The Cult Comes Home – Far Cry 5: Our Dreamcast

Far Cry 5 is the most recent entry in the Far Cry series – an open-world shooter where you play a nameless protagonist fighting against a militant religious cult. Previous games have it focused on more exotic locations such as the Pacific Islands (Far Cry 3) and the Himalayas (Far Cry 4), with the upcoming 6th game being set the Caribbean. Far Cry 5 took a more domestic approach, setting its fictional “Hope County” in the very not-fictional state of Montana – complete with its own local populace of American cultist caricatures. It is here in America’s wilderness that the

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The Czars Must Be Wasted – A Historical Analysis

This article is a summary analysis of the book Vodka Politics by Mark Lawrence Schrad by Mark Lawrence Shrad, professor of political science at Villanova University. Schrad wrote this book with the goal of addressing how Russian diplomacy often includes the deployment of a large amount of alcohol, particularly as his title implies, vodka. He explores vodka’s evolution under the czars and how it was employed by the soviets to control their internal enemies and allies alike. It is a problematic tradition that continues to this day, according Schrad’s thesis: “Putin and every Russian autocrat who follows will continue the

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Remaking BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs

Part 1: The Elevator Pitch It’s been over 20 years now since the BBC debuted the legendary miniseries: Walking with Dinosaurs. Since then our knowledge of these magnificent creatures has grown exponentially to the point where the science in the series can be considered dated. Nevertheless, Walking with Dinosaurs [WWD] and its spinoffs have helped to spawn a new generation of dinosaur lovers such as myself. We are now living in a golden age of dinosaur discovery with more species having been identified and studied in the past decade alone than the entire past century. With the BBC launching sequels

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Best Game of Thrones Episodes

After presenting our “Worst Game of Thrones” episode list, it is now time To unload the Best. SPOILERS… obviously? #13: Winter is Coming [s1 e1] It is vitally important for a series premiere to establish its characters, who they are, and what are their places in the world. The first scene in Winterfell particularly does this well; Ned Stark clearly portrays the stern noble lord of a father, and Robb is his oldest protégée. Jon’s the bastard black sheep who has (understandably) never gotten along well with his stepmother, Catelyn. Arya is the adventurous tomboy daughter who shoots better than

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Diversity vs Tokenism in Historical Dramas – A Rant about Representation and Accuracy

This may be a touchy subject for some – undoubtedly one of the more controversial topics on this discussion forum – but as a film critic, nerd, history buff, and “woke white boy” all wrapped up into a nice opinionated bow: history needs to be told faithfully.

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Worst Movie Duels

#5: The Viper vs The Mountain – Game of Thrones In its 4th season, of Game of Thrones introduced us to the charismatic, savvy, and sexy Oberyn Martell (aka “The Viper”) in a breakout performance by Mandalorian and Narcos star, Pedro Pascal.  At the same time, we get the return of Gregor Clegane (aka “The Mountain”), played this time by Iclandic bodybuilder demigod Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, who at the time held the record of world’s strongest man. Everything was lining up well with this fight scene, with a small agile man with a poisoned spear against a massive hulk with

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Top Movie Duels

#5: Spino vs Rex – Jurassic Park 3 I consider Animal fights to be fair game, so let’s start strong with our biological diversity pick: A grossly anatomically incorrect Spinosaurus and a near-equally mutated Tyrannosaurus Rex! The reason I have put this one on my list was because this scene shocked movie and Jurassic Park fans when it came out. For the previous century, moviegoers believed the T-Rex was the ultimate predator producible by nature. Now there are we know there are other carnivorous dinosaurs that were even bigger and scarier than T-Rex. #4 Batman vs Bane – The Dark

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