#best horror movies on prime video

[cinearticles]

Two Horror Films to Stream on Prime Video India This October

If you are a fan of horror films, you are in for a treat this October. Prime Video India has announced that it will stream two of the most anticipated horror films of the year: The Exorcist: Believer and Saw X. Both films are sequels to iconic horror franchises that have terrified audiences for decades. Here is what you need to know about these films before you watch them. The Exorcist:…

[nsabuzz]

10+ Sci-fi Horror Movies Like Life

[101now]

20 Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Video (September 2023)

This list is regularly updated as movies rotate on and off of Prime Video. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk. Who wants to be scared tonight? While there are fantastic streaming services dedicated to horror nuts, there’s also a wealth of genre hits and indie darlings on Prime Video. In fact, they have one of the most diverse arrays of horror hits, including films by vets like Tobe…

[shushmal]

There's an incredibly pretty girl at the front desk in Family Video, and Steve—Eddie's boyfriend of eight months—is leaning over the counter with a sly smile and half-lidded eyes.

Eddie pauses in the doorway, struck dumb for a moment as he takes in the scene, and then gleefully ducks down behind the nearest shelf.

"So tell me," Steve says, all low and intimate. "What kind of movie were you looking for?"

"Um," the girl says. She doesn't sound very enthusiastic—barely indulgent at best. Eddie wishes he could see, but any sight of him will ruin Steve's chances right now. He's got a pretty good mental picture though. "I really like those old black and white movies, the really glamorous ones, you know?"

"Oh, totally," Steve sighs, like he's swooning. "Like Cary Grant, Clarke Gabel?" Eddie can practically hear his smirk. "Katharine Hepburn? Ginger Rogers?"

"Oh, I love Ginger Rogers!"

"Really?" Steve says matching her excitement. "Well, you're just in luck! Robin here knows all about those old black and white movies, don't you Robin?"

Eddie presses a hand to his mouth to hide his snickering. Robin had looked like a hooked fish when he'd walked in, she's gotta be gaping stupidly right now. "Uuuh," he hears her mumbling, and tries not to snort too loud. "Y-Yeah, uh, golden age of Hollywood stuff, absolutely. I could? Show you where they are?"

"Oh my gosh, that would be amazing!" the girl says, her interest in the conversation now warmed by several degrees. Eddie is still a little in awe of how well his boyfriend can sniff out gay girls.

"I got the front here, Robin," Steve cuts in smoothly. "You ladies take your time, make sure you pick out a good one!"

Eddie waits another beat, listening at their footsteps shuffle away, before he pops up from behind the shelf. Steve, lighting up like a Christmas tree, beams at him.

"Am I a genius or what?" he whispers, grinning ear to ear.

"Your lesbian powers know no equal," Eddie says just as quietly, taking the girl's spot at the counter, leaning into Steve's space. Steve happily mirrors him, until they're tucked together, the world narrowing down to the two of them. It's Eddie's favorite place to be. "All hail Steve Harrington, blessid he, lesbian whisper. Come to aid all useless queers in the fight against singledom."

"Thank you, thank you," Steve says with an air of novel benevolence. "I promise to only use my powers for good."

"Dingus. Doofus."

They jump away from each other as if shocked. Robin glowers at them both, but the pretty girl behind her is giggling and standing way too close for friendly, just at Robin's elbow.

"Move it, lovebirds," she hisses as she rounds the desk. "I need to check Claire out."

"I think you already have," Steve says. His smile this time is down right evil.

Robin actually hisses at him, and hip checks him away from the register. Eddie does a bow, sweeping his arm out to give Claire the prime spot in front of the desk, before he turns back to Steve.

"My dear, if you could please," he simpers, all posh and nasally. "Show me to your finest, grossest horror movie, thank you my good sir."

"Ugh," Steve groans already heading off into the shelves, not waiting for Eddie to follow. "You're lucky I love you, Ed. Shit gives me nightmares."

"I know," Eddie sings, chasing him. "I love you too."

[no-passaran]

what are your favourite catalan movies?

I'm going to be very mainstream here but I loved Casa en flames (A House On Fire) so much. I think it's the best movie I've seen this year 2024 (not best Catalan movie, I meant best movie of any nationality). Btw, this movie is now available on Netflix with English subtitles! It's a comedy-drama about a family that meets in their holiday home before selling it and all the problems and secrets are brought up, revealing the character's insecurities. It's very well written and shows again how Emma Vilarasau is such an amazing actress.

Another movie I absolutely adored was El mestre que va prometre el mar (The Teacher Who Promised the Sea). I doubted on including this one as Catalan movie or not because it's a Catalan production with a Catalan actor as main character representing a real Catalan man, but the movie is mostly in Spanish since most of the events take part in Spain and not in Catalonia, but I think it still counts. Either way, it's a beautiful movie and definitely my favourite movie of 2023. It's explained from the view of a woman who wants to find out what happened to her grandfather's family and ends up visiting a mass grave being dug up in central Spain (context note: the state of Spain is the 2nd country in the world —after Cambodia— with a highest number of disappeared people because of all the people in mass graves during the civil war and the early years of the dictatorship, thousands of families are still looking for their relatives). It leads her to uncover the real story of Antoni Benaiges, a teacher from Catalonia who was sent to teach in the landlocked Spanish countryside in the early 1930s (pre-Civil War). It's a very heartwarming antifascist story about what a teacher can be, about children's freedom, and a reminder of the importance of historical memory. I really recommend everyone to watch it. (The movie can be streamed in Movistar+ and rented in many other international platforms.)

Other Catalan movies that I liked a lot are La Vampira de Barcelona and Salvador.

La Vampira de Barcelona (The Barcelona Vampiress) (2020) is a thriller with drama and some horror based on the real story of a woman who lived in Raval (poor quarter in Barcelona) who was accused of being a serial killer kidnapping children to use their blood in the early 1900s. I really liked this movie because I think we've all heard the legend but here the filmmakers went for a more historically-accurate version of what happened and how she was used, with a strong social critique, so it was a very interesting take on the story. It talks about very heavy topics though including children kidnapped to be forced to prostitution. (It looks like in some countries it's on Prime Video but I don't know what subtitles or dubbing it has been.)

Salvador (2006) is a biopic showing the events that led the 25-year-old Catalan anarchist Salvador Puig Antich to be sentenced to death in 1974. It's been years since I watched it now, but I remember when I saw it as a teenager it impacted me greatly even though I already knew the story. (The whole movie is on YouTube but without English subtitles, for streaming platforms it's on Filmin but it looks like it doesn't have English subtitles either, but there are downloadable subtitles online.)

[ponett]

Bobby's 2023 Media Wrap-Up

So! Like I said before, this past year I kept a running list of everything I watched, every game I finished, every new album I listened to, etc., and wrote one-paragraph blurbs with my thoughts on every single one. Please enjoy this journey through everything I liked, or didn't like, in 2023, with my favorites of the year listed at the bottom.

(Yes! This is long!!)

Some notes:

I mainly only included things I finished. Exceptions are marked with an asterisk.

I included some YouTube stuff as "TV shows" - mostly particularly long, high effort video essays and documentaries.

I was a bit less adventurous than I'd like to have been this year. Part of this was just that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with Big Releases I felt obligated to check out, and part of this was just executive dysfunction from burnout. Wait until you see how long it took me to beat Mario Wonder lmao

Yes, I need to read more books. I don't read a lot of books these days. I need to get back to Discworld.

COLOR KEY

Video Games • TV / Web Video  •  Movies  •  Comics  •  Music

January

1/15: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (MSQ) - Very slow at times, the Primal shit is generally extremely lame to me outside of the boss fights themselves, but god if the quality of life improvements over WoW, the JRPG energy, and the fact that it Actually Has A Story carry it pretty hard.

1/18: Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island miniseries - One of the most creative and compelling uses of the Sonic IP… ever? Fantastic little self-contained arc about the struggles of Eggman’s abandoned creations that gracefully weaves between heartfelt optimism and moody horror with some of the best art ever seen in a Sonic comic.

1/18: Mega Man X4 - Glad I finally actually beat this after never even beating any of the Mavericks as a kid! I can see why it’s a lot of peoples’ favorites. The gameplay has very little of that X series bloat and is just fun, especially after getting X’s armor upgrades. (But the story really is a long series of missed opportunities.)

February

2/2: Donks - Felix Colgrave continues to be an exceptional artist. The sound design on this is fantastic and really sells this short as something unique. Had to go back and watch his older stuff again after this.

2/4: Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (3.0 - 3.3 MSQ) - I get it now. I get why people say this is just a proper mainline Final Fantasy game built into the framework of an MMO. That shit ruled. Not even walking back the drama in Ul’Dah from the end of ARR can sour me on it because the main storyline was so strong.

2/8: Disneyland's Forgotten Sci-Fi Rock Band - Live From the Space Stage - A nice and honest tribute to a group of artists who could have easily been forgotten. In hindsight this feels like a precursor to Kevin’s Disney Channel jingle video, a tribute to the unsung artists pouring their hearts into “lesser” art for a megacorporation, art that was designed to be transient but sticks with people nonetheless.

2/9: Metroid Prime Remastered* - Not gonna finish because I just played through the Wii version in 2021, but still. Very, very pretty remaster.

2/16: Theatrhythm Final Bar Line - It’s more Theatrhythm. What more could I want

2/17: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean (anime) - Probably the best part of the anime so far (assuming they continue on to SBR). A near perfect mix of the more structured plot of part 5 with the goofiness of parts 3 and 4 that crescendos into a fantastic, bombastic, emotional, bittersweet ending. The use of footage from the original opening and the new ending set to Roundabout in the finale were perfect, and made me intensely nostalgic for the early days of my JoJo fandom between seasons 1 and 2 of the anime.

2/22: Aggretsuko Season 5 - I don’t really know what to make of this one. Once you get past the agonizing initial arc all about Haida where Retsuko has to be his overbearing mommy GF who flips out and starts spying on him when she’s left on read and chides him when he misbehaves, it feels like an improvement over the previous seasons. But I don’t know how much of that is due to the extremely low bar set by season 4. And then the ending is extremely rushed and anticlimactic. They got legally married and the only acknowledgement was a shot of them signing the paperwork in a montage partway through the final episode?????????

2/24: Double Fine PsychOdyssey - God, what a journey the making of this game was. I already loved 2 Player’s past efforts at documenting Double Fine’s process, but this takes it to a whole new level. This feels culturally significant. The depth and honesty with which they depict not just the nitty gritty of making a game, but also the inherent struggles of working on a collaborative creative work for years at a time, is astounding. Not to mention that they were there to capture the shift from office life to remote work as COVID hit. So much of this would have been nightmarishly stressful to watch if I didn’t already know how successful the game was, but that’s just because they really didn’t sugarcoat it. And yet even after all that, it leaves me feeling optimistic about video games as an art form in a way that the constant headlines about cynical live service games don’t. There are still people out there pouring their hearts into making real art, and this is their story. Everyone who plays video games should watch this.

2/25: Cracker Island (Gorillaz) - New Gorillaz albums feel like less of an event these days, but after Humanz it feels like they’re just more chill with the project and their ambitions with it. Every couple years we get some more laid back jams from Damon along with some fun new collabs. Hard to complain. Favorite track: New Gold

2/25: Pool Kids (Pool Kids) - I discovered this band because Derek knows them and was excited when they got a song added to Fortnite through the Bandcamp collab. Always down to find more cool indie rock bands I can vibe with. The mix of dreamy vocals and energetic riffs on some of the tracks here almost fill the Crying-shaped hole in my heart. Almost… Favorite track: Conscious Uncoupling

2/25: Insane in the Rain (insaneintherainmusic) - I thought it was really funny timing when Carlos announced that his first original project would be a jazz fusion album inspired by acts like T-Square and Casiopea right as I was getting into those two specific bands. The final product does not disappoint. Favorite track: Insane in the Rain

2/26: Get Up Sequences Part Two (The Go! Team) - I’ve never been one to believe that a band’s sound has to remain exactly the same forever, but it really does hit you hard that the first two tracks here sound like classic The Go! Team. Their more recent cleaner sound is still here too, though, for a nice mix of old and new. Favorite track: Divebomb

2/28: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 1) - Oh my god. Oh my god. I got distracted around the time I was finishing SLARPG, but finally catching up now, wow. My assumption that the seemingly lighter tone of the series compared to the prologue was there to lull us into a false sense of security before twisting the knife when war finally breaks out was spot on. This is peak Gundam.

March

3/4: Pizza Tower - One of the best platformers I’ve played in a long time. It transcends its blatant Wario Land inspirations with the sheer speed at which Peppino can move and the way things like the level design, his wall running, and even the hidden ability to do a second lap around the level reward getting into a flow state where you’re just constantly moving. This is the type of game that wants to turn you into a speedrunner. My only real complaint is a few iffy enemy designs that I wish would get patched.

3/6: Bloons TD 6 * - I bought this before bed one night on a nostalgic whim and then the next morning woke up and saw the Steam receipt email on my phone in one of the most “what did I do last night” moments of my life. I like when the monkeys pop the balloons.

3/7: The Book of Boba Fett - I put off finishing this show for a very long time but finally caved upon the release of The Mandalorian season 3. This show spends four episodes failing to make me give a shit about Boba Fett trying to be “the daimyo” and drive the drug trade off of Tatooine, then just gives up and becomes season 2.5 of Mando, which in turn feels like it undercuts the main series. It fails as both its own story and as a spinoff. I know that finishing this after Andor did it no favors, but WHOOF.

3/12: Obi-Wan Kenobi - Some interesting ideas in the first half hinting at a more introspective show, but it’s mostly swept aside in the back half so it can become a generic Star Wars adventure remixing things from A New Hope and Rebels (and apparently Jedi: Fallen Order). Action scenes have zero stakes because you know nothing can happen to any of the returning characters and none of the new ones are particularly interesting. Why there’s a second climax hinging on a Luke Skywalker death fakeout eludes me. Obi-Wan throwing the rocks at Vader is one of the funniest things in Star Wars history. But it was still better than Book of Boba Fett, I guess.

3/19: The King of Braves GaoGaiGar - Wow, cool robot indeed… GaoGaiGar isn’t going to blow anyone away with its writing, but sometimes you just need a really fun monster of the week mecha show with great action and lovably goofy characters. This is a show where like 20% of every episode consists of recycled transformation, combination, and signature attack sequences and I ate it up every time because they look fucking cool as hell. I don’t care. I’d watch Final Fusion another 49 times.

3/21: The Last of Us (HBO) * - Watched the first two episodes out of curiosity, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue because I don’t give a shit about The Last of Us. It’s definitely a well done adaptation, though, even if I know it’s inevitably going to devolve into miserable torture porn with questionable politics if they adapt Part II faithfully. The ending of episode 2 also lines up perfectly with where I stopped in the game in 2013 lmao

3/27: The Future is a Dead Mall - Decentraland and the Metaverse (Folding Ideas) - Another banger from Dan Olson. This time the premise inherently gives him more time to just show off a bunch of stupid ugly bullshit made by crypto guys, which is fun. My main complaint was that I wished he would’ve brought up Second Life more as a point of comparison (a thing I basically always want out of discussion of “the metaverse”), but he at least did touch on it in the last section.

3/31: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog - I can’t believe after years of begging for the supporting cast to get more and better material in a Sonic game I got my wish in the form of a freeware murder mystery VN released for April Fools. This kicked ass.

April

4/7: Berserk - Completed Miura’s run and caught up on the chapters that have been released posthumously. It’s hard to say anything that hasn’t been said about Berserk, universally agreed upon as one of the greats of manga and fantasy fiction as a whole. What begins in its first few volumes as a nihilistic and edgy action comic built to facilitate as much sex and gore as possible quickly evolves into something deeply human and vulnerable and beautiful, both figuratively and in terms of its lavish art. The world sucks and is immeasurably cruel, and you will see that cruelty illustrated in graphic, sickening detail repeatedly throughout the series. (Perhaps a little too often throughout the Golden Age, where it feels like Miura never misses an opportunity to threaten Casca with sexual assault mid-battle.) But the point isn’t to wallow in that misery. It’s the story of a victim of horrific abuse learning to slowly open up to others, having those people he cares about torn away from him in the worst night of his life, hardening himself into a cold killing machine, and then slowly learning to open back up again, even if it means leaving himself vulnerable to more hurt. Anyone who says that the series peaked with the eclipse and went downhill in the “Guts’ JRPG Party” era is missing the point. Guts needed to find new people in his life to care about, to begin to find happiness again. Because no matter what unspeakable things Guts has gone through, it’s still possible for him to heal and to be loved. It takes time, but eventually you stop and realize that life has moved on.

4/8: Dedede’s Drum Dash Deluxe - Skipped it upon release because I didn’t particularly care for the minigame in Triple Deluxe, and I didn’t miss much. It’s fine as a little distraction, but not as a standalone rhythm game with only seven songs. If you don’t bother with the hard modes or chase after high scores this game is 15 minutes long. Oh how I yearn for Kirby to get the Theatrhythm treatment.

4/10: The King of Braves: GaoGaiGar FINAL - Eh… It was okay. Lots of cool robot fights, but said fights are stitched together with a mediocre plot that tries too hard to be more “mature” than its unabashedly schlocky kids’ show predecessor. Not crazy about the ending, either, which tries to be a bittersweet farewell closing off the series once and for all while also teasing that maybe there’ll be ANOTHER sequel after the OVA series they literally called “FINAL.” Ah well.

4/11: The Owl House - Sad to see this one go, but it’s hard to imagine them doing a better finale than this, even if they had gotten the six seasons they deserved. I’m not as obsessed with The Owl House as I probably would’ve been had it come out when I was, like, 20, but it’s a really fantastic show for all the reasons people always say. Great characters, great world, great story. I love that this starry-eyed fantasy story about a teenager finding love and a place where she belongs is also set on the rotting corpse of a titan with Hieronymous Bosch-inspired scenery and freaky monsters everywhere. What a great mix. If anything, I just wish I would’ve watched the first season as it aired so I could’ve had more time with it.

4/29: Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version - FINALLY beat this via the new collection, 20 years after playing it as my first Mega Man game. (Technically my first was White, not Blue, but whatever.) There are more annoyances than I remember - lots of really really bad forced backtracking sections where you have to revisit every previous part of the internet, low chip drop rates, some really aggravating bosses like BubbleMan and KingMan, etc. But it’s still a great time overall. It’s Battle Network. In the back half the story gets surprisingly emotional, too. I was always under the assumption that the Hub stuff never came back up much in the story after 1, so I was pleasantly surprised with how relevant it was to the emotional arc of 3.

4/30: Mega Man Battle Network 4: Red Sun * - Yeah I’m not playing through the whole thing lmao. I just wanted to play the first couple hours for nostalgia’s sake, and as a baseline for how much better the rest are. Even before getting deep in the game and having to deal with all the shit gated between doing two new game+ playthroughs, it’s immediately obvious how much of a downgrade this one is. Tons of glaring errors and typos all over the script, blander music, a way more boring aesthetic for the internet, and a premise that mostly just recycles the tournament idea from 3.

May

5/14: The Venture Bros. - Glad I finally sat down and watched all of this with Anthony after having seen one (1) episode as a teenager and a bunch of random clips in the years since. Great show. Some jokes in the early seasons haven’t aged gracefully, but what the show grows into over time... man. Hank and Dean go from being the butt of the joke to being characters you actually sympathize with - while still also being funny little goofballs. And the journey Henchman 21 goes on throughout the show. Man. Amazing that a comedy like this could run for 20 years and maintain its level of quality. Can’t wait for the movie.

5/18: Future Me Hates Me (The Beths) - Okay yeah I’m now just discovering bands through Fortnite lmao. I can’t complain really, they pick some really great indie artists for the in-game radio stations. Anyway: It’s very easy to win me over with a combination of energetic power pop, catchy guitar riffs, and earnest lyrics like this. One of those albums where three or four tracks in I know I have to buy it. Favorite track: Not Running

5/18: Jump Rope Gazers (The Beths) - Ditto. Favorite track: Dying to Believe

5/18: Expert In A Dying Field (The Beths) - Another good album. (I’m listening to these in release order.) I’ve been a bit slower to warm up to this one, initially thinking it was a little too mellow overall, but it might be my favorite after a few listens. Some real high highs. Interestingly, the lead singer’s New Zealand accent is also coming out more in her singing? Favorite track: Your Side (or maybe Head in the Clouds)

5/19: The Super Mario Bros. Movie - As a Mario fan, I think I enjoyed it? As a movie, less so? It was decent, in spite of feeling like they came up with a list of fun action setpieces first and then wrote the absolute bare minimum possible for the story scenes tying it all together. Full thoughts here. (This is the first movie I’ve seen this year, huh? I really don’t watch a lot of movies.)

5/23: Don't Know What You're In Until You're Out (Gladie) - I feel like I don’t like Gladie as much as I should. Their style of noisy indie rock is very much in my wheelhouse, and I do enjoy listening to them, but I dunno. Maybe it’s that the particular style of vocals makes it more monotonous to me. A good album nonetheless, if not 100% my thing. Favorite track: Nothing

5/24: City Slicker (Ginger Root) - Yes I am still making my way through Bandcamp artists I heard on Fortnite don’t @ me. Any excuse to get me to listen to some cool city pop-inspired funk like this is a good excuse. Favorite track: Loretta

5/24: Rikki (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: Why Try

5/25: Spotlight People (Ginger Root) - Favorite track: The Classic

5/29: Succession - A good dramedy series that increasingly focuses more on the drama than the comedy as it progresses, but it’s hard to complain about that since the drama is so compellingly produced. I enjoyed it. That being said, I kind of rankle at the claims that it’s The Greatest TV Show Of All Time. It’s great, don’t get me wrong. Amazing performances all around. But the show LOVES to spin its wheels, to repeat itself, and to let most of its interesting dramatic developments fizzle out before anything really comes of them, almost as if the show is constantly getting bored with its own ideas. To some extent this is intentional - Logan Roy is the untouchable billionaire, his kids fail at everything (but will nonetheless remain billionaires), and in the long run none of them really give a shit about anything other than their own status. But it’s not like things tend to visibly impact anyone else, either, be they supporting characters or the world at large. Even the Big Scary Election, where the Roy siblings are directly responsible for plunging the nation into chaos, ultimately has zero impact on the finale a mere two episodes later. Certain Other Things do have an impact in the last season, though, allowing things to meaningfully change for the cast and for the show to sit with the ensuing drama, which has stopped me from souring on Succession more. There was finally a payoff for something. But it does still kind of feel like a show that goes in circles until it’s ready to call it quits, even if those circles did contain a lot of great acting and music along the way.

5/29: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts - I’d watched the first 12 episodes when they originally released, but I guess the Netflix binge release and the fact that all three “seasons” came out in one year led to me waiting until it finished… and then I just never got around to finishing it. Glad I fixed that! Really fun and stylish cartoon with an art style reminiscent of Teen Titans, a hip hop-filled soundtrack, dynamic fight scenes, and a colorful post-apocalyptic world filled with mutant (mostly anthropomorphic) animals. I’ll admit that at times I do kinda roll my eyes at Kipo’s unshakeable belief that everyone can be friends in a way that I don’t necessarily with similar shows like Steven Universe, and not every joke lands, but I dunno. It’s a kids’ show. That’s to be expected. It doesn’t detract from the overall package for me.

June

6/1: Craig of the Creek (Season 4) - It’s been years and I’m still processing the fact that kids can turn on Cartoon Network and hear Jeff Rosenstock. Anyway! Craig continues to be one of the best cartoons on TV, consistently funny and creative and way more engaging than a show about a bunch of kids LARPing in the woods has any right to be. This season turned into One Piece with the gang effectively hunting down the Poneglyphs in search of a legendary treasure. The kids think it’ll be magic. It isn't. An increasing number of cartoon logic gags aside, this show is firmly set in the real world. Does that make it any less interesting? Hell no. Season 3 turned a game of capture the flag into an all-out five episode war between the heroes and villains, filled with dramatic turnabouts and a climactic guest appearance from Del the Funky Homosapien. I’m sure however they wrap things up in the (sadly shortened) final season, it’ll be great. (Also? I would watch a whole show based on that “what if” episode that jumped forward to everyone’s 20s.)

6/6: Barry - Holy shit, what a show. I ended up binging it in less than a week in a cycle of “okay, just one more episode.” The way this show is able to swing between tones and genres while still feeling like a cohesive whole is truly masterful. It’s a layered character drama, a tragic crime thriller, a farcical comedy, an understated action series, a surrealist morality play, and a scathing satire of Hollywood, all in one. Even within the criminal underworld subplots the show ranges in tone from Breaking Bad to Paddington 2. And it works! While the show naturally gets bleaker over time as it confronts the repercussions of Barry’s murders, it never completely loses sight of its comedic roots. My favorite episode was easily season 2’s “ronny/lily,” a mostly self-contained episode that somehow manages to keep throwing the perfect curveballs to escalate its dark comedy.

6/12: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Edition) - Y’all heard of this movie? Pretty good, it turns out. (I’d seen the theatrical cut before, but this was my first time watching the extended edition. I’ve also only seen parts of the other two movies, so it’s time I finally watch all the extended cuts. The Gollum game pushed me to this.)

6/13: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Extended Edition) - give it to us RAW and WRIGGLING

6/17: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Extended Edition) - I’m not crying YOU’RE crying

6/22: Clone High (Season 2) - While the first episode being about “cancel culture” (or, more accurately, a teenager from 2003 being transported to 2023 and putting his foot in his mouth a lot) put a lot of people off, I ended up enjoying the new season of Clone High. The new clones grew on me as the season went on and their roles in the web of teen romance melodrama crystalized, and it made me laugh a lot, and Cleo/Frida is galaxy brained. Also they played one of my favorite Antarctigo Vespucci songs like a minute into the first episode. I don’t think I could really ask for much more.

6/28: The Mandalorian (Season 3) - I'd been watching this weekly but put off the last episode for no real reason. Responses to this season have been all over the place, but my blistering hot take is… it was fine. Is it as good as the first season? Probably not. But Mando no longer needs to carry the whole franchise on its shoulders and set the bar for how good the live action Disney Star Wars shows can be, because Andor exists, and it’s never gonna top Andor. The Mandalorian is free to just be a pulpy space adventure show where Giancarlo Esposito plays a scenery-chewing cartoon villain and a little puppet does wire stunts. These are things Andor cannot and should not do, but that’s Star Wars, baby. It’s delightful. I could watch Grogu get underhand tossed like a sack of flour all day.

July

7/2: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Season 2) - LOVE WINS. (More nuanced take from way later: It definitely feels like a lot of the more messy political conflicts in this show got swept aside by the big final battle where some more easily resolved family conflicts take center stage. I’m not sure the ending is the most satisfying. But also this show only got half the episode count that damn near every other Gundam show ever made got, so that might be a factor here. Idk. Still one of my favorite Gundams.)

7/4: Final Fantasy XVI (watched Anthony play) - I had to write my longest Medium article ever about this one because I was so frustrated

7/10: Home Movies - “Things I like that I’ve never seen in full” has certainly been a recurring theme this year. Home Movies remains an all-time classic of animated comedy that went out on a high note before things got stale or the characters became parodies of themselves. While it’s mostly known for its funny improvised banter, throughout the last season you can really see the arc where Brendon no longer enjoys making movies, yet he feels obligated to keep using them to escape from the real world. In that light, the ending where the nature of their dysfunctional makeshift family is cemented, Brendon’s camera suddenly breaks, and life moves on really does feel like the perfect note to end on. Truly one of the best to ever do it.

7/15: The Legend of Zelda - Tears of the Kingdom - Wow. Just… wow. I had serious doubts about TotK in the months leading up to release due to how close Nintendo was playing their cards to their chest. I didn’t want this to be a Saints Row IV, where the game is fun enough but the recycled map makes it feel like a rehash. Instead, I found a game that made me look at BotW’s map in a whole new light, brimming with so many more things to do and people to meet. Add on a better, more versatile set of tools, more varied dungeons and bosses, and a story that I felt was told somewhat better and we’ve got a real contender for my new favorite Zelda game. It was hard to tear myself away, but as this list shows, it’s been basically the only game I’ve played since it came out.

7/16: Sonic Prime (Season 2) - I liked the parts with Shadow and Chaos Sonic, but I’ve come to the sad conclusion that most of this show is just mediocre. More thoughts here.

7/18: We ♥ Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie - “I’m a dog, but I love Katamari Damacy.” Truer words have never been spoken.

7/19: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts - Pretty good! It didn’t blow me away, but after how bad the Bay movies got I’m just thankful to have a decently cohesive Transformers movie where the human story is okay and I like the bots (although half of them needed more screen time), even if it is just another Hollywood blockbuster about two sides fighting over a macguffin that devolves into a big CGI battle against an army of nameless monsters in the third act. This is basically a mid-tier MCU movie but with Transformers, which won’t do much for most people, but again: the bar was underground.

7/22: The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart - God DAMN. A phenomenal ending for the series. While I would have loved to see a full final season to get some more one-off episodes in there, this doesn’t feel creatively compromised in any way–either due to the time constraints, or due to a desire to make it more marketable as a movie. It really does feel like they just took their outlines for the canceled final season and gently massaged them into the shape of an 84-minute movie, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s completely on par with the previous seasons. A hilarious and fitting sendoff for one of the greats of adult animation.

7/23: Beautiful Katamari - This was one of my first Xbox 360 games, but a frustrating temperature-based level made me put it down for 16 years. “Maybe it won’t be as bad now that I’ve beaten the first two games and am better at Katamari,” I thought. Nope! Still an absolutely dogshit level. But also, turns out the whole game is only like two hours long lmao. It’s still Katamari, so it’s still fun - the final level in particular, which seamlessly takes you from ground level all the way to space, feels like a logical endpoint for the series - but beyond that it just doesn't have the same soul without Keita Takahashi's input.

August

8/4: Doom Singer (Chris Farren) - I’ve been waiting so long for Chris and Jeff to do another Antarctigo Vespucci album, but god damn. This is the best of Chris’s solo work, and a contender for his best record, period. Every track’s a banger, with more energy than some of his previous solo work but also a good deal of variety. Favorite tracks: First Place, Cosmic Leash

8/4: Transformers Earthspark (Season 1) - This show had a bit of an uneven start, unsure if it wanted to have the emotional maturity of a more serious action cartoon or a preschool cartoon where the characters have little kid mood swings and outbursts and learn basic lessons. It also felt like it was speedrunning its Wholesome Found Family Dynamic with characters who just met, which didn’t feel earned. While these problems never completely go away (see: the cheap and corny way the otherwise very dark season finale suddenly resolves), the show improves quickly, and the positives outweigh the negatives. It’s so great to have a Transformers cartoon that feels fresh, giving us a post-war setting with a bunch of new characters and new dynamics between the Cybertronians and the humans. The returning characters are also uniformly great as the old veterans overseeing the new generation. (Reformed Megatron! Danny Pudi as Bumblebee! Steve Blum returning as Starscream! Keith David as Grimlock!!!) And those super dynamic action scenes! I can nitpick, but Earthspark’s a ton of fun, and easily the best new Transformers cartoon since Prime and Animated.

8/5: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (remaster) - Everyone who told me this game was a masterpiece was right. I had played the first chapter when it dropped as the demo for the iOS version years ago, but never went further than that until now. What a game. Absolutely incredible through and through. Great story, great twists, great characters, great puzzles, great art direction. Everything comes together so perfectly to form a totally unique, unforgettable package, a top tier video game murder mystery. Everyone should play this, preferably going in as blind as possible.

8/15: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 16) - Wow! Recent seasons of Sunny have been kind of up and down, with some interesting experiments (Mac Finds His Pride, the Ireland arc, etc.) paired with some comedic duds. Most of this latest season is standard fare for the series with fewer big creative swings, but it’s just hit after hit in terms of comedy. Not a single dud, whether we’re seeing Mac and Dennis try to start a rental business for inflatable furniture or watching the gang meet Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, believing the entire time that the latter is Malcolm from Malcolm in the Middle. Even the attempts at topical comedy landed better. Easily the funniest season in years.

8/16: One Piece Film Gold - It’s easy to see why this one has kind of been forgotten in the wake of Stampede and Film Red, which revolve around established fan favorite characters, but this was still pretty fun. Perhaps a little too long, but it’s fun to see the Straw Hats fool around in a giant casino and do a heist. They definitely cranked the fanservice up even more than usual in this one, though, as I probably should have expected for a movie made alongside the anime’s adaptation of Dressrosa.

8/17: One Piece: Stampede - This one goes for a different kind of fanservice. While most One Piece movies are isolated from the ongoing plot and its expanded cast of characters, Stampede instead asks “What if we just put damn near every active character on the same island and had them fight?” The answer: a fun time! It would get old if all of the movies were like this, but after a bunch of movies that are just like “the Straw Hats are gonna land on another new island and fight some more weird guys” it’s fun to see characters like Law and Buggy and Smoker get in on the fun. It’s also nice to get a movie with the Wano era art style, and Usopp surprisingly gets some really good character moments in here.

8/18: One Piece Film Red - This really is the best of the One Piece movies, huh? (Baron Omatsuri is a close second.) It really feels like a change of pace after the last four with the most interesting and emotionally engaging story out of any of them. And even if the events of these movies are never canon, it still feels significant in my understanding of Shanks as a character as we move into the final phase of the manga.

8/21: Pikmin 4 - The opening hour of the game made me really question if they’d changed too much, with all the focus on your new dog unit over your Pikmin and the extremely dull, drawn out dialogue scenes with your new companions back at the base. But once I got into the swing of things I had a blast. This is probably my new favorite Pikmin game. There’s a great mix of activities here to keep things fresh. I also really ended up liking Oatchi’s role as basically your second captain who can also serve as your tank or a rideable mount. The Dandori stuff and nighttime missions in particular show off how useful Oatchi is for your multitasking without necessarily overshadowing the Pikmin.

8/22: Never Get Tired: The Bomb the Music Industry! Story - I literally backed this on Kickstarter eight years ago (my name is in the credits!) and then never got around to watching it for no reason. It’s on YouTube now, and Jeff’s got a new album out next week, so now feels like the perfect time to watch it. And man… what a great documentary. Obviously I’m just a fan of the band, but this also really spoke to me as an artist. Jeff wanting to stick to his principles and give out his music for free and play cheap all ages shows, his discomfort over the idea of selling merch, and the struggles that come with not playing the game like that… It's hard. They readily admit that Jeff is an idealist, that people fight him on this stuff, that he’s missed out on some big opportunities because of these stances, and that he’s had to compromise a bit on some of these things over time. But that incredible climax with their final show, including a full opening performance of the slowly building “Campaign for a Better Next Weekend” and the closing performance of “Future 86” where the whole audience is singing along as the members of the band are hugging and crying… it’s beautiful. This may have been a band where the members had to go back to their shitty day jobs after every tour because they weren’t selling out arenas, but their art meant something to people, and that makes it all worth it.

8/25: Nimona - I haven’t read the original comic (yet), so I can’t compare them too much, but it’s nonetheless pretty apparent that some things were softened and easy kids’ movie jokes were added by the studio to squeeze this graphic novel for teens into a PG animated movie. Regardless, the emotional throughline hits REALLY hard, particularly the very blatant trans allegory and the climax. (It’s no wonder Disney was afraid of this movie seeing the light of day lmao.) The animation is also very squishy and fun to watch throughout. Great movie.

8/26: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - Spider-Verse really has done so much for animation, huh? This one was as good as everyone said. Beautiful use of stylized color and lighting throughout, and every time this movie very conspicuously shifted to different framerates for a flashy fight scene it owned. Very cute and heartwarming story, too, which thankfully gave its second act plenty of time to explore the cast and let them go on their journey, unlike a certain plumber movie that came out a few months later. Also I would let Death [redacted]

8/28: Holocure: Save the Fans! - This isn't really something I can beat, but I've been addicted to Holocure lately. I don't even watch VTubers aside from maybe seeing a funny Korone animation every now and then, this is just a really, really good freeware Vampire Survivors clone with a huge roster of varied characters to pick from.

8/31: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock) - A new album from Jeff is always a major event for me. If there were any worries that he was starting to go soft at 40 (because one of the three singles off this album was a gentle acoustic piece), the frantic opening of this album put those worries to rest. The first two tracks are Jeff screaming out for help as he’s pulled in a million directions by the chaotic state of the world, a theme that becomes the thesis of the album. I’d say it lags slightly in the middle, but overall this is another extremely well-rounded record full of bangers that’s unapologetically Jeff, with possibly my favorite closing track he’s ever done. Favorite tracks: I WANNA BE WRONG, 3 SUMMERS

September

9/3: One Piece (live action, Season 1) - They did it. I can’t believe it, but they did it. While I have my nitpicks (Usopp and Sanji don’t get enough big moments to shine), this is an extremely solid and faithful adaptation of the first few arcs of One Piece with a great cast. For the most part the changes feel smart and logical, and the big emotional beats of the story are all there and executed very well. I doubted it a little in episodes 2-4, where the Orange Town and Syrup Village arcs saw some major changes to shift the action indoors, and the increased focus on the drama in favor of repeating every gag and battle from the manga 1:1 took a bit of getting used to, but by the end I was having a blast. It’s a different take on One Piece, but it still feels like One Piece. Genuinely very excited for season 2.

9/4: Pseudoregalia - A great little N64-style 3D Metroidvania focused on platforming and very satisfying movement. I always love entries in the genre that are less prescriptive in what order you have to tackle areas in, a la Symphony of the Night or Hollow Knight, and this one’s great in that regard. While there are a number of new moves to find, most of the map is open to you very early in the game, and smart use of your moveset can allow you to “sequence break” without even realizing it. (You would not believe how long I went without getting the wall run.) I do wish it had a map, but that’s already being patched in.

9/6: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk * - Not a bad game at all, but I quickly remembered how bad I am at skating games, so like… eh? Not sure I have much desire to play past chapter 2. Also the soundtrack is sadly kinda hit or miss for me outside of the obvious Naganuma tunes.

9/9: The History of the Minnesota Vikings (Dorktown) - Jon Bois never misses. Even as someone who doesn’t actively follow sports, Jon Bois is a master storyteller, using graphs and statistics and funny anecdotes to explore these deeply human stories. He can convey why people care so much about these teams, these people, and sports in general, and how our popular sports reflect on American culture. He could tell the story of just about any team or player in any sport and I just know I’ll come out the other side a misty-eyed fan. And what a fascinating cast of characters we have this time, with origin stories for everything from the Hail Mary pass to a Minnesota state supreme court judge to the Griddy. Nine hours well spent.

9/10: Timespinner - A fun and highly polished Metroidvania that maybe doesn’t quite have enough of its own identity in its quest to replicate Symphony of the Night…but also, like, this was pitched as a Symphony throwback on KickStarter in a pre-Bloodstained, pre-Hollow Knight world, so I can’t really blame ‘em! Stopping time to avoid boss attacks is fun, the pixel art is gorgeous, and I liked the dark science fantasy story about warring empires and meddling with time a lot more than I thought I would - lore journal text dumps and all.

9/14: The Decay of Sam & Cat (Quinton Reviews) - All the stuff at the end with Matt Bennett (the actor who played Robbie on Victorious and Sam & Cat) in this was really good and sweet. It’s that kind of thing that makes these videos feel like they’re still worthwhile on some level. But the padding and the things Quinton chooses to spend the colossal runtime on does drive me more and more insane with each passing Nick sitcom video. I don’t know how much longer he can keep this schtick up. I hope he’s able to move on to other things before too terribly long instead of continuing to extend this “miniseries.”

9/19: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales - AKA Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 1.5. It’s fun for the same reasons Peter’s first game was fun. I had a good time swinging around New York again in preparation for the sequel, and there’s a lot of cute stuff with Miles becoming Harlem’s neighborhood hero, but WOW did the Underground v. Roxxon conflict fall flat for me.

9/20: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson - I understand so many posts now.

9/25: Spider-Man (2002) (rewatch) - It’s you who’s out, Gobby! OUT OF YOUR MIND!

9/25: Futurama (Season 8) - I was ready to be a hater, recalling the fact that Futurama has already had three “perfect endings” with the show getting a little weaker with every revival. Then I watched the first new episode on a whim and thought it wasn’t bad, so I was like, eh, sure, I’ll watch the rest. Overall Hulurama is hit or miss. There are chuckles to be had, and it sure as hell beats modern Simpsons, but almost every episode is either a belated take on an overplayed Topical Issue (the pandemic, Amazon, cancel culture, etc.) or a direct sequel to an old episode people liked. Or both! It’s also really noticeable that certain voice actors sound way older - Billy West is struggling with the Fry voice in particular, and it hurts his comedic timing. But just when all hope seemed lost after the nigh-incomprehensible toy-themed anthology episode, possibly the worst episode of the entire series… the last episode, where the Planet Express crew explores whether or not the universe could be a simulation, was really, really solid. Great note to end on to make me not regret my time with this season as a whole.

9/26: Spider-Man 2 (2004) (rewatch) - Once the GOAT, always the GOAT.

9/27: Spider-Man 3 (rewatch) - Revisiting this movie for the first time since I saw it in theaters… it’s not bad. It’s fine! It continues to have the heart and sincerity that make the first two movies work. It’s just not as concise with three villains vying for the spotlight, but I also wouldn’t cut any of them, necessarily. I guess Eddie/Venom would be the easiest, but Peter getting the black suit and giving in to his resentment feels too central to cut. (Yes, even with Emo Peter becoming a meme.)

9/28: Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake - I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one, especially since I was never really a fan of the genderbend episodes in the original show. (At the time they mostly just felt like an excuse to crank up the teen romance stuff to 11.) But MAN. This was a fantastic coda to the original series. It made me care about Fionna and Cake and their friends as their own characters separate from their original counterparts, it gave the Simon/Betty arc a much more satisfying (if no less bittersweet) resolution than the original finale had time to do, and it even managed to be a multiverse story that didn’t make me roll my eyes in 2023. A+ all around. Makes me wanna rewatch the original show again. [spoiler: I did]

9/29: Meanwhile (aivi & surasshu) - It’s been a whole decade–they were busy with, you know, all the music in Steven Universe, among other things–but we finally have a new aivi & surasshu album! Their chiptune/piano fusion style is familiar, but they’ve definitely grown as composers in subtle ways. Favorite track: Time Travel

October

10/1: This is Financial Advice (Folding Ideas) - A lot of the nitty gritty finance law stuff turned into white noise for me, but still, great video. I had no idea that the GameStop stock craze devolved into this bizarre cult that thinks they’re going to crash the global economy and rise from the ashes as the new kings with the value of their GME stocks. Glad this video exists to try and balance out the narrative.

10/5: Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon DLC - Good ideas, absurdly frustrating and tedious execution. Full thoughts here.

10/10: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (rewatch) - I didn’t plan this, but very fitting that I would end up rewatching this on 10/10.

10/12: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - ha he! (Seriously though, that finale was a fucking masterpiece. The RTVS crew has an incredible knack for using the framing device of video game livestreams to blur the lines between comedy and horror, or ironic anti-humor and complete sincerity. I’ve never seen anything else like this.)

10/15: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Not sure how much I can say that hasn’t already been said. The most visually creative movie I’ve ever seen, grounded by some really excellent storytelling about Miles (and now Gwen) that’s probably better than his actual comics. But it also does feel like it’s about to end and then the movie just keeps going like ten times over lmao. Can’t wait to watch this a second time on a better TV.

10/20: Sonic Superstars - A mostly really solid and fun 2D Sonic game that’s unfortunately dragged down by an extremely hodgepodge soundtrack and some overly drawn out boss fights. I spent HOURS trying to beat the final boss of the bonus scenario (which is required for the true ending in this one) before giving up. Really a shame that that’s the note I’m leaving the game on, because I otherwise enjoyed it, but ah well. More thoughts here.

10/27: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - Another good Spider-Man game from Insomniac. Liked the story more than the one in Miles Morales, but maybe not as much as the first game. Extensive thoughts here.

10/28: Venom - Was in the mood for more Venom after the game. As expected this was not a very good movie, but the dynamic between Eddie and Venom made it a fun watch. Tom Hardy is constantly about to shit his pants in this movie. It’s great.

10/28: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - I had a way better time with this one. Is this a good movie? No. But it cranks the insanity of the first movie up to 11. Goofy as fuck in an extremely watchable way.

November

11/5: Pluto - An absolutely masterful series that anyone interested in sci-fi needs to watch. The anime adaptation was great, and I immediately understand why people who’ve read the manga speak so highly of it. Really makes me want to get into Astro Boy more, and also read some of Urasawa’s other works.

11/18: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Wow, just wow. When news of a Scott Pilgrim anime broke I was cautiously curious to see if we’d get a more direct adaptation of the comics, and instead it veered off in the exact opposite direction in the best way possible. This is almost entirely a different story, one that’s in conversation with the previous versions (sometimes in very meta ways), and I think it’s really valuable to see O’Malley revisiting these characters with new things to say about them. The major story divergence gives us a chance to examine the characters from a new angle - particularly Ramona, who’s the real protagonist of this version, and the evil exes, who completely steal the show. This was a great reminder of why I fell in love with this series as a teenager. I now genuinely hope we get more Scott Pilgrim.

11/22: Void Rivals (Issues #1 - #6) - The first arc of the new Robert Kirkman series that kicked off Skybound’s new “Energon Universe” is now complete, and I’m left thinking Void Rivals is… okay? I thought the first issue was a decent (if not particularly original) sci-fi comic with an appealing art style, which just so happens to also briefly have a Transformer in it so there can be a Big Surprise. And the series still hasn’t quite shaken that feeling to me. It’s an okay sci-fi series that arbitrarily dedicates a couple of pages of every issue to something from Transformers, but I’m not really sure what the shared universe stuff adds to Void Rivals, or what Void Rivals adds to Transformers and GI Joe. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

11/22: Journey to EPCOT Center: A Symphonic History (Defunctland) - Yeah, gotta be honest, I only got halfway through this one. It seems like Kevin just 1) really wanted to push himself creatively and 2) make a love letter to Epcot, and while I respect that, I think it suffers as a historical documentary. It’s Fantasia but for the creation of Epcot. That might be very impressive on a technical level, but it feels more like a piece of Disney propaganda than prior Defunctland videos due to a lack of context and nuance. 

11/24: Aperture Desk Job - A short, sweet, and funny little tech demo for my new Steam Deck set in the Portal universe. More effort was definitely put into this than was strictly necessary.

11/26: ESCHATOS - I am not good at bullet hell games, but I enjoy them from time to time and I really love this one’s FM synth soundtrack, so I picked it up on a whim in the Steam sale. I only beat it on Easy, but still, I had a lot of fun with it! It’s straightforward but very flashy, with the camera dynamically zooming around from set piece to set piece at ridiculous speeds and each level segueing directly into the next. The lack of a powerup system on the main mode in favor of just needing to know when to use your different shot types makes it feel very approachable.

11/27: Lunistice - A great little 3D platformer with a good soundtrack that I had fun hunting down all the secrets in. This is an easy recommendation for fans of games like Kirby or Klonoa - whimsical games set in colorful dream worlds where the underlying story can get a bit more somber. (Although the story in this one is mostly told through mildly cryptic lore dumps, so your mileage there may vary.)

11/28: Spark the Electric Jester 2 - The leap from 2D to 3D here is impressive, but this is very clearly a rough draft for Spark 3. Very, very fun Sonic-style 3D platforming, but the combat is lacking and the storytelling is just kinda bad. More extensive thoughts on this and the above two games here.

December

12/2: Fortnite (Chapter 4) - This was my first full chapter of Fortnite, after having been roped into the game by the siren songs of Zero Build mode and Goku during Chapter 3. This means it’s harder for me to compare this chapter to previous ones, but still, Fortnite remains a genuinely very well made Battle Royale shooter that’s a blast with friends. If I have any complaint about this Chapter, it’s that they would regularly introduce zany ideas and then slowly reel them back in, whether it was the Augment system or the increasingly mundane movement items. It also felt like it was a little too easy to get the perfect loadout in every match, meaning the final showdown would almost always be against players with Slurp Juice and gold shotguns. And I missed the smaller mid-season map updates of Chapter 3. But overall I still had a really good time, and look forward to playing more for the foreseeable future.

12/4: Plagiarism and You(Tube) (HBomberguy) - This will get written off by many as “YouTuber drama,�� but this really is an excellent video essay that feels like the kick in the pants that YouTube needs. If video essayists are gonna be a major source of information for so many, then they gotta have standards. I also think it does a good job of highlighting the people that have been plagiarized and trying to drive more attention their way in an attempt to right those wrongs.

12/6: Transformers (Skybound comic) - We only got the first three issues of this in 2023, but I just HAVE to say something about how incredible this series is here. Daniel Warren Johnson is knocking it out of the park. This is the new bar for Transformers. The hand-inked art is extremely dynamic and full of character, and the story is using the familiar beats of G1 Transformers but doing very new things with them. You can tell this from the very first page, but the emotional scene of Optimus accidentally crushing a deer in the forest and realizing how fragile life is on Earth sealed the deal for me. And yet in the very same comics Optimus can do suplexes and clotheslines and lord knows how many other wrestling moves on Decepticons, and it doesn’t feel like tonal whiplash? These comics just fucking rule, and anyone with even the slightest interest in Transformers should be reading them.

12/8: What We Do in the Shadows (Season 5) - [spoilers] WWDITS has very much settled into being a status quo show. Every season has its own little arc where one or two things change to keep things interesting, but then everything returns to normal by the end. Guillermo finally becoming a vampire, only to become a human again in the end, might just be the most egregious example of this yet. But also… the show’s still really funny? And I continue to be happy that Kristen Schaal has stuck around as a series regular as the Guide. So it’s hard to complain. I could see the show running out of steam over the next few seasons, but it’s still hitting for me right now.

12/12: Pony Island - Finally got around to this since the trailer for the sequel dropped. I feel like playing this years later in a post-Inscryption world where Pony Island is a known quantity kind of lessens its impact, but still, it’s a fun and funny puzzle game where you try to hack your way out of a possessed arcade machine. I’m not sure I found it particularly scary, but I’m not sure it’s supposed to be? The way the game messes with you during the Asmodeus “boss fight” was probably the highlight for me. I also like being able to say things like “The part where you have to not kill Jesus was so hard. I kept getting terrible butterfly patterns.”

12/16: Breaking Bad VR but the AI is Self-Aware (wayneradiotv) - As always, Wayne and co.’s commitment to the bit is unrivaled. This kind of got interpreted as just a way to troll HLVRAI fans, but so many moments in this genuinely made me laugh out loud.

12/18: Soul of Sovereignty Prelude - As someone who would list Cucumber Quest as a big creative influence, I was naturally very excited for this first chapter of GGDG’s new visual novel. Their mentality of both scaling things back in terms of labor while also going more shamelessly self-indulgent in terms of storytelling after burning out on making webcomics has really spoken to me, and WOW, the end result of that new process of theirs is shaping up to be something really special. The art and music are sparse but extremely evocative, giving you the rough sketch of the world and letting your mind fill in the rest. The story blends literary high fantasy vibes with the style of fantasy seen in ‘90s JRPGs (you can definitely tell this came from an idea for an RPG), but rather than constantly winking at the audience and making self-aware video game references it plays these storytelling ideas extremely sincerely, giving them real dramatic weight while still indulging in fun tropes to their fullest extent. While it’s a far cry from their most famous work with much more mature content, GGDG always excels at creating characters and worlds that immediately grab me. I can’t wait for the rest.

12/18: Barbie - I’m only… what, five months late for the whole Barbenheimer thing? Perfect timing. Anyway! On the one hand, I get the critiques saying that this movie is just a major corporation funding a self-aware feminist critique of their own product as a marketing ploy. And I kinda agree with that. And the movie is a little too long, and I don’t really know what to think of the way the Barbie/Ken conflict plays out. Anthony asked me to summarize what the story ended up being about, and I had no idea what to even say. But also… I did still like the movie? We don’t get a lot of cartoonish, absurdist, fourth wall breaking comedies like this anymore, and this is a good one of those. Also the whole cast is great, the set design is kind of stunning, and the cinematography is consistently appealing. I wouldn’t say it’s a revolutionary work of feminist filmmaking by any stretch, but it’s a good comedy movie.

12/21: Dr. Stone: New World - Man, Dr. Stone is great. I’ve said this many times, but I just love that this series uses all the trappings of shounen that would normally be used to hype up the protagonist learning a new move to instead hype up things like the protagonist building a loom or a hot air balloon. It’s shounen Bill Nye. I didn’t completely love everything about the Treasure Island arc this season, but it all built towards a really fun climax with a lot of satisfying turnabouts where the heroes use their ingenuity to just barely win.

12/23: The History of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out World Records (Summoning Salt) - Truly one of my favorite Summoning Salt videos ever, even with how repetitive Punch-Out can get to watch. It’s just so hard to beat “and that runner… was me.”

12/24: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - What more can be said that hasn’t already been said? It’s the best and most creative 2D Mario game since the ‘90s. The only real flaws are that it’s a little easy, the Search Party stages are annoying in singleplayer, and I wish that every boss prior to the final boss wasn’t just some form of Bowser Jr. fight. But those aren’t nearly enough to drag the whole experience down. It was a blast.

12/24: Do a Powerbomb! - Got this from Anthony as a birthday present. This is the previous series by the creative team currently doing the new Transformers comics I was gushing about a few entries ago. Even with the high bar set by those comics, Do a Powerbomb! exceeded my expectations. Holy shit. An absolutely entrancing fantasy wrestling miniseries full of dynamic, energetic action and tons of heart. These comics where a guy wrestles a giant talking orangutan almost made me cry. Twice. An instant favorite.

12/25: Adventure Time (rewatch) - We ended up finishing our rewatch of Adventure Time (the main series, anyway) on my 30th birthday, which feels appropriate. I already kinda knew this, but this rewatch has truly confirmed that Adventure Time is my favorite TV series of all time. The entire show is even better on a full series rewatch. In hindsight, even parts that annoyed me when they aired end up being important parts of the beautiful tapestry that is this series. The many low points of Finn’s adolescent love life are important stepping stones in his growth as a person, which leaves him in an extremely satisfying place by the end. Jake having kids didn’t get to be a huge status quo change because they grew up instantly, but then they did a bunch of fun episodes about Jake’s relationships with his adult children that deepened him as a character. And most of the big lore questions they kept teasing over the years (“Where’d the humans go?” “Who are Finn’s parents?” “When’s Finn gonna get a robot arm?” etc.) ended up getting satisfying and creative answers, because the show left itself the room to figure those things out later. This is a truly special, one-of-a-kind series, one that lasted nearly 300 episodes and yet still seems like it was over too soon. And yes, I did in fact cry during the final montage, like I knew I would. I will always cherish this show with all of my heart.

12/25: Olive the Other Reindeer (rewatch) - Haven’t seen this one since I was a kid! It was a favorite of mine back then, and while it might not be quite as funny as I remember it’s still very cute, with a 2D/3D hybrid art style that remains very unique and appealing. As an adult I can also appreciate the cast they got for this, with like half the cast of Futurama bolstered by guests like Michael Stipe from REM and The Sopranos’ Joe Pantoliano.

12/26: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio - Anthony and I capped off our Christmas with the most jolly and festive stop motion movie of all! Jokes aside, man, what a beautiful movie. The animation is immaculate, and we really just don’t get children’s animated films like this anymore. Ones that overtly feature real world politics and religion and so many other dark themes in a way that doesn’t talk down to kids or sugarcoat things. This one hits hard. We need more movies like this.

12/31: Oppenheimer - This was an interesting one. Despite being three hours, the way that first hour jumps around in time makes it feel like Oppenheimer is constantly being propelled forward through life at a breakneck pace, swept up by the rising tide of nationalism in spite of his personal left wing politics, never really reflecting on what he’s doing until it’s too late. Then when he’s no longer useful to the empire, he’s chewed up and spat out, only to eventually be honored as a national hero as a symbolic gesture. It’s a compelling story. However, I’m a little torn on how certain aspects of history were framed. Does the abstraction of the bombings detract from the true weight of those events, in favor of sympathizing with the man who built the bomb? Or is it clever a way to show how the realities of the war were compartmentalized away by people who were complicit in its most heinous acts of violence? One minute a bunch of physicists are talking theory, thousands of miles away from the theaters of war, and the next they’ve killed 200,000 people. So which is it? Eh, probably somewhere in the middle, I guess. But I liked it overall.

12/31: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe - I’ve been really surprised by how good this rerelease is. It kind of flew under the radar for me. I liked the original game, but at the time it also almost felt like the New Super Mario Bros. of Kirby. It was a straightforward throwback game where you went through a grass world, then a desert world, then a water world, etc., and also they added four player co-op. But returning to this one after the kinda mid Star Allies has made me appreciate just how solid RtDL is as a Kirby game. I really like the updated graphics, too - yes, even the new cel shaded outlines around the characters - even though I didn’t think it looked that great in screenshots. Also the two new copy abilities (Sand and Mecha) are fun, the minigame collection is shockingly fleshed out to the point that they could’ve sold it as a standalone eShop game, the collectible character masks are fun, and the new epilogue mode where you play as Magolor is one of the coolest bonus modes they’ve ever done. This is a top tier Kirby remake any fan of the series should check out.

Ongoing things I followed in 2023 that don't have a blurb:

Halo Infinite multiplayer

IDW Sonic the Hedgehog (main series + specials)

One Piece

Chainsaw Man

My Hero Academia (not caught up)

The JOJOlands (not caught up)

Things I started in 2023 that I still need to finish:

Freedom Planet 2

Hi-Fi Rush

Live A Live

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Picross 3D Round 2

Rhythm Heaven MegaMix

Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Spark the Electric Jester 3

Sonic Dream Team

One Piece (Wano arc, anime)

Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 (I’ve already read the Shibuya arc already in the manga, though)

Astro Boy (2003 anime)

Futurama (original run rewatch)

One Piece (manga reread)

The Amazing Spider-Man (Lee/Ditko era)

Scott Pilgrim series (reread)

And finally... my favorites of 2023!!!

Overall favorite game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Favorite indie game: Pseudoregalia

Games remastered in 2023 that are now among my all-time faves: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, We Love Katamari

Most pleasant surprise in gaming: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Favorite film: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Favorite live action show: Barry

Favorite anime: Pluto

Favorite anime written by a Canadian guy and an American guy based on the Canadian guy's old graphic novel series: Scott PIlgrim Takes Off

Favorite live action adaptation of an anime that I still can't believe they didn't fuck up: One Piece

Favorite Western cartoon: Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake

Favorite older cartoon I only got around to watching in its entirety this year: The Venture Bros.

Favorite documentary: Double Fine PsychOdyssey

Favorite semi-improvised semi-scripted absurdist comedy/horror/tragedy Twitch livestream performance art thing: Half-Life Alyx but the Gnome is Self-Aware finale (wayneradiotv)

Favorite manga: Chainsaw Man

Favorite older manga that I only read this year: Berserk

Favorite Western comic book: Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers

Favorite album: HELLMODE (Jeff Rosenstock)

And that's a wrap!!!!! Happy new year, everyone! Here's to me maybe actually reading a goddamn book this year

[alittlebitofloveliness]

Could you do some modern day Soda headcanons please? I love him so much and I love your blog so much soooooo….

Ok so soda is tricky for me to write but I tried my best!!!

Modern Au Sodapop Headcanons

-Drinks every single energy drink imaginable. Rockstar? Like its water. Prime? For the plot. 5 hour energy? He’ll down it in five seconds. Darry is HORRIFIED.

-Is pretty enough he’s one of those people who becomes moderately famous on TikTok without having to really do much. His followers notice he’s always talking to someone off camera, and they’re desperate to find out who it is, but Soda only ever responds to comments with ‘oh that’s just Stevie, he doesn’t like TikTok’.

-Soda’s followers have a lot of theories about this ‘Stevie’. Soda is weirdly tight lipped about him, despite the fact he often breaks off mid rant in videos to talk to him. There’s also the fact that the rest of the gang is often around/in the background of videos, but the mysterious ‘Stevie’ never appears. (okok I’ll stop here before this becomes a Stevepop social media au)

-Regularly forgets to take his ADHD meds and Darry often has to remind him

-Would either have a hockey flow or a mullet (whatever y’all think, personally I think modern Soda with a hockey flow tracks with his character)

-One of those people who loves horror movies but is also completely terrified of even the dumbest ones and has to sleep with the lights on for weeks afterwards. Steve makes fun of him for it, but will also stay up on the phone with him if Soda watches one by himself and freaks himself out

-Has a million fidget spinners because they actually help him focus on stuff when he needs to

-Soda in modern AU wouldn’t call Ponyboy ‘kid brother’ as a nickname (don’t get me wrong, I love it but Ive never heard it used irl). Instead, I think him and Darry (and thus the rest of the gang) refer to Pony as ‘shrimp’ and Ponyboy absolutely hates it  “where’s the shrimp” “he’s has track practice ‘till four, you of all people should know that Dar” (brought to you by me and my interactions with my own little brothers)

-The whole gang is super into video games, but Soda is kind of shit at them and lowkey grumpy about it

-Every teacher he’s ever had has done that thing where they expect him to be exactly like his older sibling, and therefore expect him to be a model student like Darry, and every time they are proven entirely wrong. By the time the same teachers see Ponyboy’s name on their class lists they’re terrified of what to expect

-He definitely had that horrible middle school boy stage where he just reeked of axe body spray and BO before he figured out proper hygiene

-Every two weeks him and Steve end up doing some sort of YouTube deep dive where they end up being convinced of some sort of wild conspiracy theory that Ponyboy and sometimes Darry have to spend three hours talking them out of

-Uses far too many emojis in texts

-He had a pet hamster once and you know that thing died in the most horrendous way imaginable. Two-bit probably farted into the cage at one point as a joke and the poor thing asphyxiated to death or some shit like that

-He’s that kid in group projects who does nothing and tanks the presentation for everyone by mispronouncing half the words on the slides some other group member made for him

-Him and Steve are so inseparable that when they’re not together people will be like ‘where’s your boyfriend’ and he just answers without thinking before flushing really hard and sputtering a bit. 

-One of those people that casually catches snakes with his bare hands. Steve HATES it and Ponyboy is TERRIFIED of snakes so he gets in trouble with Darry if he does it too often or brings them near the house

[duhragonball]

Enter the Casinoverse: Why I Don't Like Multiverse Stuff.

I probably should be resting instead of writing, or at least writing stuff that actually counts towards my writing goals, but dammit, this is how I relax, and I finally found a way to tackle this topic properly.

Over the last decade or so, I've come to loathe all the multiverse fare in pop culture. This is probably because it's gotten so overexposed in media, but also because comic books were running it into the ground well before I was born. When I actually got into comics in the 90s, a lot of the older fans used to pine for the "good old days" when DC had a multiverse, and everybody was constantly teaming up with their Golden Age self to fight their Evil Universe self. DC keeps teasing bringing the Multiverse back, and sometimes they even go through with it, but it's like they can never get it quite right or something, but they refuse to just commit to anything, and that's one reason I don't read DC comics anymore.

These days the Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps horsing around with the idea, and even using "Multiverse" in one of the movie titles. I haven't watched the Dr. Strange movies, but my idea of a good Dr. Strange story is Doc traveling through a dimension that looks like a Salvador Dali painting, battling Lovecraftian horrors by uttering spells that rhyme. Then he goes home to hang out with Namor and the Incredible Hulk, and Queen's "It's a Kind of Magic" is playing the entire time. But sure, have Benedict Cumberbatch screw around with AU Reed Richards and revisit some of the dirt-worst Scarlet Witch stories ever written, all for the sake of setting up Phase Five. Sounds good.

Here's the problem: The whole premise of a multiverse story is that none of it matters, because somewhere out there is another set of universes where everything turned out differently. There's a DC direct-to-home-video cartoon about this, where the Justice League battles their Evil Counterparts, and the Evil Batman is named Owlman. His plan is to destroy the entire multiverse, including himself, because he he's a nihilist. Faced with an infinite reality where every possible decision has already been made somewhere else, he wants to blow up the entire thing, because that's the only choice that can actually matter.

I like Owlman's speech, but he's a dope. Batman stops him before he can go through with his plan, but it still doesn't matter, because even if it worked, there would still be an alternate reality where Owlman didn't destroy the multiverse. At best, he can only wipe out parts of it, because it goes on forever. Owlman believes there's some "Prime" universe from which all the others originated, but he has no way to know for sure. I guess he doesn't need to actually be capable of destroying reality to be a good villain. His frustration and willingness to try is sufficient.

Nevertheless, the multiverse concept is deceptive because it seems to raise the stakes. Instead of fighting for one world, the good guys have to fight for many worlds! What could be better? But ultimately it lowers the stakes by presenting too many shortcuts and loopholes. Instead of defending one home which is precious and irreplaceable, the heroes have to live with the knowledge that there are infinite copies, and they could just as easily switch over to one of them when things go wrong. Instead of getting to know other characters with diverse backgrounds and histories, they wind up bonding with alternate versions of themselves.

I'm trying to be careful here because I've heard the Spider-Verse movies are quite good, but I haven't seen them yet so I can't comment on how they might have gotten the formula right. My best guess is that they focus on very different versions of Spider-Man. Miles is different from Peter who is different from Miguel, etc. They seem more like the Green Lantern Corps than a multiverse concept. A fraternity of superheroes with the same powers, that just happens to be operating across multiple Earths instead of outer space. "No Way Home" went the opposite direction, with three Peter Parkers all being amazed that they each had an Uncle Ben who told them about great responsibility, like this is some big revelation.

The multiverse premise also suggests a broader canvas for greater creativity, but in practice it always seems to mean repeating the same ideas over and over. Hence the Council of Cross-Time Kangs, or the Flash teaming up with himself to fight... himself. Or the MCU revealing that Dr. Doom will be played by the same guy who already featured heavily in nine of their previous movies. You'd think an infinitude of universes would open the door for all sorts of bizarre ideas, but instead they just use it to bring back dead characters like Loki, so he can join the Time Variance Authority, which in the comics was a bureaucratic organization made up of identical men who all looked like Marvel Comics editor Mark Gruenwald. Loki's job in the TVA was apparently to apprehend... another Loki. Brilliant.

I'm not saying these projects can't be successful, or even well-told. Again, a lot of people were high on the Spider-Verse stuff, and it looks pretty cool. I need to check it out. But I've seen lots and lots of stories that get it wrong, or use it as a crutch, or present it like some novel concept that hasn't already been going on for decades. The TV show "Sliders" aired from 1995 to 2000, and its opening credits had to explain the premise, probably because general audiences weren't familiar with the concept. That was a quarter-century ago. And I got bored with "Sliders" after the first season.

You might be wondering how Multiverse Stuff is different from Alternate Timeline Stuff. And you're right, the two ideas tend to blend together a lot. My personal definition is that an Alternate Timeline depends on some sort of time anomaly or time travel to exist. For example, in "Back to the Future II", Old Biff goes back from 2015 to 1955 and gives his younger self the sports almanac. This creates the "Hell Valley" timeline where 1985 Biff is rich and powerful. When Doc and Marty go to 1955 and destroy the almanac, the "Hell Valley" timeline is prevented and it no longer exists.

By contrast, the parallel worlds seen in "Sliders" or DC's multiverse appeared to be permanent fixtures. They may have been spawned by decisions made in some "prime" reality, but they couldn't be un-made like "Hell Valley". DC's Earth-2 was a place you could just go to whenever you wanted, but "Hell Valley" only existed for as long as the future almanac was in the past.

This was something I liked a lot about Terminator 5. It had its problems, but the movie's premise was kind of fun for a fourth sequel to a time travel movie. Both sides of the conflict have been using time travel to win their war, but there's only one world, so all of the characters remember events from timelines that no longer exist because of all the tampering. They each have ideas about what was supposed to happen, but all bets seem to be off.

So, with all that said, let me talk about the 1995 film "Casino". It's based on real world events involving the Chicago Outfit's skimming operation in 1970's Las Vegas. The names were changed for the movie, and some events are retooled to work better for the movie, but I started reading the book this was all based on, and it's interesting to me how closely the movie matches up so far.

The story is the same, though. I'll stick to the movie version, since I know it better. The mob installs a trusted bookie (Sam "Ace" Rothstein, played by Robert DeNiro) to run their casino, the Tangiers. Ace's job is to run a tight ship and make the casino as profitable as possible, so the Outfit can send a guy into the casino's count room every month to steal a bunch of money. The "skim" is a bit more complicated than this, from what I understand, but the point is to avoid paying taxes on the profits. A made man, Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), is sent to Vegas to protect the Outfit's investment.

But by the early 80's the whole operation goes wrong. The FBI uncovers the skim. Ace screws up his marriage and career because he's too stubborn to compromise and too greedy to cut his losses. Nicky defies the Chicago Outfit by trying to become his own boss in Vegas, and the Outfit fails to deal with any of these issues until it's too late. I guess you could call it a tragedy, in the sense that everyone is brought down by the same brutal and venal talents that made them successful in the first place.

What makes the movie so awesome is how inevitable this is. There is no Plan B for any of the characters. Ace's wife Ginger (Sharon Stone) tries to find a way out of her abusive marriage, but every path leads to her demise. Nicky screws up so badly that he can't even go near Las Vegas by the end of the movie. He thinks he still has prospects in the mob, but instead he gets executed for all the trouble he caused for the bosses. Ace gets so focused on running the Tangiers that he loses sight of what he's really there to do: Supporting the skim operation. He survives the events of the movie and ends up living in San Diego, but he'll never again be the big shot he was in Vegas.

The point I'm trying to make here is that there isn't a "Las Vegas 2" these characters can go to and start over. This is their big opportunity in life, the only one they'll ever get, and they all blow it. And it's not just one or two big mistakes that bring it all crashing down. It's lots of little blunders and unforced errors that happen over the course of the movie. It's a beautiful thing, because when you rewatch the film, you realize just how many chances they had to save the thing, and they kept zigging when they needed to zag.

For example, let's talk about Joe Bob Briggs. The host of TNT Monstervision got a small part in "Casino" as this Nevadan Slot Manager named Don Ward. I'm not even sure what his job was in the movie, except to watch the slot machines and make sure his area was clean. Ace says he had to hire Don Ward because his cousin-in-law Pat Webb is the county commissioner, and they need support from local officials like Webb to maintain the mob's control of the Tangiers.

Later in the movie, Ace fires Don Ward for general incompetence. It's not clear what Don did wrong, but someone won a bunch of money on his slots, so Ace is sure there was cheating going on, since the odds of winning that big are astronomical. Don was either stupid enough to let it happen, or he was in cahoots with the cheaters, so either way, Ace wants him out. This upsets Pat Webb, who tries to talk Ace into hiring Don back as a personal favor. But Ace refuses to budge.

And this is a big mistake, because throughout the whole movie, Ace has been running the casino without a gaming license, and relying on a loophole that lets him do the job as long as his application is still pending. Before, everyone was willing to look the other way, but now that Ace has angered the county commissioner who handles those applications, Pat Webb fast tracks the application and it gets denied, making Ace's position even more tenuous.

And from there Ace becomes more worried about vindication and getting his license than his actual job: Supporting the skim. If he had just kept Don Ward on the payroll, and tolerated his incompetence, then maybe things could have been different. Maybe some of the other dominoes in the movie wouldn't have fallen. But he made his choices and the movie played out the way it did.

So when you watch the movie, it's tempting to play What If and imagine things going a different way. This is what Multiverse stories try to do all the time. Ace Rothstein meets his AU counterpart who still runs the Tangiers and patched things up with Ginger and Nicky. Then they team up to fight an Ace who ratted everyone out to the FBI, which I guess is just Lefty Rosenthal, the real life guy Ace Rothstein was based on.

The problem is that the alternate scenarios don't make sense. Multiverse stories love to present ideas like "What if the Nazi's won World War II?" but they neglect to consider whether such a scenario is even possible. The whole "infinite worlds from infinite choices" concept presumes that every scenario is equally possible. The Nazis didn't win World War II, and they probably never really had much of a chance, since their strategies usually involved taking badly needed oil resources from countries they hadn't finished invading. It's more complicated than that, sure, but when you learn more about the war, you begin to realize just how steep the odds were for Nazi Germany.

But I didn't want to get into all that historical analysis, which is why I'm talking about the movie "Casino". Joe Bob Briggs' role in the movie is a little easier to discuss. What if Ace rehired him? Ace wouldn't re-hire him, though. He was too stubborn and arrogant to go back on his decision. Pat Webb warned him of the consequences, but he stuck to his guns. Whatever money loss Don Ward caused for the Casino was surely a pittance compared to the eventual loss of the entire skim operation, but Ace couldn't see it that way.

Well what if he could see it that way? What if hats were ants? Look, if you rewrite the story where Ace Rothstein always does the most logical thing, he never would have gone to Vegas in the first place. He never would have gotten involved with organized crime in the first place. He wouldn't have been a bookie in the first place. He would have become an accountant or something.

Or take Nicky Santoro for example. He got too big for his britches and started doing mafia stuff in Las Vegas because no one else was doing it, so he had no competition. Great, except the reason for that was because the Outfit purposely suppressed that kind of crime in Vegas in order to encourage tourism. More tourists means more gambling, which makes the casino more profitable and the skim even greater. Everyone wins, as long as Nicky stays quiet and does his actual job: Protecting the skim.

But Nicky couldn't do that, because he was too ambitious and aggressive to just sit around waiting to respond to trouble. And all the bosses were 1700 miles away, so he could start robbing jewelry stores and hotel rooms and dating Ginger behind Sam's back without any consequences. Well what if he just... didn't do all that? What if he stopped and realized how badly that would mess things up? Because if he didn't make those kinds of mistakes, he wouldn't be Nicky Santoro! That's why!

The simple fact is that Nicky is a violent, ambitious man. When he wants something, he takes it. That's the character. He can be reasoned with, but only to a certain extent. Early in the film, he shakes down bookies for money. Later in the film, he tries the same thing with an investment banker, as if that's the same thing. To him it is, because he thinks he's invincible, but to the rest of the world, its ridiculous. The bookies can't stop him because no one in law enforcement would care if they got whacked, but an investment banker can go to the authorities. There is no alternate universe where Nicky Santoro is a chill guy who only does bad things when his superiors tell him to. Because that guy wouldn't be cut out for the mafia in the first place.

This is why alternate timeline concepts work better, because there has to be an inciting incident that creates them. Trunks goes back in time and warns Goku about the androids and the heart virus, so now we have a timeline where Goku lives and one where he died. And we don't have to trouble ourselves with 500 other universes where Goku doesn't like to fight, or 37 realities where Goku is a porn star, or that one AU where he got the bit role in "Casino" instead of Joe Bob Briggs.

This is why I got sick of "Sliders" back in the 90s, because they would find themselves in an alternate universe where women overthrew the patriarchy, or the British won the Revolutionary War, but they would never adequately explain how those things happened. The one where the women run everything was especially insulting, because one of the characters reads a history book and explains that the women just got fed up one day and took over. Like, that's it. It's that simple. It's the most interesting aspect of the show and they don't even bother with it. If it was a time travel story, then you'd have to show a character going back in time and actually doing something to cause history to change, and then explain why that one change worked.

This is why "Back to the Future II" works, because it's simple enough to understand that if 1955 Biff knows the outcome of every sports event for the next fifty years, he can win big by placing bets with bookies, like the Earth-7 Ace Rothstein, who never went to Las Vegas and became a bookie in Hill Valley instead. It's the same Biff, with the same wants and desires and flaws, but now he has an advantage that he didn't have before, and we can see the character taken to the logical extreme.

I suppose this is the gripe I have with that animated movie version of Owlman, becuse it's kind of silly that an ominverse-killing nihilist just happens to still be similar enough to Batman that he throws knives and ropes and such, and he dresses up in a Batman costume even though he's supposed to look like an owl. It would all work a lot better if he was just a whole new character without any ties to Batman at all.

I don't really have a neat little conclusion to put on this. Studios are probably going to keep milking mutliverse fare until it stops making money. The idea will never entirely go away. It's not the worst thing in the world or anything like that, but I do sort of wish everyone else was getting just as bored with it as I am, so that we could move on to some other cliche, like boat chases, or sexy assassins.

And this is where it's nice to just write my own stuff, because at least I can make my own stories where the Time Patrol doesn't get bogged down with Goku-on-Goku action.

[booasaur]

Any new upcoming series with w/w?

Lol, I had a whole answer typed up and almost completed last night, I could only remember a few upcoming shows but added a bunch of ongoing and recent with descriptions and then the post editor hiccuped and removed most of it so I angrily went to sleep instead.

But maybe that was for the best, because this morning a video of upcoming f/f shows in April came out so now I can add a few more.

There's Dead Ringers, that show with Rachel Weisz playing twin gynecologists and since it's a genderbent adaptation of an existing movie we already know it's gonna be super messy. It would be pretty wild for Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies to not have some wlw and luckily it does, the trailer itself reveals a couple. Tiny Beautiful Things, with Kathryn Hahn and Sarah Pidgeon (Leah in The Wilds) playing her younger self, apparently Kathryn Hahn's character's daughter is queer. Slip is a kinda scifi, where a bored wife cheats on her husband and realizes every time she has sex with someone, she wakes up married to them. The show's about her trying to get back to her original life, and there are a series of different husbands, but also a few wives (also, the first "replacement" husband is played by Boorman's actor from Willow!). There are also the upcoming Thai dramas Be Mine, Reverse 4 You, and 23.5, as previously mentioned.

In terms of returning series coming back, there's the Disney cartoon The Owl House, getting its final ep. Single Drunk Female's second season is returning soon. It has a bi lead, and she did have a female love interest but it was pretty temporary compared to the will they/won't she has with the main character male love interest. Her Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor, also a very main character, is a lesbian, and she's married but her wife's actress is a regular on another show now so I dunno if she'll be back.

Welcome to Eden, a Spanish thriller about people trapped on an island with a cult, ended the first season on a major cliffhanger so it'll be exciting to see what happens now, though it feels like anyone could die so that's a bit nerve-wracking. It has a lot of different kinds of rep, f/f, m/m, trans, one of the gay guys is deaf too and it's a plot point that his boyfriend won't learn sign even though his friends have.

The Epix series From is a pretty well done horror series about people trapped in a town and who get hunted at night, it's more ominous and suspenseful than outright gory. It actually has three wlw, though one is mostly with one guy, the one who's engaged to a woman outside the town seems to be about to start a romance with another guy, and one is a teen who's crushing on the first woman, feels unrequited. I didn't know about any of them when I started, so they're a bonus, the show itself is rather compelling.

As for current shows, The Power (lol, get it, current) started last night on Prime, it's nice that after the misreading of Class of '07, this new show about girls does immediately have a wlw. Gap's already finished but it made such a splash, if you haven't watched, I'll mention it again. The other Thai drama, Show Me Love, is still airing. Fantasy Island is honestly kind of sweet, it feels like one of those '90s shows, episodic, bright colors and optimism, and great guest stars. One of the two leads, I'd say, or at least the second billed main, is queer.

We got our three firefighter shows, 9-1-1 with a solid (now) established relationship, Fire Country, a lesbian character but not much screentime, and of course Station 19, which is honestly winning me back in a huge way with their current storyline (if they land it).

Cop wlw update (why are there so many of them!): NCIS Hawai'i remains super cute, especially when Lucy is on, looks like Ayanna on Law & Order: Organized Crime got herself a new gf with a super hot voice, The Rookie: Feds still has Niecy Nash playing a super likable and bi lead. I couldn't stand the egregious copaganda in FBI: Most Wanted, and like, imagine how bad it'd have to be, when I can still watch all the rest of these shows, but Sheryll's still there, so. Sin Huellas (No Traces) has already finished but gets another mention for being as funny as it was, with a cute, hot couple at the center. Rabbit Hole's just started, but the initial antagonist/probable grudging ally's an FBI lady who within the first 10 minutes of the first ep dropped that she had a wife. Van der Valk has started its third season and though I'm gonna keep hoping Lucienne's INCREDIBLY hot ex from 2x03 returns, Lucienne, second billed, is plenty hot by herself. Ariana Guerra, who played the novitiate in Helstrom, has joined the second season of CSI: Vegas. Her character's bi and has a main character boyfriend but he seems like he'll most likely end up with a different character.

I'm not really going through these in any particular order, except combining the above two types, but let me just blow through the rest of the ongoing shows: the Canadian family comedy Run the Burbs has been quite sweet in how it's written the teen daughter, How I Met Your Father comes across as an old fashioned sitcom, except one of the characters is a lesbian. It's kind of fun in its familiarity and low stakes. I didn't expect to be as drawn into The Watchful Eye as I did, the trailer felt quite soapy and it was, at times, but all the nannies were great, and I ended up quite liking the f/f side couple. It's amazing what actual personalities can do. :o A Million Little Things is winding down its final season and Grace Park's character is engaged to Cameron Esposito's character so it feels pretty endgame at this point.

If you didn't watch or stopped watching Carnival Row because the main m/f relationship seemed so especially trite, you maaaay want to give it another look. I'm not nearly caught up with Bel-Air, but in the first season they wrote Ashley's sexuality really well, especially since she's so young. I'm sure you can't have missed my Perry Mason gifsets by now, but I can only reiterate what a great character Della Street is. One of the kids in Gotham Knights is bi (and her brother is trans!) but I'm not sure it's worth getting invested before cancellation. Unless the CW is only going to keep projects involving the Supernatural trio?

At this point, hoping everyone who's into wlw has at least tried Yellowjackets or is aware enough of it to know they don't want to try it. Las Pelotaris 1926 is a Spanish language historical drama about female athletes playing--well, the sport is basque pelota but if you need a reference point, it's like squash or racquetball. If you haven't yet caught up with RWBY, now would be an okay time. Lastly, I've still never watched any of Riverdale or even Choni clips, but its final season has just started and you know, I gotta respect the longevity of whatever they've been doing with them, however up and down they seem to have been, and perhaps this final season will be an up. From what I've seen on SM, they seem to get endgame soulmatey treatment more than any of the other ships and I can respect that.

Aside from the Thai dramas that might air after April and a few of the other shows that ended their seasons in March (or February in Gap's case), all of these have eps airing this month. After this year of cancellations, I think it's worth enjoying what we can, even as we acknowledge how much lead/main character rep and longevity we're losing. :o

[loycspotting]

10. Ewan McGregor Movie Review: Nightwatch (1997)

New year, new movies! In 1997, Ewan starred in three movies and all of them had some pretty bizarre plots lol. Let's start at the beginning with "Nightwatch"!

Genre: Horror/Mystery

Rating: R

Director: Ole Bornedal

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Nick Nolte, Josh Brolin

Synopsis: "Nightwatch" follows Martin Bells, a college student, who takes a job as the new night watchman at a morgue at the same time a serial rapist/murderer is on the loose. As the police hunt for the criminal, and more evidence is brought to light, Martin comes to the terrifying realization that he is their prime suspect!

Ewan Review: Ewan plays the main character Martin Bells. Martin is in college as a law student and is best friends with a mean, sexist, and inconsiderate (the list could go on) prick. Ewan has a female love interest and they have a couple kissing scenes as well as a really tender moment early in the movie. He speaks with an American English accent which isn't too shabby except when he gets scared and then he pretty much drops it lol. Speaking of scared, he spends a lot of the movie screaming, and crying. He has a bathing scene with no real nudity but if you pause at just the right time it's possible to see his package from afar. He also gets a public handjob, beat up, bit, and bound. In other words, you get a slew of very weak, vulnerable, and submissive Ewan content.

Screentime Percentage: Ewan is on screen for a grand total of 52/102 minutes making his SP 51%.

To Ewan or not to Ewan: Is the movie worth watching for Ewan content? Yes. Is the movie worth watching in general? Yes. Caveat: if you wish to be entertained then the movie will entertain you. But it espouses such harmful views of women that you might not be able to look past it and enjoy the story.

Warning before Watching: there is a violent murder within the first 3 minutes of the movie and another towards the end. There are close ups of mutilated, naked, dead bodies and lots and lots of blood. The movie is also incredibly sexist and revels in cruelty against women.

Where to Watch: You can stream the movie for free on Pluto TV or soap2day. It's available for rent on YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies, and Fandango at Home.

Closing Thoughts: This movie is in the horror genre seemingly because of the gore and suspense. The true horror of this film is the misogyny and general treatment of women. I was more disturbed and disgusted by the way the male characters interacted with the female characters. Mind you, this movie is not a cautionary tale. It is not about the pitfalls of sexism. The male characters do not receive comeuppance for their behavior. It is treated as natural. It is celebrated. We are to understand and sympathize with these chauvinists. We are to find humor in their hatred and charm in their cruelty. The funny thing is, you could (and I did) read a homoerotic subtext within the relationship of the two male best friends because they truly only love each other while their female love interests are just an afterthought. This movie is gross for all the wrong reasons and I will not be watching it again.

[patricksteelebodger]

Look back at the Highlights of Animation 2023!

Happy New Year, everyone! While we officially begin our journey of 2024, I wanted to talk about and look back at the highlights from 2023, mainly that of the media/animation:

First off, The Owl House released the last two episodes of their 3rd and final season (For the Future and Watching and Dreaming), and boy was it such a great end to a brilliant show (especially as the first words of each special spell out 'Thanks for Watching' as it is a message from Dana and the crew thanking us for watching the show!

Disney and Warner Bros also celebrated their 100 year anniversaries, as both companies were found on the same year! (1923-2023) Not to mention, Disney released a special animated short, Once Upon a Studio, to help celebrate the 100 years of Disney animation and magic, with about 500 characters of Disney's animated feature films, shorts and other various works coming together.

We also got some big movies, such as the 2nd instalment of Spider-Verse, Elemental, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem and Wish (Best of luck if any one of them win the Oscars best animated feature this year!)

Speaking of films, only that, the Super Mario Bros. Movie was also released as well! And while it's true that there's some mixed feedback about it (especially about Chris Pratt voicing Mario), it was a great film that I know many video game/Mario fans were waiting to see.

Also, the long awaited Five Night's at Freddy's movie was finally released (I'm not a fan of that game series, or horror films and/or games, but I know that fans are happy to get to see it).

This year has also been a big year for Indie Animation, as we got more episodes of Helluva Boss and Murder Drones, with a cast of new characters.

And new Indie Animated shows as we were introduced to Lackadaisy and the Amazing Digital Circus, giving us what we're to expect in future!

We also finally got news of Hazbin Hotel, as it will be released on Prime Video on January! After 4 years of waiting, the grand opening is near!

Also, several more great shows came to an end, such as anime series Pokemon and Sailor Moon, as the former concluded Ash and Pikachu's incredible journey and latter had the final instalment of the Sailor Moon Crystal series in the form of the Sailor Moon Cosmos 2-part film.

And lastly, Hilda, another of my fav shows, had it's most fantastic heartwarming and satisfying ending with it's 3rd and final season after 5 years of adventures with 3 seasons and a movie in-between!

So happy about the animation lot we got this year, and I can't wait for what's in store for the animation of 2024!

[thefatisland]

I found a Formerly Fit example from the webtoon, “My Life as a Loser 2”. The first chapter has the main character having gotten overweight since the end of its previous.

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing! I had found another webtoon with a similar weight gain through a Youtube video, and it made me realize how this seems like a "vaguely" common thing among these specific creations - it echoed also some of the weight gain/loss moments of "Lookism" (which, as an aside, I used to enjoy but grew to hate so much)

[Okay, brief rant about Lookism - I originaly dug the concept, you know, it felt fresh and weird and unusual, and yeah it was dark but it covered some serious and needed topics. But on one hand the whole thing grew so much dark and about evil people and stuff that I remembered I joked a long time ago "Does the author of Lookism actually hate South Korea? Because from the way he keeps describing everything wrong with it upped to 100% degrees, you'd think Korea is just filled with bullies, rapists, mafia, serial killers and disturbed psychos. And on the other hand what I actually grew to hate is how this webtoon was so fucking inconsistent. The tone kept switching from serious to goofy to family drama to action movie to lifeschool slice of life to pure horror, and the plot went fucking everywhere, it was like a blended mix of every type of manhwa around, it made zero sense in the long run... Anyway, I don't like Lookism at all Xp Though it does have one interesting character in terms of weight gain and body sizes, too bad he is in one of those "Bakugou" cases where the author makes you want to enjoy him as a side character and a "goofy" sidekick when he starts out as the worst piece of scum ever... Another thing I hate about Lookism - for a comic supposedly anti-bullying, it seems to forgive bullies and teach a "don't stand up to bullies, just be strong enough they won't bully you" type of logic... Anyway]

Okay I found back the other weight gain example I found - it is from "Wind Breaker", a webtoon about bicycle competition apparently? And there's this side character that undergoes a "Let's gain mass to be stronger", except he just becomes very fat, and to do a bicycling race it is not the best thing. If you google "Wind Breaker weight gain" online you'll find tons of vids or TikTik/Instas/whatever that all go crazy about how the character turned fat for a while...

But yeah I kind of see these three instances as answering something quite similar in those webtoons. Some sort of, I don't know... There's something there.

And oh wait... Oh shit I remember now! Okay so, the thing is that I am reading the chapter as I write this, and it just clicked that I used to look at this webtoon! X) Not this one but the previous "My Life as a Loser". I started reading it when in its prime when the first series was still going on - it wasn't finished and I didn't follow up with the rest afterward... I had forgotten all about it X) And damn, they don't joke on the "fanservice". What the heck this is basically all a lot of us had been looking for... You've got the belly slam, the stripping, the butt-crack showing, the after/before comparison... I feel like things are culminating

[As a French person, it truly cracks me up that the definition of a "rich meal" includes just tons of baguettes in baskets Xp]

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

k, m, n, t for pd and/or suck!!! >:33333

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

-> you know i gotta say wiwi. i have to. that character was Made For Me i swear to GOD . genuinely i cannot think about prime defenders season 2 episode 39 without feeling physically sick bc i love it so much. its the only one i havent relistened to since i heard it the first time. i KNOW its gonna make me cry again so i genuienly have not touched it even though theres things in there i need to hear again for character research. his arc is so like. narratively satisfying in a way that hits me so fucking deep to my core in an extremely personal way. and like. there were definitely some Decisions that i was REALLY ANNOYING about hating when they were brought up because im used to media with bad storytelling/creators that do not care about their characters but. looking back on it i would not change a single thing about it. i love you wiwi so much.

-> FOR SUCK.... its not over yet. so i cannot definitively say. campaign finale comes out tomorrow so my answer may change depending on that but for right now i think i gotta say arthur. i joke a lot about hating arthur for no real reason in particular but. man his story is just REALLY good. not going 2 give you suck spoilers (hehe) but i also really like how shilo has grown through the campaign. hes my little guy :]

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

-> TIDE. TIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TIDE TIDE TIDE I LOVE TIDE SO MUCH. thats my dad thats my best friend i love tide so much dude. every time he is mentioned or on screen i am just like :D HI TIDE I LOVE YOU TIDE

-> grefgore :] light of my life this is how i feel anytime i think about grefgore

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

-> CHARACTER STUDIES. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I LIKE A GOOD SHIPPING FIC AS MUCH AS THE NEXT GUY BUT PLEASE GOD WRITE THEM IN CHARACTER. EXPLORE THEIR THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS AND WHY THEY MAKE CERTAIN DECISIONS THE WAY THEY DO. this doesnt even go for just pd and suck this is like. true for every single fandom ive ever fucking been in. do you know how hard it is to find character studies in the danny phantom tag on ao3. nobody has even fucking watched the show how are they going to write character studies they just want (<< i cannot legally finish this sentence without getting in so much trouble) I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MY FUCKING SELF AROUND HERE. ALL I EVER WRITE ARE CHARACTER STUDIES BC THATS THE WAY I THINK ABOUT CHARACTERS. I LOVE THEIR MOTIVATIONS I LOVE TO GET INSIDE THEIR BRAINS LIKE A LITTLE PARASITE AND IT IS ALWAYS SURPRISING TO ME WHEN OTHER PEOPLE DO NOT THINK LIKE THIS. (edit im just now reading through this and realized the question says three things. i did not process that. my three things are all more character studies please)

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 

-> oh dude i have so many hmmmmmmm how to choose just one. i have a LOT of feelings about wiwis original death and i might write something about that when i can get over my shrimp emotions about him. dakota cole audhd truther but that ones pretty much canon anyway so i dont think it counts. vyncent and his relationship with growing up in fantasy world and then being thrown into prime and how he adjusted to that. I think he really lies shitty syfy channel type horror movies that are so stupidly bad. and also plays a lot of video games but again i think thats mostly canon already. i think tide listens to dad rock but also like. ocean man by ween. you already know about my william and ashe being each others emotional support at concerts. i think william and ashe should hang out and do emo kid things more. i also have a lot of feelings about ashe and coping with the crippling loneliness of basically growing up alone and how the pd becoming like INSTANT best friends was so much for him in sooo many ways. you already know how i feel about mark i am in the middle of dissecting him like im in a high school biology class as we speak. uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i know im gonna think of something really good after i hit the post button so stay tuned

[rookie-critic]

Rookie-Critic's Halloween Horror-thon: Part 2 - #6-10

#6: Doctor Sleep: The Director's Cut (2019, dir. Mike Flanagan)

I have, of course, seen Doctor Sleep before, but I am not labeling this as a re-watch because the Director's Cut of this film, while not really that different from a plotting/through line perspective, is a wholly unique experience to the theatrical version of the film from a character perspective. This version of the movie gives you much more context around the its antagonists, The True Knot, and it's secondary protagonist, Abra Stone, that those major story beats existing in both versions hit with much more impact in the director's cut. It bumped this particular work of Flanagan's up in my ranking of his stuff all the way to third behind Hill House and, now, Usher.

Score: 9/10

Not currently available on streaming.

———————————————–

#7: Gemini (1999, dir. Shinya Tsukamoto)

This one surprised me by not being the kind of film I was anticipating it to be (this happened a handful of times this month). Gemini is the story of three characters plagued by their circumstances/upbringings, and a look at classism and people's desire to give and receive love, shot and told in a frenetic, gonzo style that only Japanese cult-director Shinya Tsukamoto can make work. Tear down the walls of your expectations for this one, it's a great watch.

Score: 8/10

Not currently available on streaming.

———————————————–

#8: Nightmare Detective 2 (2008, dir. Shinya Tsukamoto)

The sequel to Tsukamoto's lukewarmly received 2006 film Nightmare Detective (which you will see further down on this list), this one makes the original look like a litmus test for the concept. A much more restrained and patient film compared to just about all of Tsukamoto's prior efforts, Nightmare Detective 2 sits in the corner, quietly analyzing its core cast in a story about misfits and generational trauma. Really, a lot of the themes and ideas presented here would be honed in on and presented again, albeit from a different viewpoint, in Kotoko. This one really feels like a turning point for Tsukamoto in terms of tone and approach. Not to say that his earlier, more frantic films aren't sometimes just as good, it's just the mark of a talent that's willing to evolve.

Score: 8/10

Not currently available on streaming (this film has actually never seen any kind of official release in the States at all, so unless you're willing to do a little swashbuckling, this one's out of your reach).

———————————————–

#9: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970, dir. Dario Argento)

Horror icon Dario Argento's (Suspiria, Deep Red) debut feature is an unrivaled "whodunit" mystery thriller with that hallmark giallo flair that Argento would become known for. There isn't a whole lot to say about this one other than this was one of the most singularly entertaining of my October viewings, and that I highly recommend it for just about anyone.

Score: 8/10

Currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

———————————————–

#10: Noroi: The Curse (2005, dir. Koji Shiraishi)

This is the best Japanese found footage horror has to offer. Noroi is told in a documentary style, acting as the discovered footage of the final film made by a supernatural investigator that has disappeared without a trace. This was my final watch of the Horror-thon and I couldn't think of a better way to send off the spooky month, because this was one of, if not the scariest watch of the entire month. It had me wanting to turn the lights on and sleep with one eye open, and certain images from the film's final moments will be burned into my retinas until I die. If I had any complaints, it's that I honestly could have used even more, although I guess an argument could be made that that's actually one of the film's good qualities.

Score: 8/10

Currently streaming on AMC+/Shudder.

[docrotten]

PROM NIGHT (1980) – Episode 268 – Decades of Horror 1980s

“The killer’s comin’! The killer’s gonna get you!” Ah, yes, the childhood game everyone played. Join your faithful Grue Crew – Crystal Cleveland, Chad Hunt, Bill Mulligan, and Jeff Mohr – as they discover who wins and loses in Prom Night (1980).

Decades of Horror 1980s Episode 268 – Prom Night (1980)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! Click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

Gruesome Magazine is partnering with the WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL (https://wickedhorrortv.com/) which now includes video episodes of Decades of Horror 1980s and is available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and its online website across all OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.

At a high school senior prom, a masked killer stalks four teenagers who were responsible for the accidental death of a classmate six years previously.

Directed by: Paul Lynch

Writing Credits: William Gray (screenplay); Robert Guza Jr. (from a story by)

Music by: Paul Zaza, Carl Zittrer

Cinematography by: Robert C. New (director of photography)

Selected Cast:

Leslie Nielsen as Mr. Hammond

Jamie Lee Curtis as Kimberly Hammond

Casey Stevens as Nick McBride

Anne-Marie Martin as Wendy Richards (as Eddie Benton)

Antoinette Bower as Mrs. Hammond

Michael Tough as Alex Hammond

Robert A. Silverman as Mr. Sykes (as Robert Silverman)

Pita Oliver as Vicki

David Mucci as Lou Farmer

Jeff Wincott as Drew Shinnick

Mary Beth Rubens as Kelly Lynch (as Marybeth Rubens)

George Touliatos as Lt. McBride

Melanie Morse MacQuarrie as Henri-Anne

David Gardner as Dr. Fairchild

Joy Thompson as Jude Cunningham

Sheldon Rybowski as Seymour ‘Slick’ Crane

Rob Garrison as Sayer

David Bolt as Weller

Beth Amos as Housekeeper

Sonia Zimmer as Melanie

Sylvia Martin as Mrs. Cunningham

Elizabeth M. Mason as Adele (as Liz Stalker-Mason)

Pam Henry as Car Hop

Ardon Bess as Teacher

Lee Wildgen as Gang Member

Brock Simpson as Young Nick

Leslie Scott as Young Wendy

Tammy Bourne as Young Robin

Dean Bosacki as Young Alex

Debbie Greenfield as Young Kim

Karen Forbes as Young Jude

Joyce Kite as Young Kelly

Prom Night (1980) is one of six horror films in which Jamie Lee Curtis appeared over a three-year span from 1978 to 1981 and the last covered by the Grue-Crew. Three John Carpenter films (Halloween, The Fog, Halloween II) and Prom Night are joined by Road Games and Terror Train. 

Prom Night is not the best of Curtis’s 1978-1981 six-pack of horror movies (does that go without saying?), but is it the worst? Leslie Nielsen, soon to go through his transformation to a standout comedic actor, has little to do as Curtis’s character’s father and the school’s principal. There’s also the student body providing fodder for the killer, the creepy kids that set the whole thing in motion fifteen years earlier, and athe disco music and dancing. Don’t worry. The Grue Crew will give you the straight poop.

At the time of this writing, Prom Night is available to stream from Shudder, Amazon Prime, Peacock, Hoopla, Kanopy, Tubi, PlutoTV, and Freevee. It is also available on physical media as a Blu-ray formatted disc from Synapse Films. 

Every two weeks, Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1980s podcast will cover another horror film from the 1980s. The next episode’s film, chosen by Chad, will be Ghost Story (1981), based on Peter Straub’s 1979 novel! The Grue-Crew has been wanting to do this one for a long time! If you heard them announce Without Warning (1980) on the podcast, they apologize for the change, but it is on the schedule for November. Be patient, fellow babies.

Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans – so leave them a message or comment on the Gruesome Magazine Youtube channel, on the Gruesome Magazine website, or email the Decades of Horror 1980s podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com.

Check out this episode!

[madamlaydebug]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL TRUE!

Born November 15th, we celebrate the 57th birthday of Rachel India True (November 15, 1966 in New York City, NY); an African-American actress. She is best known for her roles in such films as The Craft (1996), Nowhere (1997), and Half Baked (1998). True is also known for her role as Mona Thorne on the UPN sitcom Half & Half, which ran from 2002 to 2006.

True was the middle of three children. Her father is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, whereas her mother is of African American heritage. Her younger sister, Noel, is also an actress. True attended New York University.

True made her television debut in 1991 on the Cosby Show episode "Theo's Final". In 1993, she moved to Los Angeles and made her feature film debut playing Chris Rock's character's girlfriend in the comedy CB4. On television, she appeared in episodes of Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, Beverly Hills, 90210, Getting By, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Family Matters, Dream On and well as made-for-television movies Moment of Truth: Stalking Back (1993) and A Walton Wedding (1995). In 1995, she had supporting role in the erotic horror film Embrace of the Vampire starring Alyssa Milano.

In 1996, True landed her breakthrough role as Rochelle Zimmerman in the supernatural horror film, The Craft, where she played a member of a teenage coven. True stated that she had to "fight" to audition for the part and was actively going up against her future co-stars Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell and Robin Tunney. Her role was originally written for a white actress, but that didn't deter her from auditioning. In 1997, she starred in the comedy-drama film, Nowhere alongside James Duval, the film received mixed reviews from critics. The following year, True starred as Dave Chappelle's romantic interest in the comedy film, Half Baked. Also from 1997 to 1998, she also had the recurring role of Janet Clemens on The Drew Carey Show. From 1999 to 2000, she appeared in the ABC drama series, Once and Again.

True appeared in a number of independent movies, include With or Without You (1999), The Big Split (1999), and Groove (2000). She starred alongside Monica and Essence Atkins in the 2000 romantic drama film Love Song. From 2002 to 2006, True starred with Essence Atkins in the UPN comedy series, Half & Half, as paternal half-sisters who barely knew each other until becoming adults. She returned to film, playing the supporting role in the 2007 comedy The Perfect Holiday. The following years, she appeared in a number of smaller and made-for-television films, include The Asylum productions Social Nightmare (2013), Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys (2014), Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014), and Sharknado: Heart of Sharkness (2015). In 2017, True worked as a tarot-card reader in Echo Park.

True released her book, True Heart Intuitive Tarot, Guidebook And Deck in 2020. She appeared in horror films Agnes and Horror Noire in 2021. The following year, she joined the cast of the second season of Amazon Prime Video comedy series, Harlem. Also that year, True was cast in Half Baked 2, the sequel to the 1998 cult comedy, reprising her role as Mary Jane Potman.