became

30 Aug

Better Call Saul: How Bob Odenkirk Became a TV Icon

New DVD releasebecame, better, odenkirk

Fans from all over the world waited with baited breath when they heard that Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk had collapsed on set of the show’s sixth season back in July.  People took to social media in droves to sing the actor’s praises, and when news broke that Odenkirk had suffered a small heart attack but was in stable condition, everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief. The star took to Twitter to thank everyone for their outpouring of love and support days after the scare. Hi.  It's Bob.Thank you.To my family and friends who have surrounded me this…

Read More

02 Jun

Community: The Moment Abed Became the Main Character

New DVD releasebecame, character, community, moment

There’s no doubt that Danny Pudi’s character Abed was a favorite of Community fans everywhere. Despite a lack of social skills explained through an unspoken understanding that the character was on the autism spectrum, Abed’s charm sprung from his ability to relate reality to pop culture narratives that were easier for him to comprehend. However, there was a specific moment in season one that made it clear that his penchant for meta-referencing his fictional existence made him the de facto POV of the show, not just the sidekick to Joel McHale’s character Jeff. It’s worth noting that Community creator Dan…

Read More

27 May

How Matthias Schoenaerts Almost Became Zack Snyder’s Batman

New DVD releasealmost, batman, became, matthias, schoenaerts, snyder

Director Zack Snyder’s DC Extended Universe debut, 2013’s Man of Steel, may have delivered respectable global box office numbers ($668 million) in showcasing star Henry Cavill, but it wasn’t an acclaimed watershed pop culture moment that guaranteed Warner Bros. a money-printing, Marvel Cinematic Universe-style operation. Thus, 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice saw Snyder expedite an introduction to a new Batman—just four years after the end of Christopher Nolan’s beloved trilogy—on the stardom of Ben Affleck. However, Snyder’s revealed backup Batman proves that he was all in on the idea, Affleck notwithstanding. While Snyder has been doing a plethora…

Read More

05 May

Link Tank: How Shrek Became One of the Most Meme-able Franchises

New DVD releasebecame, franchises, shrek

Few movie franchises are as ripe for memes as Shrek. Here’s a history of how Shrek went from a CGI classic to one of the most prolific internet in-jokes. “Shrek, the movie, is an important cultural document that heralded the arrival of CGI animation as a dominant medium and essentially forced the Oscars to create its Best Animated Feature category. Online, Shrek has long provided source material for memes and artistic expressions, but the internet love for the movie’s actual substance has, by far, been overshadowed by the seemingly unquenchable joy of reinterpreting Shrek, often in explicit, NSFW ways.” Read…

Read More

04 May

The Craft: How a Teenage Weirdo Based on a Real Person Became an Icon

New DVD releasebased, became, craft, person, teenage, weirdo

“We Are The Weirdos, Mister.” A phrase you’ll find printed over t-shirts, pin badges, mugs, earrings, tote bags, necklaces, and more all over the internet. It’s the most iconic line from The Craft, a film released 25 years ago that still has a rabid following today. For anyone unfamiliar with The Craft, it’s a line spoken by Fairuza Balk’s Nancy, an inferno in black lippy and sunglasses, the de facto leader of a homemade coven made up of outsiders who have taken the raw deal the world has given them and rejected it by learning to harness the power of…

Read More

28 Apr

How Luca Became the First Pixar Movie Made at Home

New DVD releasebecame, first, movie, pixar

Luca is the name of the next animated feature film from Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios, directed and conceived by animator and artist Enrico Casarosa. Working at Pixar since 2002 as a story artist in films like Cars, Up, Coco, and Ratatouille, Casarosa directed the 2012 short La Luna before making his feature directorial debut this year with Luca—an original fantasy based partially on Casarosa’s boyhood in Genoa, Italy. Telling the tale of two teenage sea monsters named Luca and Alberto (voiced respectively by Jacob Tremblay from Good Boys and Room, and Jack Dylan Grazer of It and Shazam! fame) who…

Read More

28 Apr

How Pikachu Became Pokémon’s Mascot

New DVD releasebecame, mascot, pikachu, pokemon

If any Nintendo character could ever replace Mario as Nintendo’s mascot, it would have to be Pikachu. For over 25 years, Pikachu has served as the face of the Pokémon franchise in a way that makes it easy to imagine someone instantly identifying the electric creature even if they’d never played a Pokémon game. In fact, Pikachu’s status as one of gaming’s greatest mascots has embedded itself so deeply into our collective pop-culture consciousness over the years that many of us probably never stopped and thought how odd it is that Pikachu earned that status in the first place. After…

Read More

23 Apr

Love and Monsters: How a Robot and a Dog Became the Heart of Netflix’s Apocalyptic Romp

Netflix, New DVD releaseapocalyptic, became, heart, monsters, netflix, robot

Isolated groups of people hide out underground for years after a monster-apocalypse wiped out 90% of the earth’s population in the latest buzzy movie to arrive on Netflix, Love and Monsters. Though the title and synopsis lean toward light-hearted comedy, this movie from director Michael Matthews, which is nominated for an Oscar for best VFX in this year’s awards, is actually a lot more nuanced than that. And while there are some utterly wonderful monsters (giant frog is a personal favourite, though the crab monster also delivers…), and an exploration of themes of love – the key centrepiece scene of…

Read More

21 Apr

How Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Killing of Tasha Yar Became an Awkward Mistake

New DVD releaseawkward, became, generation, killing, mistake, tasha

“[I] died a senseless death in the other timeline. I didn’t like the sound of that, Captain. I’ve always known the risks that come with a Starfleet uniform. If I am to die in one, I’d like my death to count for something.” Denise Crosby’s Lt. Tasha Yar, Star Trek: The Next Generation’s inaugural chief of security, managed—due to some alternate timeline trickery—to take that legendary meta-minded dig at her own death from two years earlier in the Season 1 episode, “Skin of Evil.” With that episode having originally aired on April 25, 1988, the anniversary is a good occasion…

Read More

24 Feb

How Batman #14 Became a “Very Serious Book” in The Lost Boys

New DVD releasebatman, became, serious

“Actually, I’m looking for a Batman #14.” In the vampire-killing continuity of The Lost Boys, that intriguing humble-brag by Corey Haim’s Sam Emerson could very well be the definitive way to declare yourself amongst the elite of geekdom. Yet, while the 1987 film—notably from future Batman film franchise director Joel Schumacher—was rife with riffs directed at the hitherto untapped masses of comic book fandom, this shout-out to a Golden Age issue would, indeed, make it “a very serious book, man,” as Corey Feldman’s Edgar Frog famously replied. Moreover, the reference would pay emotional dividends in a made-for-video sequel. The scene…

Read More

07 Feb

How Christopher Plummer Became One of the Best Villains in Star Trek Movie History

New DVD releasebecame, christopher, history, movie, plummer, villains

Christopher Plummer appeared in over 200 films during a storied career spanning seven decades. Though he first found fame as Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music, that ultimately provided a springboard to an eclectic career that surprised and delighted in equal measure. Plummer was an accomplished theatre performer with an uncanny knack for stealing the show in minor yet memorable roles; a magnetic presence you simply couldn’t take your eyes off.  Everyone has a favourite Plummer performance whether it be as Rudyard Kipling in John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King or his recent turn in Rian…

Read More

27 Jan

How Raya and the Last Dragon Became the First Disney Movie Made at Home

New DVD releasebecame, disney, dragon, first, movie

In the nearly 100 years since Walt Disney Animation Studios’ founding, it’s safe to say there never was a sight like the one facing animator Paul Briggs last March. For it was on a fateful early spring morning that the order finally came down: Raya and the Last Dragon would move its entire production—which had begun the very same month—to working from home. “I still remember the day where everybody is like, ‘We’re going home, we’re going to start building this thing from home,’” Briggs says. “And the animators were kind of walking out with their computers. Technology was scanning…

Read More

21 Jan

How Resident Evil Village’s Vampire Lady Dimitrescu Became the Game’s Most Interesting Character

New DVD releasebecame, character, dimitrescu, interesting, resident, vampire, village

When Resident Evil Village releases later this year, it’ll have the tough job of following up one of the best survival horror games released in the last decade: Resident Evil 7. While clearly inspired by innovative classics that came before like Amnesia, Outlast, and Hideo Kojima’s P.T. demo, Capcom did its own thing with its first-person horror thriller, introducing fans to a gruesome new bioweapon and new protagonist Ethan, a character very unlike the gun-toting STARS and Umbrella agents from the franchise’s past. The result was a hell of a ride full of scares, dismemberments, and more than a few…

Read More

14 Jan

The Expanse Season 5: How Clarissa Became ‘Peaches’

New DVD releasebecame, clarissa, expanse, peaches, season

Amos is no stranger to using nicknames for those he interacts with in The Expanse. Bobbie, Avasarala, and most recently the modded criminal Konechek, don’t seem to really like their nicknames: “Babs,” “Chrissy,” and “Tiny” respectively. But while Clarissa doesn’t actively embrace the nickname of “Peaches,” it has become a term of endearment that she at least tolerates (and maybe even enjoys) during their survival tale in season 5. But why the name Peaches? Clarissa Mao was introduced in The Expanse season 3 and only appeared briefly in a video call from prison in season 4, so a reminder of…

Read More

16 Dec

How Viola Davis Became A Blues Legend in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

New DVD releasebecame, black, blues, davis, legend, rainey, viola

Premiering on Netflix this week, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a film adaptation of the award-winning 1982 play of the same name by August Wilson. The stage version was part of Wilson’s 10-play Pittsburgh Cycle, which acted as a chronicle the African American experience in the 20th century. And in the Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom portion of that cycle, events take place over the course of a single recording session in 1920s Chicago. There a fictionalized version of real-life blues singer Ma Rainey (played in the film by Viola Davis) and the members of her band–including the ambitious and hot-headed…

Read More

04 Dec

How the Cyberpunk 2077 Best Buy Debacle Became Another Next-Gen Sales Failure for Retailers

New DVD releaseanother, became, cyberpunk, debacle, failure, retailers, sales

The lead up to the release of the long-awaited sci-fi RPG epic Cyberpunk 2077 has been anything but smooth sailing. Originally announced all the way back in 2012, CD Projekt Red’s follow-up to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has suffered several delays, and not all of them due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Most recently, reports of poor working conditions at the developer shed light on the dark side of a studio that originally promised it would not rely on development crunch and mandatory overtime to finish the game. Then another delay came, pushing the game from its November launch date…

Read More

02 Dec

How Fortnite Became Gaming’s Great Shameless Marketing Tool

New DVD releasebecame, fortnite, gaming, great, marketing, shameless

“Fortnite is dead” felt like an increasingly popular sentiment in 2020. You certainly didn’t have to look too hard to find comments from gamers who felt that it was the end of an era for a game so popular that it was prominently featured in the highest-grossing movie of all-time. But in recent months, it felt like the game had fallen off the cultural radar. Whenever you looked at Twitch, it seemed like most of the service’s most popular streamers had moved on to Call of Duty: Warzone, Valorant, and a legion of viral games like Fall Guys, Among Us,…

Read More

11 Oct

How Arachnophobia Became the Perfect Creepy Crawly Horror Comedy

New DVD releasearachnophobia, became, comedy, crawly, creepy, horror, perfect

There’s a moment in Arachnophobia where Jeff Daniels’ Dr Ross Jennings, lying in bed one night worried his new hometown of Canaima is under attack from venomous spiders, spots an eight-legged intruder lurking in plain sight on his bedroom wall. The scene builds to a terrifying crescendo when the panic-stricken Jennings, who has a pathological fear of spiders, decides to confront the arachnid – only to discover it’s a coat hook.   It’s a prime example of the power Arachnophobia still possesses, 30 years on from its release. The power to have audiences breaking out in cold sweats one minute and…

Read More

08 Oct

How Helstrom Became One of Marvel Television’s Last Shows Standing

New DVD releasebecame, helstrom, marvel, shows, standing, television

Hell hasn’t quite frozen over on the Vancouver set of Marvel’s Helstrom but it’s close. A chill can be felt even inside the fabricated walls of St. Teresa’s Church as Tom Austen, who plays the titular Daimon Helstrom, sits down to talk with the press. It’s February and the show is months from its release date but Austen is already wearing the classic “Marvel leading man undercover” look, with a logo-less black hat atop his head. He’s prepared to discuss many aspects of Marvel’s first horror series, chief among them: just how much fun it is to set things on…

Read More

25 Sep

How NFL Blitz Became the Best Arcade Football Game Ever Made

New DVD releasearcade, became, blitz, football

Football is violent and fast. Brutal injuries are inherent to the action when 300-pound bodies slam into one another like cars at a demolition derby. In the late 1990s, no video game simulated that feeling more than the most anti-sim football game ever made: NFL Blitz. Unfortunately, the world may never see a game like Blitz again. To be sure, football video games are as popular as ever—or at least EA Sports’ Madden franchise is, since it’s the only football sim officially licensed by the NFL. Spiritual successors to the Blitz brand of arcade-style football have come along here and…

Read More