When I meet Shawn Levy on an August day in Brooklyn, I expect him to be sweating. Why? For one reason, it’s sticky-humid outside, and I’m dripping like a swamp creature. The other is that the big blockbuster Levy has been filming these past few months, Deadpool 3, might not …
Read More »The Real Reason You (Still) Watch Reality TV
On day one of shooting season five of Love Is Blind, a junior staffer walked into the control room and told executive producers Chris Coelen and Ally Simpson, who oversee every aspect of the popular Netflix dating series, that there was a problem. “There’s two people who know each other …
Read More »Taylor Swift and Beyoncé Are Resurrecting the American Movie Theater
Christopher Nolan is a Taylor Swift fan. This is an actual sentence typed in the year 2023. Why does this matter? you ask? Simple, Nolan is a longtime champion of the cinematic experience, and during a recent event at the City University of New York he noted that Hollywood studios …
Read More »Artists Allege Meta’s AI Data Deletion Request Process Is a ‘Fake PR Stunt’
As the generative artificial intelligence gold rush intensifies, concerns about the data used to train machine learning tools have grown. Artists and writers are fighting for a say in how AI companies use their work, filing lawsuits and publicly agitating against the way these models scrape the internet and incorporate …
Read More »‘Our Flag Means Death’ Took Queering History to New Depths in Season 2
When the writers room for the second season of Our Flag Means Death met for the first time, coproducer Zayre Ferrer looked at the Zoom screen and had a realization: They were working on a show with four nonbinary writers of color. It was a first for them—by a longshot. …
Read More »'Assassin’s Creed Mirage' Is Flashy and Fun but Does Its Setting a Disservice
Assassin's Creed Mirage takes us around 9th-century Baghdad, where you'll find everyday people lying on rugs in verdure courtyards while scholars observe stars from rooftops. This is the third time we return to West Asia under Islamic rule in the Assassin's Creed series, but here, we experience a turning point …
Read More »Why Nintendo Kept Super Mario Bros. Wonder's New Mario Under Wraps
For nearly 30 years, actor Charles Martinet was the voice of Nintendo’s most iconic character: Mario. He also lent vocals to Luigi, Wario, and others. When Nintendo confirmed in August that Martinet had essentially retired from that role, fans became fixated on who would voice the “mama mia”s in the …
Read More »'The Black Book' Is Nigeria’s First Runaway Netflix Hit
Editi Effiong’s excitement is infectious. It’s less than three weeks since his crime thriller, The Black Book, premiered on Netflix, and the movie has already been watched more than 70 million times. “I’ve been in a very happy place,” Effiong says. “You create a thing and watch it go out …
Read More »Everyone Is a Luddite Now
The Luddites arrived on the streets of San Francisco much as they did in the English factories two centuries ago: under cover of darkness and with iconic weapons in hand. In this case, traffic cones. An enterprising activist had observed (or perhaps gotten an insider tip) that placing an object …
Read More »'Super Mario Bros. Wonder' Is the Face of Nintendo's Transformation
Nintendo is having a very good year. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was a record-breaking success; Switch sales continue to climb even in the console’s sixth year. In February, the company opened Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios in California. All of this, though, looks small compared …
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