Recently I got a little nostalgic for 2005 era Grey’s Anatomy. I enjoyed the first three seasons while navigating the deluge of college flashbacks associated with the show. And then something weird started to happen. I found myself getting angry at Grey’s and its perennially dour cast of characters. Now that I’m half way through season 5, I find my [...]

Having recently completed Bioshock Infinite, I have a lot of thoughts concerning the Inception-like mechanics of the ending, but its myriad possibilities have been covered by the internet at large. And I think the game deserves a few accolades that I haven’t read yet. Light Spoilers Bioshock Infinite isn’t a perfect game. It’s hurting for a stealth mechanic a la [...]

Most people probably know that DC cancelled all of its titles in September of 2011 and launched 52 #1 issues of their “New 52″ brand. I say most people because it was a pretty big deal at the time. While some of their books like Detective Comics retained their number since the first issue was released in 1939, no company [...]

Not too long ago I wrote about how Batman needs to just suck it up kill his villains. The idea being that he could have killed the Joker the first time he met him and saved thousands of human lives. Batman, however, is unique in that he is still a man. No matter how ridiculous his adventures get he’s still one of [...]

What’s the difference between the light and dark side of the Force? It feels like a dumb question at first, but it’s a little more nuanced than it looks. The Force is power. Jedi and Sith use it to be stronger, faster, have precognition, and do the things that allow them to beat other people in fights. Basically the only [...]

Today we are going to talk about madness. In our entertainment, heroism tends to come with a certain amount of notoriety. Heroes are, if not famous, then certainly recognized and generally loved for their deeds. And many of those heroes, like Batman, refuse to kill – the idea being that human institutions enforcing human laws need to determine right and wrong. It’s [...]

With the upcoming Man Of Steel scant months away, it seems the WB’s theoretical Justice League film is closely hitched to the success of its latest superhero venture. Opening this door to speculation raises other questions. Why can’t Warner Brothers put together a successful, non-Batman movie while Marvel is making money off relative unknowns like Thor and Iron Man? How [...]

Is this the new age of geek-friendly entertainment? We’ve been asking this question for a while. At least since the first X-Men movie was a success. Our popular entertainment has taken the kind of turn that makes it seem like gamers, comic book fans, trekkies and the like are no longer the out crowd. While it’s not clear that playing StarCraft will [...]

Two years ago, if you had asked me what I thought about PC gaming, I would have told you it’s irrelevant. I would have said something like Why the hell does anyone want to play on a PC when the console is there, with a compatible controller, and I can just stick it in and have fun. Past me had that kind [...]

Fair Warning: This week’s topic is about as adult as I get. Mature attitudes  will prevail. This week we found out that the Evil Dead remake scored an NC17 rating its first time up against the MPAA. NC17 is notoriously unpopular with theaters because it automatically cuts down a film’s profit margin by virtue of its age requirement; it is the only rating that outright [...]

When I started this column, I had this idea. I wanted to write about that space where fantasy escapism (i.e. popular entertainment) and social forms meet.  I wanted to talk about why we make the entertainment we do and what that entertainment does to us. Because I do believe that the process of doing something changes us. And since I’ve [...]

I’ve been known to say that vampirism is informed by the quirkier subtexts of human nature. That is to say, vampires aren’t usually about vampires. Vampires are about foreigners and sex and dealing with our own baser urges. The very flexibility of vampirism as a trait is because of the pure variety of our own issues are. A specific movie or book [...]

Ugh. Day after Christmas. There is, literally, one thing to look forward to in the next 3 months, and it’s happening in a week. For those of us in the northern North America, it’s time to struggle on through the post-holiday TOTAL WINTER blues. So here’s a fun pick-me-up I discovered by accident on Christmas eve. You see, I’m a [...]

Today is the last day for us to talk about the Mayan Apocalypse with an assured sense of total condescension and that subtle hint of unease people use when they totally don’t believe the end of the world is coming… probably. Soon, it will be relegated to the same space as Y2K and anything Nostradamus said. Conversely, this might be the last day to [...]

Holy $#!&, this game is intense. For those not in the know, I started Spec Ops: The Line last week. [Spoilers] Seriously, f*** this game. That’s the mental state you’re in after killing a battalion of U.S. soldiers and most of the people in Dubai. Don’t mistake that for me saying this isn’t a enjoyable game. It is (though more [...]

I did not expect to like The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Honestly, I didn’t expect anything at all. Aside from the experiences we’ve all had with prequels to classic trilogies, I hadn’t given it much thought. Don’t take that for indifference to Lord Of The Rings. I love Peter Jackson’s first trilogy. The Two Towers is a masterpiece of storytelling, acting, [...]

Shooters are, by virtue of my gaming style, not my forte. My hand-eye coordination developed in the age of Mario, which means any given teen can grill me in multiplayer. And the setting is almost always gritty, realistic warfare. And, war being hell, I always find myself a little at odds with playing at it in so close a context. [...]

Last week, I was at a holiday party. Or a Christmas party. Christmas decorations have been up since Halloween, and I just can’t tell anymore. And we had to have THAT conversation about it . You know the one. It goes something like this. Drunk Guy: Merry Christmas! Grumpy Hippy: Uh, don’t you mean happy holidays? Drunk Guy: Sure, happy [...]

You may have noticed that our content sections (Politics & Society for example) have been replaced with column titles. As part of a reformat, we’re moving The Cool Ship to a more author-focused approach to writing, set around a person theme or interest. In my case, I’ve commandeered “Area Of Effect” to tackle the space between politics, social structures, and [...]

The last episode of Forward Unto Dawn (FUD), the Halo 4 prequel series, was fantastic. If anyone ever questions whether or not a Halo movie could work, look no further than this little YouTube series. So it is with a sense of trepidation that I have to ask what’s up with humanity in the Halo universe. It occurred to me, while watching the [...]