Wyeth Leslie avatar

    Wyeth Leslie

    Pop Culture Writer and Poet // Local man trying his best
    OK, United States

    Books

    Selected work (20 publications)

    Unwinnable, 2024
    A Dismal Tide: The Rover’s Neo-Western Nature "The Rover" as evisceration of traditional Westerns.
    Essay
    film review
    The Daily Drunk, 2022
    Flyover Lives: Somebody Somewhere Season 1Speaking as someone well aware of the erosion of his social life the past couple pandemic years, watching Sam open up to herself and others feels a bit like rooting for myself.
    review
    Drunk Monkeys, 2023
    A SeveringHow shattering it is to be told by someone you consider a friend that they no longer have room for you in their life.
    film
    Film Cred, 2023
    The Nuclear Nest Stirs: The Timelessness of ‘Them!’Over the years, Them! has come to stand out being one of the few American genre films of that time to genuinely grapple with the weight of the nuclear option.
    film review
    Film Cred, 2023
    ‘Shin Godzilla’: A City in the Hands of a Hurting GodPutting the fear of Godzilla back on-screen required director Hideaki Anno, creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion, to do what he does best: make the monstrous holy. The result was Shin Godzilla (2016).
    film review
    The Daily Drunk, 2022
    Late Cretaceous MundanityApatosauruses could be seen grazing from work because what’s a more beautiful and comforting daydream escape route
    The Daily Drunk, 2021
    Chernobyl: Blurring Real and Cinematic HorrorA firefighter, responding to a fire at the number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Pripyat, Russia, picks up a smooth piece of rubble. Moments later the skin on his hand melts away. Miles away, ash slowly rains down upon onlookers.
    pop culture
    The Daily Drunk
    The Bear and A Better Way ForwardCooking is an art. That’s a non-argument. To do it well means time, money, effort, and especially a love of the craft.
    pop culture
    Haywire Magazine, 2022
    TO FEEL SMALL AND KNOW YOUR WORTH: THE LONG DARK’S VISION OF SURVIVALDeath is the great equalizer and it’s at the core of The Long Dark’s gameplay. It will follow you across the land and there may be miles and wolves between you and someplace warm. This is the beauty and the point of The Long Dark’s survival fantasy.
    Sledgehammer Lit
    the anxiety of facial recognition software(v1.0.1) there’s a succession of nauseous seconds when my sharp <hitching> breath forms a punctuation a respiratory response of an exclamation point when strangers wear the expressions of dead friends
    Sledgehammer Lit
    tag:nsfwand their absence will rest as heavy as bruises that linger like the thrum of laundromats when you’re already tired from the language of machines
    Lost Futures
    2 Poemsnow I’m struggling to forgive this timeline for how hard it is on small things like homeless cats mewing on front porches and headless robots with spilled microchips turning the gutter into the milky way
    Paywalled
    Bridge Eight Press
    Alchemy and Afternoon Beers: The Beauty of Lodge 49Instead Lodge 49’s plans are done by people left desperate from the perpetual weight of late stage capitalism. But often these plans, with all their chances for a better life, are put on hold in order to help one another.
    Haywire Magazine
    NEITHER SNOW, RAIN, NOR GLOOM OF GHOSTS: DEATH STRANDING AND THE WEIGHT OF WORKThis is a game where not only are blue-collar workers treated as heroes, but the basic mechanics and environments are designed to encourage players to care about such laborers and what they go through in order to keep society going.
    Haywire Magazine
    INTRICATE RITUALS AND THE TIES THAT BIND: EMOTIVE MASCULINITY IN DEATH STRANDINGThis is a game that lets its men grieve, rage, and bond in ways that aren’t commonly depicted within big-budget video games. Even more surprising are Death Stranding’s overarching themes about the rejection of hopeless fatalism and isolation.
    Drunk Monkeys
    Outside the City Limits: An Appreciation for Civilization's EndIf movies are a reflection of the times, then it’s easy to feel overcrowded. Even onscreen, it increasingly feels like there’s no space left to turn for solitude.
    Horror Homeroom
    SLEEPING OFF THE FEVER: THE DREAM AESTHETICS OF 28 DAYS LATERBut where horror films often use this tool [film grit] to heighten tension or disgust, Boyle uses it to further peel away layers of realism, lining the visuals with the same feeling of a half-grasped dream.
    horror
    The Daily Drunk
    Hello, my name is Joe PeraIt may come as a surprise to find the spirit of Mr. Rogers living on in a show nestled between Rick & Morty and Eric André on Adult Swim.
    The Daily Drunk
    Losing My Friends to Religion (or, Prose Poem for Saint Maud)I expect to lose friends to the Holy Trinity of cancer // car wrecks // time but I never expect it when I lose them to God
    The Daily Drunk
    The Quiet Beauty of “Tales from the Loop”Tales from the Loop’s pacing isn’t for everyone, especially for people who prefer complex science fiction or a stronger connective tissue in their story anthologies. This is a family picture album, not a flipbook.

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