By Dante Spado I love The Walking Dead (TWD). I can safely say it is the show that got me interested in screenwriting and really opened the door for my love of movies and tv shows in general. My friend Connor introduced me to it when we were in the eighth grade and at that point in time, two seasons of the show had already been made. I streamed the first two seasons on Netflix…
Do you remember it too? The smell of buttered popcorn. The sticky floors. The overwhelming volume. The overpriced snacks. Do you remember movie theatres? Because I certainly do, and I miss them immensely. I have always, always, always loved movie theatres. Some of my favorite memories are going to see a highly-anticipated movie with a group of friends. If I was REALLY excited for a movie, I’d go see it on the midnight release because…
By Dante Spado It wasn’t EXACTLY the Shire, but I did live in a real-life hobbit hole a few days ago. It had a circular door, arched hallways and grass on top of the house. And yes, it made all my nerdy dreams come true. I’ve been a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) and The Hobbit since eighth grade. That year, in my language arts class, my teacher had our class…
By Dante Spado I’m serious. I really did not like UNC basketball, pretty much up until the point I was accepted into Carolina towards the end of high school in 2017. But before you call me a “bandwagon” (although can you really be a bandwagon for the school you attend?), let me explain why. All of my life, I have been a Syracuse basketball fan. My entire family, both my mom’s and dad’s side, is…
By Dante Spado Last week I wrote a blog about the time I lived through the events of The Sandlot. I mentioned how it’s not often that something in your life happens the way it did in a movie. But then I got to thinking, and I remembered a time when I was in about the sixth grade where I lived through the events of Stand By Me. If you’re unfamiliar with Stand By Me,…
By Dante Spado School of Rock was one of my favorite movies growing up. For several years when my family traveled to New York during the summer and for Christmas, my sister and I would watch the movie on the way up and the way back. That’s about four times a year for three or four years. The point is, I’ve seen it a lot. For those unfamiliar, School of Rock is a movie about…
By Dante Spado Everyone knows great movies that are based on a true story. American Sniper. Good Fellas. The Wolf of Wall Street. It’s a classic Hollywood formula. You take an interesting event or person, add some drama and a high-profile actor, and you have yourself a good movie. However, it’s not often that this formula is reversed, and something that happened in a movie happens in your real life. This was the case for…
By Dante Spado The Chicken Wars have been raging since 2019. You know, the war that started when Popeyes brought the fast-food industry to its knees with the creation of their chicken sandwich. My life hasn’t been the same since. I, like many others, rushed out to try Popeyes’ new sandwich, only to be met by long lines and cashiers telling me they were sold out. But, eventually, I got it, and it was pure…
By Dante Spado I’ve been living Godzilla vs. Kong for a year and a half. On a weekly basis, I am a proud supporter of Godzilla and Lizard Nation. Let me explain. Between sophomore and junior year, I bought the game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for my Nintendo Switch. I played it frequently over the summer, spending many hours mastering characters such as Cloud and Little Mac. But there was one character in particular I…
By Dante Spado I have mixed feelings about Solo. I don’t think it deserves all the hate it gets, not by a longshot. It also definitely shouldn’t have been a box office flop. There were a lot of external factors that influenced Solo, like its release date being moved, the fan backlash to The Last Jedi and the directors being fired halfway through filming, resulting in reshoots. But I’m not here to talk about any…