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StackSocial prices subject to change.

Opens in a new window Credit: KeySmart KeySmart® SmartCard - Works with Apple Find My (3-Pack) $79.97
$119.97 Save $40 Get Deal

At this point, just the sight of Tim Robinson's face is a comedic weapon.

Case in point: the opening scene of Friendship, which begins with a tight shot on cancer survivor Tami (Kate Mara) sharing with her support group. As the camera zooms out, her husband Craig (Robinson) comes into view beside her, and his look of too-intense concentration is enough to send anyone into orbit. It's not long before he opens his mouth to glibly interrupt Tami's worries about her cancer returning, just the first of many social faux pas Craig will commit across the course of Friendship.

SEE ALSO: Summer Movie Preview: What's coming to theaters and streaming?

If you're both cringing and cackling at the thought of this interaction, that's the Robinson effect. The I Think You Should Leave creator is a master at wringing comedy from social anxiety, as well as crafting oddball characters whose quirks are only outweighed by their earnestness (and their propensity for shouting). All these qualities are on display in Friendship, a film that tests the limits of how much Robinson-style cringe comedy you can stand.

Hardcore Robinson fans will likely enjoy, but even as a Robinson appreciator, I felt that the I Think You Should Leave-style bits that make the film's early scenes such an uncomfortable blast quickly lose their sheen. They work well in sketches, but can they hold up the weight of an entire feature film? Friendship, written and directed by Andrew DeYoung, suggests not.

What's Friendship about? Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd in "Friendship." Credit: A24

At its core, Friendship is all about the trials of male friendship and male loneliness. Robinson's Craig has little to no social life — as Tami points out, he always spends his evenings sitting in their living room. ("You don't know my schedule!" Craig spits, one of many great Robinson line readings.)

So when neighbor Austin (Paul Rudd) invites Craig over for a drink, it's more than just a friendly get-together. For Craig, it's the start of a brand-new, beautiful future. In fantasy sequences, he sees himself playing drums in Craig's band, then leading Craig and a larger crew through the apocalypse.

SEE ALSO: Why 'I Think You Should Leave' Season 2 is a major meme event

His encounters with Austin are almost as fantastical as his imagined future. Austin brings him through their town's sewer system to the top of city hall. He takes Craig mushroom foraging. He encourages Craig to ditch his phone, to buy a drum set, to try new things.

But their beautiful friendship collapses after a nightmare hang with Austin's other friends. One shattered glass door, several bruised noses, and one a capella cover of Ghost Town DJs' "My Boo" later, Craig is ousted from Austin's inner circle and left to spiral.

Friendship starts strong, then unravels. Tim Robinson in "Friendship." Credit: A24

These opening sequences of Craig and Austin's early meets are Friendship's strongest, with Robinson nailing the awkward catch-up of hanging out with someone you definitely want to be friends with. Rudd, meanwhile, excels as a character who has his own struggles and ambitions — like wanting to be the morning weatherman instead of the evening — but who also exists for Craig to project his fantasies of friendship onto. Their odd-couple dynamic is rife with opportunities for anxiety-inducing laughs, which comes to a fever pitch in the aforementioned group hang.

But once Craig and Austin have their friendship breakup, Friendship finds itself as adrift as Craig. The film meanders from one bit to the next — like a disastrous meeting with the town mayor, or an unsuccessful return to the sewers — with each acting like its own sketch that's been awkwardly strung together. Perhaps this unmoored feeling is DeYoung's goal, to place us in Craig's shoes as he navigates life without a friend who meant so much to him. Yet with so many sections feeling so underwhelming — only a toad-induced drug trip truly delivers on Friendship's comedic strangeness — you may find yourself feeling more disengaged than unmoored.

Something similar happens with Craig, who often reads as a collection of gags as opposed to a full-fledged character. He's both obsessed with wanting to see "the new Marvel" but deathly afraid of having it spoiled. He eats soap in order to repent for being a "bad boy." His biggest goal in life is finishing a local bar's novelty meal themed around the SEALs who killed Osama Bin Laden. These are all hilarious both in and out of context in Friendship, helped along by Robinson's reliably panicked — often screaming — delivery. But are we laughing because Craig is a character we've grown to know over the course of the film, or because we're projecting our prior experiences of watching Robinson in similar roles onto Craig?

Friendship still elicits plenty of laughs and discomfort from its look at a collapsed friendship. Ultimately, though, it overstays its welcome, much like Craig at a group hang.

Friendship is now in theaters.

When Mimi*, 22, was in college, she created a fake profile on the dating app Hinge to report another phony account. Someone was impersonating her then-boyfriend on the app, and the couple wanted to report this account together. "I didn't think much of it at the time," she says. But two years later, single and living in New York City, Mimi turned back to Hinge, this time in a real attempt to try online dating and meet someone new. She quickly discovered she had been banned.

Trying to reverse the situation, Mimi wrote a complaint to Hinge, outlining her circumstances in a few brief sentences. She wanted to use the app to restart her dating journey, preferring it over Tinder, Bumble, Raya, and the other seemingly countless options out there. Her appeal didn't help, though. Mimi says Hinge sent back a "somewhat automated response," telling her she had been permanently banned from using the app. She gained no further clarity from the email, with Hinge providing no other details. 

SEE ALSO: Sick of dating apps? Try a dungeon sound bath instead.

Mimi isn't alone in experiencing seemingly arbitrary and unfair bans from Hinge. Over the last three years, over 15,000 users have filed complaints about Hinge with the consumer advocacy group Better Business Bureau, many claiming to have been unfairly exiled from the app. Most of these users said the bans were irreversible. In the last year alone, Hinge received over 7,000 reports on the same platform. "I was unjustly banned from Hinge," reads one complaint. "I have not acted in any unlawful or inappropriate manner while using Hinge on or off the app," complains another. 

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Karma, 23, is based in New Delhi and tells Mashable she found most of her dates in the city via Hinge — that is, until she was banned from the app earlier this year. She isn't entirely sure why it happened. "I wasn't provided with any clear-cut reason," she says. She has a hunch, though. At some point, she asked a few matches to participate in a survey she was conducting, sending out a link in direct messages. People may have reported her "out of annoyance," she says.

"When it comes to bans, a lot of people report accounts out of sheer spite, and Hinge should really look thoroughly into the matter before banning a person straight away," she says. "I think using the app for non-dating purposes isn't a bad thing. Or, at least for petty reasons as such, [they] should start with a warning."

Hinge is "committed to keeping daters safe by using protocols that protect the integrity of [the] community," Tamika Young, Hinge's VP of global communications, tells Mashable. 

"If someone believes they were incorrectly removed from the platform, they are encouraged to submit an appeal directly in the app or via email. Every appeal is reviewed by a human moderator," continues Young. She pointed towards Hinge's Help Center and Terms of Service. Within the help center, the company explains that users get explanations for some appeal decisions, but not for others. 

Tinder takes "appropriate actions on accounts" that have violated the app's Terms of Use, Community Guidelines, or Policies, Philip Price Fry, VP of communications at the platform, tells Mashable. "Tinder uses a combination of AI and human moderation to detect these violations, and we work hard to reduce any wrongful removals from our platform," Fry tells Mashable. "If a member believes their account was banned in error, they can appeal from the Appeal Center within the app."

Of course, there are valid reasons for bans, from predatory behaviors to catfishing. Match Group, which owns Hinge, Tinder, and other dating apps, has recently come under fire for reportedly concealing assault cases and failing to ban users accused of sexual assault, even after reports were made directly to the company. Three in four dating app users have experienced abuse on these platforms, according to a 2022 study by the Australian Institute of Criminology. Staying safe on dating apps is imperative. Apps have introduced a selection of safety features over the years, such as Tinder's contentious background check option and Hinge's "Hidden Words" feature, which lets users filter out unwanted content. 

At times, seemingly random bans may be a widespread consequence of efforts to combat abusive behaviors, affecting those who are simply trying to meet someone. "Platforms are really trying to push back against bots and a lot of bad and inappropriate behaviors that come up," says Liesel Sharabi, an associate professor at Arizona State University specializing in the intersection of technology and relationships. "So I think that they're getting seemingly stricter about the bans."

Why are bans on Tinder and Hinge becoming so common? 

Across X and TikTok, dating app users allege these bans have been imposed on them, and they are left to speculate why. 

Most say whatever got them banned is unclear. Some think it's because of revenge reporting: ex-partners or unhappy matches report accounts out of malice. Some report being banned after ghosting matches (a repercussion Bumble formally introduced in 2023). Others say their accounts appeared too bot-like, even when they were real. In Mimi's case, creating a new account could have been a problem; according to The Tab, this is one of the many "innocent" actions that can get you exiled from the land of digital dating. There have also been discriminatory reasons for bans: in 2019, trans people were getting banned from Tinder as a result of people reporting them unfairly. Tinder acknowledged the issues trans people face on the app, releasing a statement declaring their commitment to inclusivity. 

On the Reddit forum SwipeHelper, a group dedicated to dating app qualms and queries, several users express confusion and even helplessness thanks to what they consider to be arbitrary bans. People complain the most on the subreddit about Tinder and Hinge and say that appeals are essentially useless, as cases like Mimi's show. Some said that once they were banned on Hinge, the same happened on Tinder, rendering both unusable. 

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These bans are becoming increasingly common, says Sharabi. She posits that many users don't read the terms of service on apps and end up getting inadvertently exiled. (Hinge was unable to provide how many users it bans year over year.)

"I think what's missing for a lot of people is the explanation," says Sharabi. "And for some people, that's going to be obvious, like they were misrepresenting themselves or something really blatant. But for other people, I think it's a lot more ambiguous, and they don't necessarily know how they can challenge that decision, or who they can talk to to have it reconsidered. They want to know what they did." She adds that people don't necessarily know how a decision can be challenged or reconsidered, leading to "a frustrating experience."

Mimi says she appreciates the security measures being taken by apps, but thinks that both the banning and appeal processes need reform. "It really does seem like their responses [to appeals] are completely automated, and I haven't heard of a single case in which someone who wrote an appeal had their ban removed," she says. "If they're putting in so much effort to get rid of bots, then they should stop acting like bots themselves." As with most large tech companies with vast user bases, this is unlikely to change: most will turn to automated solutions to sift through such reports. 

"If they're putting in so much effort to get rid of bots, then they should stop acting like bots themselves." - Banned Hinge user Mimi

In response to this dilemma, people have come up with some solutions to surpass bans themselves. On TikTok and Reddit, people suggest getting a new phone or number and using a fresh email address, although these fixes can easily lead to bad actors — who have been justifiably banned — managing to get back on these apps after getting removed. Some also say DatingZest, a platform created for the sole purpose of getting banned users back on the apps, has worked for them (others have pointed out that the service hasn't always done the trick). In a statement to Mashable, DatingZest says it has helped "countless users" make comebacks on apps, especially when it comes to Hinge. The platform was created after its team realized "how many innocent users get banned due to dating apps' automated systems, sometimes from a single false or revenge report." 

"The lack of transparency and inconsistent moderation is a major frustration for many daters," says DatingZest.

While some quick fixes are available to users, the problem goes deeper. In recent years, despite the ubiquity of online dating, people have faced serious swipe fatigue and felt a lack of trust in these apps. When it comes to the digital platforms that have become fundamental tools for matchmaking, frequent bans are just another cause for concern.

Getting in the way of love — and matches 

Today, it almost goes without saying that dating apps are central to dating culture. Heterosexual couples are more likely to meet online than in person, as researchers at Stanford University found in 2019. 53 percent of Americans under 30 report using such platforms at some point in their lives, according to 2023 data from the Pew Research Center. 

So when someone is banned from a prominent dating app, the effects — both perceived and in practice — are real. "Dating apps have become the single most common way that people meet in the U.S.," says Sharabi. "And so if somebody is getting banned from a dating app, that can seem like a minor thing, but it's actually quite a big deal. It's the equivalent of getting kicked out of the most popular club in town where everyone's meeting and you're now no longer allowed to enter."

Karma says getting banned from Hinge left her feeling uneasy. She says her experience with meeting people on Hinge, compared to other apps in India, was a positive one. "We can always meet new people at social events but Hinge was a very convenient way to do that," she says. 

"It's the equivalent of getting kicked out of the most popular club in town where everyone's meeting and you're now no longer allowed to enter." - Associate professor at Arizona State University, Liesel Sharabi

Mimi, similarly, says that she didn't think the ban would be "that big of a deal" at first. "But when you're out there on weekends, trying to meet people, that's when you realize it's simply not how it's done anymore," she tells Mashable. "The easiest way [to meet someone] is to do it digitally." 

"I think being banned from these apps definitely has social ramifications," Mimi says. 

Sharabi says that these bans can be scary for people, especially those who have been reliant on them in the past. "I think for people that are single and looking to date, there can be this feeling that they have to be on the apps to be successful," she explains. She also says that this dependence on apps begs the question of social utility: "They're providing a pretty essential service to people."

However, she senses a potential shift on the horizon. Sharabi mentions the onset of AI and its effects on dating, with its potential to improve the dating app landscape. She suggests that AI could help apps "reconfigure how they're matching people and re-examine how they're helping people form relationships." For users, AI has been increasingly wielded to help write profiles or craft messages. But she also says young people are leaning toward surrendering apps entirely to meet people face-to-face. But, as the numbers suggest, apps are still not going anywhere — and can't be ruled out. 

Mimi is one example: someone caught between exploring the world of online dating and wanting to forge connections outside of these platforms. She says she would love to meet someone in person now. "That's the dream, isn't it?"

* Names changed for privacy.

TL;DR: The NanoPhone is a credit-card-sized smartphone that barely takes up space while keeping you connected, and right now it’s only $89.97 through June 1.

Opens in a new window Credit: NanoPhone NanoPhone $89.97
$199.99 Save $110.02 A Miniaturized Smartphone Packed with Mega Features Get Deal

Trying to cut down on your screen time? How about your screen size? The NanoPhone is a miniaturized smartphone with all the perks of your device in a credit card-size frame. And right now, one can be yours for just $89.97 (reg. $199.99) through June 1.

This tiny smartphone actually fits in your pocket

Whether you’re trying to minimize your doomscrolling or simply be more present in daily life, smartphones make cutting back on screen time a challenge. Unfortunately, we’re all tethered to these tiny computers, which help us stay connected with loved ones, tackle work tasks, capture memories on camera, and unwind after a long day with our favorite apps.

The NanoPhone aims to let you do all of those things on a smaller scale. This credit-card-sized smartphone is fully functional, offering 4G and WiFi connectivity, the ability to make calls, video chat and take photos with the front and rear cameras, stream videos, use apps, and much more.

There’s no extra data plan needed — you can use your existing SIM card in the NanoPhone. Pop it in and take the NanoPhone along for nights out, gym sessions, or just keep it as an emergency backup phone.

Bluetooth capabilities make it easy to connect to your wireless headphones or a smartwatch. The lengthy battery life ensures you’re not hunting down a charger all day. And despite the compact size, the NanoPhone is a durable device meant to withstand everyday wear and tear.

Secure your own NanoPhone for only $89.97, $110 off the usual price, now through June 1.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

TL;DR: Through May 11, Skoove Premium piano lessons are on sale for $119.99 (reg. $299.99). You’ll get a lifetime of piano lessons, ear training, and more.

Opens in a new window Credit: Skoove Skoove Premium Piano Lessons: Lifetime Subscription $119.99
$299.99 Save $180 Get Deal

Always wanted to learn piano, but never found the time — or the right way to start? Private lessons can get expensive fast, and syncing your schedule with an instructor week after week is a whole challenge in itself. Sure, YouTube is free, but it’s also overwhelming and usually lacks the structure needed to stay motivated and make real progress…or the answers you need when you’re confused about a technique.

That’s where Skoove Premium steps in. It offers a smarter way to learn piano, blending personalized guidance with the convenience of learning at home. And right now, you can score lifetime access for just $119.99 (reg. $299.99) — but only through May 11.

Skoove’s interactive platform uses AI to actually listen to your piano-playing and give real-time feedback — you won’t just be following (or flailing) along, either. You could improve your piano skills with every session. You’ll have access to more than 400 step-by-step lessons across all genres, from hits by Adele and The Beatles to classical pieces by Beethoven and Mozart. Plus, you can reach out to real instructors for one-on-one help when you need it.

New songs and lessons drop every month, so the content stays fresh and you’ll always look forward to learning a new tune. Plus, you won’t ever have to pay recurring fees for Skoove. Once you pay the upfront fee, your lessons and instruction are available forever, which might just give you that extra motivation to stick with it and actually follow through on your piano goals.

If you’ve been waiting for the right time and the right method to start learning piano, this is it. You have until May 11 at 11:59 p.m. PT to grab this Skoove Premium lifetime subscription for $119.99 — that’s 60% off the normal price. Act while supplies last.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT are getting a whole lot smarter, a whole lot more natural, and a whole lot more…human-like. It makes sense — humans are the ones creating the large language models that underpin AI chatbots' systems, after all. But as these tools get better at "reasoning" and mimicking human speech, are they smart enough yet to pass the Turing Test?

For decades, the Turing Test has been held up as a key benchmark in machine intelligence. Now, researchers are actually putting LLMs like ChatGPT to the test. If ChatGPT can pass, the accomplishment would be a major milestone in AI development.

So, can ChatGPT pass the Turing Test? According to some researchers, yes. However, the results aren't entirely definitive. The Turing Test isn't a simple pass/fail, which means the results aren't really black and white. Besides, even if ChatGPT could pass the Turing Test, that may not really tell us how “human” an LLM really is.

Let's break it down.

What is the Turing Test?

The concept of the Turing Test is actually pretty simple.

The test was originally proposed by British mathematician Alan Turing, the father of modern computer science and a hero to nerds around the world. In 1949 or 1950, he proposed the Imitation Game — a test for machine intelligence that has since been named for him. The Turing Test involves a human judge having a conversation with both a human and a machine without knowing which one is which (or who is who, if you believe in AGI). If the judge can't tell which one is the machine and which one is the human, the machine passes the Turing Test. In a research context, the test is performed many times with multiple judges.

Of course, the test can't necessarily determine if a large language model is actually as smart as a human (or smarter) — just if it’s able to pass for a human.

Do LLMs really think like us? 

Large language models, of course, do not have a brain, consciousness, or world model. They're not aware of their own existence. They also lack true opinions or beliefs.

Instead, large language models are trained on massive datasets of information — books, internet articles, documents, transcripts. When text is inputted by a user, the AI model uses its "reasoning" to determine the most likely meaning and intent of the input. Then, the model generates a response.

At the most basic level, LLMs are word prediction engines. Using their vast training data, they calculate probabilities for the first “token” (usually a single word) of the response using their vocabulary. They repeat this process until a complete response is generated. That's an oversimplification, of course, but let's keep it simple: LLMs generate responses to input based on probability and statistics. So, the response of an LLM is based on mathematics, not an actual understanding of the world.

So, no, LLMs don't actually think in any sense of the word.

What do the studies say about ChatGPT and the Turing Test? Joseph Maldonado / Mashable Composite by Rene Ramos Credit: Mashable

There have been quite a few studies to determine if ChatGPT has passed the Turing test, and many of them have had positive findings. That's why some computer scientists argue that, yes, large language models like GPT-4 and GPT-4.5 can now pass the famous Turing Test. 

Most tests focus on OpenAI's GPT-4 model, the one that's used by most ChatGPT users. Using that model, a study from UC San Diego found that in many cases, human judges were unable to distinguish GPT-4 from a human. In the study, GPT-4 was judged to be a human 54% of the time. However, this still lagged behind actual humans, who were judged to be human 67% of the time.

Then, GPT-4.5 was released, and the UC San Diego researchers performed the study again. This time, the large language model was identified as human 73% of the time, outperforming actual humans. The test also found that Meta’s LLaMa-3.1-405B was able to pass the test.

Other studies outside of UC San Diego have also given GPT passing grades, too. A 2024 University of Reading study of GPT-4 had the model create answers for take-home assessments for undergraduate courses. The test graders weren't told about the experiment, and they only flagged one of 33 entries. ChatGPT received above-average grades with the other 32 entries. 

So, are these studies definitive? Not quite. Some critics (and there are a lot of them) say these research studies aren't as impressive as they seem. That's why we aren't ready to definitively say that ChatGPT passes the Turing Test.

We can say that while previous-gen LLMs like GPT-4 sometimes passed the Turing test, passing grades are becoming more common as LLMs get more advanced. And as cutting-edge models like GPT-4.5 come out, we’re fast headed toward models that can easily pass the Turing Test every time.

OpenAI itself certainly envisions a world in which it's impossible to tell human from AI. That's why OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has invested in a human verification project with an eyeball-scanning machine called The Orb.

What does ChatGPT itself say?

We decided to ask ChatGPT if it could pass the Turing Test, and it told us yes, with the same caveats we've already discussed. When we posed the question, "Can ChatGPT pass the Turing Test?" to the AI chatbot (using the 4o model), it told us, "ChatGPT can pass the Turing Test in some scenarios, but not reliably or universally." The chatbot concluded, "It might pass the Turing Test with an average user under casual conditions, but a determined and thoughtful interrogator could almost always unmask it."

AI-generated image. Credit: OpenAI The limitations of the Turing Test

Some computer scientists now believe the Turing test is outdated, and that it's not all that helpful in judging large language models. Gary Marcus, an American psychologist, cognitive scientist, author, and popular AI prognosticator, summed it up best in a recent blog post, where he wrote, “as I (and many others) have said for years, the Turing Test is a test of human gullibility, not a test of intelligence."

It's also worth keeping in mind that the Turing Test is more about the perception of intelligence rather than actual intelligence. That's an important distinction. A model like ChatGPT 4o might be able to pass simply by mimicking human speech. Not only that, but whether or not a large language model passes the test will vary depending on the topic and the tester. ChatGPT could easily ape small talk, but it could struggle with conversations that require true emotional intelligence. Not only that, but modern AI systems are used for much more than chatting, especially as we head toward a world of agentic AI.

None of that is to say that the Turing Test is irrelevant. It's a neat historical benchmark, and it's certainly interesting that large language models are able to pass it. But the Turing Test is hardly the gold-standard benchmark of machine intelligence. What would a better benchmark look like? That's a whole other can of worms that we'll have to save for another story.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Forget James Bond, Jason Bourne, or Ethan Hunt. The secret agent at the heart of the Josh Hartnett-fronted Fight or Flight has more in common with Austin Powers or Brad Pitt's put-upon mercenary from Bullet Train, as he is highly skilled, hilariously eccentric, and nowhere near as suave as he thinks he is. 

Directed by James Madigan and written by Brooks McLaren (How It Ends) and D.J. Cotrona, Fight or Flight brings spiky fun to its espionage thriller framework by filling a fancy plane with contract killers, each brandishing their own set of skills, specialty weapons, and aesthetic quirks. With the madcap energy of Snakes on a Plane, Fight or Flight centers on one world-weary man-of-action who wants no part of the mayhem, but must master it to survive. 

SEE ALSO: Summer Movie Preview: What's coming to theaters and streaming?

The resulting melee is outrageous, fun, and surprising, yet it is mostly confined to a cramped, sky-high cabin. 

Fight or Flight is a spy comedy full of action. Charithra Chandran as Isha in "Fight or Flight." Credit: Vertical

Disgraced and disavowed, former American operative Lucas Reyes (Hartnett) has been living in hiding, and he's worse for wear. Introduced as scruffy, bedraggled, and day-drunk, he looks like he can barely handle his shift on a pedicab, much less sweep in to covertly recover a top-secret asset from an international flight. But when former colleague Katherine Brunt (an icy Katee Sackhoff) calls with a mission that could redeem him, how can he say no? 

Katherine needs Lucas to find "The Ghost," a "black hat terrorist" who's been suspected of destabilizing governments through corporate intrusion. This mysterious figure is on the run after an explosive collision with U.S. ops. And the closest agent they have to The Ghost's escape route is the down-and-out Lucas, so he's sent in to snag The Ghost alive. There are just a few problems. For one, no one knows what The Ghost looks like. So even a well-meaning flight attendant like Isha (Bridgerton's Charithra Chandran) is at a loss as to how to help. And two, Lucas isn't the only hired gun hunting this notorious Ghost. So, he'll not only have to capture his target, but also keep The Ghost alive as a fleet of assassins reveal themselves. 

Josh Hartnett crushes stunts and slapstick in Fight or Flight.  Credit: Vertical

Where Lucas may once have been a smooth operator in the field, he's become a messy drunkard who has no interest in doing this wet work sober. Champagne, whiskey, frog venom — you put it in front of Lucas, he'll give it a go. And this means his fighting style has a goofy looseness, whether he's going hand-to-hand in a spacious first-class bathroom, facing off against a cat-eyed killer (Nóra Trokán) in the aisles, or in full-on battle mode, using improvised tools and other passengers as weapons. 

SEE ALSO: How to watch 'Black Bag' right now: The sexy spy thriller comes to streaming

With the help of a crack stunt team, Hartnett tackles most of these stunts himself. This means his face is front and center during much of the chaotic action, allowing him to mug in comic dismay, rage, or surprise for the camera. And as was hinted in Trap, Hartnett has a terrifically twisted sense of humor. Here it runs free as Lucas bumbles from one comically bloody confrontation to another and into a drug trip that turns reality into rainbows and fireworks, while his reality is much more fountains of gore. 

Surrounding his discombobulated hero are a cavalcade of killers who have little time to develop character. Instead, odd bits of business like dancing, details like facial tattoos or strange contact lenses, or costumes of martial artist robes signify a wider world of distinctive operatives. Fight or Flight doesn't have the time or inclination to get as into its world-building as the John Wick franchise or even Bullet Train, as most of the foes Lucas faces will be ejected from the plot after their first fight with him. Still, the supporting cast has a collective verve that suits Hartnett's chaotic energy, allowing the flow to be fast, furious, and entertaining. 

Katee Sackhoff and Julian Kostov play U.S. agents in "Fight or Flight." Credit: Vertical

When on the plane, Fight or Flight delivers claustrophobic thrills, serving up exciting action built on sharp fight choreography and mindful use of every airplane in-flight element you could imagine. Biting banters — mostly between loopy Lucas and the annoyed Isha — keep the fun flying. Admittedly, Madigan struggles keeping the action on the ground — where Katherine delivers exposition with a snarling colleague (Julian Kostov) — as propulsive. But props to Sackoff, who brings intensity to everything, be it efficient plot point delivery or a hissed insult at a group of strangers meditating loudly in a public park. Beyond elevating such requisites of plot and genre, she smartly creates a foil to Lucas. Katherine, who is almost absurdly stern, is what Lucas might have been had he not flared out years back. That makes his bonkers attitude feel like a bit of a victory, a freedom from spy stuffiness that we get to enjoy vicariously — without the inevitable hangover. 

In the end, sure, Fight or Flight is not as richly built as Austin Powers movies or even Bullet Train, which got soap operatic in its characters and their connections. But it's deliriously fun, satisfying our craving for madcap mayhem, outrageous action, goofy gore, and Hartnett going ham. I mean, this is a movie where a disavowed spy fires up a chainsaw on an airplane in flight. Get on board, or be bored elsewhere. 

Fight or Flight opens in theaters May 9.

There are moments in life that break us to pieces, but not quickly, like a hammer hitting a vase — in a slow but unavoidable way, like a crack in a window. It's only a matter of time before the glass will give way, leaving you wrecked and wide open to a world that keeps on moving regardless. Sharp Corner is about such a moment, where an inexplicable event slowly shatters the psyche of an average family man who previously thought himself content. 

Written by Jason Buxton and Russell Wangersky, Sharp Corner is a lean but gripping psychological thriller than explores fear, anxiety, and how a societal double standard can leave men in a unique disadvantage when it comes to processing trauma. So who better to headline this movie than Ben Foster? This American actor has delved powerfully into these themes in previous roles, such as the wild-card brother of Hell or High Water, the anti-social father of Leave No Trace, and the hardened soldier of The Messenger. 

Ben Foster plays a father in crisis in Sharp Corner.  Credit: Elevation Pictures

Mild-mannered, middle-aged Josh McCall (Foster) is a loving partner to his intellectual wife Rachel Davis-McCall (High School's Cobie Smulders) and a playful parent to his young son Max (William Kosovic). Their first night in their new home in suburban Canada, Josh gently tucks his kid into bed, assuring him that there's nothing to fear in this unfamiliar setting. Next, Josh and his wife christen the living room with some hasty but spirited sex. But then disaster strikes. 

Before the opening title card even hits the screen, a car's tire flies through the big display window, shattering glass and shooting past Rachel's head before landing with a terrifying thud. A car has crashed dramatically in their lawn. While Rachel races to soothe their crying child, Josh stands looking out the window, pantless and powerless, his bare ass facing us while he gazes upon a horrifying new reality. 

Everyone in the family is dealing with this shocking incident in their own ways. Rachel avoids conversation around it and buries herself in caring for her child, who is finding bits of busted reflector as he plays in the yard. But this leaves Josh with no one to talk to about his fears. He had considered himself the family's protector, but it was only dumb luck they too weren't hurt that night. So, Sharp Corner follows his slow-burn quest to reclaim a sense of control, first through understanding the cause of the accident, then by educating himself on life-saving tools like CPR. But more fatal crashes on the titular turn make this increasingly difficult, pushing Josh into disturbing behaviors to reclaim his identity.

Sharp Corner's deep-set empathy makes its horrors hit harder.  Credit: Elevation Pictures

Often, when media discusses toxic masculinity, they're addressing macho men who refuse to acknowledge their own emotions. Ben is not that guy. He's desperate to talk about what happened, but he can't find a place where he feels safe to do so. His wife doesn't want to hear it. His friends aren't prepared to go from wine recommendations to trauma-dumping, and he doesn't trust a stoic psychiatrist, who has a dog named Drake.

So, like a lot of people grappling with anxiety and post-traumatic distress, Josh throws himself into action. He creates projects to prevent further crashes, and when that fails, he is desperate to be prepared to save a life when the need arises. Maybe that can restore his sense of self? Maybe that can save his family from falling apart? Foster's nuanced performance — tension rippling under his skin and need gleaming through his eyes — makes this terror feel at once extraordinary and achingly common. 

Yet as empathetic as Sharp Corner is, binding us to Josh in moments he can't share with anyone, it doesn't paint his wife as an uncaring nag or a cliched villain. She too is grappling with this jolting realization, not only that their dream home is a suburban nightmare but also that death can be random, and stupid, and on your front lawn over and over. Though hers is a much smaller role, Smulders comfortably shoulders the character work of Rachel, her careful words hitting with precision. Her tone shifts from direct and annoyed, when the two adults are alone, to guarded yet cutting when they're with their son. Together, they create a couple that feels real — and really on the brink of splitting up.

Sharp Corner packs a punch without packing in gore.

The script is crisply realized, keenly charting Josh's downward spiral as he surrenders everything to his desperate need to reclaim a sense of power in a world that's made him feel impotent and futile. Buxton, who also directs, wisely trusts in Foster and Smulders to ground the film's drama. It helps he keeps the home's aesthetic clean and cozy in cool blues and grays, so the carnage outside — with its streaks of yellow dome lights and red reflectors and blood — is all the more jarring. Yet the deaths are largely off-screen, or when they're shown, are done so with a mindfulness towards graphic bodily harm.

Buxton isn't seeking to sensationalize these moments. He gives us just enough to understand why Josh can't shake them. So, we too struggle to focus as others talk to him about mundane things like school pick-up and work assignments. But how far would we walk in his shoes? That's the terrifying question Sharp Corner asks in a third act that is ruthlessly plotted. 

Focused so intently on the inner turmoil of its ego-ravaged hero, Sharp Corner is leanly executed. But Buxton and Wangersky seems to lose faith in their audience in the second act, offering a sequence where a psychiatrist basically spells out what Josh is going through (though she's not knowingly talking about him). Despite this detour, the finale regains momentum. Ultimately, a smart premise is poignantly brought to life by Foster and Smulders, making for a psychological thriller that is nerve-rattlingly tense and a family drama that is unapologetically gutting.

Sharp Corner was reviewed out of its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. It is now in theaters.

UPDATE: May. 8, 2025, 12:26 p.m. EDT This review was first published on Sept. 6, 2024, as part of Mashable's coverage of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. It has been updated to reflect its theatrical premiere.

Winning an Academy Award may be the peak of an actor's career, not only because they are honored by an iconic gold statue in front of their gussied-up peers and a worldwide TV audience, but because the Oscar curse might come for them soon after. This bit of Hollywood superstition declares that after the heady high of an Oscar win, many an actor will suffer either a personal scandal, a box office bomb, or an inexplicable dry spell in casting. Now, you might well scoff at the idea of an Oscar curse, but Love Hurts, which co-stars recent Oscar winners Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once) and Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) could make you believe.

On its surface, Quan's casting in Love Hurts seems a no-brainer, as it capitalizes on what the child star turned leading man brought to the Best Picture–winning Everything Everywhere All At Once: the superb ability to perform character and comedy through stunt scenes. That DeBose, who dazzled as the passionate Anita in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, was cast as his co-star, should have been gravy. However, this action-comedy set on Valentine's Day is a catastrophic mess of fight scenes, quirky characters, and an aggravating lack of vision from first-time director Jonathan Eusebio. 

Good action isn't enough to make Love Hurts work.  Credit: Universal Pictures

Quan stars as Marvin Gable, a real estate agent with a gleeful determination to find the perfect home for his client. However, before he was regional realtor of the year (a certificated honor of which he is comically proud), Marvin was a hitman for his suave but merciless boba tea-swigging brother Knuckles (American Born Chinese's Daniel Wu). The past he happily left behind comes back to bite him in the foxy form of Rose Carlisle (DeBose), the one that got away. And by that, I mean she is both the love of his life and the hit he faked to save her life. Back with a vengeance, Rose wants Knuckles and his crew to pay for trying to off her, but Marvin just wants to keep his cozy life — and his co-workers and clients — safe from his brother's wrath. Much violence ensues.

To the credit of stunt coordinator turned director Eusebio, Love Hurts' fight scenes are varied and amusing. There's hand-to-hand combat, knife throwing, gunfights, and domestic improvisational weapons like cookie cutters and a set of wall ornaments shaped like a giant fork and spoon. Further whimsy is woven in through motivation. While the assassins sent after Rose and Marvin are out for blood, Marvin just wants to get away — ideally with his crush and his treasured certificate intact. Props to the stunt team led by Can Aydin, the shift between actors and stunt doubles is pretty seamless. The actors' faces embrace the film's wacky tone with big expressions of shock, pain, and excitement as they battle, which is mirrored in the physicality throughout. 

Featured Video For You 'The Fall Guy' stunt team's favorite stunts from the film

The blows hit convincingly, and gruesomely. Coming from Nobody and Violent Night's producer David Leitch, Love Hurts shares those action offerings' thirst for blood. And just as I found the broad comedy and gore jarring in those movies, it hits oddly here. One moment, you've got Sean Astin (in a charming Goonies reunion) delivering a heart-warming speech about the power of second chances, and in the next, Eusebio hits audiences with a grisly murder in close-up, with a visual gag that is gag-worthy. After the spirited dildo fight and overall embrace of weirdness and warmth of Everything Everywhere All At Once, this kind of violence feels a bit like a sucker punch. 

Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose deserve better.  Credit: Universal Pictures

As he did in Everything Everywhere All At Once, Quan is given the chance to play different iterations of Marvin. The foremost is the redeemed realtor, who is full of good advice and love for his fellow man. But in flashbacks, we see a mustachioed Marvin, whose physicality is not loose and light but hard and intimidating. There's a thrill in seeing Quan transform, as he did in the swooning alley-set scene in Everything Everywhere All At Once. But the script by Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard, and Luke Passmore only offers us a taste of this enticing transformation. So much of Love Hurts feels like a thin variant on the role that won Quan the Oscar. Why watch this when a better version of this movie is already streaming?

As for DeBose, this is the latest in a string of post-Oscar win duds, which includes Disney's cringingly synergizing Wish, the dunderheaded spy comedy Argylle, and Sony's latest Spider-Man spinoff flop Kraven: The Hunter. (No shade to the indie horror thriller House of Spoils — it slaps.) In Love Hurts, as in Kraven and Argylle, she plays a stylish badass, who has incredible skills but remains a sidekick to the hero. To DeBose's credit in Love Hurts, she tries to make the most out of a character who is a clumsy amalgamation of clichés pulled from film noir, blaxploitation flicks, and gangster movies. As Rose, she has a convincing swagger and a mischievous glint in her eye. But neither Quan nor DeBose can elevate a script that feels achingly like an early draft, peppered with too many paper-thin characters, obvious twists, and a final reveal that's so out of nowhere one might assume a whole subplot got sloppily scrapped.

SEE ALSO: Ariana DeBose and the 'House of Spoils' cast on why they call it a "haunted fairytale."

The film moves at a relentless pace, but not in terms of generating tension. Loaded with voiceover — from both Marvin and Rose — there's barely a moment without exposition-dumping, dialogue, or fight sounds. It's as if the filmmakers so fear the audience will lose interest that they can't allow any emotional beats the space to actually land. This undercuts not only the headliners but also a supporting cast that shines with promise. Among them, Lio Tipton thrills as a millennial realtor going through a hilarious existential crisis, while Mustafa Shakir proves swoon-worthy as a poetic hitman called the Raven. Astin brings a reliable warmth and aforementioned speeches as a cowboy-hatted friend of Marvin's. Drew Scott kicks into action as a rival realtor with a hero complex, and Marshawn Lynch brings back that wild card Bottoms energy as another determined hitman. But you can feel the desperation of the filmmakers when he screams out his real life nickname — "Beast Mode" — while barreling into action.

Indeed, the whole third act feels like it was written in post-production. Much of the finale dialogue between the warring brothers happens when the person speaking is not facing the camera, suggesting an aggressive use of ADR (additional dialogue recording). This a big red flag that Love Hurts lost its way in the making, and little wonder that tonally the movie is all over the place, scene to scene, moment to moment. Even at 83 minutes, it's a slog due to the aching lack of cohesion. Still, any good actor can make a bad movie. So why bring the Oscar curse into it? Well, because there's an element of the Oscar curse that's too often overlooked. 

Hollywood still doesn't know what to do with actors of color. 

DeBose, who is Afro-Latina, went from playing arguably the most iconic Latina role in Hollywood cinema (shout out to the first Oscar–winning Anita, Rita Moreno) to playing a string of "strong female" sidekicks. The moxie she showed in West Wide Story, the passion displayed in her Oscar acceptance speech, and the whimsy she delivered in her infamous BAFTA rap, should have opened a floodgate of leading roles for her, as her range was clear. But instead we get Kraven and Love Hurts. 

With his Everything Everywhere All At Once promotional campaign, Quan reclaimed the hearts of movie fans, some of whom saw him first as the dynamic kid sidekick Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. We cheered for his rousing comeback, thrilled when he got cast on Loki. But for his first leading man turn post-Oscar, it's deeply disappointing that this is all he gets. Sure, it could have been capitalizing on what we loved about that role. Here he gets to do comedy, action, and romance. But for all their charms, Quan and DeBose have zero sexual chemistry, so their characters' insistence that they are madly in love always rings hollow.

The whole film works this way, offering spectacle but no depth. So while Love Hurts delivers bursts of thrills and fun, it is overall a mind-numbing miss. 

Love Hurts is now streaming on Peacock.

UPDATE: May. 8, 2025, 12:49 p.m. EDT This review was first published on Feb. 6, 2025. It has been updated for its streaming debut.

The Roman Catholic Church elected its new pope on Thursday, with the conclave selecting American Cardinal Robert Prevost, henceforth known as Pope Leo XIV. And like friends investigating their bestie's new boyfriend, the internet is already digging through the pope's old social media posts.

SEE ALSO: Pope Francis warned against new technology replacing 'human relationships' in final weeks

Pope Leo XIV opened his X account @drprevost in August 2011, back when the social media platform was still known as Twitter. However, rather than pen his own posts, Pope Leo XIV overwhelmingly preferred sharing other people's posts, links to external articles, and the occasional Catholic-themed meme. Of the few posts he appears to have written himself, many merely record administrative events, whether in his professional life or more broadly within the Catholic Church.

However, we can still glean a lot from what the new pontiff chose to share.

Pope Leo XIV is pro-life This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

The first post strongly indicating Pope Leo XIV's attitude toward a political issue came in 2012. That February, the then-Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine appeared to share a petition calling for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to scrap its requirement that Catholic employers provide their workers with healthcare insurance plans which include birth control. 

The petition ultimately garnered 29,127 signatures. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that employers could enjoy an exemption from the HHS' requirement on religious and moral grounds.

Pope Leo XIV's views on abortion appear to have remained unchanged in 2016, when he shared an article in which pro-life voters blamed Hillary Clinton's election defeat on her pro-choice stance. The next year, he shared articles from the religious publication Catholic News Agency (CNA), which reported on then-U.S. vice president Mike Pence and New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan's comments at a pro-life rally.

The freshly minted pontiff also shared an article from CNA reporting on allegations that doctors conducting abortions were selling fetal tissue and endorsing infantcide. Though not mentioned in the article, an investigation by media watchdog Media Matters for America found that the undercover video giving rise to these claims had been deceptively edited and taken out of context.

Pope Leo XIV is pro-immigrant rights This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Though he apparently shares Pence's views on abortion, this doesn't mean Pope Leo XIV is wholeheartedly supportive of President Donald Trump's administration. The pope has long expressed disapproval of Trump's immigration policies in particular.

One of Pope Leo XIV's old X posts which has gained significant attention dates back to when Trump was campaigning. In August 2015, Pope Leo XIV shared a Washington Post opinion piece from Dolan entitled, "Why Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is so problematic."

"I am not in the business of telling people what candidates they should support or who deserves their vote," wrote Dolan. "But as a Catholic, I take seriously the Bible’s teaching that we are to welcome the stranger, one of the most frequently mentioned moral imperatives in both the Old and New Testament."

Then shortly after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Pope Leo XIV shared a speech by Archbishop José H. Gomez acknowledging that Trump's win left many immigrants fearful.

"This should not be happening in America," said Gomez. "We are better people than this. We should not accept that this is the best we can hope for — in our politics or in ourselves."

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Then in 2017, Pope Leo XIV shared several posts condemning U.S. bans on refugees. He further shared statements from Gomez calling for immigration reform, speaking against deportation of undocumented people, and stating that the U.S. government's "ongoing failure to address the immigration crisis is a humanitarian tragedy."

"There is nothing remotely Christian, American, or morally defensible about a policy that takes children away from their parents and warehouses them in cages," Cardinal Blase J. Cupich wrote in a post Pope Leo XIV shared in 2018, referring to Trump's widely criticised policy of separating immigrant children from their parents. "This is being carried out in our name and the shame is on us all."

The pontiff further shared articles examining his predecessor Pope Francis' letter to U.S. bishops on immigration, and criticising J.D. Vance's statement on Fox News that "you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that prioritize the rest of the world."

"J.D. Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others," read the headline for a National Catholic Reporter article shared by the new pope. 

As of writing, the most recent update on Pope Leo XIV's X account is a repost sharing an article in the Catholic Standard by Bishop Evelio Menjivar, which condemns the U.S. government's recent treatment of immigrants and refugees.

"Do you not see the suffering…?" wrote Menjivar. Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?

Pope Leo XIV is for gun control This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

The pope also seems to support gun control. In the wake of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting, Pope Leo XIV shared a statement from Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, which called for "increased access to mental health care and stronger, sensible gun control laws."

Pope Leo XIV also shared a post by Democratic senator Chris Murphy, who wrote, "To my colleagues: your cowardice to act cannot be whitewashed by thoughts and prayers. None of this ends unless we do something to stop it."

Pope Leo XIV is against racism This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Pope Leo XIV also took to X to condemn racism mere days after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in May 2020. The murder sparked global protests against racism and police brutality, and widespread support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

In one of his rare self-penned X posts, Pope Leo XIV wrote, "We need to hear more from leaders in the Church, to reject racism and seek justice." 

He also shared posts expressing support for Floyd's family and condemning racism.

Pope Leo XIV is for vaccines and masks Credit: Francesco Sforza - Vatican Media via Vatican Pool / Getty Images

The pope continued posting on X during the COVID-19 pandemic, posting news of mask donations in Peru. He also displayed a sense of humour when he shared a comedic TikTok skit about social distancing.

More significantly, in 2021 Pope Leo XIV shared a post from Gomez stating, "May God grant us the grace to face #COVID19 with the strength of faith, ensuring that vaccines are available for all, so that we can all get immunized."

Pope Leo XIV believes in climate change This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

While the pope hasn't made many posts about climate change on X, he isn't completely silent on the matter. In November 2015, Pope Leo XIV called for followers to sign a climate petition organised by the Global Catholic Climate Movement, which has since been renamed to the Laudato Si' Movement. This organisation advocates for non-proliferation and divestment from fossil fuels, as well as the protection of biodiversity.

Pope Leo XIV opposes the death penalty and euthanasia This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Another issue Pope Leo XIV touched on in his X posts was the death penalty. The pope took a strong stance against capital punishment in March 2015, writing, "It's time to end the death penalty."

He also doesn't seem to be a big fan of euthanasia, sharing an article in 2016 which reported on Belgium citizens who advocated against Canada legalising the practice. Canada legalised medical assistance in dying later that year. 

Pope Leo XIV might share some of Pope Francis' progressive philosophy This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Exactly how closely Pope Leo XIV will follow in Pope Francis' footsteps is still yet to be seen. However, a few of his X posts indicate he may be sympathetic to some of his predecessor's progressive views. In 2016, Pope Leo XIV shared a talk by Pope Francis in which he stated that God's law "was not drawn up to enslave us but to set us free," and that rigid adherence to it "isn't a gift of God."

Later sharing guidance that Pope Francis issued to bishops in 2021, Pope Leo XIV added that "These beatitudes also highlight the temptations faced by bishops, like that of seeking power and a comfortable lifestyle."

Another hint at what we might expect from Pope Leo XIV's papacy may be found in a 2015 article he shared from Huffpost. In it, author Kerry Weber discussed the future of the Catholic Church, and suggested how it might retain younger Catholics. This included supporting women in leadership roles; putting more emphasis on a global, diverse church; and making more of an effort to listen to younger Catholics.

Much of Pope Leo XIV's activity on X is years old, so it's possible that some of his opinions may have changed over time. Merely sharing an article also doesn't necessarily denote agreement with absolutely everything in it, and looking solely at the new pope's X activity still leaves many questions and gaps. Still, examining Pope Leo XIV's digital footprint certainly offers interesting clues as to what the Catholic Church might look like under its new leader.

SAVE OVER $200: As of May 9, the Apple MacBook Pro (M4 Chip, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD Storage) is on sale for $1,322.02 at Amazon. This deal saves you 14% on list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple MacBook Pro (M4 Chip, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Storage) $1,322.02 at Amazon
$1,599 Save $276.98 Get Deal

Something wonderful is happening to the Apple M4 chip. We're seeing deals on MacBooks, Mac Minis, and MacBook Pros, with some models falling to record-low prices. What a time to be alive!

As of May 9, the Apple MacBook Pro (M4 Chip, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Storage) is on sale for $1,322.02 at Amazon. This deal saves you 17% on list price, and represents the lowest-ever price on Amazon according to tracker camelcamelcamel. It literally doesn't get any better than this, so if you've been patiently waiting for your moment to invest in this powerhouse, this is it.

SEE ALSO: Best MacBooks of 2025: Which MacBook should you buy?

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 chip offers stunning levels of performance in a machine that's primed for Apple Intelligence. Users get all-day battery life and an impressive Liquid Retina XDR display with up to 1600 nits peak brightness. In our review, Kimberly Gedeon said the "M4 MacBook Pro wows with endurance-defying battery life and stellar performance, allowing Apple to reclaim its throne." In short, we liked it.

Pick up the Apple MacBook Pro for its lowest-ever price at Amazon.

Connections: Sports Edition is a new version of the popular New York Times word game that seeks to test the knowledge of sports fans.

Like the original Connections, the game is all about finding the "common threads between words." And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we've served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today's puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for the latest Connections solution. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable What is Connections Sports Edition?

The NYT's latest daily word game has launched in association with The Athletic, the New York Times property that provides the publication's sports coverage. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there's only one correct answer.

If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

Here's a hint for today's Connections Sports Edition categories

Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

• Yellow: Sportswear

• Green: Ballpark backups

• Blue: Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, etc.

  Purple: Hockey achievements

Featured Video For You Connections: How to play and how to win Here are today's Connections Sports Edition categories

Need a little extra help? Today's connections fall into the following categories:

• Yellow: Athletic clothing brands

• Green: Baseball relief roles

• Blue: Men's tennis players

• Purple: NHL Awards

Looking for Wordle today? Here's the answer to today's Wordle.

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today's puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to today's Connections Sports Edition #228 is...

What is the answer to Connections Sports Edition today

• Athletic clothing brands - CHAMPION, RUSSELL ATHLETIC, STARTER, UNDER ARMOUR

• Baseball relief roles - CLOSER, LONG, MIDDLE, SETUP

• Men's tennis players - ALCARAZ, FRITZ, RUNE, SINNER

• NHL Awards- CALDER, HART, LADY BYNG, VEZINA

Don't feel down if you didn't manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we'll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to today's Connections.

The Mini is a bite-sized version of The New York Times' revered daily crossword. While the crossword is a lengthier experience that requires both knowledge and patience to complete, The Mini is an entirely different vibe.

With only a handful of clues to answer, the daily puzzle doubles as a speed-running test for many who play it.

So, when a tricky clue disrupts a player's flow, it can be frustrating! If you find yourself stumped playing The Mini — much like with Wordle and Connections — we have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable

Here are the clues and answers to NYT's The Mini for Friday, May 9, 2025:

AcrossHumpty Dumpty, in many illustrations

• The answer is Egg.

Cartoon bear who wears a red shirt and no pants

• The answer is Pooh.

Collection of world maps

• The answer is Atlas.

Counterpart of "adios"

• The answer is Hola.

[See circled letters]

• The answer is Wow.

DownClean water org.

• The answer is EPA.

Subculture with black clothing

• The answer is Goth.

"When they ___ ..." (start of a memorable Michelle Obama line)

• The answer is GoLow.

Angel topper

• The answer is Halo.

It has sharp teeth

• The answer is Saw.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Featured Video For You The Wordle Strategy used by the New York Times' Head of Games

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to today's Mini Crossword.

TL;DR: Grab Microsoft Office 2024 Home and Business for PC or Mac for just £120.54 through June 1.

Opens in a new window Credit: InterPlein Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business for Mac or PC Lifetime License £120.54
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You wouldn’t keep paying for Netflix if you could own your favorite shows, right? So why are you still subscribing to Office apps you use every day? Microsoft 365’s price keeps going up, but there’s finally a way to break free — and it'll cost you way less in the long run.

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The newest version of Microsoft Office is a little different from Microsoft 365. But just because you're switching to a lifetime license doesn't mean you'll miss out on some of the most recent updates. Word and Excel both still have AI integrations for text suggestions and smart data analysis, and PowerPoint still has improved tools for recorded presentations. 

Once you've redeemed your purchase, you can install your apps on one computer. After that, they're yours to use however you want. No more subscription fees or sudden price hikes to worry about. 

Why rent when you can own? 

Get a Microsoft Office lifetime license on sale for £120.54 with no coupon needed.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Mother figures are the backbone of the world. Yours may be your biological mother, or maybe she's your mother-in-law, your best friend's mom, or simply someone whose motherly instinct has helped you through hard times.

Moms teach you the adulting necessities, give advice even if the problem is your fault, and above all, they put up with your shit and (almost) never complain.

The game plan here isn't just to snag the last bouquet at CVS just so you're not the kid who forgot Mother's Day (but definitely also get flowers). And you don't even need to spend a lot of money. (Peep our list of Mother's Day gifts that cost less than $50. Want even more cheap gift ideas?

SEE ALSO: The best gifts for her

Skip the generic mugs and show your appreciation with a gift picked just for her: Whether it's something to make a part of her life easier, something she's mentioned wanting in passing, or simply something to make her feel like a damn queen, you can't put a price on everything she's done for you, but heartfelt gifts certainly help.

After all, they say "No matter how hard you try, you always end up like your mother." But is that even a bad thing?

We can all agree that moms and mother figures deserve the world. But realistically, very few of us can afford to gift ours the diamond necklace or island getaway she's worthy of unwrapping this Mother's Day.

Is that an excuse to just send Mom a gift card from the grocery store checkout line and call it a day? Not in the slightest. (Don't even think about it.)

SEE ALSO: Best Mother's Day gifts: Show mom some love

Read on for more than 20 inexpensive but thoughtful Mother's Day gift ideas under $50 that will make her feel special without breaking the bank, including several products recommended to us by our own moms and mom friends.

If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.

There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it'll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.

An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.

If you find yourself stuck at any step of today's Hurdle, don't worry! We have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Hurdle: Everything you need to know to find the answers Hurdle Word 1 hint

Tourist attraction in Venice and Amsterdam.

SEE ALSO: Apple’s new M3 MacBook Air is $300 off at Amazon. And yes, I’m tempted. Hurdle Word 1 answer

CANAL

Hurdle Word 2 hint

Lively.

SEE ALSO: Wordle today: Answer, hints for May 9, 2025 Hurdle Word 2 Answer

PERKY

Hurdle Word 3 hint

To accumulate over time.

SEE ALSO: NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for May 9 SEE ALSO: NYT Connections hints today: Clues, answers for May 9, 2025 Hurdle Word 3 answer

AMASS

Hurdle Word 4 hint

Felt in the back or neck after a bad night's sleep.

SEE ALSO: NYT Strands hints, answers for May 9 Hurdle Word 4 answer

CRICK

Final Hurdle hint

A kind of beer.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Games available on Mashable Hurdle Word 5 answer

LAGER

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Thanks to President Donald Trump's tariffs, we've seen a lot of price increases in the tech world. And today, some outlets reported that Microsoft is increasing prices on some of its Surface devices.

We're not so sure.

Yes, the $999.99 base configurations of Microsoft's 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 and 13-inch Surface Pro 11 disappeared from its online store this week after the company unveiled two smaller and cheaper Surface devices. The two flagship Copilot+ PCs now start at $1,199.99 in the Microsoft Store, causing several tech publications to report 20-percent price hikes. And to be fair, Microsoft did recently increase the price of Xbox gaming consoles.

However, Microsoft tells Mashable the price of its base Surface Laptop and Pro hasn't changed after all.

"Microsoft did not raise Surface Pro or Surface Laptop prices," Nancie Gaskill, Microsoft's General Manager of Surface Business, said in a statement to Mashable. "Microsoft simply removed the Surface Laptop and Pro $999 base models from Microsoft.com. Customers can purchase base models of Pro and Laptop at the starting price of $999 at other key retailers."

SEE ALSO: Microsoft reveals 2 compact Surface devices starting well under $1,000

At the time of writing, shoppers could buy them for even less: The base models of both devices were on sale for $200 off at Best Buy.

Why the markup in the Microsoft Store, then? Look closely at the specs in their listings: The $1,199.99 Surface Laptop and Pro that Microsoft is selling have a 10-core Snapdragon X Plus processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage, while the $999.99 base models available elsewhere have half the storage (just 256GB).

So, the prices haven't changed; the company is simply no longer selling the lesser configurations.

It's also worth noting that both 512GB models have held steady at $1,199.99 since launching in June 2024.

Microsoft's newly announced 13-inch Surface Laptop and 12-inch Surface Pro are slightly cheaper alternatives to their flagship counterparts, with starting prices of $899.99 and $799.99, respectively. They're available for preorder in the Microsoft Store and beyond.

Some laptop manufacturers have raised their prices because of President Donald Trump's tariffs on imported Chinese goods. Asus previously told Mashable that some of its laptops saw tariff-related price hikes of up to nine percent. But Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs have been marked safe for now.

Other Microsoft products haven't been so lucky. On May 1, the tech giant announced that it was raising the recommended retail prices of its Xbox consoles and controllers, and that new first-party games would debut at $79.99 later this year. It attributed the price changes to "market conditions and the rising cost of development."

Digital resurrection projects — using artificial intelligence to bring back the likeness of people who have died — have become a trend for at least two years. And, as AI gets more advanced, so do the resurrections.

Most recently, Stacey Wales used AI to generate a video of her late brother, Christopher Pelkey, to address the courtroom at the sentencing hearing for the man who killed him in a road rage incident in Chandler, Arizona. According to NPR, its the first time AI has ever been used in this way.

"He doesn't get a say. He doesn't get a chance to speak," Wales told NPR, referring to her brother. "We can't let that happen. We have to give him a voice."

Pelkey was a veteran who served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army, according to an online obituary. He was also heavily involved in his local church, and he went on multiple mission trips. His sister told NPR that he loved God, loved others, and would give a stranger the shirt off his back. He was 37 when he died.

Wales created the AI video of her brother in a few days, but she didn't come up with the idea immediately. After two years of trying to craft a victim impact statement, Wales said she had the epiphany that the only voice that mattered was her late brother's.

"Every time I'd get in the shower or the car and my thoughts were quiet, I wrote down what I was feeling — frustrated, crying or emotions, yelling, anger, love, anything that I could think of," she told NBC News. "I've been writing it for two years, but I never had the idea to help Chris speak until a week and a half before this second trial."

Wales also posted the AI video of her brother online, and you can watch the same video shown in the courtroom.

SEE ALSO: AI deepfakes bring back the voices of gun violence victims. They're still begging Congress for change.

"Hello. Just to be clear for everyone seeing this, I'm a version of Chris Pelkey recreated through AI that uses my picture and my voice profile," the AI avatar said in the video. AI Pelkey thanked everyone in his life, and said he and his shooter, Gabriel Paul Horcasitas, "could have been friends" in "another life."

"Well, I'm gonna go fishing now. Love you all. See you on the other side," AI Pelkey said at the end of the video.

According to NPR, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Todd Lang said, "I loved that AI. Thank you for that." He gave Horcasitas the maximum sentence of just over a decade in prison for manslaughter.

This isn't the first time people have pushed the limits of AI to create versions of people who have died. It's a phenomenon particularly beloved by TikTok true crime fans, as Rolling Stone reported in 2023. And just last year, youth-focused gun reform organizations March For Our Lives and Change the Ref used audio "deepfakes" to "resurrect" gun violence victims in a campaign to Congress.

I love sleeping — getting under the covers and rubbing my feet together like a little cricket before drifting into an easy sleep. Except that last part — drifting into an easy sleep — doesn't always happen for me. As an anxious person with insomnia, falling asleep is a battle. I've spent my lifetime gathering a tool kit of breathing exercises, trying sleep trackers, and developing a routine to combat sleepless nights. While I'm usually good at counting my breaths in my mindfulness practice, the Moonbird device promises to be a personal breathing coach for further relaxation.

Over a few weeks, I tested the Moonbird handheld breathing coach, using it to relax in the evenings or calm down in anxious moments. While it's an effective tool, I'm not sure it's worth the price. Plus, we've got to talk about its... interesting design. Here are all my thoughts on the Moonbird breathing coach.

It's an effective, distraction-free breathing tool Holding your thumb to the Moonbird's sensor automatically starts a new breathing exercise. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

Despite being a tech-based tool, the Moonbird breathing coach is a distraction-free device without any required screen time. To use it, gently shake the device awake and hold it with your thumb resting against the sensor. The device then slowly expands and retracts to signal when you should inhale and exhale. The standard exercise runs for six minutes, and then the device shuts off. If you decide to end the exercise early, take your hand off the sensor, which will shut off after a few moments.

Holding the device is genuinely comforting. The feeling of the smooth silicone expanding and falling emulates the image of a lung expanding or your stomach rising and falling with your breath. What I liked most is that using the device takes the thought out of the exercise. No longer did I need to count the seconds of my breath; instead, I focused on the tactile motions of the device, letting my mind rest.

Plus, I love that the Moonbird has no screen or light. While I enjoy tuning into a meditation app or guided breathing exercise on my phone, I don't love doing so before bed when trying to avoid screen time. With the Moonbird, I hold the device to start the exercise with no blue light exposure. It's also a huge plus when I want to use it in bed. My partner goes to bed much earlier than I do, so I don't want to disturb them with any noise or light when I finally slip into bed. The silent and lightless Moonbird lets me use it without disturbing them.

And the Moonbird does work. One evening after hosting a group of friends for movie night, I was still wired despite feeling exhausted. My brain wouldn't shut off after my evening reading, so I reached for the Moonbird to follow its breath coaching, and before the six-minute exercise was over, I was already drifting off. It proved that it really does come in handy in moments I'd otherwise feel restless.

With the app, get customizable breathing exercises and biometric feedback You can set the duration of any exercise through the app. Credit: Moonbird Have a breathing exercise you like? You can craft it in the Moonbird app. Credit: Moonbird

The Moonbird comes programmed with a standard six-minute breathing exercise, but there are other options. When connected to the Moonbird app, you can adjust the device's settings to other breathing patterns designed for sleep or in the classic box breathing style. There's even an option to create your own breathing program if you have something that already works for you. Custom exercises can range from 2 to 30 minutes. The only downside is that you have to open up your smartphone to do so, defeating the purpose of a screen-free device. I preferred only adjusting the exercises during the day to avoid exposure to nightly screen time.

In addition to other Moonbird settings, the app has a library of educational materials on breathing, stress reduction, and heart rate. When using the app, you also gain access to biometric feedback, such as heart rate, so you can actually see the effects of the Moonbird device.

The Moonbird needs a redesign There's no denying what the Moonbird looks like, but this is no vibrator. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

We've gone this long, it's time to address the elephant in the room. The Moonbird totally looks like a vibrator. My colleagues and I thought so when we first saw the device, and I have touted it to all my friends for their opinions. Let's be clear, despite its looks, it is not a personal massager. While it's silly to acknowledge, its design affects its usage.

There are many situations where I'd love to bring along the Moonbird for some mindfulness on the go, whether coming down from a stressful situation at work or trying to fall asleep while flying. However, I'd be totally embarrassed to bring this on a plane, knowing what it could be misconstrued for.

Moonbird has an alternative design, the Moonbuddy, which is designed for kids and is downright adorable. It doesn't have the same biofeedback or controls as the Moonbird, but I still wish the flagship device would take on a similar design to look less provocative and more appropriate for public use.

The app is buggy and doesn't have a ton to offer

You could use Moonbird without the app and be totally pleased with it, but $199 is a lot of money to spend on just one breathing exercise. Downloading the app unlocks heart rate tracking and a new set of customizable breathing exercises, but the app itself is buggy.

Every time I've gone to open the app, it requires the Moonbird device to reconnect to the app, which takes a few seconds and is a real pain. Plus, it has a limited library of knowledge compared to apps like Headspace or Calm, so while the accompanying app is an added bonus, it doesn't add much value to the Moonbird's $199 price tag.

Is the Moonbird worth it? If you're in desperate need of a distraction-free breathing tool, then the Moonbird might be worth it. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

The Moonbird might be worth it if you want a distraction-free breathing tool. It is effective and takes the thinking out of your breathing exercise, but other devices with similar functionality cost a lot less. We recently tested the Dodow, a light-based breathing device, which we thought was expensive at $60. Considering the Moonbird is $199, it's hard to justify its cost when it has a design we're skeptical of — and one you can't use in public.

However, the Moonbird's screen-free design is a huge boon. If you've tried meditation apps, tired of their screen time, and want a silent, distraction-free alternative, the Moonbird might be a worthwhile investment.