What to watch, play, and read this weekend

The movie to watch

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

“Written and directed by Rian Johnson (Looper, Brick), The Last Jedi is a middle chapter in most of the right ways. Unburdened by the necessity for introductions or tying up loose ends, it operates in a rollicking present tense, never stopping to catch its breath as it races through two and a half hours of running time. This isn’t a nostalgia trip through another film’s highlights, à la the franchise reset J.J. Abrams offered two years ago […] More than replicating the specifics of [The Empire Strikes Back], The Last Jedi preserves its general values, its spectacle and mysticism and downbeat Shakespearean drama.”
Read the rest of our review here.

The board game to play

The Thing: Infection At Outpost 31

“Because each round involves not only trying to figure out who is infected but also taking the steps required to getting off the arctic station, there’s a whole other level of game stacked on top of the ‘who is it?’ baseline. Of course, whoever is it can disrupt the rest of the group putting out a fire or fighting an infected creature. It’s a brilliant way to give purpose to each round, each turn, each little action, all the while feeding into the paranoia at the heart of [John] Carpenter’s movie.”
Read more of our thoughts on Infection At Outpost 31 here.

The comic book to read

Bad Mask, Jon Chad

“Written and illustrated by Jon Chad with production design by Jillian Crab, Bad Mask is a serious undertaking, delving deep into a superhero world through seven different printed pieces: a comic book single issue, a set of trading cards, an organizational handbook, a meeting transcript, a newspaper, a magazine, and an incident report. At the core of the story is the conflict between mechanical hero Metal Metro and the titular terrorist organization, but as the reader learns more about these dueling forces, these various documents and objects reveal a deeper conspiracy.”
Read the rest of our review here.

The show to watch

The Fake News With Ted Nelms

“The Fake News With Ted Nelms is a cross between a spoof of CNN’s The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer and your average TV news magazine, a wholly fictional joke-delivery system that more than makes up in quantity what it occasionally lacks in quality. It most resembles The Onion’s old Onion News Network series, an opportunity to mock the conventions of cable news broadcasting combined with deliberately ridiculous non sequiturs and Zucker brothers-style wackiness. [Ed] Helms’ deadpan delivery has always been a good fit for satirizing news, and this new special is no different.”
Read the rest of our review here.