Recommended & Related Upholstery Mrs. Naimer would swim the whole way across the lake and back, a feat everyone on the beach ignored on purpose The Second Coming of the Plants Hear the piercing chorus of the cacti, the beat boxing of the giant redwoods. This is our lullaby for you, sprouts, and only…

Credit: Fabiola Carranza In rock music, destruction comes in many forms. There’s Iggy Pop’s scorched-earth “Search and Destroy;” the ribald excess of Kiss’s Destroyer ; the Soft Boys’ melodious “I Wanna Destroy You.” Then there’s Dan Bejar, the protean singer-songwriter who, for almost twenty years…

On the surface, Nathan Drake is unremarkable. The star of Naughty Dog ’ s Uncharted series looks, at least at first glance, like the platonic ideal of a videogame protagonist. Load up a save file and spin the camera around Drake. He ’ s a white guy with short brown hair. He is neither too tall nor…

Richard Foreman, Jr., SMPSP / Lionsgate Nobody shoots movies as well as Roger Deakins. He is without question our greatest cinematographer: an exemplar without comparison. A twelve-time Academy Award nominee, longtime partner of the Coen brothers, and indispensable collaborator of, among others,…

America’s “vision” of the Black male body is one of threat, menace, and labor. Unfortunately, that's exactly how they end up represented in games. In the TIME Magazine article " All the Ways Darren Wilson Described Being Afraid of Michael Brown ," the former Ferguson police officer describes the…

A still from Hellions. It’s been six years since Pontypool vaulted Bruce McDonald into the pantheon of Canadian horror greats. This week he returns with another in the same style: a low-budget, hallucinatory home-invasion slasher called Hellions , arriving in theaters after its premiere at Sundance…

In the past week I caught two telling images of Sony’s brand-new mobile gaming device, the PlayStation Vita. The first was a man leaning face-first into the carpeted corner of a GameStop, his back turned darkly to the actual store like a Blair Witch victim, transfixed by something just out of sight.…

I. I n early June, at the E3 convention in Los Angeles, I attended a demo for a game called Splinter Cell: Blacklist . In the demo, I watched the Splinter Cell franchise’s long-established hero, Sam Fisher — operating somewhere in Middle Eastistan — enter a tent, kill two gentlemen, and grab a…

The male stars of the Sunday night TLC special “My Husband’s Not Gay” openly speak about their attraction to men, and even past sexual and romantic experiences with men. But they’re not gay, okay ? The whole show basically tries to explain how these men explain that contradiction to themselves and…

If you ask a doc filmmaker about archival research, you’re likely to be met with groans, wringing hands, and the sudden need to order a stiff drink. Horrifying picture quality, reluctant or missing rights-holders, or the nonchalant absence of footage whatsoever are pretty standard fare. But when…

YOUTUBE/KXLY Where do we even start with Rachel Dolezal? The former (?) leader of the Spokane, WA chapter of the NAACP, came under fire last night for what we can only describe as reverse passing, living as a black woman for more than a decade for reasons that are currently unclear. Fascinated by…

UPDATE: The Houston Texans responded with a statement to the story that's included below. The article also contains more links on the issues with screening mammograms. All this month NFL fans will see pink on the football field for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The Houston Texans’ most vibrant pink…

SAN FRANCISCO — Of all the states, California has set the most ambitious targets for cutting emissions in coming decades, and an important pillar of its plan to reach those goals is encouraging the spread of electric vehicles . But the push to make the state greener is creating an unintended side…

TECHNOLOGY companies know they have a gender and diversity problem in their work force, and they are finally taking steps to try to fix it. But where are those new employees going to come from if women and minority students aren’t opting to study computer science or engineering? Figuring out why…

One of the secrets of good writing is to listen to your inner muse and write what gives you intense pleasure. The most successful screenwriters in Hollywood happen to have passions and taste that dovetail with pleasing audiences. They can ride the studio collaborative process to a happy conclusion.…

Game of the Year Hmmm……I’m trying to figure out a good way to put this. Basically here’s what happened: after the launch of Stanley Parable, I became a bit depressed. Largely this is because in those months, SO much attention was directed at the game and at me personally. And while I could not even…

Post-production film artist Adam Palmer sold off all his film equipment to play with a video game program. "I was so confident this was the direction I wanted to go," said Palmer, who left live-action filmmaking to instead work with gaming company Valve's 3D animation program Source Filmmaker . "I…

In 2008, a then-28-year-old Edmund McMillen , was prepping for his high school reunion in his hometown of Santa Cruz, Calif. It didn’t matter that he didn’t seem “the type” to actually attend a 10-year high school reunion. What did matter, though, was the enduring memory of a particular classmate…

Daniel Craig, it would appear, does not want to be James Bond anymore . And that’s fine. He has done a very good job at it and deserves to be tired of the role. More than being fine, though, it’s fun, because it allows for the “Who should be the next James Bond?” conversation to happen naturally,…

THE federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009. While Congress has refused to take action, Democratic politicians have been engaged in something of a bidding war to propose raising the minimum wage ever higher: first to $10.10, then to $12, and now some are pushing for $15 an…

I had one goal in mind when starting this little rant: to take down a recent American classic. I wanted to shred something so beloved that I may even come off as a rotten dick. Off the top of my head, I first thought of Forrest Gump . Seemed easy enough. I thought for a few minutes about all the…

Why you should care Because when you live on a chunk of sinking land, a broken marriage is NBD. By Shannon Sims The Daily Dose MAR 21 2016 The Maldives — that scattering of 1,200 tiny islands, a long way south of India, that you’ve seen on a screen saver or two — might seem like paradise. Bungalows…

I love to watch an actor within a shot . . . I feel I’m the first person watching it. Roger Deakins There are images in the films of Roger Deakins—including in his newest collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve , Sicario , and going back to his pioneering early work on classics like 1984 (1984)…

Annie Duke was often the only woman at the poker table, which influenced the way people saw her - and the way she saw herself . Feeling like an outsider can come at a cost, but also be an advantage. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Annie Duke was often the only woman at the poker table. This influenced the way…

Fargo , FX’s Emmy-winning anthology series, returns for a second season at 10 p.m. ET on Monday, October 12. And it’s good. It’s so, so good. The only thing stopping me from saying it’s great is (a) a Midwestern humility that befits the subject matter, and (b) that I’ve only seen four episodes.…

Chance the Rapper is about to kick off a sweeping North American tour with dozens of stops including Montreal, New York and Los Angeles. The 22-year-old hip-hop artist is a rising star. Born Chancelor Bennett, he has opened for Eminem, shared stages with Kendrick Lamar, hung out with Taylor Swift…

The mass shooting in Roseburg, Ore. has reignited debate over gun control and gun rights in the United States. Below are a series of questions drawn from what people have been searching for on Google since the shooting – and an attempt to answer them. What is gun control? “Gun control” is a broad…

Nicki Minaj Credit Erik Madigan Heck for The New York Times. Styling: Rushka Bergman. Hair: Oscar James. Makeup: Sheika Daley. Manicure: Millie Machado. Set Design: Andrea Huelse. P op music is dominated almost exclusively by the female star — Beyoncé, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus,…

Samsung Pay was presented during a promotional event in New York in August. Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images WASHINGTON — Months before its technology became the centerpiece of Samsung’s new mobile payment system, LoopPay, a small Massachusetts subsidiary of the South Korean…

There are no fixed boundaries in Patti Smith’s universe: her dreams seep through her waking hours, the dead speak to her, she journeys on a whim. Photograph by Stefan M. Prager/Redferns via Getty Patti Smith loves coffee. It courses through her new memoir, “M Train,” like a dark, steaming river,…

For years—decades, centuries even—we’ve always wanted to be first. Being first affirms our primacy in the pecking order of taste. It’s a way to stunt on our friends and competitors. It’s practically a superpower, one that separates us from them. The poetry and swagger of discovery is only for a…

When Donald J. Trump responded in July to criticism from one of his Republican rivals, Senator Lindsey Graham, by publicly releasing the South Carolina lawmaker’s cellphone number , the public and the press could not get enough of the jaw-dropping stunt. But on Monday, when Mr. Trump sent a case of…

If you want to know how James Bond – sorry, I mean Daniel Craig – starts the day, I can tell you. Two double espressos with honey. Plus poached eggs on toast. With another double espresso to follow. So basically: caffeine, more caffeine and some more caffeine, with honey to soften the blow. Craig…

In the fourth episode of the British comedy series Spaced , 20-something man-child Tim Bisley is gloomily playing videogames when his eccentric neighbor, Brian, walks into the apartment. “What are you playing?” Brian asks. “ Tomb Raider 3 ,” Tim replies. The television (on which we also see the…

Who owns the games that we play? The answer may seem obvious, but it isn't. The question of whether video games are sold or licensed to purchasers has simmered atop the surface of the games industry for years. In the beginning the issue felt semantic: Buyers had not yet been playing games for long…

Consumers are smarter today than they used to be, but that hasn’t stopped video game publishers from releasing what have become known as “ bullshots ,” doctored images that are meant to show what a video game looks like, but end up being so modified and fancified they’re often nothing of the sort.…

Savion Glover and Jada Pinkett-Smith in Bamboozled.Photograph: New Line International Releasing/EPA I first saw Bamboozled as a 15-year-old, in April 2001, at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton, south-west London, and it threw me for a loop. Written and directed by Spike Lee, the film is an intense satire…

The upcoming federal election is shaping up to be a real sweepstakes for a certain kind of voter: free weed is on offer , courtesy of a marijuana dispensary in BC, and now there's the promise of nude pics, thanks to a group of young Canadians calling themselves "Sluts Against Harper." On Tuesday,…

Illustration by Miguel Gallardo As the president of the Extremely Loud Doorbell Company, I am frustrated and puzzled by the many charges that have been levelled against us. Perhaps the most common charge is that our doorbells cause people to go deaf. This is patently untrue, for reasons I can’t…