Steven Nguyen Scaife

@midfalutin.bsky.social

629 Followers 318 Following

Freelance critic for games, TV, & movies with bylines at Slant Magazine, Edge, Polygon, IGN, Boston Globe, Fanbyte, Buzzfeed News, etc. Writing FAITH: Design Works. Midwest library person. He/him. https://muckrack.com/steven-scaife stvnscaife at gmail

Letterboxd recent 4 watched: -My Heart Is That Eternal Rose (1989) -Baby Assassins 3 (2024) -The Black Cat (1934) -Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
the back of the CD for Paddington: The Musical, feat. a rather distressed-looking Paddington bear puppet with blue coat, red hat, and suitcase
title screen for The Prisoner, with subtitles that describe the music as "crime jazz music"
a manga panel from Baki the Grappler showing a man in a suit standing before a crowd. the announcer's jagged, shouty text balloons say "'I became a bouncer because I wanted to brawl without rules!'" and "'I'll show you pro brawling!' Richard Filth!!!"
Baki the Grappler panel where Yujiro Hanma says "war is like an amusement park to me"
the number 1 movie on Netflix, a 2021 western named Old Henry starring Tim Blake Nelson
a patriotic Netflix collection where the thumbnail is for 13th, a documentary about how slavery continues through the prison-industrial complex
a Netflix collection titled "USA 250!" the very first thumbnail is for a documentary about Charles Manson
manga panel with text saying of Baki's villainous father, Yujiro: "but in terms of powerful egos, his could stand proudly amongst the greatest political and religious leaders in history." Yujiro's face is prominent in the right corner, followed by images of Jesus, Buddha, and uh Hitler
BAKI THE GRAPPLER manga panels. Top panel of the main character's back while he walks down the hallway, with surrounding dialogue balloons that say "Now that you mention it, I haven't seen him around lately" and "yeah... and while he was away..." bottom panel is a close-up of his ass mid-stride, the continuing dialogue "... he totally changed!" printed on the right ass cheek. bystanders look on, intimidated and inferior. the way the pants wrinkle around the ass is maniacally detailed
a detailed illustration of the 1974 Mechagodzilla
a medieval illuminated manuscript page featuring tree roots intertwining from above and below to form a long, thin letter "S" that kindasorta looks like the "cool S" if you squint
a large brown tabby cat stands guard atop the stairs, looking down at the camera
Letterboxd four most recently watched: -The Blair Witch Project -Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults -Satanic Cults and Ritual Crime -Exposing the Satanic Web
a large brown tabby cat lies on the wood floor in the sun
text against a brick wall background with an upside-down pentagram in the middle. text says, "altar: the tables used for satanic rituals; normally a table of flat rock, but can also be a nude physical female being" (from video Law Enforcement Guide to Satanic Cults)
a manga panel from UFO Mushroom Invasion, where a man says "having come to the difficult conclusion that humankind would be better off if I shared what I know publicly, I have summoned you, good members of the press, here today..."
a medieval bestiary page depicting a donkey-centaur-man who appears to be grooving
a medieval bestiary page depicting a man holding up a shield, trying to protect himself from a bonnacon firing off what the text describes as "a fart three acres long"
a medieval bestiary page depicting a griffin on a person's back with their entire head in its mouth
UFO Mushroom Invasion manga cover has a contented humanoid in a hole, covered in tendrils with a giant mushroom sprouting from head
What starts out feeling like an uncommonly generous allocation of resources for such an infamously punishing series becomes slowly suffocating as the game goes on; even after restarting a day, the mirrors stay broken and any other resources stay consumed. Only after tens of hours do you start to realize that you’re standing on the palm of a hand slowly closing into a fist.
a large brown cat sits in the cradle on top of a cat tree. she has a very testy expression.
a large brown cat lounges on the bed with the morning sun making her belly glow
24 City, Angel's Egg, Big Trouble in Little China, Bullet in the Head, A Chinese Ghost Story, Crimson Tide, Danger: Diabolik, Evil Dead Trap, Eyes Without a Face, Harakiri, In the Mood for Love, The Insider, Law and Order, The Limey, Mad Detective, Mr. Vampire
Borlera drew from his own feelings and events in his past, as well as cinematic influences. He mentions The Tree of Wooden Clogs, Ermanno Olmi’s epic Italian drama about peasant life in the late 19th century, as well as strange, deadpan short films like Roy Andersson’s bleakly comic World of Glory (which opens with a group of nude people being gassed in the back of a truck) and Jan Švankmajer’s live-action, black-and-white The Garden (which, in addition to many tight close-ups, features a “living fence” of clothed people holding hands).
1. No Other Choice 2. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You 3. Sound of Falling 4. Misericordia 5. Eephus 6. Sinners 7. The Mastermind 8. Magellan 9. It Was Just an Accident 10. Blue Moon Honorable Mention: 28 Years Later; Boys Go to Jupiter; Bugonia; Cloud; Marty Supreme; On Becoming a Guinea Fowl; The Phoenician Scheme; Splitsville; Train Dreams; Vulcanizadora
a cgi wolf(?) that is bizarrely halfway to a human face, with what appear to be human eyes
a large brown cat stands on two legs to look out the window. there is a skeleton with a Santa hat tied to a post outside
a large brown cat on stairs into a basement area. she is half-obscured in shadow and the lights are on.
a paperback children's book titled "What Do We Know About Spontaneous Human Combustion?" the "what do we know about" words are in yellow, signifying this is the name of the series
Hulu thumbnails with mismatched titles and images. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is paired with Only Murders in the Building, while The Kardashians is paired with Chad Powers
a rocky beachside landscape, with islands in the distance and a rickety boat tied to the dock. the skies are overcast, and the whole scene is in black and white
bottom of a black-and-white page from comic The Sickness. a woman stands clawing at the window, her face crazed and hungry. liquid is dripping from the air. a man is behind her in shadow. holes appear that weren't there before
a picture from the season 2 finale of The Rehearsal, with a computer that says "GO THIRSTY / LOSE FRIENDS / GET CANCER" and an MRI machine in the background
box art for Phalanx, that one SNES space shooter that has a guy with a banjo on the cover for no reason
review text excerpt: "Days Gone is the apotheosis of the more-is-more philosophy: more bars to fill, more gates to progress, more hours of playtime, more zombies per square inch because “more” is supposed to fill the hole where some semblance of meaning ought to be, bridging the gap between one mind-numbing mission template and the next. It’s the purest example yet of the video game as mere content to be consumed, down to the very fact that each storyline you’re supposed to be emotionally invested in is marked with a completion percentage. Days Gone is a void."
a TV screen with black-screen opening titles that say "Max Presents"
a large brown cat lies on top of a cat tree. she's near a window and the sun is shining on her
one of those emaciated, big-headed blue redeads from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Mads Mikkelsen as Rochefort in the 2011 THREE MUSKETEERS. He has an eyepatch and an unfortunate little downward arrow beard
"...because we also get to feel vaguely superior that we’re not as self-absorbed and out-of-touch as each season’s bunch of moneyed malcontents. For the Thailand-set third season, which premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO and Max, it’s business as usual at the eponymous hotel chain: beautiful people in beautiful locations give us the beautiful reassurance that our worldview is correct and our assumptions unchallenged."
cover to a children's book, A Guide to African Myths, with a thin man who has the Spider-Man mask pattern imprinted on his face and six spider legs coming out the sides of his head
a brown cat perched on the window sill stares at four deer in the snow within a housing area