Author: Trafficblast

It’s almost February, and that means there are a whole bunch of new movies and television series coming to Hulu. Finally, you and your significant other can snuggle up on the couch together and enjoy some new programming on this upcoming Valentine’s Day.

But what romantic movies are available to set the mood? Well, you could start the evening off yelling “Get over here,” as you cuddle up to the sweet sounds of martial arts warfare with 1995’s Mortal Kombat. And if that’s not enough, you can always witness the premature death of Johnny Cage in 1997’s Mortal Kombat Annihilation. Either way, you and your significant other will greatly enjoy these movies.

February actually has plenty of fantastic new movies coming to Hulu. Get your White Russian fix with the cult classic The Big Lebowski from 1998 or watch a young Ben Affleck try to paddle people’s butts in 1993’s Dazed and Confused. Also, both Wayne’s World movies are coming to Hulu as well, but I will warn you: the Aurora, Illinois the film takes place in is nothing like the real Aurora, IL.

Sadly, there are plenty of movies leaving the service as well, so this will be your last chance to check these films out: Apollo 13, Beetlejuice, and all the Lethal Weapon movies. I implore you to watch all the saxophone-loaded Lethal Weapon movies before they leave Hulu. They are wonderful.

Below, you’ll find the full list of everything coming to Hulu and leaving for the month of February. And again, please watch the Lethal Weapon movies before they leave. For more on streaming services, check out everything new to Netflix in February.

What is coming to Hulu in February:

Available February 1

• Into The Dark: Down: Episode 5 Premiere (Hulu Original)
• Record of Grancrest War: Complete Season 1 (Aniplex)
• A View to Kill (1985)
• The Animal (2001)
• Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatre (2002)
• Bad Santa (2003)
• Barefoot (2014)
• The Big Lebowski (1998)
• The Bounty (1984)
• The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
• Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
• Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
• Caddyshack (1980)
• Caddyshack II (1988)
• Capote (2005)
• Chaos (2005)
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
• Chasing Liberty (2004)
• Dazed and Confused (1993)
• Deep Blue Sea (1999)
• Delta Farce (2007)
• Dr. No (1962)
• Equilibrium (2002)
• Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
• Field of Dreams (1989)
• Flesh + Blood (1985)
• Foolish (1999)
• For Your Eyes Only (1981)
• Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
• Freedomland (2006)
• From Russia with Love (1964)
• Goldeneye (1995)
• Hairspray (1988)
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
• How to Deal (2003)
• Kingpin (1996)
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
• Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
• Licence to Kill (1989)
• The Madness of King George (1994)
• Marathon Man (1976)
• Metro (1997)
• Mississippi Burning (1988)
• Moonraker (1979)
• Moonstruck (1987)
• Mortal Kombat (1995)
• Mortal Kombat Annihilation (1997)
• Mystic Pizza (1988)
• Next Day Air (2009)
• Old Fashioned (2014)
• On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
• The Portrait of a Lady (1996)
• The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
• The Quiet Ones (2014)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
• The Royal Tenenbaums (1997)
• Space Jam (1996)
• The Secret Garden (1993)
• Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
• The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
• The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
• The Toybox (2018)
• Thelma & Louise (1991)
• Three Kings (1999)
• Thunderball (1965)
• Tomcats (2001)
• Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
• Unforgettable (1996)
• Universal Soldier (1992)
• Untamed Heart (1993)
• Wayne’s World (1992)
• Wayne’s World 2 (1993)
• Wedding Crashers (2005)
• Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000 (2000)
• While You Were Sleeping (1995)

Available February 2

• Cabin Fever (2016)
• Pick of the Litter (2018)

Available February 3

• Legion: Complete Season 2 (FX)

Available February 4

• Saints & Sinners: Complete Seasons 1-3 (Bounce TV)
• Real Housewives of New York City: Complete Season 10 (Bravo)
• Dog Days (2018)
• Experimenter (2015)

Available February 5

• Paid in Full (2002)

Available February 8

• PEN15: Complete Season 1 Premiere (Hulu Original)

Available February 9

• The Preppie Connection (2016)

Available February 10

• The Song (2014)

Available February 11

• All Square (2018)

Available February 14

• False Flag: Complete Season 2 (Keshet)
• Zac & Mia: Complete Season 2 (Awesomeness)

Available February 15

• Bondi Harvest: Complete Season 1 (Fremantle)
• Jamie’s Quick and Easy: Complete Seasons 1-2 (Fremantle)
• Next (2007)

Available February 16

• Proven Innocent: Series Premiere (FOX)
• A Perfect Day (2016)

Available February 17

• The Party (2018)

Available February 18

• Elvis All-Star Tribute: Special (NBC)
• The Sisters Brothers (2018)

Available February 20

• Stan Against Evil: Complete Season 3 (IFC)

Available February 23

• Death Wish (2018)

Available February 25

• Archer: Danger Island: Complete Season 9 (FX)
• Every Day (2018)
• The School (2018)

Available February 26

• The Enemy Within: Series Premiere (NBC)
• The Voice: Season 16 Premiere (NBC)
• Three Identical Strangers (2018)

Available February 27

• World of Dance: Season 3 Premiere (NBC)
• Tickled (2016)

Available February 28

• Whiskey Cavalier: Season 1 Mid-Season Premiere (ABC)
• Digging for Fire (2015)
• The Guilty (2018)

What is leaving Hulu in February:

February 28

• 12 Dates of Christmas (2011)
• A Mermaid’s Tale (2016)
• All Over the Guy (2001)
• Apollo 13 (1995)
• Bad Girls (1994)
• Bad Girls from Mars (1991)
• Basic Instinct (1992)
• Beetlejuice (1988)
• Best Seller (1987)
• Beverly Hills Vamp (1989)
• Blow Out (1981)
• Blue Jasmine (2013)
• Christmas Cupid (2010)
• Deja Vu (2006)
• Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts (2007)
• Dream House Nightmare (2017)
• Dressed to Kill (1980)
• Exposed (2016)
• Hitman’s Run (1999)
• It’s Us (2016)
• Joey (1988)
• King of the Mountain (1981)
• Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
• Lethal Weapon (1987)
• Lethal Weapon 2 (1989)
• Lethal Weapon 3 (1992)
• Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)
• Line of Duty (2013)
• Living by the Gun (2011)
• Malena (2000)
• Manhattan Night (2016)
• Mansfield Park (1999)
• Message in a Bottle (1999)
• Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
• Mullholland Falls (1996)
• Operation Condor (1986)
• Operation Condor II: The Armour of the Gods (1991)
• Radio Days (1987)
• Ride (1998)
• Righteous Kill (2008)
• Rob Roy (1995)
• Silent Tongue (1993)
• Snow (2004)
• Snow 2: Brain Freeze (2008)
• Snowglobe (2007)
• Spy Game (2001)
• Switchback (1997)
• Teresa’s Tattoo (1994)
• Ulee’s Gold (1997)
• We are Marshall (2006)
• Wicker Park (2004)
• With a Friend like Harry (2000)

Production continues on The Mandalorian, the upcoming live-action Star Wars TV show, and another image has been released from the set. Like previous behind-the-scenes pictures, it comes via showrunner Jon Favreau, and reveals a character that will be familiar to fans of the franchise.

The image was posted by Favreau on Instagram and shows R5-D4, the astromech that Luke Skywalker and his uncle Owen initially buy from the Jawas in the original 1977 movie. As fans will recall, the R5 suffered a malfunction, so Owen took R2-D2 instead. Check it out below.

This image follows one that Favreau posted last month of another famous Star Wars droid–The Empire Strikes Back’s iconic bounty hunter IG-88. The Mandalorian is set between the events of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, and it has been rumored that it might also feature fellow bounty hunter Bossk.

The full cast for the show was announced in December. The lead role will be played by Pedro Pascal (Narcos), and there are also roles for Gina Carano (Deadpool), Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad), Emily Swallow (Supernatural), Carl Weathers (Predator), Omid Abtahi (American Gods), Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man), and Nick Nolte (Affliction). The series follows Pascal’s character, a lone gunfighter on the run from the law of the New Republic.

The show will launch on Disney+, the studio’s upcoming subscription-based streaming service. Another season of the animated The Clone Wars is also scheduled to come to the service, and there is another live-action Star Wars show, this time focusing on the Rogue One character Cassian Andor, in development.

Toy Story 4 is due this summer, and so far all we’ve seen of the new film are short teaser-trailers. The first one featured a new character named Forky, and the latest reveals the return of Bo Peep, Woody’s love interest who was missing-in-action in the last film.

The teaser shows Bo popping through a background followed by the declaration “Bo’s Back!” It doesn’t shed much light on what she’s been up to, but she has a totally different look, having lost the frilly dress and now clad in a jumpsuit.

“Bo’s taken control of her own destiny,” director Josh Cooley said in the announcement. “While Woody was watching Andy grow up, Bo gathered dust until she took it upon herself to head out into the world. And when Woody shows up, they can’t believe that they’ve found each other again.”

The character was only briefly touched on in Toy Story 3, when Woody mentioned her absence as one of the signs of changing times as the gang has watched Andy grow up. That movie showed the Toy Story gang seeing Andy off to college, and being passed on to a new child named Bonnie. Her playtime with Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and the rest has been the focal point in subsequent shorts.

We’ve known Bo would be appearing again in some capacity thanks to cast listings, but this is our first look at the character since Toy Story 2. Toy Story 4 is coming on June 21, 2019. Check out everything we know for more details.

The release of the star-studded, big budget remake of The Mummy in 2017 was supposed to kickstart an entire interconnected monster movie universe. But the movie was a critical and commercial failure, and the so-called Dark Universe was quickly abandoned by Universal. However, it has now been reported that The Invisible Man, one of the properties that was previously in development, has been resurrected by the studio.

According to Variety, the Invisible Man man reboot will be directed and written by Leigh Whannell, who most recently directed the sci-fi action movie Upgrade, as well as co-creating the Saw franchise. The movie is set to be produced Jason Blum, whose Blumhouse Films also produced Upgrade, plus horror hits such as The Purge, Get Out, and Insidious.

The site states that the film is part of a “fresh strategy” for Universal’s classic monster properties, utilising fresh, distinctive creative teams for the individual titles. Blumhouse is known for its modest budgets, so it is highly unlikely that The Invisible Man will cost anywhere near as much as The Mummy. There is currently no release date set for the movie. Johnny Depp, who was initially attached to star in the Dark Universe film of The Invisible Man, is reportedly no longer connected to the new version.

Dark Universe was launched in May 2017, but by November that year it was reported that the entire thing was dead. The second movie in the series was set to be The Bride of Frankenstein, but that was indefinitely delayed, and soon after franchise producers Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan quit.

In a statement at the time, Universal president of production Peter Cramer said, “We’ve learned many lessons throughout the creative process on Dark Universe so far, and we are viewing these titles as filmmaker-driven vehicles, each with their own distinct vision. We are not rushing to meet a release date and will move forward with these films when we feel they are the best versions of themselves.”

The new Resident Evil 2 Remake for PS4, Xbox One, and PC is a huge hit. Capcom has announced that the game hit 3 million copies shipped worldwide in its first week.

Capcom also announced that the entire Resident Evil franchise has now pushed 88 million units shipped since the series debuted back in 1996. It also updated the sales performance for Resident Evil 7, confirming that it has reached 6 million copies shipped.

Unsurprisingly, Resident Evil is Capcom’s biggest franchise based on total units shipped.

For comparison, the 1998 original Resident Evil 2 reached 4.96 million in sales during its lifetime, so the new edition is already well on its way to hitting that mark. A big launch week for the Remake was no surprise, as the game’s unique “1-Shot Demo” picked up 4.7 million downloads.

Capcom has faith that the Resident Evil 2 remake will continue to sell well. The company said it believes that the remake can enjoy the kind of “long-term sales” that Resident Evil 7 did.

Looking ahead, Resident Evil 2’s new Ghost Survivors DLC, which is free, launches on February 15. GameSpot’s Resident Evil 2 review called it “a terrifying experience like no other.”

“Resident Evil 2 is not only a stellar remake of the original, but it’s also simply a strong horror game that delivers anxiety-inducing and grotesque situations, topping some of the series’ finest entries,” wrote critic Alessandro Fillari. “But above all, the remake is an impressive game for the fact that it goes all-in on the pure survival horror experience, confidently embracing its horrifying tone and rarely letting up until the story’s conclusion.”

Those who are new to Resident Evil 2 can check out our story recap before diving in. We’ve also put together a helpful guide on how to clear the 4th Survivor bonus game. The remake also makes it easier to unlock the secret Tofu Mode.

A fictional beer from the Breaking Bad universe might be tapped for a real-life promotion.

Sony Pictures Television, the production company behind Vince Gilligan’s celebrated crime drama, has filed a handful of trademark applications that suggest some kind of real version of the character Hank Schrader’s in-universe home-made beer, Schraderbrau, may be produced in real life.

One of the trademark applications filed with the United States Patent & Trademark Office this month is for a beer called Schraderbrau. Another one is for “Luminous signs,” yet another covers drinking glasses and bottle openers, and the fourth is for t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats.

Put together, it would appear that Sony is trying to continue to make money off the popularity of Breaking Bad by bringing its fictional beer–and related merchandise–to the real world in some capacity. The wacky and wonderful Schraderbrau logo can be seen in Breaking Bad S2 Episode 5, and we sure do hope this makes it into whatever real beer Sony may be creating.

In another Breaking Bad episode, Hank says Schraderbrau is “home-brewed to silky perfection,” but that’s as close as we ever got to finding out what kind of beer it is. Its light colour suggests it may be a pilsner, but this is only a guess. At another point we see Hank bottling his brew in his garage, and some bottles explode because they became over-carbonated.

Breaking Bad premiered in January 2008, so last year marked its 10th anniversary. The show earned numerous awards, and it ended in 2013 after five seasons. A Breaking Bad movie is currently in development, and Aaron Paul might be coming back to play Jesse Pinkman again.

Would you be interested in sipping some Schraderbrau? Let us know in the comments below!

Genesis Alpha One‘s ambitions are made clear from the moment you begin constructing the vessel meant to act as an ark for humanity’s survival. You’re alone in space, searching for a planet hospitable enough to act as a new home. But getting there is no easy task. You need to juggle the expansion of your ship, the maintenance of its existing modules and the living conditions of your growing crew of clones, and that’s when you’re not mining for new resources, fending off alien infestations, or tending to crew job assignments. The problem with Genesis Alpha One isn’t that all of these systems buckle under the weight of their interconnectivity–it’s that none of them are that engaging to interact with in the first place.

Genesis Alpha One contains a mixture of strategic shipbuilding and the more personal exploration of your ship and surrounding planets through a first-person view. Your ship can be thought of as a moving command center; it’s where you construct new modules to scan and scavenge resources from nearby debris, hangars for ships to explore nearby planets and biomes to sustain life onboard as you expand your crew of barely indistinguishable clones. When not making changes to your ship, you explore the hallways of your creation or join crews on missions to planets for resource scavenging.

Each run in Genesis Alpha One rarely deviates from the same starting steps. You construct the bare minimum you need on your ship before getting the chance to jettison off into the great unknown–essentials like a Greenhouse for oxygen production, Quarters for your crew, a Tractor Beam for harvesting resources, and more are the fundamentals around which the rest of your ship is built. Although finding the exact module you want to add to your ship is made frustrating by the unclear menu headings (which I never got used to), actual construction is far easier. Modules click into place like Lego blocks, offering entrances and exits that need to be lined up to existing pieces of your ship or strategically placed for future ones. It’s satisfying to go from a broad overview of your uniquely designed vessel and straight into the shoes of a member on board, giving you the freedom to roam around the intricately (or confusingly) laid-out hallways you just placed down.

Genesis Alpha One features familiar elements from roguelikes, giving you modifiers to change how you start each run. You choose a template for your initial crew–based on a Corporation you select–which determines how many metals, elements, and oxygen-producing plants you begin with, as well as the number of crew members on board. You unlock new corporations as you play. To gain access to a corporation that specializes in mining ore, for example, you’ll first need to have one lucrative mining run.

These corporations and their advantages are then combined with a limited number of separate static upgrades, which you discover during your travels through the galaxy and that impact your playstyle more directly. You might choose to adorn your personal suit with upgrades to health and damage reduction but miss out on helpful indicators pointing you to special resources on your galaxy map, for instance. You’re encouraged by the numerous locked upgrades–which appear in the menu–to search new areas of the large galaxy map during each run so that you can secure a more diverse set of upgrades to further modify your playthroughs. There are few that drastically change how a run might unfold, which leads to a sense of tedium setting in with each new attempt and its protracted start. The slight changes to your starting resources and crew do, however, give you more creative flexibility when deciding how to initially start the construction of your ship.

Although building out your vessel is generally satisfying, you soon begin to realize how tedious your routines around the ship can become. Each module has a purpose, and without hands tending to them they remain ineffective. Salvaging resources from nearby debris requires workers on the Tractor Beam, for example, that you need to assign via a console that’s only located in that specific room. The same goes for every other station around your ship, making your opening moments aboard a frantic dash between each room to get everything running. When you jump from one solar system to another, this process sometimes needs to be repeated. You’ll need to rescan new debris around you–which requires you to hold a button for far too long–and manually assign the Tractor Beam again for salvaging, even if you previously assigned crew members to that job. It’s baffling to have to go through these same motions every time you jump to a new solar system (which happens fairly regularly), especially when a centralized interface giving you access to all your ship’s sub-systems would be far easier and more manageable.

This is exacerbated by AI that makes your crew largely useless without your input. Unless they’re assigned to a station, crew members will wander around the ship and not really do anything. They might engage with unwelcome alien stowaways but appear to ignore or forget about them completely when even slightly separated from them. An attacking pirate crew might be storming your hallways and causing mayhem, but your crew won’t react until they’ve entered a room with them inside. As a captain, you’re severely limited in the ways you’re able to command your crew, save for ensuring that they’re present at a console to carry out the menial tasks that rooms and their associated purposes require.

That leaves a lot of additional work for you to do alone, which starts piling up to an unbearable degree. Should you find yourself fighting off an alien infestation, you’re stuck dealing with eradicating the spreading alien eggs alone in the catacombs below each corridor. It’s satisfying to set up your vessel in a way that establishes clear choke points or routes enemies into an area filled with turrets you’ve placed for defenses. But as your ship grows, your ability to actively react to a growing danger becomes nearly impossible. It’s compounded by unclear ways to deal with mission-ending threats such as infestations and raiding pirates. It seems that once either is onboard there’s little you can do to get rid of them for good. Pirates will continually spawn on your ship even after multiple jumps to new solar systems, while aliens will continually sprout new hives even after you’ve cleared them all out. If there’s a way for you to triumph over these challenges after you’ve encountered them, Genesis Alpha One doesn’t make it clear exactly how.

Losing progress in a roguelike is meant to entice you to hop back in with new accessories to change your next run, but Genesis Alpha One doesn’t have the mechanics in place to make these variations interesting enough to experiment with.

The first-person action isn’t that robust, either. You can craft numerous types of weapons–ranging from simple assault rifles and flamethrowers to more futuristic, slow-firing laser weaponry–but enemies rarely offer diverse-enough challenges for you to consider the strategic advantages of each. The actual mechanics of shooting are also not satisfying. You can’t aim down a gun’s sights; instead, you lock onto enemies with the press of a button, making skirmishes tedious and boring. Enemies don’t recoil from your attacks convincingly, robbing the action of a punchy feeling. And, despite your abnormally high movement speed, there are no enemies that demand you use this in creative ways. Instead it’s just easy enough to use that speed to back away from enemies that can hardly ever keep up, or are never accurate enough to pose a threat from afar.

Losing progress in a roguelike is meant to entice you to hop back in with new accessories to change your next run, but Genesis Alpha One doesn’t have the mechanics in place to make these variations interesting enough to experiment with. Instead, death just feels like a punch to the gut, and a reminder that all the tiring setup you endured in the previous run must be repeated for hours to feel anywhere close to where you left off.

From tedious combat to the repetitive nature of exploring new solar systems, there’s little in Genesis Alpha One to hold your attention. Expanding your ship as you traverse a vast universe is marginally rewarding when you get the chance to roam around the elaborate structures you’ve built. But the process of gathering resources to make this possible is arduous, while threats bringing your inevitable demise are either dull to fight against or spawned onto your ship in aggressively large numbers without any clear methods of success against them. Genesis Alpha One contains all the components for deep space adventure, but none of them are executed well enough to make it a voyage worth taking.

As we steadily approach February, there’s no shortage of entertainment to consume in the month of Black History. In an effort to support black entertainment, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures has announced that Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther will return to the big screen for one week.

The news comes via Twitter, where the official Walt Disney Company Twitter account confirmed that the Academy Award-nominated and Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG) winner will begin playing in theatres starting February 1. Tickets will be free and two showtimes will be available each day at 250 participating AMC theatres.

In addition to supporting Black History Month, the Walt Disney Company has announced that it’ll donate a $1.5 million grant to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) to help minority students access and move through college. According to the press release, UNCF is the nation’s largest and most effective minority education organization who, for 75 years, has helped support “students’ education and development through scholarships and other programs, strengthens its 37 member colleges and universities, and advocates for the importance of minority education and college readiness.”

Black Panther stars Chadwick Boseman (Get On Up, Gods of Egypt) in the titular role of T’Challa/Black Panther, who becomes the king of the African nation of Wakanda after his father T’Chaka (played by John Kani) is killed in the Russo brothers’ Captain America: Civil War. As T’Challa rises to the throne, N’Jadaka/Erik “Killmonger” Stevens (played by Michael B. Jordan) takes this as an opportunity to compete for control of the nation. What follows is a rivalry over who’s more deserving of the title of king.

In our Black Panther review, we called the film “a top tier Marvel movie with all the humor, style, action, passion, and fun that the MCU has come to embody,” calling it “a cultural event that’s going to be hard for Marvel to top, no matter how many worlds Thanos conquers later this year in Infinity War.”

You can view where Black Panther will be playing here.