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You’ve seen the iconic snapshot: Rihanna in midnight shades and a coat with a mustard-colored fur lapel, seated next to Lupita Nyong’o, waring poindexter frames and a modest crewneck sweater. You’ve also doubtless heard the story that arose after it: In 2014, the photo surfaced on Tumblr, along with a movie concept; three years later, […]

Comedy is a funny thing: A joke that makes one person howl with laughter can just as easily fall flat with whoever’s sitting next to them. But whether you prefer highbrow laughs to scatological humor (or vice versa), there are true genre gems that cater to all kinds of comedy connoisseurs. So which ones should […]

Sci-fi author Marie Lu sets her trilogies in shadowy realms, from a militarized police state (Legend) to a hunted secret society (The Young Elites). But as a former videogame designer for Disney Interactive Studios, Lu was conjuring up dark, fantastical worlds long before her books became best sellers. In Warcross, out this month, Lu embraces […]

An app will not save us. We will not sort out social inequality lying in bed staring at smartphones. It will not stem from simply sending emails to people in power, one person at a time. New, neoliberal conceptions of individual freedoms (especially in the realm of technology use) are oversupported in direct opposition to […]

ARMS, a fighting game for the Nintendo Switch, insists on commitment. Each of its colorful pugilists possesses two elastic arms designed to punch, slash, or blast across an entire arena. Think the spring-loaded boxing gloves from Looney Tunes, deployed on a stretchy coil like a telephone. (The other kind of telephone. The one people used […]

According to Twitter's well-worn origin story, the 140-character limit for tweets was born out of the now bygone restrictions of text messaging. The founders wanted Twitter to be used via SMS; at the time, messages were capped at 160 characters. (The extra 20 accommodated user names.) A few years after the company’s founding in 2006, […]

You stocked up on iTunes digital movies a decade ago because it was the only game in town. You’ve got a handful of favorites on Google Play, because at some point you switched to Android. And you stash some classics on Amazon Video, thanks to that one holiday blowout sale you couldn’t resist. As far […]

If it were up to Walt Disney, no one would ever leave his world. Like Howard Stark, a man whose identity the late animator's company now owns, he wanted to create massive, fantastical expos that showed off the possibilities of human innovation. Science fiction builds worlds with words and pictures; Walt Disney did it for […]

It’s not until two-thirds of the way through Significant Zero, his memoir of working in the videogame industry, that Walt Williams finally invokes the dreaded five-letter word: crunch. The term describes the moment when “game developer” ceases being a 9-5 job, and morphs into a haze of constant overtime, nights and weekends lost to endless […]

When the Justice League crew took the stage at Comic-Con International’s Hall H on Saturday—minus Henry Cavill, whose Superman is technically dead—they did so to a standing ovation, with the loudest screams reserved for Gal Gadot/Wonder Woman. But as the banter started and the footage rolled, there was one thing missing: their director. Joss Whedon, […]