Vince Vaughn has made a career of playing characters like Bad Monkey’s Andrew Yancy: wisecracking cynics who seamlessly switch between sarcastic one-liners and charming missives. It’s the kind of role Vaughn can play in his sleep, but his crackling performance in this new Apple TV+ series suggests an actor giving maximum effort. Adapted by Bill Lawrence from Carl Hiaasen’s 2013 bestseller of the same name, Bad Monkey sees the co-creator of Ted Lasso and Shrinking gathering another group of misfits and oddballs in an entertaining, if not scattered, crime comedy that kicks off with the discovery of a severed arm with its middle finger extended.

There’s a moment right before the start of a ranked RTS match that’s like nothing else I’ve felt in games, and even in Early Access, Stormgate delivers it. I see my name. I see my opponent’s name. I can feel my own heartbeat, and I take a deep breath. Then I’m looking at a colorful command center and a gaggle of workers, and it’s just me and some random stranger fighting it out for glory or ruin.

In recent years, OnePlus has produced some of the world’s best phones and watches at below-average prices, yet its offerings have remained largely overshadowed by industry giants like Google and Samsung. With 2023’s introduction of the OnePlus Pad, the company proved it could also make arguably the most well-rounded Android tablet on the market, boasting exceptional features at a mid-range price. A year after OnePlus’s first tablet showed up many of its contemporaries, it’s time to see if the new OnePlus Pad 2’s better specs and larger screen help offset the sting of a notably higher price tag.

Watchmen Chapter 1 will be available on digital August 13 and 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on August 27. Nearly 40 years after its initial publication, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen remains a singularly important work in the annals of comic book history. The superhero murder mystery pushed the boundaries of what to expect from the medium, and Hollywood has chased after it ever since. There was Zack Snyder’s fascinating-yet-flawed live-action feature adaptation, Damon Lindelof’s well-regarded HBO miniseries, and a best-left-forgotten motion comic.

Rick and Morty: The Anime premieres Thursday, August 14 at midnight on Adult Swim. Seven seasons in, Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty has defined a specific sense of humor and style: witty, referential humor combined with grotesque sci-fi hijinks. It’s become so recognizable that it’s surprising how well it translates into another genre with its own iconic look – anime. Rick and Morty: The Anime, the series’ first major spinoff, takes the conventions of sci-fi anime – over-the-top fight scenes, slow pacing, and lots of emoting – and chucks Rick, Morty, and their friends and enemies into the mix.

There’s no such thing as a video game adaptation curse, but there are awful video game adaptations. Take Borderlands, for example. Eli Roth’s hideous-as-sin recreation of Gearbox Software’s beloved looter-shooter franchise belongs on the scrap heap. I’d call it “Cosplay: The Movie,” except that’d insult the professional cosplayers who’ve miraculously transformed into Mad Moxxi, Tiny Tina, and other Vault Hunters with award-winning results. Roth’s inexcusably dull, one-dimensional chore of a movie captures none of the creative chaos, exploration, or action-packed hilarity of the games that inspired it.

HBO finance drama goes from good to great. It’s hard to predict when (or if) a cult favorite TV series will make the jump to widely adored, must-watch status. But anyone who invested early in HBO’s dazzling and debauched high-stakes finance drama Industry is due big dividends once its upcoming third season premieres. Newcomers to the offices of Pierpoint & Co., meanwhile, will quickly discover why Industry was moved from its original Monday night timeslot to the hallowed Sunday night spot recently vacated by House of the Dragon.

Reproductive horror is having a moment. Thanks to the likes of Immaculate and The First Omen, stories about people unwittingly or unwillingly birthing supernatural entities are popping up at a rate unseen since their 1970s heyday – undoubtedly tied (as it was then) to the current political climate. But that’s not to say that they’ve become so common they’ve lost all their potency: Cuckoo, the second feature from German director Tilman Singer, both leans into and dissects the hallmarks of this subgenre, to delightfully indelible results.

The Instigators is now streaming on Apple TV+ and playing in select theaters. The Instigators is the first time you could reasonably describe a film as a Damon/Affleck vehicle and then have to clarify which Affleck. Everyone knows the heartwarming story of Matt and Ben, besties from Boston who went on to co-star in movies, co-host a competition show about movies, and co-write an Oscar-winning screenplay. What’s always received less attention is Damon’s on- and offscreen relationship with the other Affleck brother, Casey.