“We are the Thunderbolts!” shouts Alexei Shostakov the Red Guardian in the trailers for the next MCU entry Thunderbolts*. “We can’t call ourselves that,” responds an exasperated Bucky. It’s a weird exchange, one that goes beyond the usual snarky humor that’s marked the Marvel Studios brand since nearly the beginning. Why, exactly, can’t they call themselves Thunderbolts? Who cares? For most comic book fans, the answer is obvious. What he probably says is “we are the Avengers!” And Bucky, an Avenger in practice if not in name, objects. However, comic book readers know that Red Guardian is onto something. The…

Movies and heists are the perfect pairing. Both require a perfect crew, a ton of charisma, and clockwork precision in an environment where everything is ready to go wrong. Though we’ve been trained to understand that the perfect crime is as rare as the treasures that movie thieves endeavor to steal, few things top the satisfaction of watching it all come together and fall apart. The best heist movies draw us in time and time again to the illusion of it all.  And while we’re here to celebrate the best heist movies, please note that identifying a heist movie can…

This article contains full spoilers for Havoc. For all the blood and guts and general nastiness it contains, Havoc is toughest to watch in its first three minutes. That’s when we watch as Detective Walker sits pensively and thinks about what he’s done. Under a monologue about tough choices made for one’s family intercuts shots of Walker gearing up for duty, pulling out his badge and service revolver, and shots of Walker stealing cash from a drug bust and standing over a bloody victim. Right away, Havoc establishes itself as yet another movie about a morally conflicted cop, a tough…

In half of his scenes in The Accountant 2, Jon Bernthal‘s character Braxton eats something sweet. Sometimes he’s finishing a quart of ice cream. Sometimes he’s sucking on a lolly. But he’s always eating. And yet, during an extended comic scene in which Braxton wears nothing but black undies and black socks, there’s not a single inch of body fat to be seen. Anyone who wants to enjoy The Accountant 2 must be willing to overlook these glaring departures from reality, because the movie outdoes its 2016 predecessor with its absurd portrayal of autism, handling the condition with as much…

Early in Captain America: Brave New World, Sam Wilson takes his pal Joaquin Torres to get some training. At first Joaquin scoffs at the trainer chosen by Sam, a physically imposing, but decidedly older man. But when Sam tells Joaquin the trainer’s name, Joaquin is overcome with awe. After all, the man is Isaiah Bradley, the lost Captain America, who gained powers when the Super-Soldier serum was forced upon him. As we learned in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Isaiah went on several missions for the U.S. government in the 1950s, only to be captured by Hydra and disavowed…

If you recall the days of VHS tapes, you’ll also probably remember the scary FBI warnings at the beginning of movies that cautioned against piracy. Although a little heavy-handed, it always acted as a staunch warning: You own the tape, but you don’t own the content. Today these types of warnings still exist with piracy laws protecting copyrighted work across movies, TV, books, and art. By definition, piracy involves the unauthorized use or reproduction of another’s work. However, when it comes to the gray area of AI, piracy and copyright laws tend to lose all their power. That certainly seems…

Sean Connery quit the role of James Bond in 1967 during the production of You Only Live Twice. Burned out by the pace of production (five films in five years), his abrupt rise to superstardom in the series and the endless press scrutiny that came with it—not to mention Connery’s increasing suspicion that he wasn’t getting paid his due—the actor walked away, leaving the massively successful franchise in doubt. It also opened up what became one of the most coveted characters in show business. According to Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury’s book Some Kind of Hero: The Remarkable Story of…

This article contains SINNERS SPOILERS. Black representation within horror movies, specifically of the supernatural variety, is becoming increasingly extensive these days. No, not in that way where we are the first to die in slashers. I’m talking about ones where we are the protagonists or supporting characters with supernatural abilities.  Many might attribute this to the cultural impact left by filmmaker Jordan Peele. And sure, that’s played a role, but truth be told, we made our mark in the genre eons ago, beginning at the height of the Blaxploitation movement with William Crain’s Blacula starring William Marshall. Ever since Blacula…

This article contains Sinners spoilers. In a movie suffused with otherworldly musical sequences and phantasmagorical imagery, it is easily the weirdest thing we see. Jack O’Connell’s presumably thousand-year-old Remmick is performing a Celtic jig from his homeland, and freshly turned vampires like poor disfigured Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller), lonely Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), and even rebellious Stack (Michael B. Jordan) are prancing right along with him in the river dance. Only a handful moments earlier in the film, these same people, all Black or of mixed heritage, were communing with a different kind of spirit when they thrived and writhed to…

The Man Who Fell to Earth. Labyrinth. The Prestige. These are the titles that usually come to mind when people think of David Bowie’s film career, and with good reason. Even when playing real-world scientist Nikola Tesla in The Prestige, each of these performances captured Bowie’s ethereal public persona. Bowie floated through the movies like a being from another world, immediately imbuing the story with mystery and danger. It’s somewhat fitting then that Bowie’s best film performance came in the most unexpected of places, a movie about the life of Jesus Christ. Indeed, Bowie had one short but powerful scene…

“We love getting to play with the incredible DC library of characters and stories,” declares DC Studios co-head Peter Safran. “And we really want to do justice for them.” Safran’s comments come as part of a new Superman clip focused on James Gunn‘s process of discovering the story and the actors’ passion for the characters in the director’s reinterpretation of the Kal-El mythos. The producer’s observation also shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone following his and Gunn’s work in the DC Universe. After all, The Suicide Squad pitted Z-Listers like Javelin and Bloodsport against Starro the Conqueror. Meanwhile Peacemaker…

What makes a good Jesus movie? That is admittedly a loaded question, but on weekends like this when the airwaves and streaming services are awash in biblical epics of every stripe—those appealing to followers of the New Testament and those favoring only the Old—it is a query that arises time and again in my mind. Whether you love or hate the Hollywood hokum of Cecil B. DeMille and King Vidor, there are many excellent films derived from the Torah. In the modern era as well, storytellers as eclectic as Darren Aronofsky and Ridley Scott return to those same tales to…

Four heroes, each with amazing powers. One with remarkable strength; another can turn herself invisible; the next has a body that can stretch in odd configurations; and the last leaves a trail of flames as he zooms by. Remarkable as these abilities certainly are, the quartet’s most important quality is the love they share for one another. Because, more than superheroes, these four are family. That description applies to Marvel‘s first family the Fantastic Four, whose shared affection (and occasional antagonism) is on full display in the latest trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps. However, it also describes Disney‘s…

For the second weekend in a row, Warner Bros.’ A Minecraft Movie defied its original and relatively humble expectations when the film topped the box office with an impressive $80.6 million haul. That’s barely 50 percent down from its $162.7 million debut last weekend, and both figures tower above WB’s original projection for its debut of around $60 million—a lowball number commensurate with studios wanting to damper expectations, but also evidence that no one really understood how big this thing could be, even the studio that greenlighted it. It’s also remarkable for a movie which critics, including our own, have…

He is coming. Synopses and first looks had long hinted that The Fantastic Four: First Steps would introduce an incredibly powerful character to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, someone whose mere existence would have reverberations across realities. The latest trailer for First Steps doesn’t completely reveal this character, but we do see a harbinger announce his arrival and its effects on team leader Reed Richards a.k.a Mister Fantastic. What? No, the name isn’t Galan, better known as Galactus. Yes, the world-devourer does appear in the form of a shadow and a foot (not a cloud!), but the most powerful character teased…

The legend of Robert Johnson, blues musician, juke joint prodigy, and Mississippi trailblazer, is a mythic one. A guitarist who plucked his strings so well that strangers whispered he played like a man possessed, Johnson died before the age of 30 of unknown causes. Still, he lived long enough to see the rumor grow of how on a dark night at a crossroads in the Delta, he handed his guitar to a large menacing figure for a tune up. When it was returned to him, it came with the musical ecstasy of the damned. Johnson reportedly did not discourage these…

When Sam Wilson flew onto the screen last February in Captain America: Brave New World, he had everything you’d expect from the Sentinel of Liberty. There was the star-spangled suit; the unparalleled hand-to-hand combat abilities; and of course he had the shield, given to him by Steve Rogers in Avengers: Endgame. But there’s one thing that Sam (Anthony Mackie) lacked, which also set him apart from his predecessor: the super-soldier serum. And for veteran scribe Rob Edwards, one of the screenwriters on Brave New World, that makes all the difference. “Sam did not take the serum. That’s one of the…

The sky is on fire. A streak of silver cuts through the clouds. A towering alien arrives to silently watch. Galactic is coming. Even today, those moments that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created for 1966’s Fantastic Four #48 – 50 still amaze readers, still set the standard for all superhero epics. So with Fantastic Four: First Steps pitting Marvel‘s first family against the Devourer of Worlds, expectations couldn’t be higher. First Steps director Matt Shakman knows about these expectations too, and is doing what he can to meet them. “I didn’t want to just use motion-capture for Galactus,” Shakman…

Ah, the 1990s! Stable economy, relative global peace, rich hucksters appearing in The Little Rascals instead of politics. What did we have to worry about? Nothing, really. And that’s why we had to make up trouble and put it on the big screen! The 1990s weren’t the first heyday of the disaster movie. That honor goes to the 1970s when producer Irwin Allen churned out star-studded hits like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, earning the title “The Master of Disaster.” But the 1990s versions might be more interesting, coming at a unique time in Hollywood and in the…

It’s always good to hear welcome news, even when it arrives 97 years late. So it was Thursday when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Board of Governors announced that beginning in 2027 they will annually award an Oscar for Achievement in Stunt Design. Or: there will finally be an Oscar for Best Stunts beginning at the 100th annual Academy Awards. This is genuinely happy tidings considering stunts and derring-do have been the hallmarks of why folks have gone to the cinema since the glory days of the silent era when Harold Lloyd hung precariously from a clocktower…