It’s Popzara’s Movie Time! Podcast, where our in-house movie nerds Ethan Brehm and Nate Evans take you on an unscripted journey yakking and chatting about some of their favorite movie moments and cinematic scenes, from past and present, presented without snark and snobbery for your listening pleasure.

For this extra-special episode the guys take a look back at 1973’s American Graffiti, George Lucas’ cinematic love letter to a bygone era that would redefine the word nostalgia and would become one of the most beloved films of all-time. Its impact on the culture would be profound, influencing everything from cars, music, fashion, and politics, and would introduce iconic talent that would dominate Hollywood for generations, especially writer/director George Lucas, Ron Howard, and Harrison Ford.

Among the most successful efforts of the ‘New Hollywood’ era, our hosts discuss the meaning of nostalgia itself, the surprising similarities between it and Lucas’ followup, Star Wars, perhaps the greatest soundtrack in film history, and why capturing the liminal space between yesterday and today continues to be so elusive.

More than anything, they discuss how American Graffiti (and films like it) prove that good storytelling can make us care about the troubles and concerns of another generation, about the universality of being human, and why the things that mattered can still matter long after the lights have gone off and memories are all that remain.

You've got a new console, and now you've got a problem: the second controller dilemma. You want to play with friends or family, but the thought of shelling out nearly a hundred dollars for another official gamepad is a tough pill to swallow, and this gets even more painful when you start thinking about having groups of friends over.

If you're a PC gamer, there's a point you might reach when you realize literally everything on your desk is glowing. Your mouse, your keyboard, your PC case, maybe even your mousepad - they’re all pulsing with rainbows of RGB lighting.

It’s hard to argue that Japanese developer M2 haven’t been great stewards of porting games from a certain era, and their relationship with Konami has been especially fruitful. Going back decades, it’s produced some of the best retrospective compilations of the developer’s best series, especially with their Contra and Castlevania Anniversary Collections.

Every gamer has a hierarchy of accessories, a sort of unspoken tier list of the stuff you love and the stuff everyone else gets to use. For instance, you’ve almost inevitably got your main controller, the one with the perfectly worn-in thumbsticks from hours of play with the tension that's just right.

There’s a certain subset of gaming hardware that serves as an announcement of intent. You don’t just casually end up with a high-end racing wheel or a HOTAS flight stick setup.

It’s rare for a long-delayed sequel to feel like it should exist - especially one so tied to a specific era. But Freakier Friday, the follow-up to Disney’s 2003 Freaky Friday, slips back into its body-swap chaos like a favorite old hoodie: familiar, comfortable, and surprisingly welcome.

It's interesting to observe the evolution of a genre over time. An initial foundation is one thing, but real gaming gems tend to arise when developers build on what came before.

It feels like we’re in the middle of a golden age for game development coming from China. Studios are producing absolute bangers that have been taking the world by storm, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the Souls-like genre.

To hear it described, Earthion probably isn’t for you. A side-scrolling shmup (shoot ‘em up) developed for a dead console that was discontinued 30+ years ago, it’s hardly cutting-edge.