Seth Rogen Doesn’t Believe North Korea Behind Sony Hack

Seth Rogen doesn’t believe North Korea was behind the infamous Sony hack of 2014.

The actor, whose comedy The Interview was at the center of the maelstrom, has come to the conclusion that North Korea simply didn’t have the means to pull off a hack of that magnitude.

“The truth is, I don’t think North Korea hacked Sony,” Rogen said in a recent interview with The Daily Beast. “They don’t give a sh*t, and everything is a façade there. The notion that they have the capacity to do it is a façade. The more time I get from it, the more it doesn’t seem like what the consensus was at the time is what actually happened.”

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Super Troopers 2: Review: Another Round On The Mustache-Mobile

The original Super Troopers was the epitome of early ’00s stoner comedy. Pot-smoking highway patrollers haze each other like college sophomores, playing pranks on speeding drivers they pull over and brawling with the local cops. It captured a moment in time; as the members of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe pointed out at a recent screening of the sequel, it’s probably the only movie in history that’s loved equally by potheads and cops.

The definition of a cult hit, Super Troopers always seemed destined to be a one-off, not least due to the mixed success of subsequent Broken Lizard movies like Club Dread and Beerfest. But over a long decade and a half that included multiple false starts–at one point, they said it was going to be a prequel set in the 1970s in which they’d all play their own dads–and a wildly successful crowdfunding campaign, Super Troopers 2 was sloppily birthed into the world.

And, almost unbelievably, it’s pretty good. Super Troopers 2 somehow manages to feel even more meandering, flighty, and lackadaisical than the original, but the laughs arrive at a breakneck speed that would have these troopers spitting out their liters of cola if the movie sped by them on the highway. If you’ve spent the last 17 years sneaking the word “meow” into everyday speech and wondering how quickly you could chug every bottle of syrup that you see, Super Troopers 2 will not disappoint you. And its opening scene is somehow even crazier and more hilarious than the original’s.

The premise this time around is infinitely stupider than the original’s relatively grounded corrupt-cops-turned-drug-smugglers plot. The Broken Lizard boys, including Steve Lemme’s Mac, Kevin Heffernan’s Farva, Jay Chandrasekhar’s Thorny, Paul Soter’s Foster, and Erik Stolhanske’s Rabbit, get recruited to help transition a Canadian town into the U.S. for some reason that’s never fully explained (and doesn’t need to be). The troopers clash with local government officials (Rob Lowe’s hockey star/mayor Guy Le Franc and Emmanuelle Chriqui’s Genevieve) and three Canadian Mounties (Tyler Labine, Will Sasso, and Hayes MacArthur), who all do some variation of a cartoonishly over the top French Canadian accent.

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That contrived story unfortunately makes Super Troopers 2 feel even more like a loosely themed series of skits than the original. There’s less of a “Johnny Chimpo” conspiracy style throughline in the sequel, and the movie’s events feel less connected, even when they finally coalesce for a predictable climax.

But the premise is also ripe for Broken Lizard’s brand of improvised-sounding comedy. The chemistry among these actors feels as fresh now as it did almost 20 years ago when the original came out, and they play off each other in ways that make it seem like every scene could have gone on for hours before they ran out of material. The Super Troopers have never been particularly nice to each other, but you still always get the sense that they’re friends, despite their generally mean-spirited senses of humor.

Even Farva is still hanging around–if they really didn’t like him, they could have ditched the guy by now. Farva continues to steal the scenes he’s in–Heffernan has honed the character into a blunt-edged comedic truncheon who dominates the movie with his borderline insane antics and one-liners.

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The movie also mines the Canadian setting and characters for humor beyond the surface level stereotypes you might expect, though there’s plenty of those as well. But as a self-deprecating French Canadian myself, I can attest that a lot of it rings surprisingly true. All these characters trade witty barbs back and forth endlessly, and it helps that the Canadians give as good as they get, making it feel more like they’re in on the joke, rather than simply being its butts.

Some bits return from the original, including the troopers trying to one up each other as they pull over unsuspecting motorists. The rivalry between them and the Mounties escalates alarmingly throughout the movie; after the Canadian officers lock a live bear in the troopers’ station house, the troopers kidnap the locals, steal their uniforms, and pull out all the stops to smear the Mounties’ good reputation. There’s an exceedingly weird recurring gag where Thorny becomes addicted to a Canadian female growth hormone called “Flova Scotia,” and at one point, Farva lets loose a series of massive, hot farts as the other troopers watch with disgust through thermal headsets.

If that sounds hilarious to you, congrats–Super Troopers 2 was made for you.

The Good The Bad
Excellent chemistry among the troopers Plot is contrived and fails to connect each scene
Recurring and new jokes are as funny as the original Sometimes feels directionless
Great supporting cast and cameos
Fully uses the Canadian setting and characters for comedy

Super Troopers 2 Review: Familiar, But Still Fun

After 16 years and a wildly successful Indiegogo campaign, Broken Lizard has brought their iconic Super Troopers back for more shenanigans. Living up to the cult status the original has attained was never going to be easy, but Super Troopers 2 does succeed at standing alongside the first film, though it relies a little too much on your good will towards it.

Super Troopers 2 picks up with Vermont’s finest down on their luck, having all been fired from the Spurbury Police Department after a celebrity ride-along gone wrong. Luckily for them, their old friend Governor Jessman (Lynda Carter) has a geopolitical crisis that needs solving: a recent reassessment of the U.S./Canada border has concluded that the town of St. Georges Du Laurent, Quebec is actually on American soil. The governor needs to phase out and replace the Mountie unit keeping peace in the town, so who better to enlist the help of than a group of guys famous for antagonizing the citizenry?

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Full Metal Jacket Actor R. Lee Ermey Actor Passes Away At 74

Actor R. Lee Ermey, who is perhaps best known for his role as Sgt. Hartman in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, has passed away from pneumonia complications. His manager shared the news of Ermey’s death on Twitter today. He was 74.

Ermey served in the US Marines before becoming an actor. According to THR, Ermey served 14 months in Vietnam and did two tours in Okinawa. He retired from the service after 11 years. Ermey had a small part in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, before landing a bigger role in Full Metal Jacket.

Ermey worked with Activision on the Drill Instructor Voice Pack for Call of Duty: Ghosts in 2014. The $3 add-on swaps out the voice of the regular in-game alerts for Ermey’s.

Ermey is also known for voicing the leader of the plastic Army soldiers in the Toy Story series, while he also had parts in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Se7en.

A Way Out Sells 1 Million Copies, And That Means 2 Million People Have Played It

A Way Out, the new game from the outspoken creator of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, is selling well. The prison escape co-op game has sold more than 1 million copies, developer Hazelight announced recently. Josef Fares, the game’s creative director, responded to the news with his usual amount of enthusiasm, exclaiming, “HOLY SHIT.”

Fares pointed out that A Way Out has in fact reached 2 million players because the game requires you to play with another human. To play, only one person needs to have purchased the game, with the other getting a free copy. Before launch, Fares discussed how this works, and you can watch his cheeky video about it embedded below.

A Way Out is published by gaming giant Electronic Arts. According to Fares, his studio, Hazelight, gets 100 percent of the proceeds from the game; EA doesn’t get a penny.

Fares is already working on his next game. He is very excited about it, but since it’s so early, we don’t know much at all in the way of specifics about it.

GameSpot’s review of A Way Out scored the game a 6/10. Reviewer Oscar Dayus praised the game’s set pieces, diverse environments, and puzzles that make use of co-op, while lamenting the game’s QTEs and varying tone.

My Goodness, Someone Made A Scale Model Of The Titanic In Halo 5

Halo 5 came out almost three years ago, but the community is sticking with the game and continuing to create astounding maps using the game’s Forge tools. The latest example is a scale recreation of the Titanic from user C0naN 0007. The map was spotlighted by Brusky and the Halo Spark Forge Network, and brought to our attention by Halo developer 343.

This is an aesthetic map, so it was made to be great to look at and not necessarily the best for gameplay. Impressively, it is appropriately scaled to the size of Spartans, and there is an impressive attention paid to details like smokestacks and rails and more. Check it out:

This map caught the attention of Halo developer 343, which highlighted the creation as part of the studio’s latest weekly blog post. You can grab the map for yourself by following C0naN 0007 in Halo 5, and selecting the map from their list of creations.

There have been SO MANY incredible Forge creations in Halo 5 over the years, including Star Wars podracing, a “clogged toilet” mode where you kill zombie poop, and Quidditch.

Halo 6 is on the way, and we sure hope it brings back Forge mode and beefs it up further with even more features and functionality. Microsoft has confirmed a new Halo game is in development, and while an E3 reveal is potentially possible, nothing is confirmed yet.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and Dead Space 2 Available Now With Games With Gold

April’s second round of free games of Games with Gold on Xbox One and 360 are available now. The Witness is still in rotation until April 30, but this round’s new additions are Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and Dead Space 2.

Assassin’s Creed Syndicate follows the story of twins Jacob and Evie Frye as they take back London from the Templars in the Victorian era. The game not only allows you to freely explore London, but also switch between the twins for most missions. Jacob is brutish, while Evie is a rouge-like character. Syndicate will be free for Gold member through May 15.

Dead Space 2 on the other hand is a bit more visceral. This is backwards compatible title is set three years after the events of Dead Space, following Issac’s battle against the Necromorphs on Sprawl. Unlike the first game, this sequel also has a multiplayer mode, pitting humans against Necromorphs. It’s available for download through April 30.

In other Xbox One news, 19 new backwards compatible titles from the OG Xbox were added to the catalog this week. Xbox’s big spring sale is still running strong too, slashing deals until April 17.

April 2018 Games With Gold

Xbox One

  • The Witness (April 1-30)
  • Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (April 16-May 15)

Xbox 360 (playable on Xbox One)

  • Cars 2 (April 1-15)
  • Dead Space 2 (April 16-30)

Top New Games Out This Week on Switch, PS4, And Xbox One — April 25-21

Top New Games Out This Week on Switch, PS4, And Xbox One — April 25-21

Big names like God of War, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, and Nintendo Labo finally arrive.

This week is jam-packed with big exclusives. Kicking things off is Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, which is finally coming to PS4s outside of Japan. PS4 is also getting the much-anticipated God of War, and Nintendo Labo brings all of its cardboard craziness to Switch. The Switch is also getting a port of the top-down arcade racer BAFL: Brakes Are For Losers, while Xbox One gets a big port of its own with the Don’t Starve Mega Pack.

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life — April 17

Available on: PS4

The next chapter in Kazuma Kiryu’s life sees him balancing a criminal past with raising a baby–the child of his own adopted daughter Haruka, who’s in a coma after a hit-and-run. Kiryu must investigate what happened, all the while throwing down in street fights and engaging in the series’ trademark minigames.

Further Reading:

BAFL: Brakes Are For Losers — April 17

Available on: Switch

If you’ve been looking for a top-down racer on Nintendo’s latest console, here it is. BAFL has a bunch of options for racing against your friends, with up to eight drivers supported locally. You can also race for your personal best in Time Attack or go for a flawless run in Perfect Race Mode. That name isn’t just for fun by the way–there really are no brakes on these cars.

Don’t Starve Mega Pack — April 17

Available on: Xbox One

Xbox One players are in for a serious game of survival with this one. The Mega Pack includes Don’t Starve’s base game, the Don’t Starve Together multiplayer pack, and the Reign of Giants and Shipwrecked expansions. It might be tough to survive out there, but at least you have plenty of options for trying to make it by on a new platform.

Further Reading:

Nintendo Labo — April 20

Available on: Switch

Nintendo Labo is a unique concept: build peripherals called Toy-Cons from cardboard, then use them to play minigames. There are cardboard blueprints included, but the real hook is building any contraption you want, then programming it to work with the Joy-Cons using the Toy-Con Garage mode. Building and playing together could be a great family experience.

Further Reading:

God of War — April 20

Available on: PS4

Speaking of family, Kratos now has a son named Atreus. He’ll accompany the demigod as he battles the Norse pantheon in a new, much more open adventure. There are bigger areas to explore and optional bosses to take down as Kratos finds more outlets for this untamable rage. That rage is funneled through a Battle Axe now, not the Blades of Chaos he fought with previously.

Further Reading:

New Releases