If one were attempting to define black genius in its modern form, the week of April 16 provides no shortage of starting points. We could begin with Beyoncé Knowles-Carter—the singer, mother, and pop maximalist who understands that music can, and should, be a kind of cinema—and her historically transcendent Coachella performance. Or we could just […]
It's always premature to declare the death of a videogame series. The creative seas of the big-budget games industry ride unending tides of stagnation and reinvention, a cycle of death and renewed life that wrings millions of dollars out of consumers every year. If you miss something, just be patient; it'll come back, eventually. This […]
More than 400 videogames were released this year. Four. Hundred. With a firehose like that, it's all too easy to miss some of the gems that become available, so we pored through our played list to pull together our favorite under-the-radar titles. These weren't necessarily the most popular games released in 2017, nor are they […]
As true-crime obsessives already know, last Friday Netflix dropped The Staircase, a docu-series chronicling the 2001 death of Kathleen Peterson and the subsequent murder trial of her husband, Michael. While the project followed a long and circuitous route to the streaming giant—it originally premiered in the US on the Sundance Channel in 2005, then received […]
I approached finding a spouse the way I do even the most emotional decisions: with logic. A few years ago, before I started dating, I wrote a list of requirements and some optional good-to-have features, similar to how one might decide on a smartphone. A friend who was helping me complained that I eliminated 90 percent […]
It doesn’t get more 2018 than this: In mid-April, a Trump-supporting Instagram influencer named Bermuda hacked the account of fellow influencer Lil Miquela, who has over a million followers. Wait, no, there’s more: Bermuda refused to return the account unless Miquela promised to “tell the world the truth”—the truth being that Miquela is not a […]
Stick a fork in it: Solo: A Star Wars Story is pretty much officially a flop. Its performance hasn't improved since its unimpressive debut and shows no sign of getting a boost. Moreover, judging from the fallout, the movie had more of an impact amongst conspiracy theorists than anyone else. Want proof? Read on. Is […]
Last week involved a shooting at YouTube, numerous scandals involving EPA director Scott Pruitt, and surprising new sanctions placed on Russian oligarchs, and yet, none of that makes it into what’s being discussed below. Does that mean, perhaps, that the week was too busy? Read on and make the decision for yourself. When the News […]
Demogorgons, inverted worlds, really bad psychokinesis-induced nosebleeds—a lot of really unbelievable things exist in the world of Stranger Things. Hence the name. But that doesn’t mean everything in Hawkins, Indiana is fiction. At least not entirely. In fact, Hawkins itself has real-world roots. “It’s based on a place in Montauk, New York called Camp Hero,” […]
See this fancy pink water bottle I’m holding? Now watch as I bash my head in with it. This is not, I assume, what the makers of the $38 “beauty essential” intended. What they promised was “glamour sipping like a boss.” They wanted me to “be brave.” Maybe they even meant it—insofar as any millennial-focused, […]