Popzara Podcast

There was a moment about halfway through The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes when I thought this may be the 2nd best Hunger Games adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ best-selling books of them all (the 2012 original is the best, of course). Split into three parts, this prequel installment quickly establishes its own unique identity, despite having the same director, never needing to match the energy of its parent series while also using it occasionally as a tool when necessary.

One would hope that a film franchise with as much money poured into it as the DC Extended Universe would fight tooth and nail not just to survive, but to thrive. Alas, with its latest - and likely last - offering, Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, that hope feels all for naught.

Fitness Boxing Fist of the North Star is one of those games made for a very specific group of people: fans of classic Fist of the North Star anime that also enjoy a decent workout. This is an admittedly small demographic, especially in a world where most people (outside of Japan, at least) only know the franchise from memes, if at all.

It’s The State of Gaming Podcast, Popzara’s in-depth look at what’s shaking up the gaming landscape delivered on a monthly basis. Our hosts Cory Galliher and Nate Evans guide you through the best, worst, and everything else making headlines and headway in the world of interactive entertainment.

The biggest games of the month include: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince, and Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising.

Other notables include: Batman: Arkham Trilogy (Switch), Kingpin Reloaded, Born of Bread, Pokemon Scarlet And Violet: The Hidden Treasure Of Area Zero – The Indigo Disk, Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties: Definitive Edition, Outer Wilds (Switch), Resident Evil 4 Remake (iOS), and Sonic Dream Team (Apple Arcade).

Circana remains the gaming industry’s best snapshot of what’s moving and shaking up both physical and digital retail shelves across the country. All estimates are for entertainment purposes only. Total sales of new gaming hardware and software topped $5.8 billion, a 7 perfect drop from last year, largely due to a perilous 24 percent drop in sales of new gaming  hardware.

On the final Top Twenty software charts before the holidays there’s few surprises as Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 debuts in first, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 back in second, EA’s Hogwarts Legacy rises to third, Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder in fifth (with the plumber’s Super Mario RPG Remake debuting in sixth), Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, Bandai Namco’s Naruto x Boruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections debuts in twelfth, Square Enix’s Star Ocean: The Second Story R debuts in seventeenth, and Ubisoft’s Just Dance 2024 in twentieth.

But there’s more! It’s a sad RIP to actor James McCaffrey (voice actor for both Max Payne and Alan Wake), who passed away this month at age 65. Also RIP (finally) to the tradeshow turned spectacle E3 (1995 – 2023). Id Software’s iconic DOOM turns 30 this month, and to celebrate John Romero released the free expansion Sigil 2, proving once again that the OG DOOM will never, ever die.

Elsewhere Rockstar Games’ massively anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 gets its first trailer, and it’s already broken records. Sony’s PlayStation 5, once impossible to get, continues to sell like gangbusters after topping 50 million consoles sold in three years. Plus, stay tuned for a special treat as Cory shares his picks for the best outrageously priced (yet outrageously good) “pro” controllers for your enthusiastic fingers. Did your favorite make the cut? Happy Holidays!

Not since 1998’s Babe 2: Pig in the City has a sequel to a cherished family film contained such unapologetically dark moments as Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. Not literal darkness as the film is as bright and cheerful looking as anything Aardman Animations has ever done.

Remember when made-for-TV movies used to have a stigma about them? Heck, remember made-for-TV movies, period? Well, they’re still around, they just have a new face. The dawn of the streaming service has significantly muddled the once-extant line that separated theatrical movies — even the incompetent ones — from those relegated to network television.

It’s Popzara’s Movie Time! Podcast, where our in-house movie nerds Ethan Brehm and Nate Evans take you on an unscripted journey yakking and chatting about some of their favorite movie moments and cinematic scenes, from past and present, presented without snark and snobbery for your listening pleasure.

Wrapped under this year’s podcast tree is our second Santa-themed holiday episode featuring two very different, yet oddly similar movies about men becoming Santa Clause. Parents should exercise caution before gathering the family around the television, however.

First up is 1994’s The Santa Clause, the John Pasquin-directed, Tim Allen-starring family film about a man tricked into becoming the literal Father Christmas. The guys dissect why this holiday favorite, which spawned a massively successful franchise that continues to this day, is darker and more satisfying than you remember. It’s the rare Christmas entertainment where body horror and child custody take center stage, where farting reindeer and legalese reveal the true meaning of Christmas is about loving not who you are, but who you could be.

Next is 1980’s Christmas Evil (aka “You Better Watch Out”), Lewis Jackson’s infamously miscategorized psychological examination of a man descending into madness that’s more Taxi Driver than a typical Halloween-style slasher. Lighter on blood than the marketing suggested, Brandon Maggart wows in a stunning performance predated Joaquin Phoenix Oscar-winning turn in Joker, with beautifully shot locations that look better than most modern films. How many Christmas films can boast having a Frankenstein-like mob wielding actual torches?

Concrete Utopia is a breath of fresh air. Most disaster movies can’t get past the obvious problems.

If Wonka doesn’t taste quite as magical as you’d hoped there’s a good reason. Mel Stuart's 1971 uber-classic Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory has rightfully taken its place as one of the most beloved films of all-time, whereas writer/director Paul King has managed to craft not one, but two Paddington films many now consider among the best of their generation.

Tired of your day job? Sick of running the rat race? You might want to consider a life of crime! It'd only take one heist to pay your way through retirement, after all. It's so easy, it's a wonder everyone doesn't do it! If you need a little taste of the thief life, you might want to check out Persona 5 Tactica, the latest Persona 5 spinoff featuring the game's Phantom Thieves served as a strategy-RPG.

We should probably all get ready for the far future. There's a few options we can use to do that as far as media go, and I think we should probably go with The Jetsons.

There's no reason to be a hardware snob. Well, okay, that's a lie - better gaming hardware tends to yield better performance and thus a better experience.

License-based games get a bad rap, and they by and large get it for good reason. For a while there, the only really great movie-based games were.

Our guest on this literary episode of the Popzara Podcast is Dr. Bernard Schweizer, Professor Emeritus of English at Long Island University, who joins our own book nerd Nathan Evans to talk about the formation of Heresy Press, his new publishing outlet designed to "give oxygen to unfettered creativity and to provide a home for authors and books that are not currently favored through the conventional publishing channels."

They also discuss Heresy’s debut release, Nothing Sacred: Outspoken Voices in Contemporary Fiction, an anthology of 12 original stories from an eclectic collection of authors whose only commonality is fearlessness.

Dr. Bernard and Nathan also chat about the importance of freedom of speech in a world increasingly given into tribalism, Pen America's worrying analysis on the publishing industry's "booklash", avoiding left/right labels, censorship by exclusion, navigating and avoiding destructive negativity on social media, the growing dissatisfaction with identity politics (exemplified in recent works like R.F. Kuang's Yellowface and the Jeffrey Wright-starring American Fiction), and much more.

Astragon Entertainment seems to be the leader of most of the successful simulation games out there. They’ve now turned their attention to the world of Trams in their latest release, Tram Simulator - Urban Transit.