***1/2 Though it starts as a typical (yet hilariously sharp) anti-corporate political comedy, Sorry to Bother You morphs into one of the most surprising and fascinating movies I’ve seen in years. Curated by ’90s “gangsta rapper” Boots Riley (of The Coup fame) in his directorial debut, Sorry to Bother You never loses sight of its…
**1/2 We hold these truths to be self-evident: all men are created equal, war never changes, and Ant-Man is the runt of the Marvel universe. Armed with a script more bogged down in sci-fi nonsense than The Phantom Menace and its midi-chlorians, Ant-Man and the Wasp is the worst Marvel movie I’ve seen. Is it…
**** Few artists in the history of modern music are as diverse as David Bowie was. Most great artists are able to evolve over the course of their careers; Bowie did it over the course of singular albums. Compare the grounded sentimentality of “Be My Wife” with the extraterrestrial wail of “Warszawa.” For the uninitiated,…
***** I can’t remember what I was expecting when I went into Is This the Life We Really Want?, Roger Waters’ first studio release in my lifetime. While I’ve been a casual Pink Floyd fan since I first got into music, they’ve never really been one of my favorites. Often, I find myself gravitating toward…
8.25 At turn of the century, following the runaway success of Nintendo’s Super Mario 64, the gaming landscape was rife with 3D platformers eager to stand out among their peers. Coming in a couple of years late to the party, Insomniac released Spyro the Dragon for the Playstation in 1998, building off of what had…
9.75 Since great gaming began in earnest with the launch of the NES, there have been many titles ascribed a legendary status. But few receive universal praise. Final Fantasy VI is one of those games. The lineage of Final Fantasy runs deep in my family. From the first moment my brother, my cousin and I…
9.25 No developer was able to drum up as much anticipation and praise for their blockbuster releases last gen quite like Rockstar. With a lineup of star-studded releases from Grand Theft Auto V to Red Dead Redemption to L.A. Noire, the company was hitting it out of the park every time they stepped up to…
7.75 With just about every one of Nintendo’s console releases, there has been an era-defining Mario title to accompany it. The original NES was, in many ways, defined by Super Mario Bros. a game that significantly altered the fate of the industry. The N64, as flawed as it was in comparison to Sony’s disc-based PlayStation,…
From pretty much the beginning of my life in gaming, Pokemon has been a major force in my RPG consumption. I will never forget the first time I played a friend’s version of Pokemon Gold at a Terrell Tiger football game with the stadium lights to illuminate the screen of his GameBoy Pocket and how…
9.25 The sun is setting in Mexico. In the small border town of Chuparosa, this is the time of day where things start to get rough. The drunkards, whores, and gamblers begin to emerge and even spill out into the street with their sinful escapades. On a nearby porch, an old gunslinger silently gazes toward…
The Soundtrack Online 