Travis Bickle Was Never The “Real” Taxi Driver, Director Martin Scorsese Confirms

Posted on by Nick Coffman

In a recent interview, Taxi Driver director Martin Scorsese has confirmed that Travis Bickle, the character played by Robert De Niro and idolized by cabbies everywhere, was never intended to be the real Taxi Driver. Instead, Bickle was simply an unsuspecting military vet who had the title of Taxi Driver thrust upon him.

Taxi Driver ends with Bickle celebrated as a vigilante hero by the media, for his actions that saved Jodi Foster’s Iris, from having to grow up in the atrocious cesspool that is New York City. Bickle eventually returns to driving his cab. The final shot of the film shows him looking in his rearview mirror, disgusted with the contents of his backseat. It’s in this closing moment, that Bickle realizes he is not really the Taxi Driver.

“During the ‘You talkin to me’ scene Travis has this realization that he’s not talking to a taxi driver. He’s talking to Travis Bickle,” Scorsese said with tired eyes. “You can put a man in a taxi and call him a taxi driver, but that doesn’t make him a taxi driver. That final look in the rearview mirror? That’s a man who feels disdain for the Taxi Driver, and loathes the yellow cab-fared corner the world has painted him into.”

Scorsese also points out how Cybill Shepherd’s character, Betsy, never acknowledges Bickle as the Taxi Driver until the end of the film.

“We get to the end and she hasn’t called him Taxi Driver even once,” Scorsese said, shaking his head in disappointment. “I told Paul [Schrader], she should at least call him it once, that way he can say ‘I’m not the Taxi Driver, I’m Travis Bickle.’ But Paul wouldn’t budge an inch. Instead we had to settle for him turning down her cab fare and hoping the audience was literate enough to understand the subtext. That was our mistake.”

Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader argued against Scorsese’s read of the film in a recent video interview with THR.

“Marty said what now? He’s full of shit,” Schrader said, putting on his coat mid-interview. “Sorry I’m bored out of my eyes with this interview and I just realized Arcane season one is getting a steel book release. I’m gonna go grab a copy at Target. You guys keep going with the interview. I’ll be back later.”

At press time, Schrader had returned to the interview, just to leave after another ten minutes.

Israel Credits America’s GenocideFAQs Page for Their Success in Gaza

Posted on by Johnny Amizich

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cited America’s substantial GenocideFAQs page as a major credit to their success in annihilating every man, woman, and child in Gaza.

The Philadelphian turned tinpot dictator spoke to the UN and, between rounds of raucous applause, explained how indispensable the American guide on genocide has been in their own campaign against Palestine.

“We knew for decades that we wanted to do a genocide run in the Gaza Strip, but always felt we came up short,” Netanyahu said. “Thanks to America’s comprehensive guide on eradicating an entire people, we’ve been more successful in the last year than ever before. It turns out when you say you’re fighting terrorism you can act with impunity. I even began using a Palestinian child’s skull as an ashtray. All I had to say was they were Hamas and my good friend Joe Biden asked if I could get him one of his own. I told him, ‘Of course, I have thousands!’”

President Biden spoke to the press about the matter. Reiterating the refrain that Israel has a right to defend itself.

“America will stand by our allies in Israel, and we wouldn’t have published our GenocideFAQs if we didn’t want our friends to use them, and no one has been a better friend to America than Israel. That’s why we will continue sending them billions in arms without hesitation,” President Biden said. “The Hamburglar attack on October 7th is what caused this conflict, not Israel. You can quote me on that and take it to the bank, Jack!”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken removed his head from the deepest recesses of Netanyahu’s ass long enough to make his own statement.

“Do we condemn the reckless killing of civilians? Absolutely,” Secretary Blinken said. “But as our friends in the IDF have verified, more than 100% of the population in the Gaza Strip are part of Hamas. And as you all know, Hamas are terrorists and it’s clearly stated in America’s GenocideFAQs that the most effective way to commit an ethnic cleansing is by implying all members of a specific group of people are terrorists so I’m failing to see what the issue is. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s growing cold and I must return to the warm embrace of Bibi’s ass.”

At press time, the IDF had begun issuing print copies of America’s GenocideFAQs page to all of their enlisted members.

Megalopolis Review: Sheesh, I Hope Whoever Made This Didn’t Waste Too Much Time on It

Posted on by Peter Cunis

One thing I always ask myself when I sit down to review a movie is, “Is everyone who worked on this okay?” The last thing I want is to see the actors, crew members, directors, and writers have their time wasted on a project that just didn’t come together.

And so, while I can’t say I enjoyed Megalopolis, I can’t fault it too hard. It doesn’t seem like it took too long to throw together, so hopefully everyone involved can just collect a paycheck and move on. It’s important to judge movies on a scale, and when you have an indie B-movie that was clearly rushed through production, you have to give it a little more leeway than you would something that took years upon years and over a hundred million dollars to develop.

The movie, written and directed by some journeyman named Francis Copperfield, takes place in a futuristic world that draws most of its inspiration from Blade Runner and Gladiator. Adam Driver plays Cesar, a character named after the protagonist of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Cesar is an architect who can stop time, an obvious nod to X-Men: Days of Future Past, and he wants to use his power to build a utopian city. Copperfield is definitely drawing inspiration from Bioshock, here.

Note that Copperfield is cobbling together a lot of ideas from popular films and video games from the last thirty or so years, so it’s safe to say he’s pretty green to this whole screenwriting thing, and most likely, he was under a lot of pressure to get this thing up on its feet in a very short amount of time. It’s not like he put decades of thought, preparation, and his own money into it. He’s trying his best, guys. Let’s give the kid a chance.

But again, I’m glad he didn’t spend too much time working on this silly project, and I hope the money and exposure he gets from this project gives him the power to work on something he really cares about. I mean, hey! He got to work with Adam Driver! That’s gonna look great on his resume! This movie might not be a critical darling, but I’m sure Copperfield won’t mind once he gets to work on his real dream project.

Megalopolis is in theaters now.

Game Freak Leak Confirms You’ll Never Be as Happy as You Used To

Posted on by Matt Fresh

TOKYO — Internal documents from Pokémon developer Game Freak have been leaked online, the contents of which have confirmed what many gamers have long since suspected. They’ll never be as happy as they were in their younger days.

“It’s very unfortunate that these private documents were obtained by an unauthorized third party and leaked to the public. We never meant for gamers to discover this information and have the hope that the spark of life would return to be shattered,” said Game Freak representative Konosuke Suzuki in a press statement. “The one thing keeping gamers going through the dark void that is life was the small glimmer of hope that one day they would be happy again, they were never meant to know the truth because that could affect sales.”

The confirmation that gamers will never be truly happy again came from a company wide memo that came straight from the CEO. It read as follows:

“Many gamers feel like the reason they have responded to our games less than enthusiastically is because of our lack of any meaningful innovation and the regression of polish as the years have gone on. And while that’s absolutely the case, the simple fact is that the spark is gone. They think that by playing this children’s game that they played when they were young, it will awaken the happiness they used to feel but the truth is that they’ll never feel that again. They now exist in a perpetually state of depression and anxiety searching for anything that can make them feel. They are the walking dead and as such we should never listen to their demands to improve our games.”

Kazuchika Shibata, one of the lead devs on the last few Pokémon games weighed in on how this leak will affect things.

“We do believe that this leak will affect sales. Children will of course still be buying the games but most of our adult Pokémon fans don’t even like Pokémon. They only bought the games with the intention of reigniting the spark of joy and happiness they had as kids but haven’t felt since they entered the working world. They did this despite knowing the games are undercooked and bad because they were desperate to try and obtain happiness. Now that they know definitively that they’ll never be as happy as they used to be, they have no reason to buy more Pokémon games.”

At press time, Pokémon fans online have reacted in denial, claiming that surely the next game will fix all the problems and make them happy.

Clinically Depressed Zelda Uses Bed for Every Puzzle

Posted on by Patrick Sullivan

HYRULE — Sources close to Zelda, Princess of Hyrule, say that she appears to be clinically depressed, and has only been spawning in beds in response to every puzzle she comes across during her prolonged battle against the forces of darkness.

“We’re supposed to be working to repair the rifts that have appeared across the kingdom, but lately Zelda has been acting…different,” said Tri, a spirit assisting Zelda in fighting the rifts. “I really started being concerned when in every dungeon room she would spawn in a bed with a TV just to start rewatching Bojack Horseman again.”

Princess Zelda has reportedly been given the power to duplicate any object or monster she comes across in her journey, and is denying claims that she is using this godlike power exclusively to bedrot.

“I’m not depressed. I mean at most I’ve been a little more tired lately and my sleep quality is terrible and I have no appetite and there doesn’t seem to be a point to continuously fighting these monsters,” said Zelda, who slept for 13 hours yesterday. “Look, sometimes these puzzles call for me to echo five beds to make a California King. And sometimes I need to rest for three hours after doing that because it takes a lot out of me. And yeah, sometimes I’ll stay in bed scrolling on my phone after that for a few hours—oh god I might be depressed.”

Friends of Zelda were initially concerned about the princess’s behavior when they discovered that she hadn’t been eating as well, opting instead to create echoes of cereal for every meal.

“Impa tried to get me to talk to her, but it’s been hard getting through in our sessions,” said Dr. Bas, the Hyrule royal therapist. “Every appointment we’ve had has ended with Zelda possessing me and dragging me into a two block high body of water she spawned in. So progress has been slow.”

As of press time, Zelda’s mental health has reportedly improved drastically since drinking a smoothie consisting of a golden egg and a prescription 10mg Prozac pill.

30 Real Life Side Quests to Avoid Advancing Your Main Storyline

Posted on by Cameron Lehr

Do you ever feel like the game of life is moving by way too quickly? Did you plow through most of the game and now they’re letting you know this is your last chance to upgrade your weapons and armor before the final battle? Or are you just starting out and looking to jack your stats by performing pointless menial tasks while the kingdom falls to ruin. Regardless of your reason, here are 30 real life side quests to avoid advancing your main storyline.

Feed the Squirrels

While in the park instead of feeling superior to the squirrels you can feed them! After several weeks of repeated feeding you can max out your squirrel bonding. Congrats! You know have a plump rodent army eager to do your bidding. 

Spare a Dollar

The Stranger on the corner asks you for a dollar. If you give him one he will ask for another. This repeats until you’ve given the stranger 247 billion USD. He will then start a space program and ruin twitter. 

Why Not Take a Break

Why not take a break? You can pause the game by pressing plus, or just head to the breakroom and play on your phone for a few minutes. Robbie says we’re supposed to punch out and punch back in if it’s longer than 20 minutes but he vapes a lot so he doesn’t really have time to enforce that.  

Write for Hard Drive

Use your gift of higher intelligence for the most noble of purposes, entertaining people on the internet. If done correctly, the editors may smile upon thee. 

Draw

A steep learning curve, but if you max out the stat people on the internet will pay you big bucks for unspeakable things. 

Poetry

Dig through the deepest parts of your soul until you’ve discovered four profound insights on the human condition. Then plug them into a little rhyme scheme and bam, you’re the voice of generation. Those who don’t praise you, will fear you. 

Test Your Free Will

Paint your nails, cut your hair, order a different sandwich at Subway. Run out into the middle of a woodland glade and twirl gleefully as you feel the first chill of fall creeping over the mountains. Do whatever you want because we told you to. 

Gamble

In a world where money can buy happiness, why not play fun little games with it? Turn your hard earned dollars into nifty little trinkets and slowly give them away to a massive corporation. You might win something, but what you’ve lost was even greater. 

Play Portal

Both one and two. They’re  really good games guys. There’s a robot and she’s like sassy, you’ll see what we mean. 

Do Your Laundry

This minigame is a classic within the household chores DLC. At first it’s a simple matching and sorting game into whites and colors. But upon completion, players unlock a second phase where the sorted clothes must enter a series of machines. After waiting the allotted time (or skipping the wait with 100 Laundry Gems) the laundry is done and the game resets for the rest of your life. 

Get a Pet

If playing the game of life by yourself hasn’t been working out and the idea of getting affection from another person sounds appalling, try buying a pet. Dog, cat, fish, whatever—it doesn’t matter. This is really more about you than it is them.

Get a Real Job

It’s easy! Just walk into the head office, look the boss in the eye and hand them your resume ON PAPER! They’ll be so impressed they’ll have no choice but to hire you. 

Go Visit Your Local Library

We got rid of that one guy, so you shouldn’t have anything to worry about anymore. 

Buy Bitcoin

It’s about time you go and see what all the fuss is about. 

Call Your Mom

You’ll never believe what Lynn next door started doing in her front yard. I really think I’m going to say something this time! She’s lowering the property values! 

Find My Purse!

Spider-Man, wait! Before you go, I lost my purse on one of the rooftops around here.

On a different rooftop? 

Yes. 

Different from this one?

 Yes. 

Are you serious? What? Are you taking some kind of tour of city rooftops?

 Yes. 

Okay, whatever, I’ll find your purse for you. 

Fishing

Experience all the beauty and majesty that nature has to offer by getting trashed in a canoe. After a few hours you can watch the life drain from a living creature’s eyes. 

Read Classic Literature

See! Every emotion you’ve ever felt has already been expressed by someone else more eloquently than you ever could. Bonus points for every dystopian novel that’s inching dangerously closer to our reality. 

Love

Finding the person you know you could spend the rest of your life with is one of the most enriching minigames life has to offer! Or you could try and find a really good sandwich, whatever feels right. 

Thrifting

Scavenging through the garbage and broken dreams of strangers can provide lots of cheap and unique customization options. For more advanced gameplay, buy broken electronics and genuinely believe you can fix them.  

Video Games

Get good enough that it’s no longer fun to play against your friends, but not so good that you can play in competitions. 

Work Out

Push your body to its physical limits. Repeat this process several times a week for the rest of your life. We can’t guarantee you’ll feel better about yourself, but you can at least make others feel worse. 

Pyramid Scheme

Recruit as many of your friends as possible to get in on the ground floor of this thriving business. Your friendship will only be deepened by the experience. 

Get Bangs

Head to your local salon with tears in your eyes and they’ll know what to do. This is guaranteed to not advance your story line at all.  

Ride the Bus

If you wait at one of these secret locations a vehicle will come and take you anywhere you want to go along a pre-designated route. Unfortunately this fast travel option is not available in most U.S. cities.  

Get Really Into IPAs

It’s not just a beverage, it’s a lifestyle. After consuming your bodyweight in India Pale Ales, your hops-widened consciousness can experience every perception the universe has to offer. Your friends will think you’re a douche though. 

Avoid Going to the Doctor

 Living with your sickness instead of treating it can make for fun and challenging gameplay. More than one of every four U.S. adults were already playing this mode in 2023 according to the CDC. 

Garden

Experience the miracle of life without all downsides of consciousness. Put some of the tomatoes you grew onto a frozen pizza. Keep telling yourself that you really do like it. 

Art School

If you’re unsure of what you want to do in life but want several thousand dollars of debt anyway, art school is a great option. Just follow your heart and the money will come…usually from your parents. 

Pick Up Litter

Equip your trash bag, gloves, and grabber, and have fun! After you’ve collected 100 pieces of litter, you can rifle through your bag and look for any items with identifying information. Once you’ve determined whose litter you’ve collected you can return it into their living room!  

Kickstarter Combines Roleplaying, Deck-Building, and Vitriolic Arguing

Posted on by Dan Bookbinder

BALTIMORE — A new tabletop game on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter has nearly reached full funding due to the promise of a unique combination of popular play styles for an experience designed to destroy friendships.

“I was sick of the same mechanics that could be picked up after a few rounds with minimal confusion. So I took the concepts of alignment charts, engine building, and victory points and made them interconnected, incorporating player deception, and added mystery elements,” said Jordan Boatman, ‘Realm of Elven Spire’ creator. “We did extensive playtesting at conventions, with multiple screaming matches, overturned tables, and thrown Celsius cans. At Strategicon, a tester broke another player’s nose with a Gloomhaven box, I knew I was on to something.”

Beta testers were taken in by the complexity and the esoteric presentation.

“I’ve been playing TTRPGs for decades, I don’t need hand holding like these dilettantes who saw ‘Stranger Things’ and are just jumping in now,” said funder Harold Sommer as he dug through a plastic bin of unpainted miniatures. “I invest my time and read the guides and I do not hesitate to call out shenanigans. With Elven Spire, enforcing the rules is the game and lying is the point. I can’t wait to bring it to Hobby Game Night at the library and show those newbies what gaming really is, laughing when they try and calculate the victory points using the reverse credit system.”  

“Realm of Elven Spire” received a dubious endorsement, as a pre-release edition sparked a rift between hosts of a gaming YouTube channel. 

“We take complicated game mechanics and break them down, but we just couldn’t agree on the most basic elements of the game. Even beyond the character traits which both needed to be memorized and hidden from other players, the play style seemed to be both co-op and competitive. The card actions were unclear, both in direction and font and type color. Ryan [Lukas, co-host] insisted that these were deliberate complications for the distinguished gamer and I felt they were just the sloppy play design of a grifter” said Siobhan Hannigan, former co-host of ‘Manual Dexterity.’  “We tried to consult the manual, but it was written in character by Yohai, the Dishonest Elf, which only raised more questions. We both said things we can’t take back and we are on indefinite hiatus.”

When reached for comment, Boatman evaded questions about mods and expansions, preferring to announce his next project, a social deduction game where players have to memorize all the characters and their individual skills and lie to each other in every conversation in perpetuity.

Judge Sentences Man to 200 Hours of “League Of Legends”

Posted on by Charles Bill

AUSTIN, Texas — Judge Ellen Beatriz sentenced a man to play 200 hours of “League of Legends” in what legal scholars are calling a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments.

“My lawyer was shocked when they handed down the sentence,” said convicted shoplifter Tony Asmana. “I was sort of confused. I Googled it, and it’s apparently the most popular game in the world? What could be so bad about it? I checked out a couple of streams, and I immediately realized what I was in for. If the people who play this game all day are like this, what chance do I possibly have? And they’re good at the game too. My lawyer says I should appeal the case, that way I might get the sentence reduced to prison time or Fortnite.”

Judge Beatriz is known for their particularly creative punishments and drew upon their life experience for the sentencing.

“I used to play the game, and I can’t think of anything better to teach someone a lesson,” explained Judge Beatriz. “Mr. Asmana is going to be getting an education in what happens when you break the rules of polite society: you play League of Legends. I wish him the best of luck trying to clear his jungle camps while he gets spam pinged by his teammates and told to kill himself in ways that avoid the language autodetection. Sometimes you need to use the harshest measures available to you, and it was either this or a bare bottom caning.”

Representatives for Riot Games had mixed feelings about their game being used for civic punishment.

“I swear someone actually enjoys playing this game,” said Riot co-founder and modern monster Mark Merrill. “We get like ten million players a day, are they all just playing because they’re masochistically addicted to this game? Probably, yeah. We designed the game to be fun, but less fun every time. I got the idea after I became addicted to cigarettes: what if we made cigarettes a game that was somehow worse for you than actual cigarettes? Thus, LoL was born. It’s not great PR for us that it’s being used as a legal judgment, but at least this guy might buy some horny skins.”

At press time, Asmana was already being told he needed to neck himself in the pregame lobby of his first game.

Physical Nintendo Media Ranked by How Itsy Bitsy Cutie Patootie They Are

Posted on by Garry Kerls

When it comes to physical video game media there are two main factions: Nintendo, who have redeveloped, reconfigured, and redesigned their games to function seamlessly with their unique consoles, and Sony and Microsoft, the unoriginal oligarchs who bend a knee to the almighty compact disc. With physical video games becoming relics of a bygone era, let’s take a stroll down memory lane and rank the incomparable Nintendo game hardware by how itsy bitsy cutie patootie they are. 

10. Wii

As revolutionary and record setting the Wii was, Nintendo really dropped the ball on giving the discs any sort of personality. What are groundbreaking motion controls if I have to put this boring old compact disc into the console? 0/10

9. NES

This guy is a chunkster! Look at those sharp edges! I wouldn’t want my toddler running around the living room with this thing on the coffee table. 

8. SNES

Another chunky boy straight out of Nintendo’s “Hard gray plastic” era. The aesthetic choices are reminiscent of Kit-Kats and Hersehey’s bars, Willy Wonka approved. 

7. N64

Oh baby, now we’re getting to the good stuff! Just look at that rounded top! And all those color variants! These things were so cute I had to control myself around friends and make sure I didn’t spend too much time blowing into it. 

6. Game Boy

This is like if the NES cartridge had a baby. It’s even got the same little ridges in it just like it’s Papa, how adorable! 

5. Game Boy Advance

Fun fact, the Game Boy Advance games hold the world record for things most sucked on by toddlers in the early 2000s. I swear to god, look it up in the Guiness Book of World Records. But can you really blame them? These games were just begging to be mistaken for candy so parents would have to by their kids the same games again and again, pretty genius marketing strategy if you ask me

4. GameCube

I cannot describe to you the raw, whimsical joy I felt the first time I opened the case for ‘Super Mario Sunshine.’ How can such a tiny disc hold such a big game? Why did Nintendo go small when the PS2 and original Xbox went big? I don’t know and I don’t care, I’ll take the charming little GameCube disc any day of the week!

3. Nintendo 3DS

It was a toss up at the 2 and 3 spot for this list, and unfortunately the 3DS cartridge fell behind by a nub. 

2. Nintendo DS

You’ve heard the phrase “got that dog in me,” well I have that Nintendog in me because, as a child, I swallowed the teeny tiny computer chip of a video game. The DS cartridge feels like an abuse of power. It is as if Nintendo has invented a shrink ray and only used it on floppy disks. 

1. Nintendo Switch

If Nintendo hadn’t made their intentions clear, it’s this; “Go small or go home.” Nintendo Switch cartridges have pushed the limits of video game hardware. Soon, Nintendo will produce games that have negative mass. A game made of antimatter guaranteed to be the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your life!

U.S. Health Care System Announces Plan to Just Scatter Med-Kits Randomly Around Country

Posted on by Dan Kozuh

WASHINGTON — The Department of Health & Human Services announced a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s healthcare infrastructure by strategically distributing med-kits randomly scattered across the country, sources within the HHS confirm.

“We’ve reached a critical juncture in this country. The new program, titled Operation Full HP, will allow patients to locate first-aid kits in various locations, including, but not limited to, file cabinets, near trees, and under the occasional park bench,” said Deputy Health Secretary Carol Mulligan in a press conference. “Doctors and hospitals are overwhelmed, and the cost of care is astronomical. By scattering these med-kits nationwide, we’re empowering individuals to take healthcare into their own hands—literally. Imagine, you twist your ankle, and bam—there’s a med-kit conveniently hidden behind a fire hydrant.”

Patients, however, remain confused by the unconventional rollout.

“I’ve spent hours looking for one of these kits when I got a migraine last week,” said Derrick Washington, a New Jersey resident. “Why are they hiding them in the most ridiculous places? I finally found one, but it was in a mocker at an abandoned YMCA. It had some band-aids, sure, but no ibuprofen. Another was nestled in a swath of tall grass like I’m trying to catch a Pokémon? I’m sick, not on a scavenger hunt. The least they could do is make them glow blue so you can spot them easier.”

Still, experts argue that this plan represents a bold new era of American healthcare.

“This is technically universal healthcare,” said Dr. Jane Phillips, a professor of health policy at Stanford University. “Everyone has an equal opportunity to find a med-kit, regardless of socio-economy standing. It’s a free-for-all, and that’s what makes it fair. Let’s say you break your leg and find a med-kit with Oxycodone & a bottle of whiskey – you can trade those items with someone else who found a splint. In a way, it’s the perfect blend of universal access and free market capitalism.”

As of press time, thousands of kits have already been delivered to empty wood crates, the stalls of bathrooms, and disused vending machines with a rollout planned for 2025 to include burned-out pickups, under piles ro rubble, and in sewers.