The Best Picture nominee Train Dreams features a rarity in Western fiction: a protagonist with little agency and even less interior life. Where most stories, especially American stories about men, the heroes are strivers and individualists—the untamable Huckleberry Finn, the self-made Jay Gatsby, the indomitable Charles Foster Kane—Robert Grainier of
ALL YOU NEED IS KILL: Time Loop Anime Lives And Dies On The Repeat
All You Need Is Kill, the light novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka and Yoshitoshi Abe, saw success in Hollywood when it was adapted as Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. The story follows a human soldier who dies combating an alien invasion only to wake up earlier that
Project Hail Mary Review: Hard Sci-Fi That Goes Down Easy
Too often storytelling treats science like magic, a hand-waving variation of “abracadabra” for the modern world. This might be one of the reasons Andy Weir’s novels have proven such fertile ground at the movies. Despite penning wildly outlandish scenarios set almost entirely in space, the one-time video game programmer drills
Best Picture Oscar Nominees from the ’00s That Should Have Won
As Oscar season heats up, we’ve been taking a critical eye to the Best Picture winners of the past, and having already tackled the ’80s and ’90s, we’re now moving on to the ’00s, where we will not be disputing the recognition that Gladiator, Chicago, and Slumdog Millionaire got from
15 Games Where the Skill Gap Gets Big Fast
In the world of gaming, some titles separate casual players from pros almost immediately. These are the games where your skill, or lack thereof, can be exploited immediately. Whether it is mastering precise controls, understanding complex mechanics or reacting faster than your opponents, these games demand constant improvement to stay