As a kid, I never really connected with the Avengers. They seemed to be too detached from reality, bigger than life. The stuff I liked was still fantastical, but a little more grounded and/or filled with angst: Spiderman, the X-Men, Batman.… Read the rest
The N-word. Should white people be able to use it or not? Of course, it’s all about who is using it and why. If I call a gay friend a ‘fag’, being of that persuasion myself, it’s not a big deal, but if someone yells ‘fag’ at me on the street, it carries a lot more negative weight.… Read the rest
Deadlight is a pseudo-3D puzzler / action / platformer that takes place in a somewhat cliché setting. The world has been ripped apart by a zombie-apocalypse and you are one of very few survivors, trying to track down your wife and daughter.… Read the rest
Indie Game: The Movie gave me second-hand stress. That is what happens when you see a few very smart, extremely driven and perhaps socially somewhat awkward people, bravely pour years of their life into fragile dreams. Failure would be more than a financial disaster, it would be an implosion of the ego.… Read the rest
In the comedy series The New Normal, a gay couple decides that they want to have a child and goes in search of a surrogate to carry their baby. They find one with a precocious young daughter and the duo soon moves into the gay couple’s mansion.… Read the rest
The Uncharted and Tomb Raider games owe a lot to each other and to Indiana Jones. With a small tweak to their back-story, Nathan Drake and Lara Croft could easily be revealed to be Dr. Jones’ grandchildren. They are ancient artifact-chasing adventurers who spend an inordinate amount of time climbing around giant rooms activating very complex mechanisms that somehow didn’t break down despite being inactive for centuries.… Read the rest
Behind the Candelabra is a biopic about Liberace, a diva who spent his life lingering in the glass closet, at a time when that term did not exist yet. He was a piano-playing showman, into kitsch and glittery things to an almost pathological degree.… Read the rest
The Parade is a Serbian tragicomedy about a homophobic gangster who, through a series of unlikely events, ends up having to protect the first attempt at a Gay Pride parade in Belgrado. It won Best Feature during the Roze Filmdagen (a gay film festival) in Amsterdam in 2013 and deservedly so.… Read the rest
Lara Croft is an ambivalent creation, like most female characters in video games. She is empowered and doesn’t need a man to come to her rescue, but she has also been designed to please hormonally bothered teenage boys. Traditionally, she had a tiny waist and sported considerable cleavage.… Read the rest
