Author: Tim Gaydos

This Sunday is the 400th or so Academy Awards, where we honor the best films of the past year in a stunning display of people reading names off of cards. It’s Hollywood’s “biggest night,” where everyone dresses up and pretends the winners are chosen solely by merit and not so the Academy can feel good about itself. Good times are had by all. Now as a ceremony and celebration for those being honored and those in the industry, this is all fine. But why, exactly, is this something that is televised? Why exactly are we tuning in for four or…

In general I’m a bit of a cynic, and jaded enough to be an Aerosmith song. So one would assume that I would be in line with all of the eye rollers who rally against the artificiality of Valentine’s Day. Thing is, when you assume you make an ass out yourself and only yourself because you’re wrong. I have zero problems with Valentine’s Day. Twist! Now, before we get too carried away with our minds being blown, Valentine’s Day is not a great holiday. It’s not even in the top ten (though to be fair, five of those are Halloween).…

Did you buy your Powerball ticket? DID YOU?!?! The jackpot is now $1.5 billion, the largest jackpot in lottery history. That’s enough money to buy like a quarter of Donald Trump! You would be crazy to not take a chance at fortune and glory and being able to quit your job in the most fabulous way imaginable. While that is a crazy amount of money, you aren’t crazy for not buying a ticket. In fact, I encourage you not to. The odds of winning are 1 in 292,201,338. To put that in perspective, the possibility of navigating the asteroid field that caused…

Hello! I hope this letter finds you all well. I know how stressful occupying the closed visitor’s center of a wildlife refuge can be. Did you bring enough provisions? I know you brought a lot of guns, but do you have enough toilet paper? Wiping your ass with an assault rifle would probably be really uncomfortable. But then again, maybe you’re into that kind of stuff? I know you like guns a whole lot, so maybe. No judgments! Anyway, the reason I am reaching out is because I’m a little concerned about you. Look, I get that you believe your…

When our editor Steve suggested* I review Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas for a post, I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy the endeavor. Not the movie itself; I knew that would be bad. But I also knew this film was never intended for me. I’m not religious at all, so of course a movie steeped in religious posturing and spiritual messages will get nothing but eye rolls from me. That’s not the movie’s fault. It’s doing what it’s supposed to do, so to tear it down in mockery felt like it would just be mean. Fortunately for me, the movie…

People have been eagerly awaiting Star Wars: The Force Awakens for well over a year now, and in that time they have had to occupy themselves by over-analyzing set photos and trailers and creating their own fan theories to predict what will happen before they even get a chance to see the movie. This is apparently an enjoyable way to spend time. One of the most prevalent predictions is that Luke Skywalker will go to the Dark Side. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that new villain Kylo Ren is actually Skywalker, despite another actor playing the…

We are a scant 17 days away from what will probably be the biggest moviegoing experience this generation. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is already taking over pop culture, as toys and merchandise theories about Luke being a villain are thrown out there to satiate fans until the film’s release. Then, and only then, can they finally release the tension in their nerd bulges in a glorious synchronized climax. Maybe the biggest of these stop gaps is Star Wars: Battlefront. A long-awaited sequel in the Battlefront series, the game drops you into battles on worlds from the Star Wars universe,…

It’s more or less common knowledge now that Spider-Man will be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe next year as part of Captain America: Civil War. As one of Marvel’s most popular characters, fans have been clamoring for him to join the Avengers on the big screen for quite some time. Their perseverance is the equivalent of evangelical Christians waiting for the Second Coming, or of other Americans waiting for the McRib to be in season. It’s exciting! Marvel has a pretty great track record of bringing its characters to the silver screen, so this will surely be awesome, right? Probably.…

So remember Gamergate? That whole thing where a woman was harassed endlessly because “attacking corruption in gaming journalism” and “calling an indie game developer a slut” are apparently synonymous? Well, it’s about to get a whole lot worse, because there is going to be a movie about it. A deal has been made to turn Zoe Quinn’s memoir Crash Override: How To Save The Internet From Itself into a film, which mostly focuses on the Gamergate controversy. It’s the kind of story I could see being a very interesting movie. It’s also going to bring a shitstorm of backlash with it. See,…

I’m a big fan of found-footage horror movies, which should come as no surprise. And I get that there are a lot of people who consider them largely garbage. There’s a lot a validity to the criticisms that get lobbied against found-footage films, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying them. Really, it’s an offshoot of my love of the horror genre as a whole. Bad horror movies are still a lot of fun to watch. You can’t say the same about, say, bad dramas. That being said, I don’t want found footage movies to be terrible. And I really…