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Max Schindler

2930 Posts
17 Aug

Lanterns Revives One of Classic Green Lantern’s Silliest Concepts

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
This article contains spoilers for Lanterns season 1 episode 1. John Stewart spends most of the premiere episode Lanterns living in the shadow of his mentor, Hal Jordan. And it’s an unpleasant place to be. Hal never misses an opportunity to needle the young hopeful, whether it’s abandoning him in a crashing car or making him navigate his own way to Rushville, Nebraska. But Stewart does manage to earn the older man’s respect in one case, when he describes the copy that Hal made for himself as a “Hal-o-Gram.” The name makes Hal smile and say, “That’s clever,” before checking…
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17 Aug

Lanterns Episode 1 Review: Hued Detective

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This article contains spoilers for Lanterns season 1 episode 1. The first episode of Lanterns begins the way any show with knotty lore should: with a flashback to 1996, where a young John Stewart watches the Green Lantern interviewed on 60 Minutes. Through the interview, we learn about Hal Jordan, the first human member of the intergalactic space cops known as the Green Lantern Corps, who were granted power rings by immortal blue beings known as the Guardians of the Universe. When John’s father sees what his son is watching, he orders John to go outside and places an apple…
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15 Aug

Marvel Announces New X-Men Cast: Adam Driver On Board as Unexpected Villain

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When 12,000 fans, press, and professionals stuff themselves into Anaheim’s Honda Center you can expect electricity. And on a sweaty Southern California Friday night Disney hoped to channel that energy into another win — building on the momentum of the record breaking opening of Spider-Man: Brand New Day — on the opening night of their “Ultimate Fan Event” D23.  After a slew of huge announcements across the Disney spectrum, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige came on stage and intro’d a new teaser for VisionQuest — which was very Wandavision coded — before bringing on Sadie Sink as Jean Grey. Of…
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15 Aug

The End of Oak Street Ending Is So Much More Screwed Up Than You Realize

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This article contains spoilers for The End of Oak Street David Robert Mitchell’s late-summer sci-fi movie The End of Oak Street has landed in theaters, and its final scenes feature some truly unexpected narrative twists and turns worth thinking twice about after the credits roll. In the film, we follow the Platt family, an all-American clan of four who are transported back in time from 1982, along with the rest of their neighborhood, to an era when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Yet for a film that has time travel built into its core concept, it spends surprisingly little time dwelling…
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15 Aug

Ranking Rogues Galleries: 10 Superheroes With the Best Collection of Villains

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Ever since Superman debuted in 1938’s Action Comics #1, superheroes have been the primary draw of comic books. Since then, superheroes have spread into every type of popular culture, from TV and movies to toys and video games. But here’s the secret about superheroes: most of us aren’t coming just for the good guys. The heroes only matter to the degree that they have interesting people to fight, and that’s where the bad guys come in. The great heroes have some great enemies: Captain America and Red Skull, the Avengers and the Masters of Evil, Wonder Woman and Circe. But…
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14 Aug

15 Facts Hollywood Would Love to Leave in its Past

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Hollywood has spent decades building an image of glamour, success, and larger than life entertainment, but the industry’s history contains plenty of stories that are much harder to celebrate. Studios once had extraordinary control over performers, dangerous practices were treated as normal, and scandals were often buried rather than confronted. Some of these chapters eventually led to major changes in the way movies and television were made, while others remained hidden for years before coming to light. Looking behind the famous names and iconic films reveals an industry that was often far less glamorous than the finished product suggested. Giant…
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14 Aug

15 Funny Signs Brightening Up Your Day, and Confusing Your Commute

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Most people are not expecting much entertainment from a trip to the grocery store, a walk through town, or a drive down the highway, but then a sign catches your attention and suddenly the whole day gets a little better. Some signs are accidentally hilarious, others are wonderfully weird, and a few seem to have been written by someone who knew exactly how people would interpret them. The best ones turn ordinary instructions into tiny moments of comedy, leaving you wondering how they ever made it onto a wall, storefront, road, or public building. These signs prove that sometimes the…
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14 Aug

15 People Share the ‘Old’ Film Better Than Anything Made in the Modern Day

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Some movies simply refuse to feel old. They may have been made decades ago, long before today’s digital effects, franchise culture, and streaming platforms, yet they can still feel more entertaining, more thoughtful, or more effective than plenty of modern releases. That is exactly what makes these movies so interesting. They are not necessarily flawless, and they do not need to be the biggest films ever made. They simply have something that audiences believe has become harder to find. Reddit users were recently asked which older movies still stand above anything being made today, and the answers produced plenty of…
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14 Aug

SAKAMOTO DAYS Season 1 Character Guide: What to Know About Taro, X, and More

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This article appears in the new issue of DEN OF GEEK magazine. Find out how you can subscribe to get the full physical copy right here! SAKAMOTO DAYS looks like a straightforward action-comedy about a retired hitman turned family man. However, the series’s greatest strength lies in its colorful cast of characters, each with their own unique motivations, fighting styles, and emotional depth that push the story further. From legendary hitmen to eccentric allies, and merciless serial killers, every character shapes the chaotic and heartfelt world of SAKAMOTO DAYS. For those looking to understand the personalities that have made this show one of…
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14 Aug

Reinventing Psychological Horror: How Screen Burn Interactive Brought Its Signature Strengths to Silent Hill

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“It’s a tough act to follow, to join a franchise like this,” admits Silent Hill: Townfall director and writer Jon McKellan in an interview with Den of Geek. “It’s nerve-wracking, but not a challenge that you turn down. Within the team, we all had our own stories. I was a teenager when I played Silent Hill 1 for the first time. It was an awakening game because I didn’t know that games could be like this. Younger people in our team discovered it 20 years later, playing retro games, which puts it through a different lens.” As part of a…
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13 Aug

15 Movies Where Absolutely Nothing Happens, and That’s Ok

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There is something strangely satisfying about watching a movie where nobody is trying to save the world, solve a murder, win a war, or uncover a shocking secret. Sometimes people just sit around, walk around, clean things, drink coffee, have conversations, or stare into the distance while the clock keeps moving. These movies can feel almost aggressively uneventful, yet that is exactly what makes them work. They are not necessarily empty, and they are not always boring. They simply refuse to hurry toward a conventional story, giving everyday moments room to breathe. Reddit recently had plenty of suggestions for movies…
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13 Aug

15 Movie Scenes That Changed Cinema Forever

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A great scene can be remembered for decades, but every once in a while, one does something bigger. Maybe filmmakers start copying the technique, an entire genre suddenly gets new rules, or audiences discover something they didn’t even know movies could do. Looking back, it’s easy to take those moments for granted because we’ve seen their influence everywhere since. At the time, though, they could be genuinely strange, technically ambitious, or completely unlike what audiences were used to seeing. From horror and comedy to animation and action, these scenes didn’t just become famous. In one way or another, they helped…
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13 Aug

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 4 Review — A Case of Chiaroscuro

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The following contains spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 4 episode 4. One of the best things about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is how willing it is to push the boundaries of what a Star Trek episode is supposed to be and do. It’s true, some of its stranger concept episodes don’t always pay off, but the series’s utter fearlessness is one of its most admirable qualities. And although season 4’s “A Case of Chiaroscuro” doesn’t reach the heights of all-time franchise classics like “Those Old Scientists” and “Subspace Rhapsody”, the hour is an intriguing twist on…
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13 Aug

The DCU is Avoiding the MCU’s Television Mistake

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The Wall has fallen. Paradise is lost for good. At least, that’s the takeaway from a recent insider piece published by The Ankler, which reports that two recently-announced DCU television shows have ceased development. Waller would have starred Viola Davis, once again reprising her role as Amanda Waller, the hard-nosed government official who runs the Suicide Squad and the Creature Commandos. Paradise Lost would have been a Game of Thrones-style series set on Themyscira, the paradise island where Wonder Woman was born. The news comes just ahead of the premiere of Lanterns, the ambitious HBO series that turns the cosmic…
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13 Aug

The 5 Marvel Superhero and Star Wars Character Meetings We Most Want to See

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The prophecy foretold by one Patton Oswalt on a 2013 episode of Parks and Recreation has finally come to pass. Elements of the rambling rant his character Garth Bludnen launched as part of a town hall filibuster have already made it into Disney canon, including a near-perfect prediction of Boba Fett’s return (intentionally so). But so far, the Marvel Universe and Star Wars galaxy that he described have stayed far, far away from one another. Yesterday, Marvel Comics announced Hope Assembles, a five-issue miniseries written by Kevin Smith (of course) and penciled by David Marquez. Of course, the crossover isn’t…
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13 Aug

X-Files Creator Chris Carter: ‘Vrach Frankenshteyn’ Director’s Cut Is More Horror, Less Romance

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The 2020s are shaping up to be a good decade for fans of The X-Files. In the years following the mixed reception of the two revival seasons in 2016 and 2018, fans felt like Fox Mulder himself, relegated to empty corners of pop culture, all-too-aware that nobody else cares that we know about the Flukeman and Clyde Bruckner. But things are starting to change. Not only is Ryan Coogler producing a relaunch of The X-Files, with Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel in the leads, but creator Chris Carter is getting to fix one of the series’ worst mistakes. The X-Files:…
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13 Aug

Coyote vs. Acme Review: Justice for the Looney Tunes Is Here

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The most feel-good story at the movies this year isn’t happening just on the screen. By virtue of merely playing out of cinema projectors, Dave Green’s Coyote vs. Acme feels like a miracle before even the title card; it’s a Cinderella story if Cinderella was a rabbit in a gown and wig doing their best Ingrid Bergman impression. In a world where movies like Batgirl have vanished forever inside a Warner Bros. vault to justify a corporate tax write-off, Coyote vs. Acme will be playing coast-to-coast on big screens across the country. That is something to savor, as is both…
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13 Aug

007 First Light’s Cast Shares the Secrets Behind James Bond’s Latest Game

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This article contains plot spoilers from 007 First Light. Nearly three months after its launch, 007 First Light is a decided hit for its developer and publisher IO Interactive, earning largely positive critical and user reviews while selling over three million copies in less than a month. As the first James Bond video game since the disastrously received 007 Legends in 2012, and with new big movie news in sight, 007 First Light stands as the biggest bright spot for the franchise in years. With the game and its sweeping origin story for Bond out, we sat down with its…
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12 Aug

15 Family Films That Take Things Surprisingly Dark

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Family movies are usually expected to be fun, uplifting, and safe for audiences of all ages. That’s exactly why it’s so surprising when one suddenly takes a much darker turn. Whether it’s an unexpectedly emotional scene, genuinely frightening imagery, or themes that hit much harder as adults, some family films aren’t nearly as lighthearted as their marketing suggests. Many of these moments caught audiences completely off guard, becoming the scenes people still talk about years later. Here are 15 family movies that take things surprisingly dark. ©IMDb The Brave Little Toaster (1987) Behind its colorful animation is a surprisingly bleak…
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12 Aug

11 Fascinating WWII Facts for the Biggest History Geeks

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The Second World War shaped the modern world in countless ways, and even after decades of research, it continues to reveal incredible stories that many people have never heard. Beyond the famous battles and well known leaders lies a collection of remarkable facts involving secret operations, unusual inventions, unlikely heroes, and astonishing coincidences. These details highlight just how complex and unpredictable the conflict really was. Whether you have spent years studying military history or simply enjoy discovering lesser known moments, these facts offer another glimpse into one of history’s most fascinating periods. The Ghost Army Used Inflatable Tanks The United…
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