Shawn Cooke

Like Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Travis Scott before it, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet debuted some new material in Fortnite on Thursday. Nolan, who has a near-sadistic commitment to the theatrical experience, made one major concession by…

As if there’s been no shortage of drama to distract us from...everything else, Lana Del Rey swooped in this week to take her share of the attention. In a lengthy notes app-style screed announcing the release of her new album this fall, Lana fired…

Have you found it hard to watch anything new in quarantine? Speaking from experience, I’ve had trouble finding the motivation to commit to the first watch of a lengthy drama series despite this being the very best time for such an undertaking. This…

Fyre Festival, the failed luxury festival that feels like it occurred in a different dimension, continues to yield significant legal consequences more than three years later. In 2018, a pair of attendees were awarded $5 million in damages for their…

After years of fan campaigns to #ReleasetheSnyderCut of Justice League, it is remarkably happening. On Wednesday, director Zack Snyder announced on a live commentary of 2013’s Man of Steel that his long-rumored extended cut of Justice League will be…

Although we may not be living in a full-fledged dystopia right now, there’s sure to be a number of upcoming pop culture events that imagine an even darker reality. It’s hard to believe the moviegoing public will want more exceedingly bleak reminders…

A viral tweet has called attention to a rising TikTok trend of teenagers posting nostalgic odes to decades in the not-so-distant past. One account hosts a series of high school footage from the mid-aughts or 2010s, typically mismatching them with…

However antiquated the format, artists still really care about the Billboard charts. On Monday, Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber’s “Stuck With U” topped the Billboard Hot 100. Two artists you’d expect to find there without incident, especially when…

The food delivery industry is a sprawling web of manipulation and losses. Last week, Buzzfeed reported that delivery services like Grubhub can list their own specialized phone numbers on a restaurant’s Google page, in order to collect an order fee…

There was always potential for the American Idol remote season to go haywire, but I don’t think anyone anticipated how far its finale would fly off the rails. On Sunday night, the 21-year-old singer Just Sam became the 18th overall winner — and…

Man, what a week. This could apply to anything — the merciless job loss spanning industries, the sense that the government just isn’t going to materially improve its pandemic response before reopening everything, or the little things, like a summer…

Last week, President Trump walked through a factory producing N95 protective masks in Phoenix, Arizona, without wearing a mask of his own. In a wrinkle much too on-the-nose for comfort, the plant’s PA system blared Guns N’ Roses cover of “Live and…

Some Walt Disney World employees will be returning to work over the weekend, in an effort to re-open the Disney Springs retail, dining, and entertainment complex. According to the Hollywood Reporter, 117 custodians will return over the weekend to…

In 2012, a New York Times piece called “How the American Action Movie Went Kablooey” posited that, like cars and other consumer products, it was the latest American export to be made better elsewhere in the world. Largely predicated on the success…

The only thing that feels more absurd than opening movie theaters on July 1st might be to welcome them back with a road-raging, murderous Russell Crowe thriller. That’s the plan for independent production company Solstice Studios, bumping the film…

Even before the pandemic transformed nearly every facet of daily life, it was hard to imagine how Quibi could carve out space in an extremely crowded streaming landscape. The premise was simple enough: short episodes, lasting only 5-10 minutes each,…

Remember when Travis Scott went on tour in Fortnite as a massive hologram and debuted a song with Kid Cudi that hit no. 1? Well, former Pete Buttigieg spokesperson Lis Smith does, and she thinks that’s just what the Democratic National Convention…

Somehow, there wasn’t supposed to be a second Jerry on Seinfeld. When the series introduced George Costanza’s parents in season four, the stage and screen actor John Randolph appeared as George’s father, Frank. It’s not especially rare for a series…

At first the delays made sense. Music streaming was reportedly down, touring is suspended indefinitely, so wouldn’t this be the worst time to release new music? According to a Billboard report from this week, a number of music industry insiders…