I think video game history will remember Hideki Naganuma for many reasons. Fans might lovingly bestow upon him the title of “Twitter weirdo.” Others — especially modern music producers — might cite him as an important influence in video game composition. That’s more than fair; the man is responsible for his fair share of video game bangers. Tracks like Jet Set Radio Future’s “The Concept of Love” — which stuffs warped vocal samples, bright electric guitar riffs, and rushing synthy drums — still turn heads when they come on the playlist.
Check out our special issue Polygon FM, a week of stories about all the places where music and games connect — retrospectives, interviews, and much more.
But for me, I’ll always remember him as the video game composer who put a sample of a Malcolm X speech in a Sonic the Hedgehog game.
The song appears on the soundtrack for Sonic Rush, a 2D Sonic game Sega released in 2005 for the OG Nintendo DS. It’s called “Wrapped in Black” and it plays during the final boss fight with Doctor Eggman. The track opens up with rushing violins and operatic vocals that convey the evilness of Doctor Eggman, but soon a sharp repeating vocal sample cuts through it all. The sample repeats “Too black, too strong” a few times and then comes back later in the song.
The audio for “Too black, too strong” comes from a 1963 speech given by Malcolm X titled, “Message to the Grassroots.” Naturally, his talk had nothing to do with Sonic, and dealt with far more serious matters. In the talk, the Black revolutionary outlined his idea of a Black nationalist philosophy and criticized the Civil Rights Movement. In the sample quote, Malcolm X used the image of coffee and creamer to explain what happened to the movement. He said:
“It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What you do? You integrate it with cream; you make it weak. If you pour too much cream in, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool.”
That a Sonic game sampled this feels like nothing short of a fever dream. The composer commented on it once back in 2014 when he said, “‘Wrapped in Black’ is a song about coffee. lol.” And while the sample isn’t a joking matter, he is technically correct that the quote is, at least in part, about coffee.
Naganuma’s intensely stylized music fits his history as a composer and work on the Sonic series. Similar to how video games were a form of emerging media at the time, Naganuma experimented freely and didn’t limit himself to an idea of what art should be. He sent his first application to Sega in 1998, after which the first game he ever composed was a handheld toy called Hip Jog Jog. In 2000, he worked as the main composer for Jet Set Radio where he broke out as a composer. His uneven beats and screechy sounds brought influences from hip hop, electronic, dance, funk, jazz, and rock music into the fuzzy speakers of CRT the televisions of the 2000s.
Image: Dimps, Sonic Team/Sega
Making a splash in the canon of Sonic the Hedgehog music and Sega games in general is no small task. Modern Sonic fans tend to remember the Chemical Plant Zone theme or later songs like the easy breezy rock theme of “Escape From the City” from Sonic Adventure 2. Because of this, I think it’s relatively easy to miss the soundtrack on Sonic Rush. Sega shipped it early in the lifecycle of the nascent handheld, and its roughly 1.62 million copies sold never made it the most popular or well-known game of the Sonic series
And while the nostalgic charms of the original Green Hill Zone theme will never wear off on me, there’s something uniquely thrilling to starting Sonic Rush off to the blaring horns and cascading twangy guitar of “Right There, Ride On.”
The eccentricities of Naganuma’s work have infected my brain and continue to shape my media tastes as an adult. So maybe that’s why I won’t let myself — or anyone else — forget the time when he put Malcolm X on a Sonic game and into the ears of an impressionable video game-loving child.
Cities: Skylines 2, the follow-up to the popular city builder developed by Colossal Order, just can’t catch a break. Following a post by the official Cities: Skylines account on publisher Paradox Interactive’s Cities: Skylines 2 forum, the console release for Cities: Skylines 2 has been postponed indefinitely. The game was originally targeting a launch on Xbox and PlayStation sometime in October.
“While we are making slow but steady progress, there are still unresolved issues impacting the game in ways that harm the player experience we want to deliver. We expect to receive a new [release candidate], which will undergo a thorough review in August. This evaluation will determine whether we can begin the submission process and provide a solid release date, or if further issues need to be addressed,” the post reads.
Image: Colossal Order/Paradox Interactive
Despite Paradox Interactive publishing multiple pieces of downloadable content for the game, Cities: Skylines 2 has been plagued with performance and stability issues since its PC launch in October 2023, prompting an apology from the developers in April. The prompt cancellation of the Sims-competitor Life by You following an indefinite delay doesn’t inspire much confidence in Paradox’s intention to deliver on this promised release.
Colossal Order has managed to hit all of its goals outlined in the publicly available year-one roadmap for Skylines 2. However, persistent issues and a lack of mod support have left players clinging to the original Cities: Skylines for the time being.
The roadmap for the first year of post-launch content for Cities: Skylines 2 Image: Colossal Order/Paradox Interactive
Universal Pictures has moved the release date of its lavish musical Wicked forward by a few days, from Nov. 27 (the day before Thanksgiving) to the preceding Friday, Nov. 22.
The move is ostensibly, and sensibly, to avoid a clash with Disney’s animation sequel Moana 2, also set for Nov. 27. Universal may have been motivated (read: scared) by the astonishing box office performance of Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2, which has racked up over $1 billion globally in a little over two weeks, setting a new record for an animated film.
But the date change also sets up another, potentially more exciting clash: Wicked, which stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, will now hit theaters on the same day as Ridley Scott’s historical action drama Gladiator II, starring Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal. Wicked is the first part of a two-part adaptation of the hit stage musical, which prefigures the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz, telling the witches’ backstory. Gladiator II is a generation-later sequel to Scott’s Oscar-winning 2000 epic. (Vanity Fair just published a surprisingly meaty preview of Gladiator II, which is stuffed with first-look images, plot details, and good quotes from Scott and the cast; it’s worth checking out.)
The contest between these two movies instantly recalls “Barbenheimer,” the 2023 box office phenomenon that pitted Greta Gerwig’s candy-colored comedy Barbie against Christopher Nolan’s somber nuclear bomb drama Oppenheimer. That date clash created a storm of publicity and a kind of unofficial festival of moviegoing that worked out to the benefit of both movies, which finished 2023 as the biggest and third-biggest films of the year worldwide.
Theater owners, if no one else, will be hoping for similar from Wicked and Gladiator II, but the juxtaposition isn’t quite so striking this time around.It’s true that one is a colorful, fantastical stage musical centering female characters and the other is a violent action movie front-loaded with manly actors.
But they’re both big, old-school spectacles with Old Hollywood feel, and they don’t make for as stark (or as funny) a contrast as between a toy-branded meta comedy and a three-hour biopic about physics and nuclear holocaust. Wicked and Gladiator II are also both franchise movies of a sort, relying on brand familiarity, whereas Barbie and Oppenheimer are both daring, original films from auteur directors.
Also, it’s hard to come up with a compound name for them that rolls off the tongue as smoothly “Barbenheimer” does. Gladicked? Surely not. The best I can do is “Wickiator.”
None of that matters quite as much as what Wicked and Gladiator II have in common with Barbie and Oppenheimer, though: They’re both exciting-looking movies that present very compelling reasons to see them on the big screen, that complement each other in fun ways, and that stand to do very well with audiences. It’s going to be a fun November.
Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.
This week, Trigger Warning, the new action thriller starring Jessica Alba as a hardened Special Forces commando, premieres on Netflix. That’s not all, as plenty of other exciting new releases make their streaming debuts this week, including a documentary on tennis legend Roger Federer on Prime Video, Kung Fu Panda 4 on Peacock, Sometimes I Think About Dying on MUBI, and more. There’s also several highly anticipated releases on VOD this week, including animated sci-fi noir mystery Mars Express and dystopian sci-fi romance The Beast starring Léa Seydoux.
Here’s everything new that’s available to watch this weekend!
New on Netflix
Trigger Warning
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Netflix
Genre: Action thriller Run time: 1h 46m Director: Mouly Surya Cast: Jessica Alba, Anthony Michael Hall, Mark Webber
The Alba-naissance is here. Five years after her last film role (crime thriller Killers Anonymous), the onetime Sue Storm is teaming up with Indonesian director Mouly Surya in an action-packed movie inspired by the John Wick franchise (and produced by John Wick producer Basil Iwanyk). Trigger Warning is Surya’s English-language debut and was filmed three years ago, but is finally dropping on Netflix this week.
Black Barbie
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Netflix
Genre: Documentary Run time: 1h 40m Director: Lagueria Davis
This doc from Shondaland digs into the first Black Barbie and three Black women at Mattel who made it happen: Beulah Mae Mitchell, Kitty Black Perkins, and Stacey McBride-Irby.
New on Prime Video
Federer: Twelve Final Days
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video
Image: Prime
Genre: Documentary Run time: 1h 40m Directors: Asif Kapadia, Joe Sabia Cast: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic
Arguably the greatest men’s tennis player to ever live, Roger Federer finally hung up his racket for good in 2022. This documentary, co-directed by Senna and Amy director Asif Kapadia, focuses on the final 12 days of the Swiss legend’s illustrious career.
Genre: Martial arts comedy Run time: 1h 34m Director: Mike Mitchell Cast: Jack Black, Awkwafina, Bryan Cranston
The fourth entry in the Kung Fu Panda saga sees Po taking on a new apprentice to succeed him as the Dragon Warrior. When a mysterious sorceress plots to resurrect Po’s past adversaries, he’ll need to call upon all his strength and allies to save the day.
While the individual scenes and moments in Kung Fu Panda 4 are entertaining (and sometimes even great), it never quite gels as an enjoyable movie on its own. The message of change tying it together is flimsy, and the plot feels strung along, trying to get the characters in the right place to launch a few seconds of cool action. After four movies, it isn’t really a surprise that the Kung Fu Panda machine is running out of steam — thankfully, though, it has just enough power left to churn out some genuine laughs at the end.
New on MUBI
Sometimes I Think About Dying
Where to watch: Available to stream on MUBI
Image: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Genre: Romantic drama Run time: 1h 34m Director: Rachel Lambert Cast: Daisy Ridley, Dave Merheje, Parvesh Cheena
Star Wars icon Daisy Ridley takes a dramatic turn in this new existential drama, playing the role of a socially awkward office worker who tentatively attempts to come out of her shell. It’s dark, funny, awkward, and achingly human.
Not much happens in Sometimes I Think About Dying, but that’s the point of the movie. Even the smallest thing, like Fran mustering up the courage to say goodbye to someone after work, is given huge weight. The movie lingers on the mundane, using it to paint a thorough portrait of who she is, without having her say or act much. The steps she takes to help overcome her social anxiety might seem small, but they’re all hurdles to her. It’s a movie made up of quiet moments: pauses in conversation, lingering glances, and outstretched hands. Lambert emphasizes the importance of these small interactions, and the ways they build up to connections. It’s a quiet story that aches in the best sort of way.
New on Metrograph at Home
Last Night I Saw You Smiling
Where to watch: Available to stream on Metrograph at Home
Image: Metrograph at Home
Genre: Documentary Run time: 1h 18m Director: Kavich Neang
In the final days of a condemned, iconic building, director Kavich Neang follows three families who live there (including his own). This is the streaming premiere of the movie, which first came out in 2019 and won awards on the international festival circuit, and is a part of Metrograph’s “Davy Chou Selects” series.
New to rent
Handling the Undead
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Neon
Genre: Horror drama Run time: 1h 37m Director: Thea Hvistendahl Cast: Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Bahar Pars
There’s tons of horror movies about the dead coming back to life. None of them are quite like Handling the Undead, though. Based on John Ajvide Lindqvist’s 2005 novel, the film follows the story of three families living in Oslo whose loved ones all mysteriously rise from the dead as semi-sentient corpses. How will they handle this new phenomenon, and is it a second chance to say goodbye… or a curse?
I Used to Be Funny
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Barn 12/Utopia
Genre: Comedy drama Run time: 1h 45m Director: Ally Pankiw Cast: Rachel Sennott, Olga Petsa, Jason Jones
Rachel Sennott (Bodies Bodies Bodies) stars as Sam, a stand-up comedian living in Toronto who takes on a nannying job in order to earn some cash. After the young girl she was caring for goes missing, Sam is stricken with PTSD and no longer performs comedy, haunted by the loss of her charge and her own helplessness.
IF
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Paramount Pictures
Genre: Fantasy comedy Run time: 1h 44m Director: John Krasinski Cast: Cailey Fleming, Ryan Reynolds, John Krasinski
Remember Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends? Well, imagine that, but set in New York and starring Ryan Reynolds and not so imaginative. IF follows Bea (Cailey Fleming), a young girl who works alongside her neighbor to help imaginary friends whose real-life friends have grown up. It’s ostensibly a kids’ movie, but with a message that’s slightly… off.
Mars Express
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Everybody on Deck/GKIDS
Genre: Sci-fi action Run time: 1h 25m Director: Jérémie Périn Cast: Léa Drucker, Mathieu Amalric, Daniel Njo Lobé
This sci-fi noir thriller follows a private detective and her android partner who are hired by a wealthy businessman to track down an elusive hacker. Their investigation dovetails into a search for a missing woman before inadvertently spiralling into a vast conspiracy that threatens to unravel the fabric of human civilization.
Mars Express is the rare example of an animated feature that warrants an almost immediate rewatch upon completion, if only to appreciate the craftsmanship of its presentation. It’s a densely layered sci-fi story that’s light on proper nouns, but heavy on subtext. It’s set in a world that doesn’t tell so much as it shows the depth of its narrative and worldbuilding, by trusting its audience to pay close attention and connect the dots alongside the film’s characters. In short, it’s a rare example of “adult” animation that treats its audience like adults, and its execution elevates its premise until it stands confidently as one of the year’s best animated features.
The Beast
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Janus Films
Genre: Sci-fi romance Run time: 2h 26m Director: Bertrand Bonello Cast: Léa Seydoux, George MacKay, Guslagie Malanda
Imagine Cloud Atlas meets The Age of Innocence meets Mulholland Drive. That’s about the simplest way of describing The Beast, Bertrand Bonello’s sci-fi romance drama. Léa Seydoux (Spectre) stars as Gabrielle, a woman living in the near-future who undergoes a process to “purify” her DNA of strong emotions by reliving her past lives. Her procedure becomes more complicated after crossing paths with Louis (George MacKay), a man whom — in a past life — she may or may not have loved.
The Beast’s three timelines play with seemingly unmixable genres: a classic period romance, a gripping horror-thriller, and dystopian sci-fi. That places them at a logistical disconnect, but Bonello binds them aesthetically and emotionally. Through his lengthy, thought-provoking close-ups of Gabrielle and Louis in each section, he creates a sense of longing and isolation across time, binding together human experiences of the past, present, and future, and putting them into sharp and chilling context.
We Grown Now
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Sony Pictures Classics
Genre: Drama Run time: 1h 33m Director: Minhal Baig Cast: Blake Cameron James, Gian Knight Ramirez, S. Epatha Merkerson
Set in Chicago in the early ’90s, We Grown Now centerson the story of Malik and Eric, two young boys growing up in a housing complex who survive the mundanity of school life and the perils of their environment through the strength of their friendship. When a sudden tragedy threatens to strain their bond, Malik and Eric will have to grow up fast and make a choice between what to hold on to and what to let go of.
Donald Duck, arguably tied with Goofy as the second most recognizable Disney character after Mickey Mouse, starred in over 150 short films throughout the 1930, ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. 2024 marks the 90th anniversary of the pantsless Pekin, who persisted through the second half of the 20th century thanks to Disney Channel replays of his shorts, appearances in DuckTales, and the Kingdom Hearts games.
Disney is celebrating the duck’s birthday with the usual merch drops and theme park shenanigans, but its best gift to fans is a brand-new short: DIY Duck, Donald’s first solo short outing since 1961’s The Litterbug. Directed by veteran Mark Henn, who has remained on Disney’s hand-drawn animation team throughout the quarter-century pivot to 3D CG, DIY Duck checks all the boxes of a classic Donald short, starting with a mundane day-in-the-life problem that puts the character through the cartoon wringer.
Donald was always my favorite cartoon character: Landing between the more wholesome Disney gang and Tex Avery and Chuck Jones’ elastic, ecstatic WB cast, Donald was just… some dude… trying to learn how the world works and get by. His temper could run hot, but he was solutions-oriented. He wanted to make a buck, but wasn’t anything like Scrooge McDuck. His curiosity and zest for life meant Disney could drop him into a PSA every now and then — Donald wanted to learn, and we wanted to learn with him. I will dig up what might be his greatest adventure, Donald in Mathmagic Land, once a year just to remind myself that, yeah, math rules.
These days, Donald’s mostly a relic, playing second fiddle to Mickey in the rare instances when Disney approves its mascot character for media use. That’s a bummer, and DIY Duck is a great reminder. Today’s more sophisticated toons are often fantastical and larger than life even when speaking to nuanced human experiences. So it’s kinda nice to have a modern short, simple yet stylish in its cartooning, that is about fixing a crack in a wall — something that I, like Donald, would be absolutely terrible at. In a neat throwback, DIY Duck also pays tribute to Donald’s classic rage voice by using archive clips of Clarence “Ducky” Nash, who voiced the character for 50 years.
While Disney maintains a hand-drawn department, the company mostly deploys it for stunts (like DIY Disney and last year’s Once Upon a Studio short) and skeletal work on 3D CG features. During a visit to Walt Disney Animation for 2014’s Big Hero 6, I was fortunate to watch Henn in action, cartooning by hand for a scene that would later be painted over and rendered with the finished CG art. Whether Disney will ever make a new hand-drawn feature — or, heck, a steady stream of Donald shorts! — is unclear, but by keeping Henn and the team on board, the studio implicitly understands the soul of the medium, whether it’s breathing life into 3D characters or reviving a legacy for an act of tribute. I’m just hoping this isn’t the last time we see Donald in this form over the next 60 years.
George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Sagacomplements and enhances the impact of his 2015 blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Roadin a lot of ways, but there’s only one I can’t stop thinking about: How little the new movie has to say about Immortan Joe, the original movie’s iconic arch-villain.
Sure, Joe’s lack of interaction with Anya Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa could be simply because Hugh Keays-Byrne, the actor who first put Immortan Joe on the screen, died in 2020. Lachy Hulme assumes the role for Furiosa, but perhaps George Miller reduced it out of respect for Keays-Byrne, who he worked with for many years.
But I’m skeptical. Joe’s consistent secondary status in Furiosa’s origin story fits the overall themes of Furiosa too well to be a coincidence: Immortan Joe, the demon of Imperator Furiosa’s last stand, wasn’t her nemesis at all. In fact, he wasn’t her anything.
Image: Warner Bros. Entertainment/YouTube
This is in great contrast to Fury Road, where their beef seems deeply personal. Max Rockatansky wanders into somebody else’s narrative in Fury Road, as his stories usually go. This time, those somebodies are Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and Immortan Joe.
While Fury Road only subtly hints that Furiosa was once one of Joe’s captive harem of wives and incubators — the white wrappings of Furiosa’s top evoke the Wives’ impractical shifts — Theron confirmed that piece of her backstory in interviews. So Furiosa seems to have really personal reasons to hate Joe. And his response to her betrayal is presented as a towering rage, cresting mushroom cloud-like out of all proportion to her ability to withstand him.
Not to diminish the agency of the Five Wives in their own escape, but Joe considers them property that’s been stolen from him, not allies who betrayed him. Furiosa, however, he considers a traitor, worthy of his personal anger. And in the end, she’s the one who gets the honor of finally taking him down, underscoring her place on the same narrative level he occupies as Fury Road’s primary villain.
Which is why it’s so wild that Furiosa says, quietly and implacably throughout its entire run time, that Joe actually isn’t even a main character in her story. Sure, he buys her, but then he forgets she even existed. He didn’t take anything from her that hadn’t already been taken, didn’t teach her anything she hadn’t already learned from someone else, didn’t give her anything she hadn’t already taken for herself. When they do share scenes, and even trade dialogue, there’s no interpersonal ire or affection in either direction. In spite of their characters’ intensity, Hulme and Taylor-Joy keep a neutral distance of emotion.
It turns out, in Furiosa, that Furiosa’s life was actually framed by the completely different, utterly pathetic figure of Dementus, the Wasteland warlord who tortured her mother to death, sold Furiosa into slavery, killed her closest friend, and cost her her right arm. And just as emphatically, Furiosa says, Furiosa moved beyond revenge years before she ever stood against Joe.
What you saw in Fury Road, Furiosa says, was the furthest thing from personal to Furiosa. Immortan Joe was never The Guy. He was just the guy in the way. And the “guy” part might be the most important one.
Photo: Jasin Boland/Warner Bros. Pictures via Everett Collection
The conversation that immediately surrounded Fury Road was about Immortan Joe as a Wasteland illustration of the death cult of capitalism and toxic masculinity. His very recognizable philosophy reduces all non-elites to things — women to Wives (sex slaves, forcibly impregnated) or Mothers (enslaved to produce breast milk for food), and men to War Boys (emphasis on boys), interchangeable cannon fodder addicted to the lie that they can only find purpose in violence for the True Leader.
This was all emphasized by the emasculating nature of Furiosa’s rebellion. After all, by the language of a country-and-Western song, she’s wounded him in the most devastating way a man can be wounded, by stealing his wife (Wives), his money (water), his car (the War Rig), and maybe even his dog (Nicholas Hoult’s hapless character Nux, if we want to stretch the metaphor a little bit).
Immortan Joe is an electrifying villain, and Furiosa doesn’t exactly skimp on him! A scene contrasting Dementus’ shaky appeal to the self-interest of the masses with the unshakable belief created by Joe’s death-cult propaganda is among the film’s most chilling. But there is an eternal risk in presenting such an operatic villain who also represents such a wide-ranging theme. If you’re not careful, making them powerful and capable enough to claim villain status also risks making them look aspirational. You can swing right around to making them seem cool.
Which is why it’s so damn smart of Furiosa to put this final nail in the coffin of Joe’s emasculation, by establishing that Fury Road’s sense of personal beef was all on Joe — on his fear, and his vulnerability, not on Furiosa’s. He isn’t even important to the woman who’s unmanning him.
In a cliche reversal for the cinematic ages, Immortan Joe was, for Furiosa, just Tuesday.
Jesse Plemons is a brilliant actor. He’s also one of our most memeable stars. It’s not that he’s super expressive — quite the opposite, in fact. He’s usually quite placid, and almost hesitant in his line deliveries. He takes his time. But, whether he’s playing a timid everyman in The Power of the Dog or season 2 of Fargo or a stout lawman in Judas and the Black Messiah or Game Night, there’s always something going on behind his narrowed, watchful eyes. His stillness, his pauses, and his plain, unvarnished way of speaking act as a gravitational force, drawing the camera and other actors into his orbit. He’s also, in a low-key way, extremely funny.
A still image of Plemons in his ten-gallon Stetson in Killers of the Flower Moon, standing immovably in the doorway of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character’s house, has become internet shorthand for calmly and righteously calling bullshit. “I’ve been sent down from Washington D.C. to see about these murders.” “See what about ’em?” (A tiny pause, just long enough to be noticeable.) “See who’s doing it.”
That scene was used in the movie’s trailer, and Plemons’ masterful deadpan jolted it to life. Less than a year later, he was at it again in the first trailer for Alex Garland’s Civil War, with another pause, and another matter-of-fact line delivery, that lingered in the mind even longer than Garland’s stark, button-pushing imagery of America torn apart by war. Wearing military fatigues and a pair of bright red sunglasses with red lenses, and holding a rifle, Plemons is shown interrogating the film’s journalist heroes. “There’s some kind of misunderstanding here,” says Wagner Moura’s character, Joel. “We’re American, OK?”
“OK,” says Plemons, taking a second to scratch his stubbly cheek. “What kind of American are you?”
The full scene has much the same impact on the final movie, and the question posed by Plemons’ nameless character looms large over the whole enterprise long after the credits have rolled. For me, this was the moment Garland’s expertly made, thrilling, but somewhat withholding movie finally bared its teeth.
Civil War has come in for some criticism for not clearly articulating the root causes of the conflict it portrays, or for having its cake and eating it by marrying a fence-sitting political stance with deliberately provocative imagery. I’m not going to litigate the case for or against it here — Garland has laid out his reasoning for approaching the story this way very clearly in interviews, and the polarized reactions to the movie tend to say more about the viewers than the film.
Civil War is essentially a road movie that follows a team of journalists on a dangerous odyssey to meet America’s fascist president before he’s overthrown by an alliance of independent-minded states. As the ravaged landscape scrolls by, Garland stages a series of Apocalypse Now-style vignettes that underline the surreal horrors of war, and provoke questions about the role reporting plays in society: torture at a gas station, summary executions after an intense gun battle, a weirdly peaceful town ruled by a watchful militia. At every stage, he’s careful to avoid naming sides, or bringing any kind of political ideas into the mix.
That’s true for the Plemons scene too — up to a point. The scene occurs a little past the halfway mark; cub photojournalist Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) and Bohai, another reporter, have been separated from their friends and get captured by Plemons’ small militia team. The soldiers — it’s not clear which faction they belong to, if any — are dumping a truckful of bodies into a mass grave. Joel, Lee (Kirsten Dunst), and Tony (Nelson Lee) approach to try to negotiate their friends’ release. As an opener, Plemons’ character shoots Bohai dead. Then he poses his question.
Image: A24
On a simple level, the scene works so well because it gives us a clear bad guy — perhaps the only one in the movie — played by a great, charismatic actor. That’s always been one of cinema’s purest pleasures. Plemons, who was cast only a week before filming after a different actor dropped out, is extremely menacing without breaking the movie’s muted, realist tone. His red sunglasses — a true stroke of genius from the costume department — give him an iconic pop on the screen. The scene is shocking and suspenseful, and it moves an already gripping film up a gear. It’s also a dramatic fulcrum for most of the film’s characters, none of whom is quite the same afterward.
But this is also the first and perhaps only moment in Civil War when its troubling subtext about our current time comes searingly to the surface. “What kind of American are you?” Is Plemons asking which side of the conflict the reporters belong to, or something else? Sensing the danger in the question, Joel replies that he’s from Florida. “Hmm, a central American,” Plemons replies, dubiously. Lee and Jessie are from Midwestern states, so they get a pass. Not coincidentally, they’re also white. “Now, that’s American.” Tony, crying with fear, admits he’s from Hong Kong, and is immediately shot in the head.
It’s racism; it always comes back to racism. With the truck and ditch full of noticeably nonwhite bodies in the background, Garland is pointing out that the evil of ethnic cleansing almost always follows on the heels of war. But the implications of Plemons’ interrogation are even broader and more frightening than that. While accepting Lee and Jessie’s heritage, he also mocks them for their rootless detachment from it. When a terrified Jessie admits she doesn’t know why they call her home state of Missouri the “Show-Me State,” Plemons responds with a chilling bark of derisive laughter. (The question was improvised; Spaeny really is from Missouri, and really doesn’t know why people call it that.)
When he asks “what kind of American,” Plemons’ character isn’t just insinuating about race. He’s posing a fundamental question of identity: How do you perceive your Americanness, and how deeply are you rooted in it? A reply that has any less than total conviction won’t pass muster. In this scene and this scene only, Garland gets to the heart of the matter — the scary, polarized essentialism that can push a country to tear itself apart, and that is all too easy to recognize in the current moment. All its threat and horror are contained in one of Jesse Plemons’ little pauses.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree will send players on a new journey this summer to the Land of Shadow, where they will learn more about one of the game’s most mysterious demigods, Miquella of the Haligtree.
Game director Hidetaka Miyazaki says that players will track Miquella on their journey through the Land of Shadow, “tracing his path and following in his footsteps, trying to see what he’s going to do there,” similar to how players followed the light of grace in the base game. Players will also discover what compelled Queen Marika, who shattered the Elden Ring in the game’s story, to visit the Land of Shadow.
Elden Ring players who haven’t pored over the bits of lore scattered throughout the game’s dialogue and item descriptions may not know much about Miquella, and about his role in the game’s story. We’re here to tell you what you need to know so you don’t have to watch an hourlong lore video that unpacks it all.
Who is Miquella in Elden Ring?
A statue depicting Malenia and MiquellaImage: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon
Miquella of the Haligtree is a demigod in the world of Elden Ring and a being known as an Empyrean. That means he is a candidate to succeed Queen Marika as the vessel for the Elden Ring.
We don’t really see Miquella in the game, but he’s the older twin brother of Malenia, the fearsome, rot-afflicted boss who resides at the base of the Haligtree. An offspring of the game’s penultimate boss, Radagon, and Marika (who are, uh, the same person), Miquella only appears in withered cocoon form in the main game’s story. As teased in Shadow of the Erdtree’s reveal trailer, Miquella’s cocoon will be the doorway to the Land of Shadow when the DLC launches.
Malenia and Miquella were both born with terrible afflictions: Malenia with rot that would consume her limbs and sight, and Miquella with eternal childhood. Statues of the brother-sister duo are scattered throughout the Haligtree, showing full-grown Malenia embracing her twin, who is stuck in the body of a young boy. Other statues show the twins at a younger age being embraced by their older sibling, Godwyn the Golden.
Malenia calls Miqeulla “the most fearsome Empyrean of all,” with the wisdom and the allure of a god. Miquella is also said to be beloved by many, and can compel the affections of others.
What’s Miquella’s relationship to Malenia? And Mohg?
Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon
Malenia and Miquella were close. The former fought to protect her brother, earning her the name Malenia, Blade of Miquella. Miquella was similarly protective, and worked unsuccessfully to develop a remedy for Malenia’s rot affliction. One of Miquella’s inventions was an unalloyed golden needle, which players can use to undo the Flame of Frenzy. (Miquella strived to “ward away the meddling of Outer Gods,” according to the description of Miquella’s Needle; an Outer God appears to be responsible for the spread of rot, too.)
As part of his work to cure his sister and after leaving the faith known as the Golden Order, Miquella sought to create a new Erdtree, nurturing a sapling with his own blood. This endeavor would fail and produce the Haligtree, which would become a haven for the meek and afflicted. Miquella ultimately embedded himself within the Haligtree to grow it, residing in the cocoon, but he was kidnapped by Mohg, the Lord of Blood, who sought to become Miquella’s consort.
That’s why Mohg has Miquella’s cocoon in his chambers. Mohg essentially stole Miquella from his Haligtree womb, in which the Empyrean now appears to have grown older compared to his previous boylike form.
If Miquella’s stuck in that cocoon, how is he also in the Land of Shadow?
Miquella’s arm juts from his cracked cocoon in Mohg’s palaceImage: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon
Miquella is said to have “divest[ed] himself of his flesh, his strength, and his lineage,” according to Shadow of the Erdtree’s official description. Miquella may not be a purely physical being in the DLC, and the Land of Shadow may not be a purely physical space; FromSoftware has a history of sending players to alternate time periods and dreamlike spaces in its expansions for games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne.
Furthermore, there’s well-supported speculation that Miquella is connected to a character named St. Trina, who is also unseen in Elden Ring. Trina is said to be a mysterious character of ambiguous gender who has close associations with sleep and dreams, according to a few in-game item descriptions. Followers of St. Trina are said to look for her while they sleep, and we know that Miquella has been slumbering for some time.
Both Trina and Miquella are also associated with nearly identical in-game items — Trina’s Lily and Miquella’s Lilly — that may connect them in still-unclear ways. However, in content that was discovered to have been cut from Elden Ring, it’s hinted that Miquella and St. Trina are actually the same person. That connection could be explained or confirmed in Shadow of the Erdtree, insofar as things ever get “explained” in FromSoftware games.
Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.
This week, Kung Fu Panda 4, the new animated action comedy starring Jack Black, arrives on VOD following its theatrical run last month. There’s tons of other exciting releases this week, too, like the satirical spy thriller Argylle on Apple TV Plus, a new action thriller starring Aaron Eckhart as a former CIA agent landing on Netflix, the new romantic fantasy film The Greatest Hits on Hulu, and much more. And then there’s Mayhem!, one of the best action movies of the year so far, now streaming on AMC Plus.
Here’s everything new that’s available to watch this weekend!
New on Netflix
Strange Way of Life
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: El Deseo/Saint Laurent Productions
Genre: Western drama Run time: 31m Director: Pedro Almodóvar Cast: Ethan Hawke, Pedro Pascal
This Western short from legendary Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (Volver, Pain and Glory) follows the story of two gunslingers (and former lovers) who reunite after 25 years apart.
The Bricklayer
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Millennium Media/Vertical Entertainment
Genre: Action thriller Run time: 1h 50m Director: Renny Harlin Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Nina Dobrev, Tim Blake Nelson
The latest in a long tradition of “action movies with odd profession titles,” The Bricklayer follows a former CIA agent (Aaron Eckhart) needed by his former agency when journalists start dying. The movie has a bit of pedigree behind it, as Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, Die Hard 2) directs.
Genre: Musical romance Run time: 1h 34m Director: Ned Benson Cast: Lucy Boynton, Justin H. Min, David Corenswet
After suffering the loss of her boyfriend in a car accident, a young woman named Harriet (Lucy Boynton) inadvertently discovers that she has the power to go back in time to various points in their relationship by listening to his old record collection. When Harriet meets a new love interest named David (Justin H. Min), she struggles between her desire to correct the past to resurrect her boyfriend or pursue the possibility of newfound love in the present.
New on Prime Video
The Exorcist: Believer
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video
Image: Universal Studios
Genre: Horror Run time: 1h 51m Director: David Gordon Green Cast: Leslie Odom Jr., Ellen Burstyn, Ann Dowd
David Gordon Green’s new entry in the Exorcist franchise arrives this week on streaming. It’s a bizarre twist on the franchise, per our review:
Up until this most recent movie, the title The Exorcist carried some weight. While its role as a representation of quality was up for debate, its mark as a sign of ambition was not. Since the original Exorcist, the series has provided some of American cinema’s best and most interesting artists with space to ruminate on faith and evil. Believer lacks the ambition that’s meant to define an Exorcist movie. This is the most profound statement the movie has to offer, seemingly by accident: If the result of moving past God is that everything in the world will feel as empty and pointless as The Exorcist: Believer, we should cling to faith forever.
New on Apple TV Plus
Argylle
Where to watch: Available to stream on Apple TV Plus
Photo: Peter Mountain/Universal Pictures/Apple Original Films/Marv
Genre: Action comedy Run time: 2h 19m Director: Matthew Vaughn Cast: Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell
What happens when you take the meta-fictional irreverence of Stranger than Fiction and smash it together with a premise similar to Matthew Vaughn’s 2014 movie Kingsman: The Secret Service?
You get Argylle, an action satire of spy novels à la 1984’s Romancing the Stone that follows Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard), an introverted novelist who is dragged kicking and screaming into a world of international espionage when it turns out that her popular spy novels are predicting the future. Who is the real agent Argylle? You’ll have to watch in order to find out.
Argylle is too winking, too keen to show that it’s in on its own joke, to admit any real romantic feeling or any excitement that runs deeper than the surface level of its flashy choreography. Vaughn, the impish ringmaster, delights in challenging the audience to figure out what’s real and what’s fictional within his stylized, nested worlds. It’s just that he never really answers the question: Why should we care? With Argylle, he mounts a playful, rollicking thriller with an all-star cast and some dazzling action — but then holds the audience at arm’s length from it, just to show how clever he’s been in putting it together. The truly clever thing would have been to let the dumb film be joyously dumb, and invite the audience to lose themselves in it instead.
Genre: Road comedy Run time: 1h 24m Director: Ethan Coen Cast: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein
Ethan Coen’s first narrative feature without his brother Joel is an offbeat crime comedy about a pair of young women who embark on an impromptu road trip. Things get dicey after the two cross paths with a group of incompetent criminals sent to retrieve a mysterious briefcase on behalf of their shady employer.
Drive-Away Dolls’ well-worn beats are buttressed by tremendous style, a deep care taken with the film’s production and costume design. All that attention to the era that isn’t fully present in the script comes out in the visuals instead. There isn’t much narrative texture to Marian and Jamie’s various stopovers — in particular, there isn’t much for Jamie or Marian to connect with. While the pair have frequent and funny interactions on their trip, the people they meet are more or less cartoon characters setting up a gag.
New on Paramount Plus
Bob Marley: One Love
Where to watch: Available to stream on Paramount Plus, MGM Plus
Image: Paramount Pictures
Genre: Biographical musical Run time: 1h 47m Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green Cast: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton
This biopic follows the story of cultural icon Bob Marley, portrayed by Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night in Miami…). The film follows Marley from his rise to fame in the ’70s up until his death in 1981.
An early contender for one of this year’s best action films, Mayhem follows Samir (Nassim Lyes), an ex-con and martial artist, who flees from France to Thailand to escape his former gang. Struggling to build a new life, Samir finds himself once again dragged into a world of deceit and violence when a powerful real estate tycoon kidnaps a member of his family.
Mayhem’s action is brutal and kinetic, with inventive kills, strong location work, and realistic choreography that makes the most of Lyes’ kickboxing pedigree. It’s a true star-making performance for him, as he juggles the role’s demanding physical requirements with a deep well of sorrow that permeates the entire affair, even as he dispatches foe after foe.
New to rent
Ennio
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Music Box Films
Genre: Documentary Run time: 2h 36m Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore made a documentary on renowned film composer Ennio Morricone, one of the most accomplished people in that stacked field. The documentary includes Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Springsteen, and many more luminaries from the entertainment world.
Glitter & Doom
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: SPEAK Productions/Music Box Films
Genre: Musical romance Run time: 1h 55m Director: Tom Gustafson Cast: Alex Diaz, Alan Cammish, Ming-Na Wen
A musical set to the songs of the Indigo Girls, Glitter & Doom follows a summer romance between a musician committed to this craft (Alan Cammish) and a “free-spirited circus kid” (Alex Diaz).
Io Capitano
Where to watch: Available to rent on Apple and Vudu
Image: Archimede/Cohen Media Group
Genre: Fantasy Run time: 2h 1m Director: Matteo Garrone Cast: Seydou Sarr, Moustapha Fall, Issaka Sawadogo
Desperate for an escape out of poverty, two cousins leave their hometown of Dakar, Senegal, to journey to Italy in search of a better life. Trekking across the hazards of the Sahara Desert and Mediterranean Ocean, the pair are met with sights and wonders beyond their wildest imaginations.
Kung Fu Panda 4
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: DreamWorks Animation
Genre: Martial arts comedy Run time: 1h 34m Director: Mike Mitchell Cast: Jack Black, Awkwafina, Bryan Cranston
The fourth entry in the Kung Fu Panda saga sees Po taking on a new apprentice to succeed him as the Dragon Warrior. When a mysterious sorceress plots to resurrect Po’s past adversaries, he’ll need to call upon all his strength and allies to save the day.
While the individual scenes and moments in Kung Fu Panda 4 are entertaining (and sometimes even great), it never quite gels as an enjoyable movie on its own. The message of change tying it together is flimsy, and the plot feels strung along, trying to get the characters in the right place to launch a few seconds of cool action. After four movies, it isn’t really a surprise that the Kung Fu Panda machine is running out of steam — thankfully, though, it has just enough power left to churn out some genuine laughs at the end.
One Life
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Photo: Peter Mountain/Bleecker Street
Genre: Biographical drama Run time: 1h 50m Director: James Hawes Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Flynn
Anthony Hopkins stars in a dramatization of the life of Sir Nicholas “Nicky” Winton, a London broker and humanitarian who rescued the lives of 669 Jewish children in the months leading up to World War II. Hopkins portrays Winton in his late ’70s, while actor-musician Johnny Flynn portrays him during his youth in the late 1930s.
Sleeping Dogs
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Nickel City Productions/The Avenue
Genre: Crime thriller Run time: 1h 50m Director: Adam Cooper Cast: Russell Crowe, Karen Gillan, Marton Csokas
After being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, retired homicide detective Roy Freeman (Russell Crowe) is motivated to reopen an investigation into the murder of a college professor when a mysterious new witness comes forward with a compelling piece of evidence. As he works to track down the true culprit, he’ll have to fight to convince those around him to trust his intuition and theories.
Ocean fishing is a fun and relaxing Final Fantasy 14 side activity, though it can be stressful if you don’t know what you’re doing. Getting on a boat with friends to reel in big catches is a unique experience, but you can only ocean fish during certain times of the day.
You do not need to own any expansions to ocean fish and you can participate even if you’re playing the free trial. Yippee!
Below, we explain how to unlock ocean fishing in FFXIV. We’ll also tell you the ocean fishing schedule, what bait to use while you ocean fish, and tips to score big and rake in rewards.
What is ocean fishing?
Ocean fishing is like an alliance raid, but for fishing. You’ll board a big boat that’ll take you through three different parts of the water and you’ll have to complete objectives for extra points.
You’ll be put into a full party, with two other parties on your boat. The goal is to catch fish to score big during the time limit.
It’s not all just catching big, rare fish, though. Catching special “spectral” fish has a chance to trigger a spectral current. These spectral currents allow you to catch even more fish with higher point values, so triggering one of these is nearly always the goal.
There are also a handful of objectives to try to complete during the expedition, like catching a lot of sharks or jellyfish.
How to unlock ocean fishing in FFXIV
In order to start your grand ocean fishing adventure, you’ll need to unlock the Fisher job, which you can do by heading to the Fisherman’s Guild in Limsa Lominsa. You’ll also need to complete the next Fisher quest, “My First Fishing Rod.” You can ocean fish even if your Fisher is at level 1. (In fact, ocean fishing is a really easy way to level Fisher up super fast.)
Once you have your Fisher ready to go, you’ll just need to complete the quest “All the Fish in the Sea” in Limsa Lominsa, which starts at the NPC Fhilsnoe below:
Graphic: Julia Lee/Polygon | Source images: Square Enix
Once you finish that quest, you can queue for ocean fishing via Dryskthota at the Limsa Lominsa Ferry Docks (west of the Arcanist’s Guild Aetheryte), as long as it’s time to ocean fish.
Note that you will not be able to take the Ruby route through the Stormblood locations until you beat the Stormblood expansion.
Ocean fishing schedule
Unfortunately, you can’t ocean fish whenever you want to. Ocean fishing abides by a schedule and you can only register for it for fifteen minutes from the top of the real world hour, every other hour. For example, if the registration period starts at 2 p.m., you have until 2:15 to queue for ocean fishing. If you miss this period, you’ll have to wait until 4 p.m.
While we would recommend looking out for the odd or even hours, the exact time changes depending on daylight savings and on your timezone, so we actually recommend Lulu’s Tools, which has a live ocean fishing schedule, even noting which objectives and routes the next few boats will take.
Which bait to use while ocean fishing
There are three main bait types used during ocean fishing: krill, ragworm, and plump worm. You can nab all three of these baits from the merchant on the docks where you queue for ocean fishing. You should stock up and buy a ton of each of the three.
In every ocean fishing experience we’ve had, there has always been somebody in the group who will use alliance chat (the orange chat) to say which bait to use —or, alternatively, somebody who will tell you which bait to use if you ask. However, if you don’t want to rely on these genius fishing strangers every time you get on the boat, here are the best baits to trigger spectral currents by location:
Bloodbrine Sea: krill
The Ciedalaes: ragworm
Galadion Bay: plump worm
Rhotano Sea: plump worm
Rothlyt Sound: plump worm
Northern Strait of Merlthor: ragworm
Southern Strait of Merlthor: krill
Sirensong Sea: plump worm
Kugane Coast: ragworm
Ruby Sea: krill
One River: krill
In a very broad sense, these three baits will keep you covered. There are some specific catches that take a different bait from the three, but for the sake of simplicity and scoring points, using these three baits should lead you to success.
How to get a high score in ocean fishing
You can min-max in ocean fishing, and while scoring big also relies on luck, there are a few things you can do to help boost your score:
Empty your inventory to prepare for the fishing trip, as you’ll be hauling in lots of unique fish that take up a ton of inventory slots. Do not use the “release list” feature to automatically discard fish, as the animation that plays to discard the fish wastes your precious time on the boat.
Bring and use Cordials and Hi-Cordials to restore your GP. You should be using your fishing skills, whether you’re using Patience, Powerful and Precision Hookset, or other fishing skills. You should not just be using your basic Hook skill.
Don’t forget to use Thalaik’s Favor, a level 15 skill that gives you back 150 GP in exchange for three stacks of Angler’s Art (a buff you get for just catching big fish).
Use Chum between catches during spectral currents to get fish to bite faster.
Don’t stress too much about your point value while fishing, as there are a ton of bonuses at the end that’ll shoot your score up. You’ll be surprised about how many bonuses you may get at the end.
Just by following the above, we’ve been able to score above 10,000 points (which is all you need to get the mount and minions).
Ocean fishing rewards
Every time you finish ocean fishing, you’ll get a boatload of EXP, as well as gatherers’ scrips (if you’re high enough level to have them). Notably, there are a few exclusive rewards to ocean fishing that are locked behind specific achievements.
The following achievements give minions and mounts:
On a Boat IV: Earn a cumulative total of 1 million points while ocean fishing (Much-coveted Mora minion)
No More Fish in the Sea I: Score at least 5,000 points during a single ocean fishing voyage on the Indigo route (The Major-General minion)
No more Fish in the Sea II: Score at least 10,000 points during a single ocean fishing voyage on the Indigo route (Hybodus Horn for the mount)
Near, Far, Wherever Fish Are II: Score at least 10,000 points during a single ocean fishing voyage on the Ruby route (Mossasaurus minion)
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