Before the ‘Breaking Bad’ Movie, 8 Theories About the Fate of Jesse Pinkman
Last November, a decade after the series premiered, Vince Gilligan announced that a Breaking Bad movie was on the way. It has since been revealed that the plot will revolve around a kidnapped man’s...
View Article‘What We Do In The Shadows’ Puts The Dead In Deadpan
In 2014, New Zealand co-directors/co-writers Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement released What We Do In The Shadows, a hilarious, shambling-yet-unerringly-precise mockumentary about a group of vampires...
View Article‘Pet Sematary’ Is The Best Horror Story That Almost Never Happened
Warning: The following contains minor spoilers for Stephen King’s Pet Sematary and its 1989 film adaptation. It’s a tale that was never supposed to see the light of day; one so unrelentingly horrible,...
View ArticleControversial 1940 Novel ‘Native Son’ Gets Updated For New HBO Adaptation
In the classic 1940 novel Native Son, 20-year-old Bigger Thomas dreams of a life beyond his impoverished Chicago neighborhood. As in the book, the new Native Son movie begins with Bigger killing a huge...
View ArticleWith ‘Shazam!’ DC Finally Figures Out How To Have Marvel-Level Fun
The cultural narrative that’s built around films starring DC Comics superheroes over the course of the past decade or so reads thusly: DC films are too dark and dour, and the company should take a cue...
View ArticleMagic Is Real In Brie Larson’s Charming ‘Unicorn Store’
“Bringing a unicorn here is not an easy or inexpensive endeavor. You have to be the right sort of girl.” The right sort of girl. The backbone of Brie Larson’s offbeat directorial debut, the comedy...
View Article‘Fosse/Verdon’ Is Totally Tone Deaf In The Age Of #MeToo
If you could bottle the keen curiosity the new FX series Fosse/Verdon has about the details of both Bob Fosse’s genius and his destructive, dishonest, sexually harassing, emotionally abusive behavior,...
View ArticleTGIF, Nerds! The Trailer For ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ Has Landed!
Congrats, geeks and geekettes of the world. Not only did we make it to the end of another work week, but we also lived long enough to witness the first trailer for Star Wars: Episode IX, which we now...
View ArticleWhat Beyoncé’s ‘Hungry’ Confession Means For Women Everywhere
It happens about 48 minutes into Homecoming, the new film by Beyoncé that combines her 2018 Coachella performance with behind-the-scenes footage of planning and rehearsals. Queen Bey’s voice is heard...
View ArticlePixar’s SparkShorts Ignite More Diversity in Animation
It’s difficult to become a director if you’re a woman or a person of color in Hollywood. It’s even more difficult to become a director in animation. Between 2010 and 2017, only one major animation...
View Article‘Hail Satan?’ Examines Protest Group That Bedevils Religious Conservatives
When they write the bible on the great trolls of history, the Satanic Temple should be on the cover. Founded in 2013 as a poke in the eye of religious conservatism, the organization has since...
View Article‘Homecoming’ From The Bleachers: Meet Beyoncé’s Marching Band
The precision. The energy. The limitless swag. Fans of Beyoncé are reliving the pinnacle performance of her career once again with Homecoming, the concert documentary released on Netflix last week. The...
View ArticleMourning Has Broken Them: ‘Avengers: Endgame’
Let’s start with a bit of service journalism: Going into Avengers: Endgame, one would be well-advised to manage both one’s expectations, and—given its three-hour-plus, intermissionless runtime—one’s...
View ArticleBlockbuster Films Keep Getting Longer; How and Why Did We Get Here?
“No amount of money ever bought a second of time,” says Tony “Iron Man” Stark, patient zero of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, midway through the new Avengers: Endgame. As has frequently been the case...
View ArticleTeen Suicide Spiked After Debut Of Netflix’s ’13 Reasons Why,’ Study Says
When Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why was released two years ago, depicting the life of a teenager who decided to take her own life, educators and psychologists warned the program could lead to copycat...
View Article‘Wine Country’: An Ode To Female Friendships, With Mellow Notes
Cameos are expected in comedies, but it’s a surprise when the guest roster trends a bit highbrow. Amy Poehler’s new Netflix movie Wine Country, starring Poehler and her closest Saturday Night Live...
View ArticleWatch Not One But Two Trailers For The ‘Downton Abbey’ Movie
Last December, we got a very vague sneak peek at the upcoming Downton Abbey movie. If that wasn’t enough to whet your appetite for the return of the Dowager Countess and her delightful rejoinders,...
View ArticleNPR’s Summer Movie Guide: 27 Films Coming Soon
Is it weird to keep asserting that Summer Movie Season starts Memorial Day weekend, when Avengers: Endgame, the ultimate summer movie, and also the year’s (the decade’s! the century’s!) biggest...
View ArticleThere’s No Spoon, But Plenty Of Knives In ‘John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum’
The John Wick movies are what you might call coffee-table action films, the kind where a lot of dudes (and ladies, and gender-nonconforming individuals) get thrown through expensive-looking coffee...
View Article‘Booksmart’ Is A Buddy Movie, Party Flick And Heartfelt Ode To Girls
The opening moments of Booksmart, the directorial debut of actress Olivia Wilde, present a question, just by force of viewing habit: What kind of cinematic high-school girl type is this? Played by...
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