What a fascinating journey Helldivers 2 has been on. Ever since the third-person shooter first began its explosive lampooning of fascism back in February, gamers and Starship Troopers enthusiasts alike have been flocking to Arrowhead’s juggernaut in unprecedented droves; unprecedented to the point where the game’s servers simply weren’t able to handle its legion of players.

PlayStation, who acted as the distributor for the game, launched Helldivers 2 without PC players needing to sign into a PlayStation Network account to play ⏤ a requirement that PlayStation previously intended on enforcing from the get-go, but dropped in order to better manage server stability at launch (which, as alluded to above, was anything but stable at the time). Now that said servers are stabilized, PlayStation wanted to reinstate the requirement of being logged in to a PSN account in order to play. The reason for said requirement, according to PlayStation, is that the company tracks player discipline using its internal systems, meaning that a PSN account would have been Helldivers 2‘s way of laying the smackdown on grief, abuse, and other behaviors conducive to a negative gaming environment. It would have also been the service banned players used to appeal the decision to ban them.

Well, the Helldivers 2 community wasn’t particularly fond of that, especially those who lived in one of 177 countries that didn’t have access to PSN (and who would subsequently be unable to player Helldivers 2). What followed was over 200,000 negative reviews on Helldivers 2‘s Steam page and a myriad of refund requests. The mammoth backlash has since caused PlayStation to walk back its decision to make PSN logins mandatory to play Helldivers 2, and we’ve all since returned to our regularly scheduled programming.

In short, PlayStation was preparing to roll out a game that you could play on your PC, but required a PSN account to do so. It then decided at launch to drop the PSN account requirement because the servers became severely overloaded, and it needed as few headaches as possible during its quest to remedy that. Now that the servers are steady, it wanted to make a PSN account mandatory to play again, but that would have locked certain regions (full of players who already paid for Helldivers 2) out of the game, so players got angry and review-bombed the game on Steam, among other such actions. It got bad enough that PlayStation decided to drop the PSN requirement permanently, so it’ll need to find a different way to deal with bad-faith players now.

In other words, the Helldivers 2 saga is a comedy of errors with a happy ending, and it’s a comedy of errors that’s available on both Steam and PlayStation 5.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I aspire to one day have so glaringly few problems in my life, that I can afford to channel whatever indignation I have left towards someone on Instagram who happens to share my name; a name I acquired through marriage to a stupendously wealthy family, no less.

That’s precisely the life that one Katherine Asplundh seems to be living right now; having apparently just married into the Asplundh family (who reportedly have a collective net worth of $3 billion dollars; more on that later), the next step was to update her Instagram handle to reflect her new surname. If you’re unable to imagine her horror when she discovered that the handle she had in mind was already taken by another Katherine Asplundh, not to worry; TikTok‘s @nosybystanders has captured the saga in full, and by golly, does Mrs. Asplundh ever take some bold swings in this exchange.

What begins as a friendly message asking if the OG Katherine Asplundh can change and/or sell her handle (a message that’s met met with an equally friendly decline) eventually turns into an accusation that the OG Katherine is only pretending to be named Katherine, followed by empty threats by the newly-minted Katherine Asplundh to report the OG Katherine for fraud, demanding proof that the OG Katherine actually is named Katherine Asplundh, and whipping out what she seems to believes is a gotcha moment in claiming that her new family is the only Asplundh family in the United States. This moment is countered when the OG Katherine reveals that she is one of billions of people in the world who does not live in the United States. Furthermore, not once does it seem to occur to Mrs. Asplundh that her new name can be reflected in handles other than the one she’s harassing OG Katherine for.

Needless to say, Mrs. Asplundh’s crusade didn’t end the way she hoped, with the OG Katherine gifting her nothing more than two reports (one for harassment, and one for trying to persuade her into selling her username; a bannable offense in the world of Instagram) as the spoils of this particular war. If Mrs. Asplundh hopes to make it in the influencer business, she may want to sharpen her bartering skills, and perhaps her attitude as a whole.

The U.S. Asplundh family — who has ties to Dr. Mehmet Oz of The Dr. Oz Show — owes their worth to Asplundh Tree Expert; a company founded in 1928 that specializes in tree trimming and other utility-centric services. Ownership of the company is divided amongst 200 members of the Asplundh family.

Ownership of OG Katherine’s Instagram handle, however, remains as undivided as ever, much to the dismay of the Asplundh family’s newest member.

Stand up, Black Christmas, and get ready to welcome your descendent into the realm of Canadian cult slasher classics, which is where Sundance darling In a Violent Nature certainly seems to be heading.

Indeed, with a Shudder deal closed and a 95 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes already under its belt, things are looking up for Chris Nash’s experimental slasher, and they’re likely to come to a whole new front once it makes its way to cinemas later this year.

But when exactly will In a Violent Nature be stalking North American theaters?

When does In a Violent Nature release?

In a Violent Nature is due out in theaters on May 31, 2024, with an aforementioned Shudder release planned for later this year.

The film follows Johnny, an undead serial killer resurrected after a mysterious locket is disturbed by a group of teenagers camping in the Ontario wilderness. Endeavoring to get it back, Johnny slowly and wordlessly trudges off on a hunt for the locket, making gory mincemeat out of whoever dares to get in his way.

In a Violent Nature has garnered a reputation for its unique approach to the slasher genre, as it’s told primarily from the perspective of the mute Johnny and also features no soundtrack. That and more contributes to its status as an “ambient slasher,” sacrificing standard dramatization for something a bit more unsanitary and matter-of-fact.

Time will tell what wider genre enthusiasts make of the result, but at the end of the day, you can’t hope for a homerun without taking a swing, and what a swing In a Violent Nature seems to have taken.

These days, it’s no easy task to mention “DC” and “movie” in the same sentence without a twinge of exasperation in one’s throat; the ill-fated DC Extended Universe made sure of that. Of course, those willing to dig a little deeper know that DC is as healthy as ever, just in animation.

For those of you not in the know, the Tomorrowverse is a DC canon of animated feature films that began in 2020 with Superman: Man of Tomorrow, and has since seen such heavy hitters as Batman: The Long Halloween and Justice League: Warworld. Nowadays, the Tomorrowverse is in the twilight of its life as it aims to wrap up with a massive three-part event in Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths (and if you know your comics history, you know that this adaptation is a big deal).

Part One was released back on Jan. 9, while Part Two—in which a fractured legion of heroes from a myriad of realities contend with an army of reality-slaughtering demons, inter-team discord, and a game-changing prophecy involving Supergirl—made its bow on April 23.

Up next is Part Three, which will conclude the Tomorrowverse with an animated crossover event for the ages (and if you don’t believe me, look no further than the confirmed appearance of Kevin Conroy‘s Batman from Batman: The Animated Series, which will mark the voice actor’s final time voicing the Caped Crusader following his death in 2022).

So, where are we marking our calendars?

When does Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Three release?

For the moment, all we know is that Part Three is due to release sometime in 2024, but since we’re already in May, it won’t be too long of a wait no matter how you swing it. Moreover, if we consider the gap between the release of Part One and Part Two (early January to late April), then it’s no great gamble to assume a similar gap might occur between Part Two and Part Three, which would put the latter’s release near the end of August at the absolute latest.

In any case, keep your eyes peeled for further updates on the conclusion of the Tomorrowverse; they won’t be far off now.

Yesterday marks one year since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 released to cinemas, one year since we saw the swansong of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most beloved found family, and one year since comic book movie juggernaut James Gunn bid Marvel farewell for the more fantastical pastures of DC.

To the surprise of no one, however, Gunn’s Guardians memories remain as fresh in his head as they were when he first started making them back in 2012, when he was hired as director and co-writer of 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. And perhaps it’s just because he’s a veteran tweeter at this point, but the heartfelt sentiment in his recent tribute post comes out in full here.

In the tweet above, Gunn was all too happy to reflect on the “wonderful journey with wonderful people” the he took during his time as the Guardians gaffer, referring to his fellow creatives on the films’ sets as “family,” people who had each others’ backs, and as people that he well and truly loves and misses.

Fans happily joined in on the heartfelt fanfare, recounting their own memories with Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, and the rest of Gunn’s colorful cast of characters who remain the centerpieces of some of the MCU’s finest work to this day.

Between gearing up the future of DC’s next (and hopefully best) foray into live-action entertainment, getting the ball rolling on 2025’s Superman movie, and being subject to the bad mojo of the less-savory side of Zack Snyder’s fanbase, Gunn has more than earned a moment of fond, even teary-eyed reflection, and one can only hope that the magic he captures in Superman and beyond isn’t dissimilar to that of the Guardians trilogy.

All three Guardians of the Galaxy movies are streaming on Disney Plus. Superman, meanwhile, is due out in theaters on July 11, 2025.

Netflix, the host of Baby Reindeer, has a very shiny show on its hands. And, if you ever saw it, you would even say it’s a masterpiece.

Shoddily-crafted Rudolph references aside, we’re approaching the one-month anniversary of Baby Reindeer‘s reign at the top of Netflix’s television charts, and it’s deserved every single second of it. Indeed, with its superhuman penchant for vulnerability, masterful grasp of tension, and its non-linear exploration of the more twisted side of the human condition, the name “Donny Dunn” will be stuck in the minds of many for the foreseeable future.

Today, some folks are wondering whether Donny — the protagonist of the show and a fictionalized version of Baby Reindeer creator Richard Gadd — is a trans character or not. Based on the piece of information you were just given about Donny in that previous sentence, that’s about all the info you should need.

Is Donny transgender?

No, Donny is not transgender; he’s a cis man who is based on a real-life cis man. This question may have come out of the fact that Donny is shown to be using a trans dating site in the show’s second episode (where he meets Teri), but any trans person who has subjected themselves to online dating (that’s not a trans-specific issue; online dating simply sucks) can tell you firsthand that plenty of cis people use trans dating sites to seek out trans partners specifically.

So no, Donny is not transgender, but Baby Reindeer nevertheless shows magnificent dexterity in handling Teri (the aforementioned trans woman who Donny ends up dating), who you can read more about here.

Baby Reindeer is available to stream on Netflix.

Baby Reindeer ⏤ you know it, you probably love it (Stephen King did), it’s probably made your skin crawl, it’s probably elicited a few laughs out of you that you weren’t expecting, it probably made you cry a whole awful lot, and you probably can’t get it out of your head.

In other words, to say that Richard Gadd hasn’t made something profoundly special (and, indeed, important) here would be insincerity of the highest order. But that gong has been sounded aplenty. It’s instead high time we took a closer look at the multi-pronged elephant in the room that has taken root ever since Baby Reindeer shot to the top of the Netflix charts. Indeed, it’s time we turn our attention to those who have made it their mission to identify the real-life Martha and Darrien, often to the detriment of innocent people who now have to contend with death threats and harassment.

How at fault is Baby Reindeer for the false accusations it’s inspired?

Let’s get one thing straight: making a piece of autofiction and including characters based on both your stalker and your rapist and expecting the internet not to do their best Sherlock Holmes impression afterward is severely naive. That’s not to say that Gadd and company were working under any such illusion, but the fact that such a reaction didn’t seem to be anticipated is, admittedly, something of an oversight on the part of team Baby Reindeer (even if Gadd has since come forward to tell everyone to stop).

More importantly, though, I want to challenge the idea that the existence of Baby Reindeer is to blame for this influx of false accusations. It’s true that Gadd could have addressed this phenomenon in a more timely manner, and it’s also true that “Baby Reindeer didn’t directly endorse this, so it isn’t Baby Reindeer‘s fault,” is hardly a helpful statement. It must be said, however, that the moment we turn the accountability mirror towards Baby Reindeer itself, we’ve relieved the internet sleuths of precisely that same accountability, which is both a dangerous and insulting precedent for everyone involved.

The Baby Reindeer situation, then, is a fantastic opportunity to open up conversations and dialogues surrounding healthy media consumption and how social media has mutated our obsession with drama and gossip by effectively giving us the tools to get directly involved with it ourselves (or, at the very least, get some impression of involvement).

With Baby Reindeer specifically, this is a very grounded, very intense show that had many viewers reacting strongly to it; it’s subsequently no surprise that — presumably in lieu of any palpable sense of self or fulfillment — those strong feelings about Baby Reindeer became the primary thing in their lives that those viewers could attach to. Toss in the fact that it’s based on a true story (i.e. real people, i.e. people who have harmed or otherwise abused Gadd, who many such viewers now feel a connection with) and these viewers now have the opportunity to give those feelings a more palpable purpose by putting that energy towards tracking down those who have hurt Gadd. Moreover, the fact that Martha and Darrien are varying sorts of abusers allow these viewers to easily paint them — and therefore the people these viewers accuse — as bad people, which in turn distracts from what can only be their own failings in life (emotional and otherwise). Make no mistake; the Baby Reindeer situation is, perhaps appropriately enough, a mental health issue in every way that matters.

It could, of course, be said that the real-life Darrien at least deserves to be put on full public blast (per Deadline, Gadd has reportedly been quite open about the real-life Darrien’s identity to those in the British entertainment circuit), and there’s certainly truth to that statement. But, as we’ve witnessed, taking such matters into one’s own hands has resulted in a myriad of death threats (among other such disturbances) against innocent people, and no one should be okay with doing such a thing.

Going off of that, one might say that, given Gadd’s pleas to the public to stop their investigations, he himself has a responsibility to let the public know who Darrien really is. It’s an understandable sentiment; no one would want someone who abuses his power and influence in such ways to continue to be able to do so, and he should absolutely face justice for his crimes. But, to put that specific responsibility on Gadd’s shoulders isn’t the right call either. His assault was his experience, and no one has any business telling him how he should be navigating it (which, for all we know, has included reports to the police). All we know is that it happened to him, and one of the ways he chose to navigate the aftermath was to make Baby Reindeer, a show that’s quite literally about navigating some of life’s most complicated interpersonal dangers, how we end up hurting people after we ourselves have been hurt, and facing it all with a rugged blend of compassion, humility, honesty, and self-preservation.

Baby Reindeer is a challenging show in all the right ways, and to blame it for the less-savory actions that people have taken in light of its subject matter downplays the importance of said subject matter while freeing the real perpetrators of personal responsibility. If one Mr. Donny Dunn has taught us anything, it’s that personal responsibility is one of the first steps one must take on the road to healing.

Deadpool & Wolverine is going to be on our doorsteps any day now, and for those who have made the remarkably curious choice of only ever following the canon in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Merc With the Mouth may be new ground for some.

Thanks to the trailers, such folk are at least aware that Deadpool fancies the help of swords and bullets when it comes to dispatching his opponents, and they also know that he has a humorous side that quite violently oversteps the “obnoxious” line, often to the amusement of we audience members, but to the disdain of his allies and enemies alike.

And the worst part for said enemies? Not even a guillotine can shut him up, which may be the news that first-timers to Wade Wilson haven’t yet heard.

Is Deadpool immortal?

While the exact power scale of Deadpool’s current cinematic iteration has yet to be truly tested, the character has historically boasted a universal healing factor that almost always manages to keep death at bay (comic book characters in general tend to be impervious to absolute death, but Deadpool’s resistance to it is nevertheless more independent than most).

Indeed, in addition to immunity of death by natural causes such as aging or illness, past comic iterations of Wade Wilson also saw him perform such feats as regrowing his head after getting effectively decapitated. Suffice to say, then, that Deadpool is immortal in every way that matters.

Whether or not this “immortal in every way that matters” shtick will be challenged in the MCU is another story. Unlike comic books, where continuity and canon can be considered dirty words, the MCU prefers a more fixed timeline with stakes that can’t so easily be avoided with the promise of a new issue or franchise relaunch (although they’d be wise to at least consider the latter at this point, depending on how Deadpool & Wolverine goes).

In saying that, perhaps the Feigeverse may elect to put a bit of a cap on Deadpool’s healing factor; one that results in decapitation being able to accomplish what it usually intends to. Even so, however, Deadpool would probably deflate any dramatic buildup to his death with his trademark nonchalant snark, so it’s probably in the studio’s best interest to leave the dying to those who could actually deliver that tragic gut-punch, and just let Deadpool do his own thing (and judging by that pegging joke in the first trailer, that seems to be what they’re doing anyway).

Deadpool & Wolverine slices and dices into theaters on July 26.

Sometimes, you look back on your life and feel melancholic: all the sandwich-eaters you regrettably harassed, all the missed leftovers and crumbs, all the cobblestones you never got to bombard with your excrement, and will never get to. You may pass a pigeon on the street and see it coo with a smile, but behind that coo just might be a whole lot of blue.

This was a discovery that @owen.oj of TikTok made too late when they happened upon one such feathered visitor to their balcony: a visitor presumably armed with all-consuming demons and an inviting patch of dirt a couple of stories below its feet. With the aforementioned dominos all set up, it was the pigeon’s turn to fall, and he wasted no time exuding as much “you’ll miss me when I’m gone” energy as he could muster.

The stage was the perfect tragedy; an impossibly still subject, a devastating operatic drone in the background, one last defiant look at the world (read: sidewalk) that spited him, all ending in a stiff tumble over the edge. That’s one less prospective courier in the now-slightly-darker world, and one more debutante to the darker side of the circle of life.

For those of you wondering, no, the pigeon in question probably isn’t actually dead; what we just witnessed was likely a bold, dramatic takeoff that ended with the pigeon spreading its wings, taking a glide of indeterminate length, and stopping at the first curly fry or earthworm he came across. I assure you that the public is doing everything it can for the sake of pigeon mental health, which is to say that we are not and probably never will be equipped to engage with such a thing at all, and I profoundly doubt that the pigeons would take us up on such an opportunity anyway.

Granted, harassing anyone who just got Quiznos to go isn’t the sign of a well-adjusted individual, but hey, we all have our vices.

If you think this is a setup for a punchline, allow me to offer you a big, heaping spoonful of disappointment. Indeed, the question of what happened to the gentleman who thought it wise to hide a bag of snakes in his pants while trying to board a flight is one of genuine human interest at the moment.

Just under a week ago, a TSA spokesperson representing Florida took to Twitter / X to call attention to the idiosyncratic discovery in the man’s trousers, reassuring all the snake rights activists in the room that the legless critters were safely turned over to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

So, we know the snakes are alright, but what of their would-be kidnapper?

What happened to the guy who tried to sneak a bag of snakes onto a plane in Miami?

At the time of writing, there doesn’t appear to be any information regarding the fate of the as-yet-unnamed man following the removal of the snakes from his pants. It’s also unclear what his motive was for trying to pull a stunt like this.

That said, one confident reply to the tweet claims that the breed of the snakes are juvenile Palmetto Corn snakes, which pose effectively no threat to humans whatsoever. That is, they can’t physically harm humans, but they can potentially do a bit of financial/social damage if they’re found in your pants as evidence of trafficking intent. Indeed, these snakes fetch between $400 and $500 as pets, so it’s no great leap of the imagination to think that he was trying to sell them; exactly how much trouble that landed him in, if any, is a mystery we may never solve.

You thought there was going to be a Samuel L. Jackson reference somewhere in here, didn’t you?

There are innumerable ways to compliment The Fall Guy, be it Drew Pearce’s sportingly kinetic script, David Leitch’s snappy direction, the lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry between stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, or its ability to not only elevate the ideas it lifts from the 1980s television series of the same name, but to triumphantly bring its own, original toys to the playground, too.

But perhaps the single greatest compliment you could bestow upon The Fall Guy is that it could have just as easily been called Movie: The Movie, and the fact that The Fall Guy is capable of owning that distinction as a fantastic compliment, is a compliment in its own right.

Indeed, just as those first trailers cheekily telegraphed, The Fall Guy has everything; action, comedy, romance, cowboys, aliens, unicorns, morbid ice baths, lots of car chases, fewer but equally significant boat chases, and Jason Momoa as Jason Momoa. The kicker? It’s all that and, above all, charmingly intelligent, and Leitch and company can breathe easy knowing that they just made the blockbuster to beat this year.

The film stars Gosling as Colt Seavers, a professional stuntman who, after an accident puts him out of work for a year and half, is contacted by film producer Gail Meyer (played by a terrifically devilish Hannah Waddingham; thank you, Ted Lasso, for shuffling her into the spotlight she’s deserved for so long) about a job opportunity in Sydney, Australia. That job is stuntwork on the set of Metalstorm, a sci-fi blockbuster directed by first-time gaffer Jody Moreno (Blunt), who also happens to be Colt’s ex-girlfriend (the “ex” is a result of Colt ghosting her after his accident, which Jody herself witnessed). Colt eagerly takes the job in hopes of making up with Jody, but finds that she’s still upset with him.

Later, Gail tells him that the real reason she brought Colt to Australia was because Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), the star of the film, has gone missing, and she wants Colt to find him. Colt agrees to find him so that Jody can get her movie made, but as he plunges deeper and deeper into the case, it turns out to be a much more twisty and dangerous affair than it first seemed.

It is abundantly clear after watching The Fall Guy that the prestige of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar has increased, because Ryan Gosling was nominated for one after his turn in Barbie. Indeed, the Canadian leading man doesn’t miss a single beat throughout the film’s crackling 126-minute runtime, and even when he’s not making the gods of comedic timing smile down upon him, the simple fact that he gets to play in the shoes of a character that’s entirely as likeable as the actor himself is a privilege he runs, jumps, and flips with.

The very same can be said about his co-star and once-Barbenheimer rival Blunt, who’s done a similarly tremendous favor for the reputation of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar (Blunt, of course, was nominated for her performance in last year’s Oppenheimer). Even without the same wiggle room that Gosling’s protagonist gets, Blunt steals every scene she’s in with a delightfully mercurial energy, seeing Gosling’s timing and raising it some pristine wit, and generally embodying a firm, admirable, and contextually mighty vulnerability that serves as the hearty engine to Colt’s more palpable monster truck in the derby that is The Fall Guy.

It’s here, at the world “palpable,” that we arrive at the crux of The Fall Guy‘s genius; the full-throttle-yet-dexterous manner in which it pays tribute to the criminally unsung heroes of the Hollywood blockbuster sphere; the stunt folk.

The television series that The Fall Guy is based on centers around a Hollywood stuntman who picks up extra work as a bounty hunter. It makes sense; when you spend all day taking hits, pulling off death-defying acrobatics, and getting willingly set on fire, the rough-and-tumble world of bounty hunting is no great deterrent to you.

This is the aforementioned idea that the film lifts from the television show. The aforementioned elevation, meanwhile, comes in the form of juxtaposing Colt’s status as a stuntman against Tom Ryder’s thoroughly detestable existence as a movie star. Throughout the film, Colt goes about fighting off assassins, jumping from moving vehicles, and getting mouthfuls of gasoline with a relatively nonchalant attitude (he’s driven to do good by Jody more than anything). It’s true that that’s par for the course for the heroes of action comedies, but Colt being a stuntman adds a whole other layer to that. As a stuntman, Colt is well and truly on the front lines of movie sets, literally risking life and limb for almost nothing in the way of recognition (and no, the film isn’t subtle about what it thinks about that reality). Nevertheless, he takes every event in stride, because he’s a stuntman, there’s a job to be done, and all of these explosions are just a Thursday for him anyway.

Ryder, meanwhile, is a superficial spoiled brat who wouldn’t even think about getting his hands dirty, but who is nevertheless revered by the industry and the public, complete with an expensive apartment and enough powerful friends to give him the illusion that he’s above the law. Indeed, all of those high-stakes hero moments that Ryder pretends to have in his movies? Colt actually does have them, except they’re just moments instead of hero moments.

Colt, then, exists in a fascinating liminal space within the movie, like a rugged donut hole whose awareness of the blockbuster excess around him exists separately from that the audience and the other characters in the movie, and that alone makes him one of the most well-crafted and watchable action heroes to date. Combine that with the fact that The Fall Guy has an intense and unabashed love for pop culture (mostly shown through the animus of Winston Duke’s character Dan, who elicits some of the film’s greatest laughs), and it becomes the easiest task in the world to fall in love with the movieness of this movie. It’s entirely void of cynicism (which goes the longest way in making its more meta elements stick their tricky landings), and is packed to the brim with earnest soul; the very same earnest soul that stuntworkers everywhere bring to the sets of Hollywood, and without whom we would never have so many of the movies we love today.

In closing, The Fall Guy has accomplished the impossible of task of having something for everyone while still being not only a good movie, but a genuinely great movie. It does this by being entirely, consciously committed to its identity of movie magic-meets-behind-the-scenes wisdom and heart, and bringing a confident artistic flair to its limitless playfulness. Indeed, The Fall Guy rises to the occasion, and affably so.

Shoutout to the state of Montana, shoutout to chocolate custard, shoutout to paranormal stuff in general, and shoutout to textiles of all shapes, forms, and fashions. Indeed, folks, we wish you all the greatest of May 3‘s this morning.

Just as well, because May 3 is no stranger to greatness in the pop culture game, with a number of curious events having occurred across the film, theatre, and music spheres on this fine day in the past; laid before you are three of the best.

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man released to theaters

Comic book movies may be all the rage these days (take that statement as you will), but one of the genre’s finer heydays was in and around the early 90s and early 2000s, when audiences could roll up to the cinema to see the likes of Wesley Snipes’ Blade or Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker. It’s the latter of those icons we celebrate today, as Spider-Man first swung onto big screens in the United States on this day in 2002.

It probably wasn’t until Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark that a more inspired comic book movie casting ever existed, with Willem Dafoe’s delectable take on the Green Goblin (the subject of many meme templates and iconic monologues to this day) being the perfect foil to the cheeky-yet-devastated eyes of Maguire’s protagonist. Toss in a David Koepp script and the masterful directorial hand of Sam Raimi, and it’s no wonder that Spider-Man remains one of the most beloved live-action superhero movies to this day.

Wings began their one and only tour in the United States

Ten years after Paul McCartney performed in United States with The Beatles for the last time, the legendary artist returned—this time backed by his band Wings—to kick off the North American leg of the “Wings Over the World” tour in Fort Worth, Texas on this day in 1976.

Consisting of McCartney and his wife Linda, guitarists Denny Laine and Jimmy McCulloch, and drummer Joe English at the time, Wings’ North American tour was the one and only time the band toured in the United States prior to their dissolution in 1981. Wings proved to be something of a resurgence for McCarthy, who saw both critical and commercial success with the band.

The North American leg ended in Inglewood, California on June 23 of that same year. The full tour would finish in London, England on October 21, and prove to be the second-last tour Wings ever took, with 1979’s “Wings UK Tour 1979” being the final time the band went on the road.

Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s The Fantasticks premieres off-Broadway

Let’s face it: It’s always a pain when your parents try to play matchmaker, but no one in history has managed to make the ordeal as expensive and exhausting as Hucklebee and Bellomy. This first became apparent to the theatre community way back in 1960, when The Fantasticks first premiered at Greenwich Village on this very day.

For those of you not in the know, The Fantasticks follows the plight of Hucklebee (the father of a boy named Matt) and Bellomy (the father of a girl named Luisa), two neighbors who pretend to feud in order to trick their children into falling in love with each other. In truth, they’re actually good friends who find themselves in a bit of a pickle when their pretend hatred for each other drives a wedge between their children, who already like each other but avoid their feelings for fear of disapproval from their dads (go figure). The fathers’ solution? Hire a man to pretend to kidnap Luisa so that Matt can rescue her, and bridge the imaginary gap between the two families by way of Matt’s heroics.

Indeed, The Fantasticks is definitely of the musical genre.