Month: July 2021

1987’s Final Fantasy deserves all the credit it can get for helping popularize the JRPG genre (especially in the West), expanding the scope of NES titles, and kicking off an all-time great franchise, but was it really the first JRPG ever made?  To help answer that question, we first have to define what a JRPG
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As quickly as the summer movie season of 2021 seemed to come upon us, it’s already about to begin its long, languid slide through the dog days of August into fall. That’s not to say that theaters won’t still have plenty of interesting fare to encounter, with films like The Suicide Squad, Free Guy, Respect,
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This Star Wars: The Bad Batch article contains spoilers. The Bad Batch infiltrate a secret Imperial base to rescue a trapped clone in episode 14, “War-Mantle.” Several returning The Clone Wars characters have major but understated roles as the show details how the clone troopers are being used to train their stormtrooper replacements. With connections
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Just past the halfway point in the documentary Mr. Soul!, poet Felipe Luciano calls Ellis Haizlip “the most effective, insidious revolutionary that I have ever met.” It isn’t meant as a specific accolade, but it is a badge of honor for a man who honored the true meaning of sedition. Subversion in the arts is
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We’ve been blessed with a surprising number of great superhero video games over the years. From Batman for the NES to The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and Marvel’s Spider-Man, developers have often shown superheroes the love it took them years to consistently receive in other mediums. Yet, I understand why it’s so easy to focus
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HBO Max’s Batgirl movie has finally started to take shape with last week’s casting of Leslie Grace as its central debutante vigilante, Barbara Gordon. Moreover, the other crucial element in the film’s dynamic was recently revealed by THR, which reports that J.K. Simmons will play the character’s father/foil, Commissioner James Gordon, reprising his role from
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This article contains spoilers for Outer Banks season 2. The Pogues are an island unto themselves in the season two finale of Outer Banks. And in case you thought the treasure hunt was over, the gang stumbles into another mystery while they work to prove John B’s innocence in the murder of Sheriff Peterkin. Outer
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This article contains The Green Knight spoilers. A man who would be king lies crouched, cowering on his hands and knees. It is the day he’s feared all year and, seemingly, the hour of his death. And yet, within this moment, after he’s seen his life flash before his eyes, Dev Patel’s Gawain has never
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While the list of things that Final Fantasy has gifted the gaming world is much longer than the one we’re bringing you today, one of the most consistently incredible aspects of this legendary RPG franchise is the quality of its casts of characters. Even if you’ve only played one or two Final Fantasy games in
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And just like that the blockbuster streaming era got a lot more complicated.  Black Widow star and longtime Marvel Cinematic Universe actress Scarlett Johansson filed a lawsuit against Disney on Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court. The claim alleges that her contract was breached when Disney released Black Widow on Disney+ in addition to its
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The Lord of the Rings Trilogy’s $2.9 billion collective worldwide gross and 17 Academy Award wins (one of which was for Best Picture,) certainly make a case for the 2001-2003 films being the product of a winning formula, both production-wise and plot-wise. However, the process of getting the grandiose, once-unfathomable project off the ground naturally
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This article contains some spoilers for recent Superman & Lois episodes. In recent years, there’s been a lot of discussion within the world of geek pop culture about Superman – if modern audiences still respond to such a traditional do-gooder hero, whether the character should become a little rougher around the edges to remain relevant,
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