Revival
Rick Moranis came back, Mel Brooks found the money, and 'Spaceballs' arrived at Comic-Con with an eleven-phase cinematic universe. The flamethrower now looks restrained.
ArgumentThe Stuart spinoff premiered last night, at the end of day one of San Diego Comic-Con, and the laughter is gone at last. The new show gets a fair hearing here. The old one has run out of appeals.
Argument
This will make you question reality in the happiest way possible. A true story about the moonwalk, Tom Bombadil, The Crew, an understaffed universe, and why you're on the clock right now.
Argument
'Denshattack!', the game where Japanese commuter trains do kickflips, launched to some of the best reviews of the year. Every publisher who saw it spent a year saying no.
Ledger
Developers marched at six Xbox studios at once, against the one Microsoft product that never slips its date.
Ledger
'Palworld' hit 858,562 players at once while Nintendo sued it. Nintendo's own patents keep failing, and the most it can win is about $30,000.
Drugs, Frankly
I ordered sleep gummies that were legal in the Netherlands when I bought them, and earned my first criminal record at forty-eight. On Sweden's drug policy, and the cocaine its lawmakers can't keep out of their own parliament.
Revival
Disney's live-action 'Moana' opened this week, ten years after the original, to a mid-thirties Rotten Tomatoes score and collapsing tracking. Seen from a country where the film has only ever been called 'Vaiana', the fastest remake Disney has ever attempted looks stranger still.
Argument
Duolingo gave its cartoon owl a funeral and a resurrection. Its translators got a form email ten days before Christmas. On the cheapest loyalty a company ever bought.
Love Letter
Summer Games Done Quick runs until Saturday, a week of round-the-clock speedrunning for Doctors Without Borders. From Stockholm, the best seats are an ocean away.
Love Letter
In Germany they were the Hero Turtles, the nunchaku edited out, and I loved them anyway. A love letter to the 1990 film, and the exact point where my love runs out every time.
Ledger
I bought both Steam Decks on day one, so the misgiving comes from inside the cult. The price is not about games, it is about who is bidding against you for memory.
Ledger
A free Australian YouTube cartoon topped cinema charts across Europe, then posted its finale online for nothing. The studios should be paying attention.
Futures
It is the most valuable entertainment product of the decade, and it does not exist yet. On the week anticipation became something you can pre-order.
Handover
The villain of 'Toy Story 5' is a tablet. The studio warning your kids off screens is the one that taught a generation to sit still and watch.
Anniversary
Dead by Daylight turned ten and is bigger than ever. On how the cheap, weird horror game outlived the blockbusters built to bury it.
Handover
Martin Scorsese has become an adviser to a German AI image firm. A note on what a famous name actually buys.
Revival
Nintendo announced an 'Ocarina of Time' remake for Switch 2. On why laying hands on the one game the medium crowned is its own kind of risk.
Argument
The lost Tolkien work turns out to be an unpaid translation of an 800-year-old sermon. On why that beats another dragon.
Argument
EA cut people at DICE months after 'Battlefield 6' shipped as the best-selling game in America. On what the promise of AI is being used to justify.
Festival Dispatch
The industry replaced E3 with eighteen showcases in eight days, all on Los Angeles time. On what Summer Game Fest fixed and quietly broke.
Ledger
'Balatro's publisher was sold to the private-equity group that also owns Metacritic. On what happens when the house owns the scoreboard.
Ledger
Electronic Arts is being bought by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. What the takeover means for the most-played football game on earth.
Argument
Sebastian Stan wouldn't laugh at a Trump question; days later his director took the Palme d'Or. On Europe's own both-sidesing.
Argument
Elon Musk called the finale of 'The Boys' pathetic. He didn't notice it was about him.
Essay
On reading 'The Lord of the Rings' the way the slow-reading communities now do, and what the book does that no adaptation can.
Review
A review of the first Raimi film in twenty years where his actual signatures come back.
Argument
How franchises spent twenty years building the exact pipeline generative AI now walks straight into.
Festival Dispatch
A festival dispatch: five indies from New Game Plus that survived the ride home.
Manifesto
The founding manifesto: why pop culture criticism needs less hype and more honesty.
