This article was first published on Dusty Wright’s TALES & RANTS, the Substack of writer, journalist, singer-songwriter, and content creator Mark “Dusty” Petracca. Click here to subscribe and read more. I was definitely—no maybes—moved by the new must-see documentary, Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger, which chronicles their jubilant world reunion stadium tour in 2025. Several times, I was nearly moved to tears. It not only focuses on the Gallaghers—brothers, guitarist/songwriter Noel Gallagher and charismatic, mercurial lead singer Liam Gallagher, who had not spoken to each other in years—but is most often seen through the lens of fans from all over the globe. It…

Throughout the final trailer for the DC horror movie Clayface, dialogue and images loop and repeat, creating dissonance that only sometimes comes together into a recognizable sentence. For example, we hear scientist Dr. Caitlin Corr (Naomi Ackie) utter “Matt Hagen” over and over, until she finally completes the sentence: “Matt Hagen can change his face.” Of course, any of us watching the trailer for Clayface know that Matt Hagen can change his face, because he’s the titular Clayface: a long-established Batman villain who can not only shape-shift, but often takes the form of a giant gloop monster who pummels the…

Some photos make perfect sense at first glance, while others seem to raise questions that probably have no useful answers. Whether it’s a person is standing somewhere they clearly should not be, an object being used in a way nobody expected, or an entire scene looks like the result of several unrelated decisions happening at once, the best part is that trying to understand these pictures can make them even funnier. There is often no context, no explanation, and no satisfying conclusion waiting at the end. Sometimes you just have to look at the image, accept that it happened, and…

History has a strange way of becoming more disturbing the deeper you dig. Some of the most unsettling facts are not obscure legends or exaggerated stories, but things that were once completely ordinary to the people living through them. We’re extraordinarily resilient beings, until Gen Z anyway. Sorry. Many old everyday customs, medical practices, punishments, disasters, or beliefs are remarkably difficult to imagine today. Even people who spend their free time reading about ancient civilizations and forgotten centuries can’t know how it really felt to feel living in those times. These are the kinds of historical facts that tend to…

After leaving IGN, a group of former staffers launched their own online media company Kinda Funny in 2015, primarily covering video games and powered by conversations between the 11-person team. Among Kinda Funny’s founders is Tim Gettys, who’s been a prominent voice in games media coverage for over 15 years and, in addition to being a co-host on the platform, is business operations lead for Kinda Funny. Since then, Kinda Funny has grown into a multimedia empire fueled by livestreams and posted videos from shows like Kinda Funny Gamescast and Kinda Funny Games Daily on platforms like Spotify and YouTube.…

This article is sponsored by Hachette Partworks. For me, Warhammer was a property that I really didn’t become fully introduced to until I was in college, ahem, 20 years ago. One of my roommates had quite the collection of miniatures and the layouts for tabletop battlefields that he managed to transport to campus, ready to share with his friends. Since then, my love of Warhammer has expanded to other tabletop experiences, video games, and the enduring dark fantasy franchise’s other iterations, including novels and comic books. With so much Warhammer around, including Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy, one of the…

Even for the uninitiated, it shouldn’t take too long into the first full trailer for Netflix animated feature Ray Gunn to realize that this is a Brad Bird joint. The acclaimed director of animated classics like The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and The Iron Giant (and the not-classic, but still pretty good live-action feature Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) has some, let’s say, distinctive visual and conceptual tics. And they all come to bear in this bracing two-minute preview of Ray Gunn. Give it a look below to see what we mean. The trailer features, in no specific order, lush visual animation…

Just when fans thought the Turtles have seen it all: alien warlords, mutant rivals, an entire multiverse of alternate shells, IDW Publishing has found yet another tubular timeline worth exploring.  The publisher gave us exclusive information on its newest limited series, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tear in Time, set in the world of Paramount+’s 2024 animated series Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And this time, the Heroes in a Half Shell aren’t just facing down a single villain, they’re up against the collapse of their own future. For anyone who’s somehow avoided this franchise since…

Should actors say yes to every single role they’re offered? Of course not, even though for some names that seems the case. Even if there’s a chance something becomes a hit, you can’t overwork yourself with no guarantee, in particular if your name itself has already become a sort of brand. So now we’re here to congratulate these following actors on their smart decision making, since they all dodge a bullet by saying no to all these problematic films. In many cases, you’ll notice that it makes perfect sense for them to have said no, but the fact that they…

For many of those who stuck with the narrative rollercoaster that was Agents of SHIELD over seven seasons on ABC, it’s been a frustrating wait to hear Marvel confirm that the long-running show is fully MCU canon, but we still seem to be no closer to getting that confirmation. Even as the Marvel universe brings back beloved TV characters from the past, like the Netflix era gang and James D’Arcy’s Jarvis from Agent Carter, SHIELD’s faves seem lost in time and forgotten by those with the grand multiverse at their fingertips. Agents of SHIELD star Clark Gregg, who played Phil…

The universe has a talent for making even the wildest science fiction sound reasonable. Distances are beyond human comprehension, stars can explode, and events that happened millions or even billions of years ago can still be seen from Earth today. The strangest part is that these are not hypothetical ideas invented for a movie. They are observations, measurements, and physical phenomena that scientists have spent decades trying to understand. Some of them involve numbers so enormous that they stop feeling real, while others completely change the way we think about the sky above us. Once you start looking closely, space…

Characters die in fiction all the time, since death is a natural part of life, and life is a prevalent topic in everything we consume. When the death occurs in the plot of a television show, though, it can hit quite hard. These are characters you’ve spent countless hours with, connecting with their struggles and hoping they succeed. Well, they don’t succeed. They die, and that’s unfortunate and sad to go through. We’ve gathered the most remembered deaths in television history here to celebrate their impact, although you should be wary of spoilers from here on out. IMDb Joyce Summers,…

A recent Reddit thread asked people to identify the moment they knew someone’s career was finished, and the answers ranged from personal anecdotes to moments witnessed by nearly everyone on TV. The reasons vary greatly, although they often aren’t a single mistake on the persons’ part. Rather, what these examples have in common is that the person was caught, and what they were doing was something that started long ago. Of course, this isn’t the case for all examples; some can be boiled down to a single unfortunate circumstance. They’re all still entertaining, though. Wikipedia The Campbell’s Soup Executive Martin…

There was a time when going online as a kid meant going somewhere built just for you. You logged into Club Penguin and waddled around as a colorful cartoon bird. You raised a Moshi Monster, or grew flowers to lure Moshlings into your garden. You solved themed puzzles in Poptropica, or roamed Jamaa as your favorite critter on Animal Jam. These weren’t corners of a bigger platform. They were the whole platform, and they were built with one audience in mind: children.  That world has mostly disappeared. Club Penguin, which once claimed more than 200 million registered accounts at its…

At a certain point, oft-loved (and oft-adapted) classics, such as the works of Jane Austen, transcend their status as simple stories. They’re standards; myths; anthems whose value in each successive generation stems from how some beloved beats are adhered to whilst others are omitted entirely by a free-styling soloist having their way on a jazz bass. Or a pianoforte. I imagine most audiences who see this October’s vintage of Sense and Sensibility will know the tale from Austen’s pen, and plenty more around 40 and up due to the sublime 1995 screen adaptation, courtesy of Ang Lee and Emma Thompson.…

Sometime back in 1991, David Fincher made the jump to the movies. Fincher had already established himself as an impressive visual stylist, directing the music videos for Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Express Yourself,” and had worked in Hollywood as an employee at George Lucas‘ Industrial Light & Magic. Unfortunately Fincher’s experience making his debut feature Alien 3 went so badly that, to this day, he still disowns the finished film. Yet, it’s hard not to think about Alien sequels while watching the latest trailer for The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth. Not because xenomorphs burst from the chest of the titular…

Some of the most memorable movie moments were never fully written the way audiences eventually saw them. Sometimes choices in the moment created a better joke, a more natural reaction, or an unforgettable character moment that could never have been planned perfectly in advance. Improvisation can be risky, especially on a large production, but when it works, it can make a scene feel completely spontaneous. Looking back, it is fascinating to discover how many familiar moments came from actors simply trying something different in front of the camera, often without knowing that their experiment would end up in the final…

Some historical photographs leave you with more questions than answers. A strange outfit, an unfamiliar machine, an unusual gathering, or a moment that seems completely out of place can make you wonder what was happening just before the picture was taken. The fascinating part is that these images capture genuine moments from another time, yet the context is often missing. Without the original photographer or the people in the frame explaining what happened, all we can do is look closely and speculate about the story behind it. Sometimes the explanation is surprisingly ordinary, but other times the mystery remains. Either…

This article contains minor spoilers for Resident Evil Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil is finally out and thrilling audiences everywhere with its unique blend of laughs and scares. The director’s spin on the popular Capcom video game series has also delighted many fans who weren’t sure how much of the true Resident Evil experience they would get, since Cregger chose not to include characters from the games in his reboot. Instead, the film follows a medical courier named Bryan, who is more like a random NPC than a Leon S. Kennedy type. Ultimately, there was no need to worry; Cregger proved…

This article contains spoilers for Lanterns season 1 episode 6. Guy Gardner isn’t a good guy. He’s not a bad guy by any stretch of the imagination, at least not in a world where Lex Luthor and the White Dragon exist. But anyone who saw Superman knows that the Earth’s current Green Lantern is a craven opportunist, someone who uses the massive power bestowed upon him mostly to advance his own economic interests rather than doing good as its own reward. As played by Nathan Fillion, Guy concerns himself with brand identity and the fate of the Justice Gang more…