In 2007, Javier Bardem delivered one of the century’s most chilling performances as Anton Chigurh in “No Country for Old Men.” Nearly two decades later, he’s proved once again he could convincingly play a sociopath, reimagining the vengeful murderer Max Cady on Apple TV+’s hit summer series “Cape Fear.”
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Cady was previously played by Robert Mitchum in 1962 and Robert De Niro in 1991, but the brilliance of Bardem’s performance lies in the long stretches of perceived stillness, heightening the tension of the cat-and-mouse game he plays with the Bowden family, which star Lily Collias described as “a lot of fun” but “sometimes very jarring.”
“We’re playing cat and mouse, and then the cameras turn off, and I still feel like a mouse,” Collias told Variety at the “Cape Fear” finale screening in New York. “And he still feels like Tom from ‘Tom and Jerry.’”
Collias plays Natalie Bowden, the daughter of Anna (Amy Adams) and Tom (Patrick Wilson), two lawyers who Bardem’s Cady blames for his incarceration. After 10 episodes of buildup, the series finale depicts an epic battle in which Cady invades the Bowden’s home, placing Anna and Tom on “trial” for colluding against him and threatening their children.
“[Episode] 10 felt almost like a play,” Collias said. “It was just the family and him in the house, and we were doing the most insane things and laughing so hard off camera. It felt like such a joy that it was actually a beautiful time.”
Before filming one violent sequence in which Cady grabs Natalie by the hair, Collias says Bardem politely apologized in advance and made sure she felt comfortable with the physicality.
“We would go through such weird circumstances, it’s little things that make me still giggle to this day,” Collias said. “In Episode 10, there’s one point where he has to grab me by my hair, and before the scene, he’s like, ‘I’m so sorry, my love. Is it OK if I just — I’m going to grab you like that?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ Then we start rolling and I see this thing coming up to me and I’m like, ‘What the fuck?! Well, OK, that’s your job!’”
When asked about filming the intense finale scenes, Bardem smirked, explaining how he’s learned to lean into the “play” involved with acting as he’s gotten older.
“For me, it’s more about a game,” Bardem said. “You use your imagination to jump in and step out of it. I respect everybody’s process, as long as those processes respect other people’s processes. For me, the fun part is to really be part of a group of people that imagine things that don’t exist, and they create it together based on the fact that it’s all a big lie.” %!s()
Well well well—what a difference, uh, 30 years makes, huh? While the Sony of 2026 is insisting that it should, or must, carry on with the execution of physical media for its forthcoming PlayStation 6, and has backed away from releasing its prestige games on PC, the Sony of 1996 was in a very different mindset.
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Shortly after the release of the original PlayStation, Sony was still so eager to court PC gamers that it took out a 16 page ad supplement in this very magazine to hype up its "PlayStation mega-hits" with "CD-quality audio."
"Sony is just as committed to bringing great games to the PC as they are to creating cutting-edge PlayStation titles," the ad reads, as it explains that storied PC publisher Psygnosis had become a subsidiary of Sony Interactive. "In fact, with all the high-end design work coming out of Sony Interactive, PC gaming may never be the same..."
While many of the games featured throughout the 16 page ad insert are not exactly all-timers, it's fun to look back and see a few closely associated with the PlayStation console, namely WipEout and Twisted Metal, listed for PC. It also promotes a game called Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou as "one of Japan's most popular CD-ROM titles." (Hardcore Gaming 101, by contrast, says "the game wasn't much of a success.)
It's not exactly a gotcha to point out that the Sony of today is no longer talking up CD-ROMs or how awesome its PC games are. But stumbling upon this ad while I was looking at old issues of PC Gamer magazine still made me a bit wistful. It was cool when games came on discs and Sony was still eager enough to court PC gamers that it was boasting about games that "displayed in stunning SVGA with up to 32,768 colors" and "full 360 degree freedom of movement through a 3D world."
Enjoy this look back at a better time—or at least a time when "over 40 huge mazes to explore" was all it took to convince someone to buy your game.
Feed the Machine: New PC Games from Sony Interactive (PC Gamer #20 (US, January 1996)
(Image credit: Future, Sony Interactive)
(Image credit: Future, Sony Interactive)
(Image credit: Future, Sony Interactive)
(Image credit: Future, Sony Interactive)
(Image credit: Future, Sony Interactive)
(Image credit: Future, Sony Interactive)
(Image credit: Future, Sony Interactive)
(Image credit: Future, Sony Interactive)
(Image credit: Future, Sony Interactive)
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.
When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific). %!s()
It’s official: John Galliano has been selected for a career-spanning exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2027.
The move to give Galliano’s work a coveted spotlight in the Met’s Costume Institute — an exhibition that serves as the centerpiece for the annual Met Gala, one of the world’s most watched and obsessed-over red carpet events — makes him the third living designer to receive a solo exhibition at the Met. The honor was previously bestowed upon Yves Saint Laurent (in 1983) and Rei Kawakubo (in 2017).
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That means his entire career, from runway highs to antisemitic lows, will fall into focus at the Met. It will cover the start at his namesake label before he segued to culture-shifting work at Givenchy and later, Dior, where he led the famed house for nearly 15 years as creative director from October 1996 through March 2011. More recently, he has led Maison Margiela from 2014 through 2024.
And it will not shy away from his firing by Dior when video footage surfaced showing an inebriated Galliano making antisemitic remarks in a Paris café. The tirade not only led to a professional downfall and a retreat from public life for approximately two years, Galliano was found guilty by a Paris court of public insults based on religion, race, and ethnicity. He received a fine and was forced to pay damages and court fees. Galliano’s retreat, well-detailed in reports, interviews and a documentary, included meeting with Jewish leaders, rabbis and receiving blessings from groups like the Anti-Defamation League.
Per today’s news — as detailed in a press release and an exclusive report from The New York Times’ Vanessa Friedman — the Met’s exhibition is not meant to present “a conventional narrative of disgrace and redemption” but rather “how aesthetic achievement, ethical accountability and institutional recognition intersect.” In addition to his accountability for the drunken tirade, Galliano has also said recovery has been key to this new chapter of his life after alcoholism and drug addiction caused turmoil in the previous era.
“John Galliano has exerted a profound influence on fashion over the past four decades,” offered Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French director and CEO, in a statement. “His work brings historical inquiry, artistic imagination, theatrical expression and technical experimentation into dynamic relation. Drawing upon the depth of The Costume Institute’s scholarship and the breadth of The Met’s collections, ‘John Galliano: Horizons’ will offer an expansive examination of his creative practice while attending closely to the historical, cultural and ethical circumstances through which his work is understood.”
Per NYT‘s Friedman, the decision did not come easily or expeditiously. She reports that Galliano, Met Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton, Vogue global editorial director Anna Wintour (a longtime Galliano champion), and a “handful of influential rabbis and Jewish leaders in New York City” met for a closed-door meeting in May to discuss the possibility of a Galliano exhibit. Friedman reported that it was “one of several such meetings” held with Jewish leaders over the past year.
According to a press release, Galliano’s exhibit will be divided into three sections, “Bearings,” “Horizons” and “Atlas of Transformation.” It will be accompanied by a catalog penned by Bolton, published by The Met and distributed internationally by Yale University Press.
“Every Galliano collection begins as a journey among things separated by time, place, or medium: portrait and posture, silhouette and story, memory and material,” per Bolton in a press release. “‘Horizons’ approaches fashion as a form of cartography, mapping not territories but affinities, tensions, and transformations. It traces how images become ideas, ideas become material, and material becomes emotion. Yet a horizon reveals not only what lies before us, but also where we stand. The exhibition therefore considers both how Galliano has remapped the world through fashion and how his conduct, its consequences, and changing cultural values have reshaped our understanding of his work.”
Galliano is now designing for Zara under a two-year deal to “re-author the brand’s archive” by “deconstructing and reconfiguring them into new seasonal expressions and creations.” His first collection is expected in September.
Galliano poses with models at his Christian Dior haute couture show in Paris on July 6, 2009.
(Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
Galliano and Charlize Theron at the Met Gala at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 1, 2006.
(Photo by Peter Kramer/Getty Images)
New York state sued prediction market platform Kalshi on Friday, alleging that the company is running an "illegal gambling operation."
In a case filed in a Manhattan state court, the lawsuit claims that Kalshi accepts wagers as a gambling business in disregard for the state's constitution and laws by not being registered with the New York State Gaming Commission.
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"No matter what they call themselves, prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple," said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a press release announcing the lawsuit. "By ignoring our laws, Kalshi is running an illegal operation and harming New Yorkers in the process."
New York Governor Kathy Hochul speaks during the grand opening of the Urban League Empowerment Center by the National Urban League in Harlem in New York City, on Nov. 12, 2025.
Charly Triballeau | AFP | Getty Images
Governor Kathy Hochul in the press release said the state is taking the action to stop what it views as illegal behavior and bring the company into compliance with New York law. The lawsuit is seeking a permanent injunction against Kalshi.
Kalshi, which has its headquarters offices in New York City, expressed disappointment with the decision by the state.
"It's sad to see this type of political theater from the leadership in our own state," a Kalshi spokesperson said in a statement. "States can't just shut down a federally licensed exchange… We love New York, we love New Yorkers, and New Yorkers love our product."
The suit by the state is also seeking a total restitution to users who have placed trades on the platform, a $100,000 penalty for each attempt to offer sports wagering, and another penalty three times the amount the company has gained while allegedly operating in violation of New York law. The state estimates that could total $36 billion.
Kalshi originally sued New York state in October after the state's Gaming Commission sent a cease and desist letter to the company. Earlier this month, a judge for the Southern District of New York denied the company's request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order against the commission.
A supporter checks the gambling site 'Kalshi" just before State Assembly member, Alex Bores (D-NY) gives a speech to supporters at his watch party at The Freehand Hotel after conceding the congressional race to Micah Lasher who will replace Rep Jerry Nadler (D-NY) in NY's 12th Congressional District on June 23, 2026 in New York City.
Laura Brett | Getty Images
The same judge denied a request by Kalshi earlier this month for an injunction pending an appeal.
"It's an unhinged, and extraordinarily egregious piece of lawfare that's designed to shut down not only some aspects of prediction markets but all aspects of prediction markets," said Brian Quintenz, a Kalshi board member, about the latest move by New York in a Friday appearance on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "It's really just an extraordinary piece of overreach from the New York state."
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which sees itself as the federal regulator for prediction markets, filed for a temporary restraining order against enforcement actions by New York just before the state's lawsuit was announced. That comes after the CFTC in April sued the state, requesting a permanent injunction from enforcing its state laws on commission-registered platforms.
"Rather than seek reasoned answers from the courts, Letitia James and New York seek to force an unprecedented sudden shutdown of prediction markets nationwide," CFTC Chairman Michael Selig wrote in a post on X. "The CFTC has already sued to stop this and will continue to defend its jurisdiction."
States across the country are locked in battles with the federal government and platforms over prediction markets, which have seen their volumes surge as their sports-related event contracts have become popular with retail traders.
Kalshi — along with other prediction market platforms — and the CFTC believe all event contracts are swaps, and thus are exclusively regulated by the commission. However, states across the country believe the sports offerings are equivalent to sports betting, which is regulated by them.
44 state attorneys General on Monday sent a letter to the CFTC, claiming that the commission has no right to regulate sports-related event contracts, as part of a public comment period for the agency's first draft of regulations on prediction markets.
In a statement, the American Gaming Association — which has fought the rise of prediction markets across the country to defend traditional casino and gambling interests — praised the lawsuit from New York.
"We applaud the State of New York for taking this important and necessary action today to uphold the rule of law, protect consumers, and defend the nearly 70,000 New York jobs supported by the legal gaming industry," AGA president and CEO Bill Miller said in the statement.
While New York cited Kalshi's sports offering as the reason for its lawsuit, the state also went further. It claims in the lawsuit that the company's elections, culture and some other event contract offerings also put it in contradiction with the state's laws.
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.
The Royal Box is an invite-only "lounge-within-a-lounge" inside Virgin Atlantic's Clubhouse.
Hannah Brandler
Binoculars aren't something I expected to find in an airport lounge.
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But they're part of the experience inside Virgin Atlantic's new invite-only "Royal Box" — an exclusive lounge-within-a-lounge where I spent an afternoon on a plush red sofa sipping a "Drama Queen" cocktail and watching red-tailed jets taxi across London Heathrow Airport.
Hidden behind frosted glass and a velvet rope barrier in the corner of Virgin's Clubhouse lounge, the Royal Box opened at Terminal 3 in March 2026. This is the second location; the first opened in Los Angeles last year.
Virgin's bold red branding was present throughout the Royal Box.
Courtesy of Hannah Brandler
Ahead of a tour of the new space, Virgin Atlantic's vice president of brand and marketing, Sophie Woodford, told me that the Royal Box wasn't created to address overcrowding — a challenge some airlines have faced as more travelers gain access through credit cards and loyalty programs.
Instead, she said, it was designed to meet growing demand for more personalized experiences.
"It's all about creating elevated touch points and making the end-to-end experience more personalized," Woodford said. "Invite-only spaces are just one way of doing that."
While the concept is new to Virgin, it reflects a broader industry trend: Airlines are increasingly using innovative lounges to court deep-pocketed customers amid booming premium travel demand.
The Royal Box was small but well-lit and cozy with plenty of drink and food choices.
Courtesy of Hannah Brandler
Delta has its bougie Delta One Lounge — complete with a sit-down, multi-course restaurant — and Finnair has a "Platinum Corner" within its business-class lounge for top-status flyers. Qantas' invite-only Chairman's Lounge is reserved for high-profile figures, including politicians, CEOs, and celebrities.
Woodford said that although the Royal Box is invite-only, that doesn't mean only VIPs: "Part of the design was for celebrities, but we also use it for other occasions: a birthday, anniversary, or people traveling with Virgin for the first time."
That means anyone with access to the Clubhouse — including Upper Class passengers and top-tier loyalty members of Virgin and its partners — could find themselves inside.
Here's what the Royal Box is like and how to get in.
It felt more like a private club than an airport lounge
The Royal Box, dressed in the brand's bold red color scheme, is quintessential Virgin.
A plush red velvet sofa is wrapped around a custom-made table that opens to reveal coupe glasses, artisan chocolate bars, sweets, and the airline's famous Wilbur and Orville salt-and-pepper shakers.
Known as the "Cabinet of Curiosities," it was designed "to feel like a James Bond table" with secret compartments revealing different treats depending on the customer and occasion, according to Woodford.
Inside the James Bond-inspired table.
Courtesy of Hannah Brandler
"If we know something about you, then we may amp that up and have special touches," she said.
The cocoon-like room makes the most of its limited space by using every windowsill. On one surface, you'll find a Crosley record player with the "Pretty Vacant" vinyl from the Sex Pistols, nodding to the brand's Virgin Records heritage.
If you're more plane-spotter than punk rocker, gilded binoculars with red detailing and a mini telescope allow you to take in the runway views and identify each of Virgin's "Flying Icons" on the aircraft noses.
Virgin provides small binoculars for Royal Box guests to use for plane-spotting.
Courtesy of Hannah Brandler
Shelves in the corner celebrate various forms of royalty.
Front and center is a handwritten note, dated 1993, from Princess Diana to Richard Branson, the cofounder of the Virgin Group.
Framed photos of David Bowie and English fashion designer Vivienne Westwood sit alongside.
The cabinet was filled with memorabilia.
Courtesy of Hannah Brandler
Much like the rest of the Clubhouse, the dining service is à la carte, served in your own private space by a waiter. There's also the option to order via a QR code.
The menu is the same, with the exception of the exclusive Drama Queen cocktail — a pink-hued concoction of tequila, strawberry, lemon, and Champagne — topped with glittering edible flowers.
Guests can also order top-shelf alcohol from the Clubhouse, such as Laurent-Perrier Champagne and Grey Goose vodka, as well as non-alcoholic drinks like soda and tea.
The Drama Queen cocktail was delicious.
Courtesy of Hannah Brandler
You don't have to be famous to earn an invite
The question on everyone's lips is: How can you secure an invite? Woodford said you have as much chance as the next passenger.
While many other lounges reserve such spaces for top-tier members, the Royal Box is designed for a single group of passengers, with no fixed criteria: "We try not to set too hard-and-fast rules," she said.
The invite-only Royal Box sits behind a clouded window and red velvet rope.
Courtesy of Hannah Brandler
Woodford said Virgin intentionally avoids strict rules for the Royal Box because it wants as many people as possible to experience it.
Staff is encouraged to fill the space rather than leave it empty, whether that's to celebrate a special occasion or, in one recent case, give an overwhelmed neurodivergent passenger a quiet place to decompress.
"Obviously, people phone up and request access, but we can't always guarantee it, and nor do we want to," Woodford said. "We don't want it to be an expectation. It's about using it to provide surprise and delight."
Guests can listen to old vinyls.
Courtesy of Hannah Brandler
As airlines continue launching VIP spaces within their larger lounges to elevate their premium standing, they're also restoring the exclusivity that's been lost in overcrowded areas.
When it comes to Virgin, the Royal Box is likely to become a fixture in its Clubhouses, with Woodford hinting that it could join New York's JFK lounge and beyond.
"It's taken on a whole new lease of life and feels like a signature part of the experience now," she said. "It feels like something that should become an ownable and distinct element of what we offer."
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Hannah Brandler
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Hannah Brandler is an award-winning editor and journalist based in London, specializing in travel, business, and hospitality. Her travels have taken her from Paris to Tokyo, interviewing C-suite figures, securing exclusive stories, and occasionally appearing in travel segments on airport TVs. She is editor at large at Business Traveller, and her work has been published in titles such as Skift, 50 Best Discovery, Elite Traveler, and easyJet Traveller. You can find Hannah at hannahbrandler.com or @hannah.brandler on Instagram.
