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07 Sep

Once Upon a Time in America Is Every Bit as Great a Gangster Movie as The Godfather

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This article contains Once Upon a Time in America spoilers. The Godfather is a great movie, possibly the best ever made. Its sequel, The Godfather, Part II, often follows it in the pantheon of classic cinema, some critics even believe it is the better film. Robert Evans, head of production at Paramount in the early 1970s, wanted The Godfather to be directed by an Italian American. Francis Ford Coppola was very much a last resort. The studio’s first choice was Sergio Leone, but he was getting ready to make his own gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America. Though…
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17 May

Game of Thrones Director: Series Was Seen as ‘A Great Experiment’

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Last month marked the 10th anniversary of the Game of Thrones series premiere: a show that changed the face of television as profoundly as The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Sex and the City, or any other series that advanced the notion of what kind of entertainment television could deliver. While any series of its scope and stature is the offspring of literally hundreds of creators–from showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to the indelible cast–one person who left his own mark on Game of Thrones is director Neil Marshall, who helmed two of the show’s most unforgettable, epic episodes:…
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15 May

The Mummy Returns Isn’t Afraid of Romance, and That’s What Makes It Great

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We just passed the 20th anniversary of the release of The Mummy Returns, the follow-up flick to the 1999 blockbuster classic, The Mummy. While the franchise sequel has understandably not developed the same level of legacy as its predecessor, it’s honestly still pretty great and has some lessons contemporary blockbusters could learn from—namely, that there can be great power in a good romance. The Mummy Returns came out in 2001 and is set nine years after the original film when it picks back up with Rachel Weisz’ Egyptologist Evelyn “Evie” O’Connell (née Carnahan) and her husband, American adventurer Rick O’Connell…
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02 May

Back to the Future Not Being Planned as a Trilogy Is What Makes It Great

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In the last decade, it’s become a common refrain among fans and industry players alike: the filmmakers should’ve “planned it better.” This trilogy could’ve been mapped out; those five sequels needed to be outlined first. Perhaps this is inevitable in an era where “shared universe” is part of the everyday vernacular, yet I cannot help but be amused when folks grow wistful over sequels with allegedly concrete roadmaps: franchises like Star Wars, Godfather… and the Back to the Future trilogy. Whenever social media discussions about sequels or franchises that most smoothly told their sagas rear, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s…
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23 Apr

Invincible Episode 7 Improves Upon Its Already Great Source Material

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This article contains spoilers for Invincible episode 7. Amazon’s animated adaptation of Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker’s comic Invincible was always a great idea. The property has just about everything that streaming services and their audiences are looking for currently: superheroes, ultraviolence, and jaw-dropping twists.  One big question facing the series, however, was how could one show possibly fit in all the story of the comic’s lengthy 144-issue run? Invincible episode 7, “We Need to Talk,” is the first season’s penultimate installment and it reveals how the show is set to approach this logistical challenge. With so many comic book…
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11 Mar

From Hitchcock to Star Wars: What Makes a Great MacGuffin

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In the fall of 1939, director Alfred Hitchcock stood before Columbia University to tell a story we can only hope he invented. With a ruthless, dry delivery, Hitch spoke of two Scotsmen on a train. One of these fellows carried with him a mysterious package he says is a “MacGuffin.” When the other man asks what exactly is a MacGuffin, the carrier responds, “It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.” What an odd response, the other guy thinks. After all, there is no such thing as highland lions! When he points this out though, the MacGuffin’s owner…
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25 Feb

Doctor Who: What Makes a Great One-Off Character?

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Some Doctor Who characters are intended for greatness; some are intended to be killed off at the end of their first episode. Writers have a lot more control over the second than the first. What remains true for all characters, is the tension that exists between their function in the story and their potential to affect it. Even a guard who simply runs into a room to get shot could have dragged the story in another direction, should they be allowed (this stock background character was the inspiration for Terry Pratchett’s City Watch novels). Successful one-off characters aren’t necessarily those…
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16 Feb

Is Virtual Photography the Next Great Artform?

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2020 saw the release of highly-anticipated games like The Last of Us Part II, Death Stranding on PC, Ghost of Tsushima, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. What do all of these games have in common? Stellar in-game photo modes that allow a growing online community of virtual photographers to capture the beauty and complexity of these game worlds.  Fans have been taking screenshots of their favorite games for almost as long as they’ve been playing them. Photo modes themselves have existed at least as far back as 1999’s Metal Gear Solid: Integral, which featured a bare bones “photoshoot mode” as…
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14 Feb

Why The Great North Isn’t Just Another Bob’s Burgers

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It’s easy to take one look at FOX’s newest animated comedy, The Great North, and assume it’s exactly like the long running and beloved Bob’s Burgers. Two of The Great North’s creators wrote a good chunk of Bob’s Burgers episodes and the shows share a near-identical art style after all. At first glance some of the Bob’s Burgers character archetypes seem to be involved as well: awkward daughter, an odd sarcastic youngest child, and a loving, if somewhat offbeat, father.  So why bother with something like Bob’s Burgers when you could just watch Bob’s Burgers? While there are a few…
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09 Feb

Snowpiercer Season 2 Episode 3 Review: A Great Odyssey

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This Snowpiercer review contains spoilers. Snowpiercer Season 2 Episode 3 A friend of mine from high school dropped out of college and bounced around multiple jobs before he got a job he loves. He now works as, of all things, an engineer in a train yard. Rather than taking the trains out on long hauls, he drives to the yard and moves trains around from the shed to the appropriate track and back as needed. The work is hard and outdoors in all weather, but satisfying enough that, last time we spoke, he was still an engineer. Even his relatively…
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20 Jan

Why Daphne Bridgerton Makes a Great Romance Heroine

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This Bridgerton article contains spoilers for Season 1. Though Bridgerton is a story of multiple romances – and many different kinds of love – its first season centers primarily on the relationship between debutante Daphne Bridgerton and the roguish Simon Bassett, Duke of Hastings. But it would be a mistake to assume that the romance is the only story this series is trying to tell or even its ultimate endgame. In truth, the real story of Bridgerton’s first season is about a young woman coming into her own, learning who she is, what she really wants, and how to find…
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11 Jan

How All Creatures Great and Small Epitomizes Cottagecore

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Note: This ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL article contains references to the first two episodes, but does not contain major plot spoilers.  Masterpiece on PBS begins it’s 50th season with the US airing of All Creatures Great and Small, UK Channel 5’s  fresh take on the published memoirs of famous UK veterinarian James Herriott during the 1930’s. His work on the farms of Yorkshire capture rural life as well as advances in animal husbandry. Most of the current advertising for the series revolves around re-sparking the magic for Boomer and Gen X Masterpiece viewers who read the books and remember…
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07 Jan

The Office is Great But Maybe Try Something Else for a Bit

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Growing up, I was a picky eater. I wasn’t so bad that I would only eat one bland dish, but my parents struggled to get me to try new foods. Eventually, the influence of television, particularly cooking and travel programs, urged me to broaden my horizons and expand my palate. If it weren’t for shows like A Cook’s Tour, I’d likely be stuck with a menu of PB&J, chicken nuggets, and buttered noodles for an eternity. People getting stuck in a cycle of comfort food doesn’t just happen at the table. Since the advent of cable, the TV equivalent of…
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02 Dec

How Fortnite Became Gaming’s Great Shameless Marketing Tool

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“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,…
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02 Dec

Baby Yoda’s Blue Mandalorian Macarons Don’t Taste Great Sorry

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This article contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 2 It’s entirely possible that those blue macarons Baby Yoda flagrantly stole and porked his way through in The Mandalorian Season 2’s New Hope-y fourth episode tasted better coming out than they did going in, as showrunner Jon Favreau has revealed that they actually “didn’t really have much flavor.” Favreau popped up on the ever-popular YouTube series Binging With Babish this week in an installment where host Andrew Rea, aka Oliver Babish, attempted to recreate the blue snacks, with objectively dodgy results. The Iron Man director explained to Babish how…
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23 Nov

Great Pretender Season 2 Review (Spoiler-Free)

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This Great Pretender season 2 review contains no spoilers. There’s absolutely nothing like being left in a dumbfounded stupor after a multi-stage con has been properly executed. Stories that revolve around conmen and grifters operate with a very specific kind of jubilation and when they’re done right there is no greater high. A perfectly planned con is no different than an immaculate magic trick or an effective third act twist. As much as cons involve the stealing of something valuable, they’re even more concerned with an understanding of human nature.  Great Pretender’s previous episodes have set a very high standard…
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06 Nov

Supernatural Started as “A Terrible Rip-Off” Before Becoming Something Great

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As we get closer to the (deep breath) end of Supernatural, it’s natural to look back to the beginning. In that spirit, series creator Eric Kripke (known these days for Amazon superhero breakout The Boys) has been giving some killer interviews about the origin of Supernatural back in *checks notes* 2004. In a recent chat for the upcoming November 9th issue of TV Guide Magazine (via TV Insider), Kripke recalls his original pitch to The WB (which would eventually merge with UPN to become The CW) and how it led to the show we know and love today. In 2004,…
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04 Nov

Demon’s Souls Help Videos Could Be the Great “Easy Mode” Compromise

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In an interview with The Washington Post, Gavin Moore, creative director of the Demon’s Souls PS5 remake, revealed that the game features over 180 help videos that can be easily accessed via the PlayStation 5’s impressive UI system. That’s a number that stands a testament to the potential of the PS5’s Game Help system, even as we wait to see whether or not more developers will ultimately choose to utilize that system over the long term. It’s also a number that could very well offer a somewhat unlikely solution to the debate over implementing an “Easy Mode” into Soulslike games.…
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DVD Guide reviews current dvd releases of movies and TV shows. The reviews of these dvd releases are my thoughts and understandings of the movie, dvd releases or TV show and not be taken as fact.

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