It’s only February, but 2024 already feels like it needs a good horror movie to shake things up. Last year, audiences were spoiled with the January delights of M3GAN and Infinity Pool and the promise of yet another installment in the Scream franchise. So far this year, all we’ve gotten is a tepid Mean Girls musical remake, another Jason Statham action movie, and Argylle, which is only scary in how bad it is. (Seriously, don’t see it.)
Leave it to film distributor Neon and beloved weirdo actor Nicolas Cage (Dream Scenario) to save the day. Over the past few weeks, the former has released a slow trickle of new info about the 2024 movie, starting with a series of intriguing posters that hint at the movie’s American Gothic approach to horror.
Creepy, huh? But what is the movie about, exactly? And what role does Cage, one of the most respected actors around, play in this movie? Today, Neon released the first trailer for the movie, and after watching it, none of those questions are really answered. That’s OK, though, since the movie looks incredibly spooky and should be this year’s Skinamarink, which gave off similar “What the hell?” vibes this time last year.
The movie’s official tagline states “You’ve got the teeth of the hydra upon you,” which doesn’t bode well for the characters in the movie. (Or, for that matter, anyone having a pleasant night’s sleep after watching the movie). The movie’s plot is still a mystery, but Cage gave some insight into Longlegs when he was interviewed by New York Times journalist Kyle Buchanan last year: “I play […] a possessed Geppetto. He makes these dolls, and these dolls infiltrate families and get the families to do terrible things.” Interesting. You can find more info about the movie in Buchanan’s Tweet about it.
Longlegs stars Cage, Maika Monroe (no stranger to the horror genre with such films as It Follows and 2022’s Watcher), Alicia Witt, and Blair Underwood. The director is Oz Perkins, who made the excellent The Blackcoat’s Daughter in 2015 and is the son of Anthony Perkins, aka Norman Bates from Psycho. The film was shot in Vancouver in early 2023.
Longlegs will be released in theaters on July 12, 2024.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.