clip above Jimmy Fallon asks the actor to set up what's happening on the HBO adaptation this season, to which he responds: "Well, the two main characters, Ellie and Dina, are in a war zone trying to enact their revenge, because Pedro Pascal's character Joel got viciously murdered by somebody from the WLF..."

That's about as far as he gets before Fallon cuts in with a "spoiler alert", and Mazino is forced to sheepishly apologise to the audience.

"Sorry I'm new to this whole thing, I assumed everybody here had watched the show," he grins. "Let me take that back. I'm just kidding. None of that happens."

In his defence, it's been a good few weeks now since that episode.

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart has already taken a deep dive into Donald Trump's airplane gift from Qatar, but in the video above Desi Lydic takes on right wing media's reaction to it.

"So why is the left trying to cockpit block our favorite president? Well I've been watching Fox News for 747 hours straight, and I'm ready to Foxsplain why it would be more scandalous not to accept a free jet from Qatar," says Lydic, embodying the energy of the pundits she shares clips of.

"How about instead of focussing on whether the plane is objectively illegal, you focus on the fact that it's objectively badass," she says. "The current Air Force One is 40 years old. All it does is nag nag nag nag nag nag nag. The new plane does pilates."

In Apple TV+'s sci-fi adventure Murderbot, a security cyborg (Alexander Skarsgård) frees itself from human command and devotes itself to watching thousands of hours of its favorite shows. Yes, it still provides security for human clients, but it also thinks that "humans are fucking stupid."

SEE ALSO: 'Murderbot' review: Alexander Skarsgård leads a charming adaptation of a sci-fi favorite

Despite its disdain for humans, Murderbot has a lot in common with us. Even the show's cast agrees!

Mashable entertainment reporter Belen Edwards sat down with Murderbot's ensemble — Alexander Skarsgård (Murderbot), Noma Dumezweni (Mensah), David Dastmalchian (Gurathin), Sabrina Wu (Pin-Lee), Tattiawna Jones (Arada), Akshay Khanna (Ratthi), and Tamara Podemski (Bharadwaj) — to see which characteristics they share with Murderbot itself.

"All of them?" Skarsgård quipped. "Maybe that's something I need to talk to my psychiatrist about."

He continued: "I really related to Murderbot. There's a lot of humanity there, and that was just super fun to explore over the course of the season."

Elsewhere, the cast discussed Murderbot's need for a "recharging corner," its social anxiety, and its judgment of others. But the real question remains: Do any of them share Murderbot's murderous tendencies? Watch the full interview to find out.

Murderbot premieres May 16 on Apple TV+.

SAVE $50: As of May 16, the Garmin Lily 2 smartwatch is on sale for $199.99 at Amazon. That's down from its list price of $249.99, saving you 20%.

Opens in a new window Credit: Garmin Garmin Lily 2 $199.99 at Amazon
$249.99 Save $50 Get Deal

Some smartwatches have bulky builds that aren't the most fashion-forward in terms of design. If you're looking for something a bit more stylish, the Garmin Lily 2 is a great pick. And it's currently discounted at Amazon, so you can treat yourself to a nice new smartwatch at a lower price.

The Garmin Lily 2 is marked down to $199.99 right now at Amazon. This is a 20% discount from its list price of $249.99 and incredibly close to its lowest-ever price of $194.13. If you've had your eye on it, there's no better time than now to grab it.

SEE ALSO: This is not a drill: The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 is down to its lowest-ever price at Amazon

Alongside its fashionable design, the Garmin Lily 2 boasts a wide variety of health and fitness features to help you out throughout the day. This includes a sleep score, Body Battery energy monitoring, all-day stress tracking, heart rate monitoring, and so much more. It even offers fitness-related tracking like calories burned, steps, and more so you can see your progress throughout the day.

Don't miss out on 20% off the Garmin Lily 2 while the deal is still available.

There are a few more Garmin deals available right now that are worth a look. Also at Amazon, the Garmin Forerunner 165 and Garmin Forerunner 265 have received some very nice discounts.

The best deals this week, hand-picked by Mashable's team of experts

• Roku Ultra 4K Ultimate Streaming Player (2024 Release) — $79.99 (List Price $99.99)

• Beats Pill Bluetooth Speaker — $99.95 (List Price $149.00)

• Roborock Qrevo Master Robot Vacuum and Mop — $799.98 (List Price $1599.99)

• Peloton Bike — $1,145.00 (List Price $1445.00)

• Apple AirTag (4-Pack) — $79.98 (List Price $99.00)

Save $200: As of May 16, the Eufy X10 Pro Omni robot vacuum is on sale for $699.99 at Amazon. That's a saving of 22% on list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Eufy Eufy X10 Pro Omni Robot Vacuum $699.99 at Amazon
$899.99 Save $200 Get Deal

If you're on the hunt for a great robot vacuum, consider your search over: the Eufy X10 Pro Omni Robot Vacuum is back on sale at Amazon, this time saving you $200. As of May 16, it is currently priced at $699.99. For a really in-depth insight, check out what we thought when we gave it a proper review.

Standout features include self-emptying functionality, AI obstacle detection, carpet detection, and voice reminders. If you have an Alexa device, it'll even work with voice control. Because who doesn't want to boss their vacuum into doing their chores?

SEE ALSO: The 5 best self-emptying robot vacuums for hands-off cleaning in 2025

And it doesn't just pick up dirt. This model also mops your floors and then self-cleans and refills. Your work is pretty much always done.

For pet owners, you may be wondering if a robot vacuum is smart enough to pick up those annoying little hairs that end up everywhere, and you'll be pleased to know, it is. The detangling brush is to thank for this. The roller brush rotates in reverse, and the Pro-Detangle Comb flips down to loosen and remove hair that's wrapped around the roller brush so you don't have to do anything.

This deal won't be around forever, so head to Amazon without delay.

The best deals this week, hand-picked by Mashable's team of experts

• Roku Ultra 4K Ultimate Streaming Player (2024 Release) — $79.99 (List Price $99.99)

• Beats Pill Bluetooth Speaker — $99.95 (List Price $149.00)

• Roborock Qrevo Master Robot Vacuum and Mop — $799.98 (List Price $1599.99)

• Peloton Bike — $1,145.00 (List Price $1445.00)

• Apple AirTag (4-Pack) — $79.98 (List Price $99.00)

SAVE $60: As of May 16, the Nespresso Vertuo Plus is on sale for $139.99 at Amazon. That's a saving of 30% on the list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Nespresso Nespresso Vertuo Plus $139.99 at Amazon
$199.99 Save $60 Get Deal

What better way to start your morning than with perfectly brewed, delicious coffee? And that's exactly what you'll get with the Nespresso Vertuo Plus. From the simple touch of a button, you can have your favorite coffee or a perfect pulled espresso from the comfort of your own home.

And as of May 16, you can buy this luxurious machine for 30% less, now down to just $139.99 at Amazon. This deal is for the machine-only option in the color ink blank.

SEE ALSO: The best coffee machines for modern kitchens

You'll love this machine if you love good coffee but don't want an overly complicated process. The coffee comes from high-quality pods to make anything from Americanos to rich espressos. You get a perfect cup every time, with no fuss. The machine heats up in just 25 seconds, ideal for when you're rushing out the door in the morning. And the 60-oz water tank means you won't have to fill it up with every use.

And to get you going, each machine comes with a complimentary starter set of Nespresso capsules.

Head to Amazon to grab this great coffee deal.

The best deals this week, hand-picked by Mashable's team of experts

• Roku Ultra 4K Ultimate Streaming Player (2024 Release) — $79.99 (List Price $99.99)

• Beats Pill Bluetooth Speaker — $99.95 (List Price $149.00)

• Roborock Qrevo Master Robot Vacuum and Mop — $799.98 (List Price $1599.99)

• Peloton Bike — $1,145.00 (List Price $1445.00)

• Apple AirTag (4-Pack) — $79.98 (List Price $99.00)

"Buckle up everyone, the man's been up for four days, this is a jet lag weave. This could get bumpy."

That's Daily Show host Jordan Klepper's warning as he plays a clip of Donald Trump talking at a roundtable of defense contractors during his Middle East tour, starting off with military drones before going off on a truly hard-to-follow tangent about lumberjacks, and then Joe Biden, and then Pete Buttigieg riding a bike to work.

"At this point everyone in the room was probably like, 'Can we just give you our bribe and go home?'" says Klepper.

"We went from drones, to lumberjacks, to Sean Duffy, to Pete Buttigieg, back to Sean Duffy as a sexy lumberjack, and I won't play the rest for you because he went on for 13 more minutes, with mentions — and this is all true — of the stock market, he got into there for a little bit, Lee Greenwood obviously, and the 2020 election being rigged. And in case you're wondering when he weaved his way back to the drones, he never f***ing did."

SAVE $100: As of May 16, the Amazon Fire TV 4-Series is on sale for $259.99 at Amazon. That's a 22% saving on the list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Amazon Fire TV 43-Inch 4-Series $359.99 at Amazon
$459.99 Save $100 Get Deal

Time for a TV upgrade? If the answer is yes, then don't miss out on this great deal on the Amazon Fire TV 4 Series. As of May 16, the 55-inch model is reduced by $100, now down to $359.99. 55 inches too big for your space? Not to worry, there are deals across a range of models.

And for the price, you won't be disappointed. It has 4K Ultra HD, HDR 10, HLG, and Dolby Digital Plus, all giving you unbelievable clarity, brighter colors, and vivid detail for your favorite TV shows and movies.

SEE ALSO: The exact 50-inch Walmart brand TV I have is now $151 cheaper — get it for a crazy low $178

Like most Amazon devices, it has Alexa built in, so you can easily search for your favorite movies, launch apps, and control content. You can also enjoy shows from all the major streaming services, including Netflix, Disney+, and of course, Prime Video.

The Fire TV can also connect with your smart home Alexa devices, including doorbells, lightbulbs, and speakers. For example, pair up your TV with your Echo speakers to create an immersive home theater atmosphere for your next movie night.

Plus, there are four HDMI inputs to connect gaming devices, sound accessories, cables, and other equipment seamlessly.

Convinced yet? Head to Amazon to snag this deal.

The best deals this week, hand-picked by Mashable's team of experts

• Roku Ultra 4K Ultimate Streaming Player (2024 Release) — $79.99 (List Price $99.99)

• Beats Pill Bluetooth Speaker — $99.95 (List Price $149.00)

• Roborock Qrevo Master Robot Vacuum and Mop — $799.98 (List Price $1599.99)

• Peloton Bike — $1,145.00 (List Price $1445.00)

• Apple AirTag (4-Pack) — $79.98 (List Price $99.00)

This week, President Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a temporary trade deal between the U.S. and China. For 90 days while negotiations continue, U.S. tariffs on China will be slashed from 145 percent to 30 percent, while China's reciprocal tariffs on U.S. goods will go down from 125 to 10 percent.

For many industries that rely on China to manufacture goods, this is an (interim) relief. As Mashable previously reported, the vast majority of vibrators sold in the U.S. are made in China, so the trade war could kill their buzz. 

SEE ALSO: Should I panic buy vibrators right now?

In April, the sex toy company Dame announced a "Trump tariff surcharge" for its customers: $5 when Trump set the tariff rate at 54 percent and $15 when the rate surged to 145 percent. Now, Dame has removed the surcharge due to the deal.

"We made the point," Dame co-founder and CEO Alexandra Fine told Mashable. "[The tariffs are] not as high, and the surcharge is a terrible customer experience and confusing. People were kind of confused by it." Fine also posted on LinkedIn about the change.

The surcharge initially showed up when customers checked out. 

"I was giving people the experience that I was having," Fine continued. When shipping products from China, she received a higher bill than expected, and she passed that on to customers. She compared it to telling employees they weren't getting Columbus Day (now sometimes known as Indigenous Peoples' Day) off.

"Then I realized, 'Oh, now I'm like Columbus, because I'm making everybody work on a day that everybody else has off," Fine said.

So Dame stopped charging people the surcharge but said the product was $15 more (though the customer wasn't paying it) to be transparent about how tariffs are impacting the company. But that was still confusing. 

With the surcharge now removed, Dame will absorb the additional costs of the 30 percent tariff rate. "In this case, it doesn't make sense to drop your prices all the way back down, because it's still 30 percent," she said. "That being said, we are going to be dropping our prices pretty much back to normal. So that's really exciting."

Asked whether she foresees Dame increasing prices, Fine said, "Mostly no…We're going to eat most of it." Dame wants to be competitive in the market and offer quality products at reasonable prices.

When preparing for the 145 percent tariffs, Dame decided to aggressively plan. The company held more inventory in China ("splitting" orders) and opened a warehouse there, too. Now that tariffs are down, Dame isn't doing the former — instead bringing all of the orders to the U.S. — but it'll keep the warehouse. 

While the online customer reaction to the surcharge was overall positive due to the company's transparency, it didn't translate into sales. The rate of completing a charge on Dame's checkout page dropped 33 percent on the first day it implemented the surcharge compared to the week before, Fine said.

The tariffs also caused instability when selling to retailers who distribute Dame products. Shifting prices is more complicated when selling through third-party companies than when selling only on the company's own website.

Even though the surcharge is removed, Fine plans on continuing to advocate for freer trade agreements. "I am definitely relieved from a cash perspective, but from an operational perspective, or a general [perspective], am I happy? No," said Fine. "This is still not ideal."

The U.S. is slashing funding for scientific research, after decades of deep investment. Here’s some of what those taxpayer dollars created.

The titans of the tech industry say artificial intelligence will soon match the powers of humans’ brains. Are they underestimating us?

Scientists have had a hunch that a distant moon experiences weather like Earth's, forming clouds that douse its craggy surface with rain.

If that's the case, it would make Titan the only other world in the solar system that has that in common with our home planet. Now researchers have one more clue that Titan, the largest of 274 known Saturn moons, has a climate cycle similar to what occurs on Earth. 

The catch: Instead of evaporating and filling Titan's lakes and oceans with water, it's likely showering the moon with cold, oily methane. 

Using two powerful telescopes — the James Webb Space Telescope and the Keck II telescope in Hawaii — astronomers watched clouds emerge and then climb higher in the sky over Titan, which is about 880 million miles away in space. For the first time, they saw clouds hovering in the north, where most of the moon's lakes and seas exist, at the tail end of its summer. 

The discovery of cloud convection bolsters the theory that these bodies of surface liquid, comparable in size to the Great Lakes in the United States, are getting replenished through rain, perhaps like how summer storms work on Earth. The team's research appears in the journal Nature Astronomy.

"We were able to see methane clouds evolving and changing close to Titan’s north pole over multiple days, in the region where large seas and lakes of methane were discovered by the Cassini spacecraft," said Conor Nixon, a NASA research scientist and the paper's lead author, in a statement. 

SEE ALSO: NASA rover captures an aurora from Mars surface for the first time Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is brutally cold and shrouded in a jaundiced smog. Credit: NASA / ESA / IPGP / Labex UnivEarthS / University Paris Diderot illustration

Titan is a strange world, at -300 degrees Fahrenheit, and shrouded in a jaundiced smog. Similar to Earth, the atmosphere is mostly nitrogen. 

Scientists are interested in Titan because, despite its brutally cold temperatures, it appears to have the organic ingredients for life — the kinds that humans know about, at least. Whether the moon harbors any microbial aliens has become a top exploration priority, helping to spur NASA's $3.35 billion Dragonfly. The mission just passed its critical design review, a milestone that means engineers can begin constructing the spacecraft. The helicopter-like robot is expected to visit the moon in the 2030s.

The new Webb observations show that during summer in Titan’s northern hemisphere, clouds can rise higher and may be fueled by heat from the sun — sort of like Earth storms.

Scientists had seen this kind of cloud activity before, but never in the north. That's key because it suggests the northern methane and ethane seas are part of a process that maintains Titan’s atmosphere. On Earth, those chemicals are gases, but on freezing Titan, they are liquid like gasoline on Earth.

The Dragonfly mission has advanced to the stage when engineers can begin constructing the helicopter-like spacecraft. Credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Steve Gribben illustration

By using different kinds of light filters, the two telescopes helped astronomers determine how high the clouds were drifting. On Earth, the lowest part of the sky — the troposphere — goes up about 7.5 miles, but that same layer on Titan soars up to 28 miles, thanks to the moon’s lower gravity. 

Webb found something else new: a tiny, fast-moving molecule, called the methyl radical, in Titan's atmosphere. This molecule is ephemeral, so its detection indicates that chemical reactions are ongoing in the moon's skies. Similar molecules are associated with the chemical origins of life on Earth.

"It’s possible that (methane) is being constantly resupplied and fizzing out of the crust and interior over billions of years," Nixon said. "If not, eventually it will all be gone, and Titan will become a mostly airless world of dust and dunes."

The two telescopes, Webb and Keck II, helped astronomers determine how high the clouds were drifting. Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Keck Observatory

Though the discovered rising clouds suggest it could rain on Titan, no precipitation was actually observed. The team is planning follow-up studies to see how the weather patterns change, especially in the period after the equinox this month.

Over time, the methane in Titan’s air could vanish if it isn’t being replaced somehow from within the moon. If that happens, Titan could lose its atmosphere and become something more akin to Mars.

"For the first time we can see the chemical cake while it’s rising in the oven," said coauthor Stefanie Milam in a statement, "instead of just the starting ingredients of flour and sugar, and then the final, iced cake."

It's been 25 years since we first watched Death wind its wicked design around the throats of the young and old with nasty efficiency in the first Final Destination film. Built upon a series of ruthless Rube-Goldbergian traps that methodically ensnared the survivors of a plane crash after they eluded their fate thanks to the prophetic vision of one Cassandra-like figure among them, its mix of goofiness and gore was immediately embraced. Five hit films in 11 brief years, from 2000 to 2011, ensued. Each entry in the massively successful franchise somehow upped the ante with more outrageous and elaborate spectacles — the Aughts belonged to Death, baby! 

SEE ALSO: Summer Movie Preview: Every film you oughta know

Now, after a 14-year break, the dark spectre has returned with Final Destination: Bloodlines, a riotous zap-in-the-pants of "Looney Tunes by Tom Savini" entertainment that needs to be enjoyed with as large a crowd of like-minded cinematic sadists as you can scrounge up. If watching all of the ways the human body can get exploded is your cuppa, then have I got the hehe-sicko movie for you. You'll cringe, hoot, and holler. You'll wipe the phantom viscera off your face. And you'll spend the entire ride home convinced everything's out to kill you. It's horror movie nirvana. 

The writers (Jon Watts, Guy Busick, and Lori Evans Taylor) and directors (Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein) went out of their way to find some creative ways to upend the formula, now on its sixth spin through the multiplex. You will get some genuine sideways revelations served up alongside your innards-soaked slapstick. No worries, though – this film delivers heavily, sloppily, on exactly what we keep coming back for. (Guts. We've come for guts.)

Since it's been 14 years, here's a quick Final Destination catch-up. Credit: Eric Milner / Warner Bros. Pictures

Writer Jeffrey Reddick, who came up with the concept in the late ‘90s as the plot for an episode of The X-Files, quickly realized it demanded the feature-presentation treatment. The Final Destination franchise is exquisite in its simplicity – why bother with the lumbering backstory of another nerd wronged by his classmates who returns looking for revenge while wearing a big bunny mask when we've had the ultimate boogeyman skulking in the shadows all along? Fearing the chaotic abstraction of the Grim Reaper is so cave-wall ancient, it's scorched into our genetics. 

The lynchpin innovation from Reddick was that we weren't dealing with the black-hooded Death figure we typically imagine thanks to Peter Paul Rubens, Ingmar Bergman, and the Bill & Ted movies. Instead, we have an invisible but deeply malevolent presence that gently coaxes shampoo bottles and coffee mugs into position as Mouse-Trap-esque weapons of mass destruction. The Final Destination movies did what M. Night Shyamalan failed to do with The Happening — they make a light breeze spooky. Wind is the real villain here! Always knocking things over, the dominos of our horrific demise. 

The fun in these films has been in watching the clever ways the screenwriters manage to turn everyday ordinary objects — ceiling fans, hairspray, pigeons — into diabolical murder traps. These movies are Saw sans Jigsaw, just the giddy force of Fate doing a jig and pissing on our graves. 

SEE ALSO: 'Final Destination Bloodlines' teaser is just 1 hilariously brutal scene

Make no mistake. For good or evil, these films (excuse the pun) live or die by their death scenes. (Some people take umbrage with this admittedly unhinged form of nihilism, and those people should probably just stay home with their Downton Abbey.) What Psycho did for showers and Jaws did for a peaceful swim at the beach the Final Destination movies have done for logging trucks and tanning beds, for gymnastics and pool drains and the friendly neighborhood bus. An encyclopedia of How Not to Die's could be sourced entirely from the screenplays.

Nowhere does the franchise routinely go bigger than it does with each chapter's epic opening set piece. From the plane crash in the original movie to the (still unmatched) highway pile-up in the second, on to rollercoasters and bridge collapses and careening race cars, oh my. These introductory disasters introduce us to all of our characters (aka the victims-to-be) while setting the stage, the table, and the mood for all of the mortal mayhem to come. 

And Final Destination: Bloodlines has the franchise's biggest and boldest opener to date. 

Please place your acrophobia with your things at the door. Credit: Eric Milner / Warner Bros. Pictures

While the series has mucked about with time jumps before (hello, Part 5), it still comes as a shock a minute into Final Destination: Bloodlines when we find ourselves in the company of a bubblegum bobby-soxer type named Iris (Brec Bassinger) who's hitting the town with her slick-haired beau Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones) in the year that was 1969. And it's not just any ordinary day-of-the-week Italian dinner that Iris and Paul have their sights set upon — it's the opening night for a Space-Needle-looking tower called The SkyView that's hoisted a circular restaurant way up to its top among the clouds. Nothing ominous to see there, wink wink. (Less wink wink than it is a hammer to the head, but I digress.)

Sure enough, Iris soon starts taking note of unfriendly omens. The overloaded elevator. The bratty kid stealing coins from the wishing fountain. An ominous (you guessed it) breeze. (Suck it, M. Night!) What starts off as a teen dream between squeaky clean young lovers quickly starts sinking Iris' stomach with nerves… and then with extreme structural damage. (Seriously, though — why would anyone do The Twist on a glass floor suspended hundreds of feet in the air? It's like you've never watched a Final Destination movie, people of 1969.) 

But before Iris can even scream "teenage pregnancy" to her date, it's not just a baby she has bouncing around in her belly. It's the metal beams and cracking cement and walls of searing singing flames suddenly swirling all around her.

Yes, Iris is pregnant. And Iris' pregnancy is indeed important, because the filmmakers weren't just subtitling this movie "Bloodlines" as an homage to the terrible Pet Sematary movie from a couple of years back. The Final Destination mythology has always touched upon the idea of babies as being important — their births disrupting the count that Death is such a damn stickler about. 

And so Iris, in having her premonition of the SkyView's collapse and then rescuing a shit-ton of people by warning them away from it, sets in motion something that echoes through the decades like the infamous butterfly flapping its wings in Peking. (Thank you, Dr. Ian Malcom.) Iris' baby was never meant to be born — much less grow to adulthood and branch out an entire family tree that reaches to the present day! 

Bifurcated down the middle like, well, Seann William Scott's skull in the first movie, this story extends its bony fingertip toward the future (which is to say the present) where it introduces us to Iris' granddaughter Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana). Flunking out of college, Stefani is besieged by a recurring nightmare involving a collapsing building and the perky blonde girl who dies horrifically amongst its rubble. 

From there, Final Destination: Bloodlines becomes a tale of passed-on familial trauma and fears — unto each generation is born a new set of neuroses. And the offspring of Iris and Paul find themselves particularly accursed on that front. 

Call it Back to the Future directed by Eli Roth.

Don't go worrying that this will be more of the "Laurie Strode wallowing in 12-step chicanery" type of horror that's gotten played out over the last decade or so. Final Destination: Bloodlines only takes its traumas as far as it can throw them. And oh, it loves to throw things! Most especially if they contain shards of glass, metal chains, peanut butter cups, the recycling, and a Prince Albert piercing. Perhaps not in that order. Anyway, it's clear that everybody involved spent the 14 years since the last movie thinking up twisty sick-headed scenarios involving wildly unexpected objects of doom — there are new weapons hiding around every corner. Not since Sideshow Bob has a rake in the yard taken on such fiendish significance.

SEE ALSO: 'Final Destination' star Devon Sawa boards flight on the film's anniversary. Seriously.

As fate sneaks toward Stefani and her cursed family, including her sweet younger brother Charlie (Teo Briones), her estranged mom (Rya Kihlstedt), and her myriad aunts, uncles, and varying-degrees-of-annoying cousins, it becomes a battle against time. (And vending machines.) Can Stefani connect the dots to understand the riddle of her doomed heritage and save those she loves? Or will a lawn mower sit on their faces one by inexorable one? 

As you can probably tell, Final Destination: Bloodlines isn't taking any of this bloodbath seriously. It knows the score: We're here to grapple with our own mortality in the goofiest way imaginable. Hamlet's wish to see his too-solid flesh melt meets a cartoon mallet here, with everybody on Death's List one misstep away from being a big splat of intestines. That deep unseriousness toward life's most pressing topic is this franchise's greatest feast. And we feed well once more.

RIP Tony Todd, Candyman and forever horror icon. Credit: Eric Milner / Warner Bros. Pictures

There is one notable exception to Final Destination: Bloodlines’ deep and delicious unseriousness though, and it makes for a shockingly moving one. Tony Todd, the actor best known for playing Candyman, has been the only stalwart presence in the survivor-less Final Destination franchise since the first outing in 2000. Five times he's previously played the coroner William Bludworth, always on the scene first to scoop up those intestines and then to warn the doomed of their imminent doom. 

Thankfully Todd managed to shoot his role one last time for Final Destination: Bloodlines before he passed away in November of 2024. Looking frail but with not a whit of that immediately recognizable bass of his weakened, Todd seizes straight onto the series' formidable undercurrent. Delivering a scene for the ages, he tells us (still with that playful twinkle in his eye that we've come to know and love so well) how every second of life is precious. And that we shouldn't let even the obscene absurdity that is Death rob us of those moments. Not even if it wants to stick a great big rebar through our eye socket, dammit. And ain't that the real meat of it, in the end?

Final Destination: Bloodlines premieres May 16.

TL;DR: Give your old car a major upgrade with this PlayAIBox Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Wireless Adapter, now $74.97 through June 1.

It’s 2025 — it’s time to cut the cord. If your car has wired Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, or you’ve yet to make the switch, the PlayAIBox Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Wireless Adapter gives your car’s entertainment system a total upgrade. And right now it’s just $74.97 (reg. $129.99) until June 1.

Elevate your car’s entertainment system for just $75

It’s almost road trip season, and you can make sure your rides aren't boring with help from the PlayAIBox Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Wireless Adapter. It elevates your driving experience with wireless connectivity for calls, music, navigation, and voice assistance, all using your smartphone without needing a cable.

YouTube and Netflix are already built-in to provide endless entertainment for your family and friends right on the display. Looking for more options, like Hulu and Disney+? You can download more apps right from the Google Store. (Just make sure you’re always adhering to local laws regarding video playback when the vehicle is in motion.)

If you ever need more room, you can store media on external SD cards of up to 128GB (not included with purchase). And if you’re worried about potential lag time, don’t be. The PlayAIBox Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Wireless Adapter is equipped with an Allwinner A133 chip that lets you use multiple apps at once without lagging.

The PlayAIBox Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Wireless Adapter is compatible with 98% of car models from 2016 until today with OEM wired CarPlay and touchscreen, but may not work with cars that have built-in wireless CarPlay or Android Auto support or select BMW, Tesla, Mazda, and Nissan models.

Make your car an entertainment destination with the PlayAIBox Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Wireless Adapter, now $74.97 through June 1.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Opens in a new window Credit: PlayAIBox PlayAIBox Apple CarPlay & Android Auto Wireless Adapter with Streaming Service Support $74.97
$129.99 Save $55.02 Get Deal

TL;DR: Make your binge sessions feel productive with a lifetime subscription to Curiosity Stream, now $149.97 (reg. $399.99) through August 1, no coupon code required.

Feeling guilty about all the reality TV you’ve been devouring? If you want to change up your TV routine, Curiosity Stream is a documentary streaming service that serves up content that’s both entertaining and educational. And right now, you can score a lifetime subscription for just $149.97 (reg. $399.99) until August 1.

Learn new things while you lounge

Elevate your usual Netflix binge with something smarter from Curiosity Stream. This documentary streaming service was founded by John Hendricks, the mastermind behind Discovery Communications, and offers a wide variety of educational entertainment content on topics like art, nature, history, science, technology, and more.

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TL;DR: Gift your kids an educational, low-stimulation app with the Montessori-inspired Pok Pok, now $49.99 with code SAVE10 through June 1.

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The Brutalist is a towering paean to the American dream, in all its force and folly. Set over several decades, Brady Corbet's post-World War II immigrant saga is — like the architectural achievements of its protagonist — constructed with meticulous consideration, resulting in a work of multifaceted technique and piercing humanity.

The film, arresting from its first frames, spends three-and-a-half engrossing hours on the tale of László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a fictitious Jewish Hungarian architect and survivor of the Holocaust, whose arrival in America yields both rigorous struggle and tempting opportunity. It embodies the kind of American epics no longer really made by Hollywood studios. Comparisons to The Godfather have abounded since its Venice International Film Festival premiere (though as a vast immigrant saga, a more fitting analogy might be The Godfather Part II). Time will tell whether these are hyperbole, but while watching The Brutalist, it's hard not to think of the truly great American stories of the 20th century, like Once Upon a Time In America, and on occasion, even Citizen Kane.

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The latter is the loftiest possible invocation, but it's a comparison of scale and subject matter, not of technical innovation. The Brutalist, for all its splendor, is not a forward-thinking film like Orson Welles' Kane — but this is, in fact, a key piece of its aesthetic and thematic puzzle. The immediacy with which it conjures past masterpieces is part of its enormous thesis on the purpose of art, which it smuggles beneath a soul-stirring saga of survival, one that exists in conversation with, of all things, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. The film is both a densely-packed text, filled with rich thought on the world at large, as well as an excitingly rhythmic work of cinema that moves with a fearsome passion. It's hard not to think of it as a new American masterpiece.

What is The Brutalist about?

Written by Corbet and Mona Fastvold, The Brutalist begins in 1947, in a time of reconstruction and uncertainty. When László arrives on Ellis Island — an intimate, disorienting scene that begins in his darkened ship bunk and moves above deck — his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), from whom he was separated during the war, remain stuck in the Soviet Union.

Taken in by his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) in Philadelphia and working in his furniture shop, László begins proposing unique Modernist designs, until he's commissioned to build a library for a wealthy family, the Van Burens. Over the years, these aristocratic, old-money magnates — the boastful Harrison Lee (Guy Pearce) and his slimy son Harry (Joe Alwyn) — become a vital part of László's story. The film is novelistic in its unfurling, occasionally taking the form of an epistolary, via the letters sent between László and Erzsébet, but to borrow a phrase from a fellow critic, it's also "Great American Novel-istic." László's architectural passions, and his desperation to be reunited with his family, become deeply entwined with his personal and artistic ambitions. To put it simply, money is the solution at every turn, even if it corrodes his soul — but The Brutalist isn't quite so didactic.

While it spends several hours chronicling the way László changes, and is changed by the United States, the temptations of wealth and power are a small subset of the larger forces that mold him into a much angrier and bitter person. A party scene in Harrison's mansion diverts its focus from conversations to slow-motion shots of champagne and expensive jewelry, just as László is about to sign a long-term contract with the family to construct a community center. However, at no point does Corbet cut to reaction shots of László noticing these trinkets. They represent the fabric of the world he's about to enter, though as his chat with Harrison proceeds, he continues to speak of architecture with poetic adoration. ("I always find our conversations intellectually stimulating!" Harrison rasps, disguising the knowledge that he'll never be László's intellectual equal.) Wealth may not change László’s passions, but it might change how he approaches them.

All the while, the film also explores the fraught corners of post-World War II Jewish identity in the West. From the moment László arrives on America's shores, he's presented with questions of assimilation. His cousin Attila has married a Catholic woman, Audrey (Emma Laird), and has converted. The store he runs is called Miller and Sons, even though his last name is (or was) Molnár, the Hungarian equivalent — and as László quips, "You have no sons!" Before long, news of the infant state of Israel reaches him, leading to other Jewish characters in his vicinity wrestling with their rights and obligations.

Filming on The Brutalist was completed in May of last year, before the events of Oct. 7 led to a more widespread discussion on understanding of the colonial aspects of Israel's founding. The film doesn't get into granular detail — László himself may not be aware of the U.N.'s plans for the region, or how they might displace local Arabs — but the looming specter of this conversation imbues the movie with a tragic dilemma. László's options, as a refugee, are to bring other people harm through displacement, or to continue bringing harm to his own soul, through his immersion in American capitalism.

As the film proceeds, it centers a key question that applies to every facet of its construction: "What is strength?"

László's vision for the Van Burens' building — a blocky, pyramidic structure few others seem to understand — is uncompromising to a fault, even if it means pushing other people away in the process. But as the film proceeds, it centers a key question that applies to every facet of its construction: "What is strength?" What is its nature? Is it the materials and the deep concrete foundation László builds? If so, must this come at the cost of the shakier foundation of his roots in a new country? He is always seen as an outsider, whether because of his Jewish-ness, his foreign-ness, or both. Does strength involve living with the physical and psychological pain he's endured, and the strain it puts on his marriage? Or does it involve numbing that pain at any cost?

This thematic exclamation point would mark the end of discussions on most modern American films. But in the case of The Brutalist, it's merely the beginning, thanks in large part to Corbet's multifaceted, referential, and at times reverential use of form.

Every aspect of The Brutalist is finely tuned

What stands out first and foremost about The Brutalist is Adrien Brody's lead performance. It's funny, and stirring, and risible. However, there's not a single moment where the Hungarian-American actor isn't reaching into the depths of his soul, mining some corner of either his previous roles (such as in The Pianist) or of his mother's experience as a Hungarian woman of Jewish descent forced to flee her country in the 1950s. There's an awkwardness to László too, given the way he interacts with the world around him — which is to say, the country around him. To the untrained ear, his Hungarian dialogue (and his Hungarian accent while speaking English) seem just fine, but the Queens-born actor also purges himself of any remotely American intonation or idiosyncrasy. Whether or not he nails Hungarian specificities, he plays "foreigner" to a tee, between the way he gesticulates, to the way he enters and leaves both rooms and conversations. He is, first and foremost, an outsider.

While Brody's work is magnificently pained, let it not go unsaid: Guy Pearce is the movie's secret weapon, as the actor charged with creating the in-groups and inner circles which tacitly reject László in the first place. As Harrison, the Australian actor channels an air of arrogance that the character often smarmily re-frames as benevolence, leading to moments of shockingly casual cruelty towards László, usually played off as jokes. This dynamic is a key part of the story, and of the America in which László starts to assimilate, taking on Harrison's traits in turn.

Corbet's camera helps these performances shine, especially in the moments that The Brutalist takes dark and dour turns. Cinematographer Lol Crawley bathes certain scenes in darkness; his palette's contrasting warmth and shadow may have led to some of the Godfather comparisons, but the film isn’t interested in mere imitation, even though it conjures old-world styles as though they were forgotten spirits.

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The Brutalist was shot on VistaVision, an IMAX-like technique first developed in the 1950s, in which 35-millimeter film stock was run sideways through a camera, increasing the surface area of the frame (the movie was subsequently projected on 70-millimeter at its premiere). This results in a crisper, sharper image than results from most modern digital workflows, but The Brutalist also appears to employ older lenses with numerous flaws, and razor-thin margin for what is or isn't in focus, revealing new dimensions to spaces and even people. Between its use of era-appropriate techniques and withered tools, The Brutalist ends up existing in a liminal space between past and present; it's simultaneously of an older era, as well as a window to that era, revealing a complicated relationship to the past.

'The Brutalist' ends up existing in a liminal space between past and present; it's simultaneously of an older era, as well as a window to that era, revealing a complicated relationship to the past.

For László, this relationship manifests as a pull-and-push between art and industry, and a struggle to preserve the forms his buildings take under capitalist constraints. However, the film itself takes intriguing form as well, wielding a litany of techniques owed to numerous different film movements over the years (that they even remotely gel together is something miraculous). The Brutalist is, in large part, shot with the classical composition of old Hollywood, with controlled framing and movement, but it often breaks from this norm.

On occasion, one might find the pronounced jump cuts of the French New Wave (created, ironically, as a response to the classic Hollywood studios), alongside the use of Soviet montage, accompanied — equally ironically — by voiceover and spliced footage from American propaganda newsreels about industrial innovation. The stark and careful shadows of Godfather cinematographer Gordon Willis, of New Hollywood, find themselves alongside techniques from contemporary independent movements in New York, like the freewheeling, improvisational, up-close-and-personal style of John Cassavetes. You might even find some Hungarian influence if you look closely enough (certain shots are owed to Béla Tarr, while others to László Nemes), and as the film moves forward through time, it even pulls from Lynchian surrealism, and techniques developed during the early video revolution.

Corbet's use of these contrasting techniques isn't just pronounced, but powerful and purposeful. He employs them to create jolting moments of narrative impact, but he also seems to pay homage to the history of the cinematic medium (and its development) as a means to embody the very story he's telling, about the complicated ways in which people hold on to the past. And, as a film that's as much about László's painful history as it is about America's past, it makes for an aesthetic refutation of one of its biggest influences: Ayn Rand.

The Brutalist remixes and transforms The Fountainhead

The Brutalist owes much of its story and structure to Rand's The Fountainhead, from its basic premise of an uncompromising architect, to plot developments like László being plucked from toil and obscurity to create something lasting; he shovels coal for a period, the same way Rand's hero Howard Roark worked in a granite quarry. But as visualized in King Vidor's much-maligned 1949 film version of the book — which stars Gary Cooper, and for which Rand herself wrote the screenplay — Modernist and Brutalist architecture take on a fascistic tone in The Fountainhead. They become about leaving the past behind, and shaking off the influences of Graeco-Roman styles, in favor of a "form flows from function" approach. This function-first belief, though it has older origins, was notably espoused by Adolf Hitler, who abhorred "stupid imitations of the past."

Brutalism, though it has more egalitarian origins like low-income social housing, does have a stylistic and philosophical overlap with totalitarian architecture. Both come to similar aesthetic conclusions — the angular, the monochrome, the display of materials — albeit for very different reasons. Vidor's The Fountainhead, in which Roark creates in a Modernist style verging on Brutalist, arguably does a disservice to form, both as an architectural concept, and a filmic one. In Vidor’s story, the influence of the past is framed as a cloying, constraining force intent on snuffing out individuality, and the way that story is told is similarly functional (the film has its charms, but it's straightforward in its presentation, and rote in its delivery of dialogue).

Vidor's film is hardly a defining pillar of modern American politics, but Rand's Objectivist philosophies certainly are. Her rejection of collectivism both tapped into and subsequently clarified the heart of American capitalism — the very same heart Corbet puts on display, and presents as a magnetic force for László, pulling him toward more autocratic ideals. The Brutalist never expands on László’s political outlook, or that of his wife, because the movie's immigrant characters tend to tiptoe around these questions, from poor and wealthy Americans alike, at a time when foreigners (and communists) were looked upon with suspicion. However, Corbet leaves plenty by way of breadcrumbs to figure out what their beliefs might be, and how those beliefs come into immediate conflict with the ideals of their adopted home.

'The Brutalist' is, deep in its bones, a collectivist film that not only places immense emotional value on people and their history, but creates and embodies that value too.

Though he puts on an uncompromising front when it comes to his designs, László is always found compromising when it comes to belief, and the way he conducts himself. These are tensions The Brutalist works into every scene, making its gargantuan runtime seem like a piece of cake. It's a film from which you cannot look away, and wouldn't want to — even when it takes dark and dour turns, whose presentation verges on the phantasmagorical.

As much as The Brutalist is a film of steel and concrete, it's a film of the spirit too, and the way the soul is built and constructed from local materials. It's about all the things that make America, and make American stories. Ultimately, when the movie reveals a previously obscured detail about László's work, it makes for a devastating cinematic mic drop that elucidates its meaning in complicated ways, while exposing the risk of having that meaning distorted and re-appropriated. It reclaims even the Randian notion that Modernism, Brutalism, and progress at large are ideals that must be cut off from the past, and from connections to other human beings. The Brutalist is, deep in its bones, a collectivist film that not only places immense emotional value on people and their history, but creates and embodies that value too.

The Brutalist is now streaming on Max.

UPDATE: Dec. 19, 2024, 2:10 p.m. EST "The Brutalist" was reviewed on Sept. 2, 2024 out of its World Premiere at the Venice International Film Festival. This post has been updated to include the most current streaming options.

Apple's new CarPlay Ultra is only available on Aston Martin cars right now, but at least you can check it out on video.

Two videos, actually. Aston Martin posted a short teaser showing what the CarPlay Ultra, integrated into an Aston Martin DBX, looks like. The video shows Apple's UI integrated not only into the main, center display, but also into the instrument cluster in front of the driver, which we've never seen before.

For much more detail, check out Top Gear's overview of the system in an actual Aston Martin car (which, by the way, starts at about $250,000, meaning most of us won't be trying it out for ourselves).

The 18-minute video below is well worth watching, but there are a few key takeaways that should be pointed out. First of all, while the new Ultra system is similar to Apple CarPlay of old, it is basically a full takeover of the car's infotainment system. You'll see familiar Apple user interface details everywhere, be it in the climate controls, navigation, or the instrument cluster.

SEE ALSO: Apple finally rolls out CarPlay Ultra, but not for you

Various themes are on offer, allowing you to customize the UI's look; for example, you can completely do away with the round speedometer and instead have a colorful set of lines giving you info on the speed you're traveling at, and how much fuel you've got left. You can also set up some widgets, much as you would on your phone or tablet.

Very important: Once the system is set up, it doesn't require any additional setting up if you just want to sit into the car and drive, though it looks like some features will require your phone to connect.

While some of Aston Martin's own design does show up occasionally, it's all wrapped into a familiar Apple interface, and it all looks fairly polished. Given how bad car manufacturers sometimes are at designing their own interface, Apple CarPlay Ultra is a very neat alternative. Now, if only other manufacturers would hurry up and integrate this, we'd be much obliged.