Wii Sports holds an important place in Nintendo's history. It's the best-selling piece of software the company has ever made, one that permeated culture in surprising ways, and its success helped rejuvenate Nintendo after a period of steady decline. It also kicked off one of the company's most important and unassuming franchises. While subsequent sports titles from Nintendo never sold quite as well as the original Wii Sports, they've become a fixture for each new console, much like a new Mario Kart or Pokémon. And now the Switch 2 has its own version, Nintendo Switch Sports Resort, and it's the best so far.
Final Fantasy is a lot different than it used to be. While many of the early Final Fantasy titles look and play similarly to each other, the series has since grown to encompass blockbuster games like Final Fantasy XVI and the gargantuan Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, which don't play much like the classics. But there's still an audience for retro RPGs and old-school Final Fantasy games, especially thanks to the HD-2D style that mixes gorgeous pixel art with detailed 3D graphics to great effect. Square Enix has made a bunch of HD-2D games already, like the remakes ofearly Dragon Quest titles, but this week, it's launching the first HD-2D …
I’m obsessed with sleep data, but I don’t love wearing a smartwatch to bed. Can the Hatch Sleep Clock give me the best of both worlds at an affordable price?
Mister Organ doesn't reach the level of societal horror of The Act of Killing or the creepypasta-meets-true-crime gruesomeness of Beware the Slenderman, but there's something deeply unsettling about Michael Organ and his intimate campaign of terror against everyone who enters his life.
Mister Organ is a documentary by David Farrier, an Auckland, New Zealand journalist. The movie starts with Farrier reporting on Bashford Antiques, a shop in Ponsonby that has begun aggressively clamping cars in its lot and demanding exorbitant fees to release them - up to $760. Farrier's article for The Spinoff eventually led the government to introduce legi …
The Surface Laptop Ultra is a true MacBook Pro competitor for Windows, and Microsoft has never been so close to dethroning Apple—if only it weren't for the lack of battery life.
For decades, the novelist has dismantled the tropes of realist fiction, writing about mysterious individuals trapped in byzantine systems. In “The Rhyl Poster,” that approach may have reached its limit.
George A. Romero is obviously best known as the father of the modern zombie movie. But between inventing the genre with Night of the Living Dead and his outbreak horror, The Crazies, Romero made two much lesser-known films: There's Always Vanilla, which I'll admit I've never seen, and Season of the Witch, or, as it was originally titled, Hungry Wives.
Hungry Wives was supposed to be an exploitation film. The studio marketed it as a softcore porn, but it failed to find an audience - probably because the movie features minimal nudity, just one sex scene, and lots of talking. It was an undeniable flop upon its release in 1973. It was eventual …
When David Fincher's The Social Network premiered in 2010, many people still thought of Mark Zuckerberg as a genius who had revolutionized the world by creating Facebook. Writer Aaron Sorkin's script was critical of Zuckerberg's character and his ruthless approach to doing business, but it also helped mythologize the co-founder at a time when the general public was much more enchanted by Silicon Valley. When Zuckerberg said in 2014 that he'd been hurt by the film's depiction of him, Fincher said he was "sorry that it did" and admitted that he "wouldn't want a movie made about the things I did when I was 19 years old," either. Fincher's apolo …
People keep waiting for a groundbreaking reinvention of the e-reader, but Kindle already does it pretty well.
The e-reader line has been refreshed. New Basic, Paperwhite, and Colorsoft versions are available, along with Signature editions for the Paperwhite and Colorsoft. The shape has changed somewhat. — Read the rest
While introducing the inaugural subject of “Cassie Workman is Witchy AF,” the host pertly pulls a bait-and-switch. She opens her monologue by describing a hypothetical figure born to great privilege. A small sketch of Elon Musk lurks in the foreground, but she never so much as side-eyes its frame.
Due to hubris, laziness and drug abuse, Workman continues, the person in question decides it’s easier to grift, spout right-wing nonsense and abandon reality. With that, she places another picture in front of Musk’s and says, “And that person is Aleister Crowley.”
Behold the Australian comic embracing her season. As Gen Z takes a turn en masse toward the world of woo-woo and anti-trans legislation pollutes politics here and abroad, Workman, a transgender immigrant, is unapologetically promoting the lighter side of popular wiccanery from her fictional occult bookstore. “I am expecting some pushback on the internet,” she deadpans.
Maybe not. “Witchy AF,” executive produced by Lilly Wachowski, is undeniably entertaining. Think of it as a cocktail mix of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” and “Drunk History” for Etsy spellcasters, starring the lovechild of Patsy Stone and Bauhaus front man Peter Murphy. Most of Workman’s tales are fact-based and reenacted with puppets, although she also stumbles off-site to her local dive bar or her apartment for occasional “Interview with a Demon” segments. Accompanied by her sidekick and netherworld patron King Grimsquawk – a crowned raven-baby holding a scepter – Workman conjures up one of the funniest small-screen comedies that isn’t officially on TV.
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But its good witchery also contextualizes the quest for sanity in mad times like ours with comforting observations about occultism’s role during eras of social upheaval.
“If there’s anything tumultuous happening now . . . I wouldn’t know, I haven’t been paying attention,” she jokes, “just remember that historically, an enlightenment of epic proportions is probably not far off.” If that’s true, may Workman’s sweet, intoxicating humor hasten its arrival.
New episodes of “Cassie Workman is Witchy AF” debut Wednesdays on Etch’s YouTube channel.
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