Matt Goddard

For many gamers, it’s in the commercial before it’s in the game. Consoles and their headline franchises have competed on graphics and technology for years. But their advertising has been just as competitive. Rivalry and ad agency creativity has meant some of the biggest video games have made their marks on pop culture through TV campaigns as much as in-game campaigns.
Many commercials have stood the test of time, outliving the games and consoles they promoted. We’ve picked out the best...

Independent cinemas used to be a premier hang-out for students. But with multiplexes pushing smaller venues out of picture, Matt Goddard asks whether it's curtains for the art-house cinema.

Black Hawk Down: Two decades on from the battle whi...

What makes a good movie trilogy? As this list demonstrates, there are many ways to approach it, but no strict formula. Some of cinema’s best-loved trilogies have emerged by accident.
Some trilogies stick to Scream’s jokey formula, increasing threat and spectacle while adding callbacks and twists. Others have picked up unfilmable book sequences and made adapting them look simple.
But there are rules...

2021 has proven that cinematic horror is in ominously good health. The genre has earned an abundance of new fans during the pandemic, with more viewers ready for darker escapism that takes the sting out of real-world events than ever before. A mix of new concepts and classic returns collectively dominated the box office and received great critical acclaim as well. The divisive French horror Titane even won the Palm D’or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
The genre’s broad range was well rep...

If you’ve heard of NFTs, then chances are you’ve discovered them over the past couple of years. Non-Fungible Tokens have been around since the mid-2010s, but 2021 was the year that they started making mainstream media headlines. When they first popped up in 2015, they looked like an early indication of Web 3.0 — the blockchain-based iteration of the internet. But NFTs found a niche, quickly growing an active marketplace and making waves in culture and financial markets.
What is an NFT?
That s...

The Wii console was a breath of fresh air when Nintendo launched it in 2006. The video game giant’s commitment to bucking the trend had been clear for years, but its previous console, the GameCube, hadn’t paid off. Despite its cute design and emphasis on fun, its unique game discs and lack of online multiplayer meant that it struggled against Microsoft and Sony. It was tough going head-to-head with the phenomenally successful PlayStation 2, and GameCube was also hit by a recurrent Nintendo pr...

Among some memorable lines, the expression ‘time is a flat circle’ stuck out in the first season of True Detective.
It was mentioned by Matthew McConaughey’s Rustin ‘Rust’ Cohle, the troubled Louisiana State homicide detective known to his colleagues as ‘The Tax Man’ thanks to his scrupulous note-taking in a giant ledger.
True Detective’s first season followed Cohle and his partner (and former partner) Martin ‘Marty’ Hart (played by Woody Harrelson) through two time periods. One saw the partn...

Doctor Who fans learned the identity of the latest actor to play the Doctor in the run-up to the BAFTA Television Awards. As one of the highest-profile roles in British TV, the news made instant headlines. While the stars were taking to the red carpet in London, one BAFTA nominee was about to get their first taste of the attention the legendary role attracts.
Ncuti Gatwa stepped on the red carpet as a nominee for Best Male Performance in a Comedy Programme, and everyone wanted to talk to him ...

Have you ever wondered what's under a Jawa's hood? We lift the lid on one of Star Wars' most enigmatic aliens.
Let’s face it, Jawas are the real heroes of Star Wars. If it weren’t for those small desert-dwellers, those adventures in a galaxy far, far away wouldn’t have happened.
I know. You’re probably screaming “Utinni!” like an astonished Jawa.
But without these heroes, C-3PO and R2-D2 might never have been reunited after their pod crashed on Tatooine. Luke Skywalker would never have met th...

The Batman 2 is officially happening. It’s been confirmed that Robert Pattinson will don the cowl once again, teaming up with Matt Reeves to continue the adventures of the latest on-screen Batman.
This was never really in doubt, especially since The Batman is currently 2022’s highest-grossing movie, with Warner Bros. Pictures set to build an expanded media universe around it. The Batman won praise for establishing a familiar but fresh take on the Dark Knight and creating a city where every sh...

Snapchat launched on September 16, 2011. Since kick-starting the mobile-first era for social networks, it’s established itself as one of the world’s most popular photo-sharing and instant messaging apps.
Although seven years younger than Facebook, the two apps have some interesting parallels. Facebook began in the halls of Harvard and Snapchat started life in the study areas of Stanford.
In his first blog post for the company, co-founder Evan Spiegel explained the app’s origins. When he and f...

Batman has a superhuman ability to reinvent himself, especially given that he’s famously underpowered. It’s a quality that has helped Gotham City’s protector survive more than 80 years of rounding up one of the best rogue galleries in comic book history. With his latest movie launching a new trilogy and a raft of spin-off television series and merchandise, the Dark Knight is looking stronger than ever.
Batman relies on intellect, detective skills, and willpower to beat superior physical foes ...

Jack Kirby earned the nickname ‘King’ for a good reason. No other writer or artist has influenced comic books like the Manhattan native. Although he described comics as a “form of art that anyone can do with a pencil and paper,” Kirby was a prolific all-rounder who left us with a galaxy of works and a multiverse of characters few can match.
When he was 14, Jack Kirby left the Pratt Institute just one week after enrolling. He later explained to The Comics Journal that it was because he “intend...

Where would horror be without fear of the unknown? That’s what the 1990s had to deal with, trapped at the end of a century that had advanced cinematic scares from Edison’s Frankenstein to Jason arriving in Manhattan. Horror had exploded onto the big screen throughout the ’70s and ’80s, introducing sub-genres and a whole new generation of boogeymen. No wonder ’90s horror is so self-conscious.
Very few ’90s releases can claim a spot in the all-time horror top 50, but it was a decade that knew i...