For a million reasons, much of it out of anyone’s control, the initial crop of games that launches with any brand new console is bound to have some duds. Normally, those unfortunate failures don’t warrant a sequel, and second chances are exceedingly rareKnack is the exception.

System launch games are built on brand new hardware that developers are unfamiliar with. Deadlines are bound in steel because the game’s launch is tied to the console’s release. And, all while the, the pressure to make something innovative, a game that can show off the possibilities of a new generation of game consoles, is impossibly high. Like so many console launch games before it, Knack suffered as a result of this vicious process, and nevertheless, Knack 2 is happening. Read more…

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As conversations and criticism continue around Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, one Michigan high school is taking action by having students openly discuss the people and things that keep them going.

13 Reasons Why Not began at Oxford High School in honor of former student Megan Abbott, who died by suicide in 2013. Students didn’t know about the project until the first “tape” began playing over the school’s loudspeaker one day, courtesy of senior Riley Juntti.

Juntti and several other seniors recorded audio clips of personal stories — battles with bullying, body-shaming, abusive relationships, and more — but then they highlighted someone who gave them hope instead of someone they could blame. Read more…

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On Wednesday, high school students across the country channelled weeks of cramming to complete the AP English Exam, a standardized test featuring multiple choice and essay questions. If their scores are high enough, the students earn college credit.

According to BuzzFeed, the final essay question of the exam, which was based on “America the Illiterate,” a column by progressive writer Chris Hedges, asked how much of a role “artifice” plays in politics. For those of you whose high school vocabulary skills have since left your brain and leaked out your ear, “artifice” means cunning or deceit.

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Kylie Jenner is not who you think she is. She is a skull eating neon roses.

The celebriteen dropped the first trailer for her docuseries on E! this summer, The Life of Kylie. When you grow up on camera, everybody feels like they know you,” Jenner says. “But they don’t.” 

Great! Well, now we get to find out who Kylie Jenner is. According to the 30 second teaser, Kylie is so many things!

• A neon triangle 

• An affirmation

• Disembodied lips 

• A pop culture icon

• A documentarian

• A single silver shoe Read more…

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We continue our look at some of the best shots in all of film history by digging into relational shots, two shots, over the shoulders, group shots and crowds. Not just based on how cool they look (because there’s too many cool looking shots for that!) but how they work and why.

Visit CineFix for more episodes and movie-related content. Read more…

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Those barriers aren’t casually placed at level crossings for aesthetic purposes.

One man proved the importance of said barriers when he decided to climb over them and into the train path in London yesterday. 

In the video shared via Twitter, the impatient cyclist hauled his bike into the level crossing before squeezing himself through the barriers.

The man shouts, “I don’t fucking care” right before a speeding train nearly flattens him.

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Things they don’t teach you when you learn how to drive: What to do if you see an emu running on the highway.

And yet that’s exactly the situation these New Mexico motorists found themselves in when they came across this strange scene involving various law enforcement officers trying to capture a very frightened emu.

According to Las Cruces Sun-News, traffic was stopped by two truck drivers when they realized what was going on. And while the video ends with the emu still running free, Sun-News reports that it was eventually captured and is waiting in detention for its owners to pick it up. Read more…

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Al Belmont just knew knew it in his gut: he was going to become prom king.

Belmont is 17 and a student at North Central High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. He’s also transgender, a part of his identity he would have likely had to hide or “correct” if he had wanted to attend prom at pretty much any other point in history besides this one

As Indiana’s first transgender prom king, Belmont hadn’t even seen a trans person be nominated at his school. This year, he joined a growing list of LGBTQ youth who’ve not only attended prom, but captured prom nominations and won.

Millennials are the most queer and trans-friendly generation in history, and that energy appears to have trickled down to one of the institutions most hostile to it: the prom. Still, advocates stress, President Trump has helped cause a spike in bullying against a population already vulnerable to it. The demand for separate LGBTQ proms and more inclusive school ones has grown both because of increased visibility and aggravated harassment Read more…

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Welcome to our weekly series “Cry of the Week,” in which we highlight whatever moment made us ugly cry on our couches the most in the past seven days. 

It’s all been leading up to this. 

Over the past two and a half seasons, we’ve watched as the relationship between Jimmy and Chuck on Better Call Saul has gone from uncomfortable to ugly to downright toxic. In this week’s episode, “Chicanery,” that sibling rivalry comes to a head in a devastating courtroom showdown.

Our boy Jimmy comes out on top, as we kinda-sorta knew he would. (There’s no Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad if Chuck is successful in stripping him of his law license.) This should be a moment of triumph – he’s devised a perfect plan and executed it flawlessly, and the outcome has been exactly what he wanted.  Read more…

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