George Lucas named the old 1930s Saturday morning Western adventure serials as one of his main inspirations for the original 1977 Star Wars movie. The initial text crawl labeling it “Episode IV” and catching the audience up on an ongoing story were designed to evoke that same feeling of going to the theater to catch up on the adventures-in-progress of your favorite action hero. The world building and operatic sweep of Star Wars propelled the franchise to be far more, and the movies (especially the post-Lucas movies) left that initial inspiration behind.

Stadium shows are touch and go. The right performers are able to make an enormous venue feel…well, maybe not intimate, but at least personal. Thankfully, Nine Inch Nails were able to use the space in the 20,000 capacity Honda Center in Anaheim incredibly well. The show began with German-Iraqi DJ Boys Noize (the stage name for Alexander Ridha) spinning hard electronic beats, sometimes with snippets of 80s synth tunes from the likes of Depeche Mode and early Nine Inch Nails, other times incorporating voice samples (in what sounded like English, German, and Arabic).

As a kid in the 80s, I bought wholeheartedly into the image of the United States as a force for good in the world. As I got older, I became aware of America’s dirty deeds. But those were nasty things that America did but it wasn’t who we were. We had also been an engine for growth, advancement, and a bulwark against tyranny. We made mistakes, but we always were striving to be better.

The Netflix Original series Stranger Things is, and I don’t use this term lightly, a masterpiece. It combines Stephen King spookiness and supernatural horror with Spielberg heart and character development, without ever devolving into gratuitous gore or maudlin sentimentality. All wrapped in an accurate 80s nostalgia, with a synth soundtrack reminiscent of John Carpenter and extremely period accurate and meaningful era appropriate pop/rock songs. The show was able to lean into its nostalgia with casting 80s icons who turned around and gave career high performances, not smug stunt casting winks.

Let’s start with the positive: Fantastic Four: First Steps is, in my opinion, the best Marvel movie to come out in a long time. It creates a living, breathing alternate Jetsons-style future-reto 1960s and it’s gorgeous. This isn’t an origin story; the origin story is shown in newsreel footage and interviews, when our story begins the Fantastic Four has already been active, and is beloved by earth. I like that; we’ve seen enough of the hero’s journey in superhero movies already, let’s get to the story.