Drama
Rod Lott
Nearly every scene of HBO's telefilm Game Change, I recall from John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's excellent nonfiction book of the same thing. But the movie directed by Jay Roach (of the Austin Powers and Meet the Parents franchises) only tells half — maybe even one-quarter — of the story, ignoring the 2008 presidential-campaign narratives of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards for the one it finds most compelling: that of Sarah Palin and John McCain, and not the other way around.

Nonfiction
Rod Lott
Zines were the blogs of their day, but you could read them in the bathroom. In the early 1990s, I was heavily plugged into the zine culture, sending stamps and dollar bills away in exchange for these indie pubs. Soon, during a short period of boredom and unemployment, I started one of my own.

Comedy
Rod Lott
With God Bless America, writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait slices a wound on our country's collective stupidity, then wrings a lemon wedge into its opening. Too bad his targets aren't likely to watch it on purpose. And if they did, they're less likely to get the joke. Their loss.

Comedy
Rod Lott
It pains me to say that Freak Dance, a film from the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe, isn't much better than the Wayans brothers' dreadful 2009 Dance Flick. Both parody dance-off movies (duh), but only one earned a nationwide theatrical release. Freak Dance's DVD debut comes two years after its completion; it's not that bad, but yeah, it's bad.

CFN
Gazette staff
Sometime in October 2012, a local pop-culture savant began to stave off the workday doldrums with Internet funny. While his real identity is a mystery, he calls himself Dale Rancho. (Get it? “On the go? Try Del Rancho.”) His OKCOMG website at okcomg.tumblr.com, a mecca of iconic and satirical Oklahoma-centric imagery.