Latest news with #GrimReaper
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
Oldham chief saved club after rowing Atlantic solo as Latics bid for EFL return
In the battle of clubs who beat the Grim Reaper, fearless eccentric Frank Rothwell reveals rowing 3,000 miles across the Big Pond and scaling Africa's tallest peak were simple exercises compared with his rescue mission at Oldham Athletic People's champion Frank Rothwell is an intrepid eccentric who has rowed solo across the Atlantic twice in his seventies and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. But saving Oldham Athletic from oblivion has been his toughest gig - and now he is 90 minutes away from his rescue act's crowning glory. If they climb back into the Football League at Sunday's National League play-off final against Southend, in a battle of clubs who beat the Grim Reaper, it will be Oldham's first promotion for 34 years since the giddy days of Joe Royle's management. When the Latics chairman bought Oldham and adjoining land around Boundary Park for £12 million three years ago, he led a brass band down Sheepfoot Lane to the ground in a triumphal march - and he's been calling the tune ever since. Footage of Rothwell, in his flat cap, thanking all 399 travelling supporters for making a long-haul excursion to Braintree just before Christmas with a handshake almost broke the internet. A glorious snapshot of a chairman and his flock on the same page. It's a far cry from the dark days of unlamented previous owner Abdallah Lemsagam's chaotic reign, culminating in coffins being carried to mark the death of the club, pitch invasions, boycotts and games being halted by cascades of tennis balls. And the 22,000 Latics fans making the pilgrimage to Wembley - where their hearts were broken by Mark Hughes' last-gasp equaliser for Manchester United in an FA Cup semi-final on their last visit in 1994 - will contain a special contingent. 'Most men of my age have a bucket list of things to do before the sun sets, but I haven't got one - I've been lucky in business, lucky in love and lucky in life,' said Rothwell. 'The only thing I want to do with the rest of my days is help to make Oldham a better place for everybody, and that doesn't just mean taking our football club back into the League. 'We have a 30 per cent population of Asian heritage, and in the past either they have not embraced Oldham Athletic or, for one reason or another, the faces in our crowds have not been an accurate reflection of the town's community. But at Wembley, we will have two coachloads of supporters from a group called the Banglatics - new supporters from Bangladeshi origins - how cool is that? Just imagine if they spread the word and bring their friends next time. 'We are breaking down barriers in our town. Oldham Athletic is going to be a force for unity. The mayor is coming to Wembley, and our former manager John Sheridan is going to be sitting behind the goal with the punters, it's going to be magic.' Rothwell has the common touch, like buying £20 worth of raffle tickets at a pre-season friendly with Barrow and handing them to a young girl attending the game with her grandmother. When the draw was made, she won £287. But it hasn't all been handshakes and a magic touch with raffles. Climbing Africa's highest peak and rowing 3,000 miles across the Big Pond were a piece of cake compared with the shell of a club he inherited. 'Getting Oldham Athletic back on its feet has been the hardest one by far,' he said. 'The place was feeling a bit sorry for itself and its very existence was on the line. We were so close to extinction the coroner was on standby. When you climb up Kilimanjaro, how fast can you walk? Only as fast as the slowest member of your group. 'When you are rowing across the Atlantic, is it difficult? Yes, but I've done it twice, so it can't be that difficult. Is it dangerous? Yes, it's a bit dangerous if the boat rolls over and you get thrown into the sea. That happened to me, and I lost my heat and glasses, but if you prepare for these things, it's not a big deal. You think of everything that could go wrong and you have it covered. 'If you're awake, you don't rest. You are either rowing, eating or sleeping. You mix your Pot Noodles with cold water - leave it for 20 minutes and the consistency is no different - and that's all there is to it. Lifting a football club out of hard times is much more difficult because you are not in control of everything. 'There had been no maintenance on the ground for goodness knows how long, so one of the first things we did was to bring in 200 kerbs and make it easier to come down the steps in the main stand. And the very first thing we did was to install a prayer room in the ground. If we want to attract more people of Asian heritage, we have to make sure they are catered for.' Micky Mellon's side have breezed through the play-offs so far, wiping out Halifax 4-0 and winning 3-0 at York, whose 96 points in the regular league season counted for nothing in the end. Fortunately, the wet wipes who tried to cap both Oldham and Southend's ticket allocations at 17,500 each because Wembley Park Tube station will be closed have seen sense and raised the capacity to 50,000 fans. Extra trains will be running to Wembley Stadium and Wembley Central stations, but the ill-timed engineering works on the Underground will bring convoys of extra coaches descending on Wembley. How does that square with the Mayor of London's net zero agenda? And what did they make of the kerfuffle across town at Twickenham, where they regularly host 80,000 crowds at rugby internationals at a venue served by only one station? Rothwell radiates positivity and is convinced a happy ending to a fraught week is imminent. 'I know nothing about football,' he claimed. 'I'm not an expert, but I employ experts. That's how you get on.'
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Final Destination' Franchise Should Be the Next One Brutally Killed
The Final Destination franchise has always demanded tremendous suspension of disbelief. It asks viewers to accept that Death is not just an invisible force (versus a physical entity), but one that can kill its prey solely through elaborate Rube Goldberg-like cause-and-effect accidents—rather than by, say, immediately striking them down with lightning or having the ground beneath their feet give way. It imagines the Grim Reaper as a clownishly powerless specter that can only do its job via the most convoluted means conceivable, and that tack continues with Final Destination Bloodlines, a sixth installment, now in theaters, that concerns doomed kids trying to escape overly complicated plans whose prime inspiration seems to be the classic board game Mouse Trap. Few horror series boast less internal logic than Final Destination, whose rules don't hold up to the slightest scrutiny, and that remains true with Bloodlines. As befitting its predecessors' lack of attention to detail, Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein's sequel opens in an unspecified 1960s locale where Iris (Brec Bassinger) and Paul (Max Lloyd-Jones) attend the grand opening of the Skyview Tower, whose restaurant provides a vertiginous view of the surrounding area. Iris reacts nervously to every little thing that happens around her, all of which is depicted with italicized ominousness. It's not long before random incidents—a penny caught in a ventilator fan; a glass dance floor cracking under the weight of revelers; bolts flying out of support beams—conspire to create catastrophe, with everyone ultimately plummeting to their deaths, including Iris and Paul, who moments earlier had gotten engaged after Iris revealed that she was pregnant. Bloodlines' opener strives for cleverness but its deadly domino-effect structure is so tired that it fails to surprise. There's similarly no shock to learn that it's not real; instead, it's a recurring dream that's plaguing college student Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana). Since Iris is the name of Stefani's estranged grandmother, she heads home to research the woman. There, she's greeted warmly by dad Marty (Tinpo Lee) and given the cold shoulder by brother Charlie (Teo Briones), who blames her for ignoring him in the same way that their mom Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt) abandoned them years earlier. Pressing her uncle Howard (Alex Zahara) doesn't get her anywhere, although her aunt Brenda (April Telek) tips her off to Iris' location—a remote woodland cabin that, Stefani discovers, is shielded by castle-like defenses. After cautiously letting Stefani into her makeshift fortress, Iris (Gabrielle Rose) relays that Stefani's dream is actually the exact same premonition she had all those many years ago—a vision that allowed her to save the Skyview gala's attendees from their dire fate. Bloodlines never explains why Iris received this magical forewarning, nor why Stefani would begin experiencing it once Iris heard that she was dying of cancer; it's just one of many plot points that Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor's script (based on a story by Jon Watts) expects audiences to accept without a thought. Iris tells Stefani that, for the past six decades, Death has killed everyone who was supposed to perish in the Skyview calamity, as well as their offspring. Recognizing that Stefani is next on the kill list (apparently, Death works slowly when it comes to make-up slayings), the grandma gives the girl a handy manual on avoiding Death before suffering a predictably gruesome end. Stefani thus endeavors to protect her loved ones, who naturally don't buy what she's selling—at least until Howard gets a lawnmower to the face in a sequence that has plentiful complications and fake-outs but little invention. Worse, Bloodlines doesn't have the courage of its own ghastly convictions, cutting away swiftly from Howard's fate and setting up a should-be gnarly scene—in which cousin Erik (Richard Harmon), at his tattoo parlor, gets his nose ring caught in a chain that's coiling around a ceiling fan—and then skirting the teased payoff. The rest of the film's fatalities are of a ho-hum variety, orchestrated with by-the-numbers cheekiness and undercut by annoying characters who aren't missed once they're gone. Stefani eventually tracks down Iris' foreboding buddy William Bludworth (Tony Todd), who fills in the requisite procedural gaps for the heroine, making clear that cheating Death is doable by either killing someone (which grants the murderer their victims' remaining years) or dying and being resuscitated, which breaks the cursed chain. Doing the latter is the lone legitimate option for these goody-goodies, and harder than it sounds, as proven by a prolonged bit in a hospital where nut allergy-afflicted cousin Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) tries to end his life and, for his troubles, winds up suffering nastiness in a magnetized MRI room. In this and other set pieces, Lipovsky and Stein's attempts at misdirection fall flat, both because they're obvious and because the franchise dictates that, at best, merely one or two fortunate souls will survive. 'When you f--- with Death, things get messy,' intones Bludworth, and that notion extends to Final Destination Bloodlines itself, whose every perilous step is sloppy. Lipovsky and Stein elicit not a single solid performance from their cast, and their tale's twists are illogical even by the material's established guidelines. Stefani sees the future when it's narratively convenient and is blind to what's coming when it's not, and the proceedings' shortcuts progressively mount until everything feels as shaky as the giant backyard Jenga game enjoyed by Stefani's barbequing family. In his portentous cameo, the late Todd reminds viewers why he was a genre icon. Otherwise, though, the film is inert, regardless of the fact that it's chockablock with crises initiated by items falling down, tipping over, and bumping into each other. From the start, the Final Destination movies have been a cute idea incapable of supporting a feature-long story, much less an extended mythology, and Bloodlines is no different. Stefani's quest to maintain her (and her relatives') pulse is marked by the usual array of near misses and splattery casualties, all of them the result of intricate ruses that make Death come across as a feeble lame-o that smites through silliness. Uninterested in being scary, it's just a cartoonish rollercoaster ride devoid of a genuinely sick sense of humor.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Time for Scary Movies to Make Us Laugh Again
Final Destination, as a horror franchise, is known for its reliable results. Each of its first five movies begins with someone having a premonition of a terrible disaster (a plane crash, a highway pileup, a roller-coaster accident), persuading a group to avoid it, and then spending the rest of the movie dodging the Grim Reaper, who seeks to collect the souls he lost. Death exists in these films as an amorphous concept; there's no cloaked villain carrying a scythe. Instead, the characters keep finding themselves in implausibly dangerous situations, where a procession of coincidences might lead to them getting squished, impaled, or otherwise maimed. Death is, in many ways, a comforting villain for a slasher series. It's not malevolent like the Freddys and Jasons of the genre; rather, it's goofily irresistible, a fated force that insists on smooshing a meathead in the face with his own gym equipment. It also mirrors the tone of the Final Destination saga, which follows a consistent, if slightly repetitive, formula. Sure, the fourth movie leans on 3-D photography (it was hot at the time), and the fifth reveals itself to be a surprise prequel to the first. The plot beats of the installments are always the same, however: A plucky-if-whiny group of young people comes to the realization that they cannot forever outrun the specter of doom. I learned that Final Destination was returning, after a 14-year break, when I saw a trailer for it at the theater. It showcased one of many set pieces in the film: As a surly tattoo-parlor employee closes up shop, terrible things start to happen—his piercings get caught on a chain that's attached to a spinning fan; flammable cleaning fluid starts to leak everywhere. I felt my fellow theatergoers have the same shudder of recognition that I did. Oh, an inexplicable Rube Goldberg machine of death? This is Final Destination! It must be back! [Read: A movie that has fun with the inevitability of death] Back it certainly is, with Final Destination: Bloodlines. There were reasons to be skeptical of its quality; the co-directors, Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, for instance, were perhaps previously best known for making a live-action Kim Possible movie for the Disney Channel. Reviving mothballed horror classics—à la the failed Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street reboots—is also a practice with a shaky track record. Yet Bloodlines is a total delight; it's also arguably the best of the series because of an added soupçon of self-awareness. The film begins, as usual, with a vision of cataclysm: a Space Needle–esque building that both collapses and explodes. Instead of taking place in the modern day, as is typical of Final Destination films, this disaster happened in 1968—and is later revealed to be a vision that a woman named Iris Campbell had decades prior. In stopping the accident, Iris delayed the deaths of hundreds, who then perished over the decades. When Bloodlines begins, she's lived in seclusion for years, having doomed her descendants by cheating death herself. The living members of the Campbell family, by all accounts, should never have been born—giving the plot an intense timeline for them to deal with, as they come to realize that Iris's actions have now caught up with them. The well-established stakes help the story speed through the most boring part of the Final Destination schematic, where people refuse to believe the supernatural madness befalling them and then grow progressively more convinced of it as the body count rises. Maybe this premise sounds like pseudo-philosophical fiddle-faddle. But what I love most about Final Destination is the absence of heavy, heady themes that have pervaded the horror genre of late: Rarely does a modern scary movie encourage the audience to laugh, or leave behind some especially frightening image that can amuse as much as haunt them. Not so in the Final Destination films, in which people die in the most outlandish fashion and are, at best, afforded a five-second funeral scene; maybe one family member gets a comforting pat on the back. There's a sinful sort of glee in watching all of this unfold, knowing that the same mournful character might be the next one to die. Iris even lays out the exact order in which everyone will go and the sort of hazards to look out for, which means the protagonists second-guess their every step to a Looney Tunes–level extent. [Read: The triumph of a film that flips on us halfway in] Essentially, it's fun to have a horror movie you can cheer during. The packed audience in my theater clapped and applauded as the deaths became gradually more absurd (in particular, I tip my cap to the oldest stuntperson to ever be set on fire on-screen). If Scream revived the slasher in the 1990s with its clever meta storytelling, Final Destination helped bring back the proper amusement park vibe for the genre, jolting the viewers every few minutes with a gory surprise that had them screaming and giggling at the same time. Bloodlines is well plotted and brilliantly grisly, but most important, it knows how to enjoy itself. I'd say that having fun, more than anything, is what people are seeking from the communal cinematic experience. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Time for Scary Movies to Make Us Laugh Again
Final Destination, as a horror franchise, is known for its reliable results. Each of its first five movies begins with someone having a premonition of a terrible disaster (a plane crash, a highway pileup, a roller-coaster accident), persuading a group to avoid it, and then spending the rest of the movie dodging the Grim Reaper, who seeks to collect the souls he lost. Death exists in these films as an amorphous concept; there's no cloaked villain carrying a scythe. Instead, the characters keep finding themselves in implausibly dangerous situations, where a procession of coincidences might lead to them getting squished, impaled, or otherwise maimed. Death is, in many ways, a comforting villain for a slasher series. It's not malevolent like the Freddys and Jasons of the genre; rather, it's goofily irresistible, a fated force that insists on smooshing a meathead in the face with his own gym equipment. It also mirrors the tone of the Final Destination saga, which follows a consistent, if slightly repetitive, formula. Sure, the fourth movie leans on 3-D photography (it was hot at the time), and the fifth reveals itself to be a surprise prequel to the first. The plot beats of the installments are always the same, however: A plucky-if-whiny group of young people comes to the realization that they cannot forever outrun the specter of doom. I learned that Final Destination was returning, after a 14-year break, when I saw a trailer for it at the theater. It showcased one of many set pieces in the film: As a surly tattoo-parlor employee closes up shop, terrible things start to happen—his piercings get caught on a chain that's attached to a spinning fan; flammable cleaning fluid starts to leak everywhere. I felt my fellow theatergoers have the same shudder of recognition that I did. Oh, an inexplicable Rube Goldberg machine of death? This is Final Destination! It must be back! Back it certainly is, with Final Destination: Bloodlines. There were reasons to be skeptical of its quality; the co-directors, Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, for instance, were perhaps previously best known for making a live-action Kim Possible movie for the Disney Channel. Reviving mothballed horror classics—à la the failed Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street reboots—is also a practice with a shaky track record. Yet Bloodlines is a total delight; it's also arguably the best of the series because of an added soupçon of self-awareness. The film begins, as usual, with a vision of cataclysm: a Space Needle–esque building that both collapses and explodes. Instead of taking place in the modern day, as is typical of Final Destination films, this disaster happened in 1968—and is later revealed to be a vision that a woman named Iris Campbell had decades prior. In stopping the accident, Iris delayed the deaths of hundreds, who then perished over the decades. When Bloodlines begins, she's lived in seclusion for years, having doomed her descendants by cheating death herself. The living members of the Campbell family, by all accounts, should never have been born—giving the plot an intense timeline for them to deal with, as they come to realize that Iris's actions have now caught up with them. The well-established stakes help the story speed through the most boring part of the Final Destination schematic, where people refuse to believe the supernatural madness befalling them and then grow progressively more convinced of it as the body count rises. Maybe this premise sounds like pseudo-philosophical fiddle-faddle. But what I love most about Final Destination is the absence of heavy, heady themes that have pervaded the horror genre of late: Rarely does a modern scary movie encourage the audience to laugh, or leave behind some especially frightening image that can amuse as much as haunt them. Not so in the Final Destination films, in which people die in the most outlandish fashion and are, at best, afforded a five-second funeral scene; maybe one family member gets a comforting pat on the back. There's a sinful sort of glee in watching all of this unfold, knowing that the same mournful character might be the next one to die. Iris even lays out the exact order in which everyone will go and the sort of hazards to look out for, which means the protagonists second-guess their every step to a Looney Tunes –level extent. Essentially, it's fun to have a horror movie you can cheer during. The packed audience in my theater clapped and applauded as the deaths became gradually more absurd (in particular, I tip my cap to the oldest stuntperson to ever be set on fire on-screen). If Scream revived the slasher in the 1990s with its clever meta storytelling, Final Destination helped bring back the proper amusement park vibe for the genre, jolting the viewers every few minutes with a gory surprise that had them screaming and giggling at the same time. Bloodlines is well plotted and brilliantly grisly, but most important, it knows how to enjoy itself. I'd say that having fun, more than anything, is what people are seeking from the communal cinematic experience.
Time of India
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Black Ops 6 Zombies: Grief Mode returns with explosive additions
Image via Treyarch Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies is leveling up once again, and Season 4 is bringing back a fan-favorite mode that players have been requesting for years—Grief mode. But that's just the beginning. From new weapon mods to limited-time modes, there's plenty to be excited about when the update drops on May 29. Let's break down exactly what's coming. Black Ops 6 Zombies Grief Returns With Changes, New Gobblegum, Ammo Mod & So Much More! Season 4 Grief Mode Makes a Comeback Originally introduced in Black Ops 2, Grief mode pits two teams of four players against relentless waves of zombies—and each other. It's not about direct fire between squads. Instead, players battle the undead while trying to sabotage their rivals through clever mechanics like Zone Capture objectives. These create debuffs that make surviving even harder for the opposing team. This competitive PvPvE mode has been absent from the series for over a decade. Now, it's officially returning in Black Ops 6 Season 4, complete with a fresh twist. Welcome to the Arenas Although there aren't any new full-size Zombies maps in this update, Grief mode will introduce 'Arenas'—smaller, specialized sections pulled from existing maps. At launch, players can expect 11 Arenas, including areas from Liberty Falls and Shattered Veil . These condensed battlegrounds keep the action focused and intense, perfectly suited for the high-pressure format of Grief. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trade Bitcoin & Ethereum – No Wallet Needed! IC Markets Start Now Undo New GobbleGums and Explosive Mods Season 4 is also adding three new GobbleGums, each bringing a unique effect to the table: Explosive Flourish: Reload to trigger small explosions around you for two minutes. Flavor Hex : Grants a random Legendary GobbleGum. Rainburps: A quirky option that makes zombies pop with rainbow bubbles upon death for a short time. On the ammo side, the new Shatter Blast Mod turns standard rounds into armor-piercing explosives. Pair that with the new Shatter Blast Augment research path, and you've got even more ways to blow through undead hordes. NO DLC 5!? Grief pay to win!? Black Ops 6 Zombies Season 4 Grief Mode Gameplay Trailer Breakdown COD Fresh Limited-Time Modes and Challenges Two standout LTMs will arrive in this update: Starting Room Survival : You're locked in the starting area of a map. How many rounds can you last? Abomination Challenge : Take on a super-powered variant of the terrifying Abomination in an alternate version of Liberty Falls. For the completionists out there, new Dark Ops Challenges offer exclusive Calling Cards and bonus XP for your efforts. Support Weapon Highlight: Grim Reaper The Grim Reaper joins the arsenal as a support weapon. This semi-automatic launcher is designed for heavy impact, perfect for thinning out clusters of zombies or dealing with elite threats. Final Thoughts Black Ops 6 Zombies Season 4 isn't giving us a new map, but it doesn't need to. The return of Grief mode, the introduction of Arenas, new gear, and creative LTMs make this one of the most dynamic updates the mode has seen in years. Whether you're in it for the competition, the chaos, or the rewards, Season 4 is shaping up to be a must-play for any Zombies fan. May 29 can't come soon enough. Get IPL 2025 match schedules , squads , points table , and live scores for CSK , MI , RCB , KKR , SRH , LSG , DC , GT , PBKS , and RR . Check the latest IPL Orange Cap and Purple Cap standings.
