DraftKings Network • 3rd August 2023

The dying art of movie theater etiquette

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see Insidious: The Red Door at a local AMC theater like I’ve seen many horror films. There’s something about seeing a scary film in a theatrical setting with a bunch of people that has a certain synergy to it. Though the pandemic has done a lot to change our viewing habits concerning media, the recent successes of Oppenheimer and Barbie are examples that people will show up when you give them something of quality to show up for.

So, I sit in my seat and see burs

DraftKings Network • 24th July 2023

One of the biggest lessons inside ‘Barbie’ originates within Ken’s flawed thinking and lack of self-reflection

In 1961, two years after the extremely famous Barbie doll was made, Mattel gave the world Ken, named after founder Ruth Handler’s son, Kenneth. By the supposed natural order of things, Barbie and Ken were paired together (until their break up in 2004 and eventual reunion in 2011. Yes, I know this is weird talking about dolls). What if it wasn’t Barbie and Ken, but perhaps just platonic people/characters who weren’t forced together because “that’s how things have to be?”

Co-writer/director Greta

DraftKings Network • 13th July 2023

If you feel as angry about your industry after the SAG-AFTRA press conference, you’re not alone

Just two days ago, a studio executive spoke to Deadline about the WGA strike and said, “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” Disney CEO Bob Iger, when speaking to CNBC today, spoke of the writer and actors' strikes as “adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive.” This is the same man who just yesterday extended his deal for two years and made almo

DraftKings Network • 7th July 2023

‘Indiana Jones,’ ‘Logan,’ and James Mangold’s vision of the aging hero

In a perfect world or story, heroes would be untouched by the hands of time and shielded from all of life’s unfairness and difficulties. They are the best of us, after all. You should be rewarded for acts of virtualism and selfishness for the greater good. But heroes are just like the rest of us – they age, experience loss, grapple with grief, and even fall into pits of depression. Even if any of these ailments fall upon them, we still have faith that they have the resolve to get back up one mor

DraftKings Network • 17th May 2023

Martin Scorsese and the adversarial necessity between time and art

Ask any cinephile to name their favorite directors, and many of the same names will come up. There’s Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, and, of course, Martin Scorsese (I didn’t intentionally leave anybody out. I could list names all day). Scorsese is the creative mind who has been at the helm of classics such as Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, The King of Comedy, Taxi Driver – the list goes on and on.

Thanks to streaming services, there seems to be almost a birth of untethered c

DraftKings Nation • 9th May 2023

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ proves a trilogy finale doesn’t need a main character death to be effective

There are a couple of essential ingredients when you’re looking to wrap up a trilogy. First, there’s a beginning, middle, and end (obviously). It would be best if you had a way to wrap up the individual and macro overachieving themes in which the story began in the first place. If you look at Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne becomes Gotham’s protector with the caped crusader mantle and passes it on to live a happier life (begrudgingly) in Dark Knight Rises. On the outside, the city of Gotham is going

DraftKings Nation • 4th May 2023

Missy Elliott’s legacy is as rock and roll as it gets

Rock and Roll music was birthed in genres like jazz, gospel, and rhythm and blues – fortified by legends such as Little Richard, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Sh-boom. Some people have come to view rock music with a narrow lens of singer, guitarist, bassist, and drummer in the ilk of bands like The Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin, and The Foo Fighters. That’s not to say those bands aren’t vastly important in their own right (they absolutely are), but rock and roll is a genre th

DraftKings Nation • 2nd May 2023

Lovers of all things media should be paying attention to the WGA writers' strike

I’ve been fortunate to be in the realm of writing about entertainment media for nine years as well as a lifetime fan. My mind is full of timeless quotes and reenactments of scenes from my favorite film – verbatim. Even through all this time, I still have an eager and curious eye on upcoming releases like I did when I was a kid. All that wouldn’t be possible without the people in the rooms writing the storylines that hook you for weeks, make you cry, and laugh until your stomach hurts.

When we l

DraftKings Nation • 28th April 2023

While we all wait for episode six, here’s DraftKings Nation’s ‘Yellowjackets’ Halftime spectacular

If you have not noticed by now, Yellowjackets season two is on a week break, and what a way to take a breather than an impending birth within a potentially haunted forest? We’re all jonesing for answers, but we here at DraftKings Nation have a little stop-gap idea. Let’s go over some burning questions that we have coming off the last episode that we hoped to be answered in the remaining four episodes of this season.

What Will Become of Shauna’s Baby?

We can all acknowledge Shauna having her ba

DraftKings Nation • 20th April 2023

These AI-generated songs sap the soul out of the artistic medium that needs it most

I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but one of my favorite electronic groups of all time is Daft Punk. When the duo suddenly broke up in 2021, I was crushed. They made music on their own terms, made releases count, and had those amazing robot helmets (plus, I never got to see them live). An immediate void was created as they exited the incomparable musical partnership together. But a recent interview with co-founder Thomas Bangalter said when asked about why the duo broke up. He said, “As much as I

DraftKings Nation • 19th April 2023

Ari Aster has a love for the deceptively depressive ending

Spoilers Ahead For Hereditary, Midsommar, and Beau Is Afraid are below.

Having viewed all three of writer/director Ari Aster’s feature films, I’ve concluded that the guy loves a depressing ending. Not just a simple, sad ending where it feels like all is lost – some of them have an uncomfortable celebratory vibe. For example, at the end of 2018’s Hereditary, everything that could go wrong for the Graham family does. The son, Peter, jumps out of the window to his death after he watches his posses

DraftKings Nation • 8th April 2023

Am I losing it or is the Star Wars film franchise finally ready to get its act together?

It only came out more than three years ago, but 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker feels like something we don’t speak of. The film happened – retracing many steps of past lore and ignoring why audiences enjoyed 2015’s The Force Awakens worked so well. The first film in the new trilogy combined the old classics and revealed new characters we want to journey with. A former stormtrooper named Finn had a change of heart, joined the resistance, and picked up a lightsaber to fight a master of th

DraftKings Nation • 22nd March 2023

Nobody Wins When the DC Family Feuds

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but there seems to be more drama in the land of the DC film universe. This stems from an exclusive report from The Wrap that lays a lot of the studios' recent superhero troubles at the feet of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Shazam! star Zachary Levi would then go on his Instagram account to confirm what sources told the publication was true. Keep in mind that Shazam! Fury of The Gods was just released this weekend. The whole back-and-forth has cannibalized any (a

DraftKings Nation • 7th March 2023

Rocky had the best possible sendoff for his character in ‘Creed II’

If you were one of the many people who went to see Creed III this past weekend, you would note that this would be the first in the trilogy that genuinely felt like an Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) story. That’s not to say there isn’t Rocky franchise DNA inside the story. Adonis comes out of retirement to face his most significant test, just like Rocky did with Ivan Drago in Rocky IV — and of course, the training montages and “never give up” attitude play a big part.

Besides this, the film di

DraftKings Nation • 6th March 2023

‘The Last of Us’ has a chilling effect depicting how it’s bleak world affects young people

One of the quotes that stuck out to me while watching the television adaptation of The Last of Us was in “Please Hold to My Hand” when Joel and Ellie talked after the ambush as they got to Kansas City. He says to her, ”You’re just a kid. You shouldn’t know what it means to. It’s not like you killed him, but shooting.” Ellie had to think fast to save Joel because his hearing prevented him from picking up on an ambush. But sadly, she had to shoot another kid named Brian. Given Joel’s life experien

DraftKings Nation • 1st March 2023

We must free ourselves from the need for everything to be in an extended universe

After seeing Avengers: Endgame with a couple of friends, I remembered talking to them after and saying, “I don’t know if the MCU will ever reach this height again.” It’s not that I was throwing stones at the mantle of Marvel – it’s just that I realized it’s entirely hard to have people reinvest in the manner they did for 20+ films and projects. It felt like the world stopped for that opening weekend, where we all saw how the Infinity Saga would end. I mean, it worked – at the time, it would beco

DraftKings Nation • 20th February 2023

20 years of ‘Daredevil’: The director’s cut makes things a tad bit better in retrospect

Before Ben Affleck took the mantle of Batman’s cowl and Bruce Wayne throughout the DC iteration of the Snyderverse, he was The Man Without Fear, blind lawyer by day Matt Murdock in 2003’s Daredevil. It was a time when the character rights for Marvel characters were scattered amongst a lot of studios. Initially, Home Alone, Ms. Doubtfire (and yes, Pixels) director Chris Columbus was supposed to be at the helm behind the camera. As the project went into limbo through the hands of different studios

DraftKings Nation • 20th February 2023

Let’s just say this NBA All-Star weekend had a noticeable lack of buzz to it

Outside of a couple of highlights, I had to look at the box score to check if Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic actually played in the All-Star game. We’re talking about a guy averaging 33 points and 8 assists a game. Come to find out; he only had four points on five attempts in 19 minutes. Luka?

That sentiment carried itself throughout the whole game. Except for some spirited back-and-forth between Boston Celtics teammates Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the game itself ... well, it just h

DraftKings Nation • 16th February 2023

Marvel is pumping the breaks on its onslaught of content (Phew! that’s a good thing)

There is a saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder. When I say that, I’m not talking about the Canva templates set to beach pictures about dating – I mean in terms of content. Since 2020, it seems like we have been drowning in a constant barrage of it. One can attribute that to just the voracious nature of the consumer to go on to the next thing and companies ready to feed that appetite. Can you tell me how many projects you watch or miss on Netflix every week? Well, no, and neither can

DraftKings Nation • 12th February 2023

The Rugrats Super Bowl-themed ‘Touchdown Tommy’ episode is funnier in hindsight and may have foreshadowed player safety

Briefly ruminating on my childhood, I randomly thought back to some Super Bowl-esque episodes of my favorite shows. One episode immediately came to mind – the Rugrats ‘Touchdown Tommy’ episode. Yes, the one where the kids mimic the big game over a big tiff all because of a bottle of chocolate milk. It’s a lot of fun watching a lot of these Nickelodeon shows when you’re an adult because you see them in a different light. So, indulge me in taking a trip down memory lane and reading some of my thou