If you think modern-day dating is complex, imagine going through the ultimate test of strength and commitment by having to defeat seven evil exes to get the girl. In the neon-colored, video-game-inspired, indie-rock band landscape of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, love is as complex and enigmatic as the battles Scott faces throughout the story. Based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) combines action, comedy, and romance to create a whirlwind adventure of love and persistence that captured the hearts of readers and viewers alike. This article will dive into the intricacies of the romance portrayed in the film, exploring the themes and underlying messages that make this film a unique, captivating, and action-packed portrayal of romance.

When it comes to gaming, 2024 shows much promise with upcoming releases such as Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door. January alone came out swinging with The Last of Us: Part 2 Remastered, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and Tekken 8. However, none of these releases compare to the juggernaut that is Palworld. Developed by Pocket Pair, Palworld is an early access survival game where players can capture creatures called “pals” to help them along the way. The game launched on Xbox and PC on January 19, 2024 and proceeded to break the Internet. Within its first week, Palworld reached a peak of over 2.1 million players on Steam, sold over 8 million copies, and achieved over $5 million in sales. With its quick success, Palworld has also been the center of controversy due to some pal designs being criticized as for looking similar to designs from properties like Pokémon. Because of the strange place Palworld is in right now, I decided to give it a shot and see what the hype was about. I created my character, Hatsune Mikey, and started my Palworld journey.

Cuban bread, ham, roast pork—lechón— Swiss cheese. Contrary to popular belief, pickles and mustard are not optional. But what is the significance of a sandwich? To Carl Casper (Jon Favreau), the encouragement from his ex-wife (Sofia Vergara) that his Cubanos are better than the ones from Miami’s iconic Versailles Restaurant is all he needs to take his career from prestigious to portable. In opening his food truck, he breaks away from the tradition of caviar eggs and lava cakes to reconnect with his craft and community by making dishes he cares about.

On January 31st, the Askew Student Life Cinema and Club Down Under teamed up to transport FSU students back to the golden era of gaming in celebration of Nintendo's 135th anniversary. The activity-packed event rekindled memories of the Super Nintendo era and left guests with a warm feeling of nostalgia. In honor of this company's tremendous milestone, let's dive deeper into how Nintendo became the gaming platform we know and love today and its continuous impact on our generation.

The 13th of October, 2023. The leads, sound designer, and director of the five-time Oscar-nominated film, The Zone of Interest, walk onto the stage of the Southbank cinema at the BFI London Film Festival, minutes after the credits are done rolling on the two-hour nightmare that the audience was subjected to. I was in that audience, and I was stunned. I was paralyzed in my seat after watching the most subtly effective drama film detailing the horrors of the holocaust I had ever seen, all done without a single drop of blood shown on screen. The sound of the film, paired with its precise and uncanny visuals, shook me. I felt a visceral sense of terror because I’m aware that just beyond the frame, but never beyond earshot, people are needlessly and systematically dying in sick, twisted daily slaughters. One of many things that have been ingrained in my memory in the short Q&A that followed was where lead actress Sandra Huller (nominated this year for her acting in Anatomy of a Fall) is asked about how she approached her character. The first part of her answer was a nuanced take on finding a way to honestly portray an evil of history without sympathizing or simplifying it, her character being the real wife of Auschwitz camp director Rudolph Hoss, but it's the second part I’m going to focus on here. That being the intricacies of the multi-camera system, as opposed to the much more conventional single camera.

From a young age, I never paid much attention to what most of my idols and heroes looked like or where they were from. Superman soared across the sky and Spider-Man swung across New York buildings and their alter-egos just looked like what the child version of myself believed the average person looked like. Part of growing up for me was realizing that I looked different from what I and many of my peers had been conditioned to consider the average. Most average looking pop culture figures did not share that many physical attributes with the little Latino kid that was looking up to them; it did not bother me at a young age since it was just the established norm. This established norm is eroding more and more every year though media continues to take significant strides in representation.

Like all cinema worth watching, Black Swan is an amalgamation of inspirations from the wide world of cinema. Without a doubt, the most notable inspiration comes from one of the most tragically short-lived artists in Japanese cinema, Satoshi Kon, and more specifically, his debut feature film masterpiece Perfect Blue.

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Guillermo Del Toro has become one of the most prolific filmmakers of the modern age thanks to his unique voice, resilience on non-CGI creatures, and his unrelenting patience for his craft. Before working behind the camera, Del Toro worked for much of his early career in makeup and special effects, trained and mentored by Dick Smith. Working alongside Smith for ten years, Del Toro eventually cofounded his own visual effects studio named “Necropia”. This early interest and experience with practical effects laid the groundwork for almost all his projects to come, beginning with his first film Omnivore.

Comic books used to be a predominantly white-representative medium, with little to no diversity in their characters. It wasn’t until the latter half of the 20th century when things began to change. Marvel comics introduced characters like Black Panther in the 1960s, as well as the X-men, who serve as a metaphor for minority groups all across the world still to this day. It wasn’t until 1975 when the first mainline Latino comic book character was introduced by Marvel. Hector Ayala A.K.A. White Tiger, a Puerto Rican college student, donned a white suit that, curiously enough, showed nothing of his skin. Whether this was intentional or not, the comic book world had now been introduced to a true Hispanic character for the first time ever, and his creation paved the way for many more beloved Hispanic characters today.

Once I learned about the Criterion Collection: It was game over. A company that literally specializes in putting out the very best, most high-quality versions of great films on physical release was destined to be my new obsession. But what fascinates me the most about Criterion is not just obtaining their beautiful releases in mass buying sprees, but the process behind how their releases come to be.