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How the Righteous Gemstones brought sci-fi to church with the magic of jetpacks

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As it barrels through its characteristically outlandish fourth and final season, Danny McBride’s HBO comedy The Righteous Gemstones has cemented a reputation for itself. Yes, it’s side-splittingly funny. Yes, its “ failchildren of a crumbling empire ” narrative is surprisingly relevant. Yes, there is a core of sincerity at the center of the madness. But Gemstones ’ legacy wouldn’t be complete without talking about the bold ways McBride and co. spend the budget on ridiculous props and movie-level set pieces . It’s the best-looking comedy on television because of the care put into the details of the production, and because you see every single dollar on the screen. Season 4 has continued that tradition with aplomb, opening with a Civil War flashback episode that included a long, chaotic battle sequence edited to look like one extended take. It’s one of the biggest action pieces on TV this year so far, and involved 100 background actors, 20 reenactors, 13 stunt performers, and 12 hor...
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Disney Villains Cursed Café is the Modern AU of my dreams

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I did something horrible. I told Jafar, the scheming vizier villain in Disney’s Aladdin , about cryptocurrency, and now he’s determined to get WyshCoin off the ground by selling the luxurious lifestyle associated with the brand. The problem is he’s actually broke, so I need to brew him teleportation potion after teleportation potion so he can sneak into increasingly extravagant venues in order to sell the illusion of the WyshCoin lifestyle.  That’s just a day in the life of a potionista (a portmanteau of potion maker and barista) at the Cursed Café, the coffee shop at the center of Disney Villains Cursed Café . The game is a partnership between Disney Studios and indie team Bloom Digital Media. In Disney Villains Cursed Café , I spend time brewing potions, talking to my villainous clientele and helping them achieve their goals (or sometimes, very specifically not helping them). It’s a modern setting, which means the villains all have fun, contemporary designs — and contemporary ...
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If John Wick director Chad Stahelski ‘could get away with it,’ he’d fully pivot to anime

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Tuesday morning, Lionsgate announced that among a trio of new projects in the John Wick universe, there will be an animated prequel movie about the night the master assassin initially broke free from his obligation to the High Table. Intended for “more mature audiences,” the movie will be directed by Shannon Tindle ( Ultraman: Rising ) and written by Vanessa Taylor ( Game of Thrones , The Shape of Water ). Keanu Reeves will return to voice Wick. (The other projects teased: John Wick 5 and a Caine spinoff directed by and starring Donnie Yen ). The official announcement of a John Wick animated prequel movie should come as no surprise. Franchise auteur Chad Stahelski (who is producing the prequel) is a longtime anime fan who has made no secret of the medium’s influence on his work (“I hope people can watch at least John Wick: Chapter 4 and go, Oh, he’s got a heavy, heavy anime influence ,” he told Polygon), and has been dropping hints about the project for months . He’s also recently...
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Nintendo built the Switch 2 for the next societal shutdown

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The Switch 2 is a social machine. For the console’s second iteration, Nintendo prioritized processing power capable of large-scale multiplayer . The Joy-Cons’ new C button lets you instantly join a group chat with shared-screen play options. Extensions in the Nintendo Switch Online app will add dimension to old titles, including autobuild-sharing in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom . As producer Kouichi Kawamoto put it in Nintendo’s post-reveal Ask the Developer update, development of the Switch 2 was inspired by memories of “playing games together as children at a friend’s house or in a student lounge, where everyone brought their own consoles.” The clear goal is to bring frictionless community play to Switch 2 that will be safe for all ages. The pitch is harmonious on paper and, based on footage in the Switch 2 Direct , existentially terrifying as a practice. Inspired by one of the defining experiences of the early 2020s, in which many of us were sequestered inside our...
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How a 25-year-old Dutch game developer reclaimed her childhood

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Spilled! creator Lente in the boat where she lives and makes games. Push to Talk is a weekly newsletter about the business of making and marketing video games, written by games industry veteran and marketing director Ryan Rigney. Subscribe here for eclectic and spicy interviews and essays in your inbox every Friday. Of the hundreds of indie games released on Steam each week, only a fortunate few become breakout hits. Last week’s biggest winner was the viral drug-dealing simulator Schedule I . But it wasn’t the only game that managed to crack 1,000 “overwhelmingly positive” reviews in its first week. The other surprise was Spilled!, a bite-sized game about cleaning up waterways. Spilled! puts you into a cute little solar-powered boat which you use to slurp up oil spills and gently, slowly , push floating cans and bottles into recycling bins, earning coins which unlock boat upgrades to speed up your task. It’s a meditative experience that you can finish in about an hour. An...
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Netflix’s latest horror-comedy was inspired by Silent Hill 2 — and Katamari Damacy??

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Netflix’s gleeful horror-comedy Dead Talents Society wears a lot of its influences out in the open. Writer-director John Hsu talked with Polygon earlier this month about how YouTube streamers, ’90s Taiwanese pop music, Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers , and real Asian urban legends like “the little girl in red” helped inspire his manic movie about the capitalist grind of the afterlife. In Dead Talents Society , ghosts endlessly chase viral fame as haunting superstars, while one new ghost, The Rookie (Gingle Wang), deals with the humiliation of being an incompetent scarer. During that interview, Hsu also mentioned that he’s an avid gamer, which has heavily influenced his career: He learned to script and edit while making World of Warcraft machinima videos and posting them on the AFK PL@YERS YouTube channel , and he went on to direct the 2019 film adaptation of the 2018 horror game Detention . “Since I’m such a huge gamer — they realized it might be a good idea to ...
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Assassin’s Creed Syndicate did 2 protagonists first — and best

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All the best Assassin’s Creed games are about family.  The Ezio trilogy, long considered the peak of the series, is built on the tragic loss of Ezio’s family, and his fundamental loneliness. The game’s most iconic song — the one whose motif is colloquially known as “the Assassin’s Creed theme” — is titled “Ezio’s Family.” Assassin’s Creed Origins is the story of parents seeking vengeance after the death of their son. Likewise, the protagonist of Odyssey comes from a broken family: Alexios or Kassandra grows up orphaned after being literally dropped off a mountain by their father, who chooses loyalty to Sparta over protecting his children. The latest game in the series, Assassin’s Creed Shadows , also revolves around family. Early on it takes the player through a long sequence where we see young ninja Naoe’s family life before — as always happens in this series — her world is upended by violence. I’m not far enough into the game to see where Naoe’s story will (presumably!) int...
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