pop culture

Releasing just before 2023’s close, “Godzilla Minus One” took the world by storm. Produced on a budget reportedly under $15 million, “Minus One” earned Toho Studios roughly $100 million at the global box office by making people from all…

Legendary director William Friedkin died last month, just four months shy of the 50th anniversary of his most notorious film: “The Exorcist.” Released the day after Christmas in 1973, the movie irrevocably changed the pop culture landscape,…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b-qY4P6Jsw?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&w=500&h=281] When I was in high school, I learned about something called the hero’s journey.Every story you’ve ever been told, or the good ones anyway,…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q-dTXFZnv0?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&w=500&h=281] Since gaming’s inception, players have been modifying their games to improve the experience or tailor it to their own needs. For some games…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAqSpTSejNI?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&w=500&h=281] In last week’s edition of “Playing Politics,” I talked about an article from The Gamer written by a journalist pathetically trying to claim…

The first episode of the long-awaited adaptation of “The Last of Us,” a prestige TV zombie story based on a popular video game of the same name, premiered this past weekend on HBO. The critical buzz had been fierce the preceding week and…

If the pop culture offerings of 2022 that garnered the highest accolades share only one quality, let’s call it self-loathing. Not just self-loathing, but a recoiling upon itself, at the deepest level, of the privileged class. How many…

In the original “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge was a miserly, bitter employer utterly devoid of compassion and mirth. He symbolized the very antithesis of the Christmas spirit and thus needed great reform. To…