9x Top Writer. Pop Culture Geek. Gamer. All-Around Nerd.
I was born 9 months after Star Wars premiered in 1977, which naturally suggests my mom’s womb quickened on its own after she saw the film. I get it — these movies make me feel things too. I learned about all the gender parts in health class but they neglected to teach us how babies are really made.
I’m not saying I’m a Chosen One, only that I wasn’t ready to be born into a world without Star Wars.
It’s hard to articulate just how big Star Wars was in the early 80s. Star Wars has always been big —…
Ennui, the modern condition, and the rebirth of the Matrix franchise
So the trailer for Matrix 4 dropped, and while it raises a good many questions — including such minor ones as how the shit are Neo and Trinity alive — the thing that struck me most was how deliberately familiar it feels. But unlike how The Force Awakens intentionally aped the original Star Wars but added nothing to the recipe, this glimpse promises something recognizable yet different.
The familiar: blue pills, agents, white rabbits to follow down impossibly deep holes, kung fu training, black cats, bullet time, a knockoff Morpheus, vertical lines of green code, and Thomas Anderson — aka…
There is no such thing as obscurity any more
Spoiler free because I haven't even seen Shang-Chi yet.I’m a big fan of Kim’s Convenience. So when it was announced that Simu Liu was joining the MCU, I was super pumped. Simu is funny and definitely has the look of a superhero. While I haven’t seen the film yet, my excitement was eclipsed by the revelation that Simu once modeled for stock photos.
And they are really something.
My favorite ones anyway
Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame, Cobra Kai, Harry Potter, and some older movies you should’ve seen years ago.I love learning about iconic movie moments that were a result of spur-of-the-moment ingenuity. Is it any coincidence that many of these moments are the best parts of their respective films?
I compiled this list to share some my favorites. Drop a comment and tell me yours.
Han Solo is a complete baller
If you know of me at all, it’s probably something to do with Star Wars. So let’s just get the most obvious one out of the way first.
The scene in The Empire Strikes Back where…
Thunderdome
“I helped this old lady and she bought me a churro.”
Thunderdome is a FanFare series where our writers good-naturedly debate some matter of pop culture and then leave it to the readers to decide. Read each post and vote at the bottom!In many ways, a fantasy draft of MCU characters is sort of the culmination of this whole Thunderdome concept. Not only will we take to the stage to defend our stance, in this case we are building the platform upon which we will stand. Based on some of my peer’s selections, some of those platforms are going to be rather rickety.
Thunderdome
This week, on a very special edition of Thunderdome…
Thunderdome is a FanFare series where our writers good-naturedly debate some matter of pop culture and then leave it to the readers to decide. Thunderdome tomorrow will be a bit unorthodox. Last week, I roped Paul Combs, Simon Dillon, and John Bullock into joining me for a MCU Fantasy Draft. The idea: we take turns picking from the roster of MCU characters, and then write a Thunderdome piece defending our team as the best of the bunch in terms of superheroing.
The impetus for the idea came from my love of Fantasy Football, and more specifically, the Fantasy draft. This…
No thanks I’d rather not
Abraham Lincoln has a famous quote about cutting down a tree: ‘give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe’.
Four hours!? I get that they didn’t have the Internet in Abe’s day, that electricity and soap were novelties, but surely he had something better to do? Churn some butter, tan some leather, fuck around and catch cholera. But maybe axe-sharpening was his day’s Reddit; somebody post to r/AskHistorians and let’s get to the bottom of this.
Yeah yeah – I know the quote is about effort and spending it…
And we don’t even notice
I was five years-old when I saw my first dead body. A severe, taciturn Italian-American woman, my great-grandmother had terrified me in life, and as we stepped to the open casket to pay our respects, I discovered that death only intensified such feelings.
“It’s okay if you want to kiss her,” my Dad said.
Umm. What now?
I’d barely known her, had in fact made it a point to avoid her. The entire extended family gathered every Sunday at her house in Detroit. The adults would drink coffee and visit for hours on end. …
Thunderdome
“Never tell me the odds!”
Thunderdome is a FanFare series where our writers good-naturedly debate some matter of pop culture and then leave it to the readers to decide. Read each post and vote at the bottom!Every other time I’ve done one of these Thunderdome matches, I haven’t expected to win. No matter how persuasive my writing, there’s just no world in which Muppet Babies would be considered better than Avatar: The Last Airbender, or Pierce Brosnan the best Bond. I was hopeful about Thor’s chances in the battle for the Best Avenger, but Captain America casts a long ass shadow.
This time feels…
