Video game adaptations have a rocky history in film. For every good-to-ok one, like Mortal Kombat (1994), Sonic The Hedgehog (2020) or Werewolves Within (2021), there are scores of films that don’t do justice to their digital counterparts. The K:D ratio* just isn’t great for these movies, partly […]
Dobaaraa, a Hindi-language film released earlier this year, stands in intriguing contrast to mainstream Indian cinema’s habits, not just in how this compelling remake handles it source material but also just more generally as a contemporary project. It is one of only a handful of Indian adaptations of […]
I’ve been thinking about what “disreputable art” means in a time when nerds, fans, and geeks have won a kind of cultural hegemony. It was different when the Cultural Gutter was founded in 2003, before Iron Man (2008) launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Force awakened, and the […]
“I don’t wanna quit, I just wanna be in control of it” – Becky Something, Her Smell (2018) Some movies challenge you. Difficult to watch, grappling with heady or uncomfortable themes or ideas, or just straight-up disorienting as the stupid camera swirls around like you’re on the Gravitron […]
I confess that I’ve never really been the kind of fan who shipped characters or felt inspired to create fan art for a show, but A League of Their Own (Amazon Studios, 2022) is honestly like nothing else I’ve seen on tv and I suddenly found myself, in […]
This week’s Guest Star is Nick Hanover. He writes about the late Austin icon, Flash Jordan. ~~~ Ask anyone who has lived in Austin for any length of time when the city stopped being weird and they’ll give you countless answers. Maybe it was when Red Wassenich lost […]
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The Cultural Gutter 