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Max Schindler

3107 Posts
05 Jun

Batman: Caped Crusader to Mash Up Two Beloved Batman Stories in Season 2

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
No one would argue that Batman: The Animated Series got better when it was redesigned and renamed The New Batman Adventures in 1997, but that latter run still had its bright spots. Case in point, season 2’s “Legends of the Dark Knight,” which homages several classic Batman stories, including Frank Miller‘s The Dark Knight Returns. Prime Video series Batman: Caped Crusader, the Bruce Timm-created spiritual sequel to the Animated Series, hopes to follow in the footsteps of The New Batman Adventures, but not only referencing Dark Knight Returns, but mashing it up with one of the most beloved episodes of…
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04 Jun

The Season 1 Moment That Changed Stranger Things Forever

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Stranger Things might now be known for its irresistible mix of humor and scares, but when the Duffer brothers started putting together the first season of their hit Netflix show behind the scenes, it apparently had a much more dramatic tone that soon evolved after one particularly surprising revelation. During a recent “Fix It in Post” panel at Netflix’s FYSEE LA festival (via Deadline) Stranger Things editor Dean Zimmerman revealed his part in altering the tone of the show in season 1, noting that the Duffer brothers may write “very tight scripts and are very specific on how they want…
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04 Jun

Why a Wildly Underrated Crime Thriller Is Dominating Comic Sales Right Now

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Southern Gothic has never looked as good as it does on the pages of That Texas Blood. The Image Comics-produced neo-Western series, written by Chris Condon and illustrated by Jacob Phillips, combines the blood-and-dust stained fiction of Cormac McCarthy with the nihilistic noir of a Frank Miller graphic novel.  Despite its phenomenally twisted storyline and intense visual style, That Texas Blood has largely flown under the radar of mainstream audiences. Recently, however, the acclaimed comic flew to the top of the aftermarket sales charts, beating out multiple issues of heavyweight titles such as Absolute Batman and Amazing Spider-Man.  This sudden…
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04 Jun

Celebrating the Most Ludicrous Moments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 4

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In the years following the release of Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios was in a tight spot. It had to rebuild, and it had to do so during a time when both fan hunger and the Disney+ content machine demanded more, more, more. As a result, Marvel had a long string of hits and misses in Phase 4, some of which amounted to cutting its own bangs in the mirror and cry-laughing at the aftermath. It had broken up with its long-term boyfriends like Iron Man and Steve Rogers and decided to go speed dating. What would be a good match…
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04 Jun

Supergirl Trailer Shows Off Upgraded Big Bad

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Criminal. Liar. Thief. A Kingsagent sent to test the loyalty of the citizenry, who killed a good man for criticizing the ruler. That’s how Krem of the Yellow Hills is described in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and Bilquis Evely. We knew that Krem would get an upgrade to be the big bad of the upcoming movie Supergirl, directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Ana Nogueir, but until the final trailer released, we weren’t sure how much more imposing Krem would become. The trailer shows off Krem and his group the Brigands, space marauders like the Ravagers…
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04 Jun

Backrooms Easter Eggs: The Important Details That Set Up More Stories

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This article contains spoilers for Backrooms. Backrooms, the long-awaited A24 horror movie directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, hit theaters last week with a lot of expectations from the audience of Parsons’ previous short film series, The Backrooms (Found Footage), which has more than 80 million views on YouTube. While Parsons has said that the feature-length movie exists within the reality of his YouTube films, he’s also aware of what he refers to as “lorebloat” a term that describes the internet’s inclination towards incessant theorizing. “[Lorebloat] really does run the risk of totally defeating the ability of this project to actually…
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03 Jun

Avengers: Doomsday – The Russo Brothers’ Comments Have Us Worried About Doom

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Doctor Doom is the greatest villain in comic book history, if not in all of American fiction. But you wouldn’t know that if you only watched Fantastic Four movies. In the 2000s, Julian McMahon played the supervillain as a petulant CEO who pouts his way into the experiment that transforms Reed Richards and family into superheroes. In 2015, Toby Kebbell played Victor Von Doom as a moody gamer who also pouted a lot. Of course, the MCU promised to fix all that. The same people who gave us an earnest Captain America in a star-spangled suit and Thanos donning the…
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03 Jun

Masters of the Universe Review: A Cute Kids Movie When It Isn’t Trying to Be Barbie

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There are two Skeletors living along the backroads of our pop culture landscape. The first is the original Saturday morning cartoon villain that many Gen-Xers and some elder Millennials remember fondly. He sneers, schemes, and otherwise slinks his way through one 30-minute Masters of the Universe adventure after another wherein, invariably, He-Man kicks his ass. The other is an internet creation spawned by those same viewers decades later. This guy is funnier, more acerbic, and basically a chaos agent snarking about whatever daily indignity his creator wants to complain about. He’s both supervillain and meme. The modest joys and bigger…
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02 Jun

14 International Films That Left Hollywood Impressed

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Hollywood usually acts like it owns everything when it comes to movies, but every once in a while, a film from another country changes the conversation. Some introduced styles that American studios try to copy, while others showed mainstream audiences genres they had never seen before. They became the kind of movies audiences keep recommending years later because they still feel unique every single time. IMDb City of God (2002) Its explosive energy, raw performances, and kinetic camerawork immediately grabbed the attention of American directors and studios. IMDb Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Its graceful martial arts sequences introduced many…
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02 Jun

The Vampire Lestat Review: Sam Reid Rocks In Ambitious New “Interview” Chapter

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The following The Vampire Lestat review is spoiler free. AMC’s Interview with the Vampire is, hands down, one of the best adaptations in television history, a series that manages to honor the luxurious, emotionally decadent spirit of its source material even as it makes major changes to the events depicted in Anne Rice’s original novel. Full of decadent, often gleeful violence, thorny moral questions about truth and memory, and a central relationship that’s as frequently toxic as it is desperately romantic, the series’s first two seasons are an utter delight, and a powerful reminder of the great things that genre…
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02 Jun

14 Shows it’s Really Hard to Actually Watch All the Way Through

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Despite being really good, it’s hard for television series to sustain attention across every episode. Certain shows demand patience, even for dedicated audiences. This list looks at series that often get paused, abandoned, or revisited in fragments despite their reputation or quality. IMDb Peaky Blinders (2013) A stylized crime saga with dense plotting and evolving conflicts that require steady focus to follow fully. IMDb Sons of Anarchy (2008) A long running crime drama with escalating stakes and complex relationships that build across many episodes. IMDb The Crown (2016) A historical drama that spans decades with detailed political and personal arcs…
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02 Jun

Masters of the Universe: How You Find  the Power of Greyskull in 2026

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As a child growing up in the ‘80s, Travis Knight felt different from the kids around him. Sensitive and thoughtful, he often wondered where he fit in. That is until he discovered He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Well, really Prince Adam, the childlike alter-ego of the iconic techno barbarian hero. Adam’s emotional, vulnerable, and curious approach to heroics spoke to Knight and set him on the path to Cinema Con 2026 in Las Vegas, where he recently shared 25 minutes of the film with a select group of journalists, explaining his deep personal connection to the beloved ‘80s…
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02 Jun

Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor Fight Dinosaurs in a Movie That ISN’T Jurassic Park

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In the latest trailer for an upcoming summer blockbuster, swelling music sets a fantastical scene. Regular people find themselves whisked out of their regular lives, on an adventure they never imagined. In a striking shot, we see their awe-filled faces as they look in wonder and terror at dinosaurs, somehow brought back to modern times. Ewan McGregor, my dear Anne Hathaway… Welcome to suburbia? As much as Jurassic Park has become synonymous with dinosaur movies, thunder lizards aren’t actually intellectual IP owned by Universal and Amblin. In fact, not only can anyone make a dinosaur movie, but you can do…
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02 Jun

After Years of Wild Crossovers, Modern Warfare 4 Wants to Be Taken Seriously Again

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After years of Call of Duty leaning into wild crossover skins, pop-culture nods, and increasingly meme-driven cosmetics, developers at Activision and Infinity Ward have finally assured fans that this trend will be no more with the upcoming installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.  The promise to stay “grounded and transparent” arrived in the form of a tweet posted to X on May 28 following the game’s release date confirmation. Seeing that, for years, fans have begged and pleaded for the franchise to move away from sillier skins and collaborations that detract from the serious and gritty aspects of the game,…
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02 Jun

James Gunn Reveals The Real Reason Superman and Brainiac Have Beef

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May 29 marked the comic debut of the formidable DC supervillain Brainiac, and, as always, DC Studios co-head and Superman director James Gunn took the opportunity to geek out a bit on X and share some comic history.  In his tweet highlighting Brainiac’s first appearance in the 1958 Action Comics #242 issue, Gunn describes the Collector of Worlds as the physical manifestation of when “intelligence loses ALL connection to humanity,” highlighting the core idea that has made Brainiac such a compelling antagonist for so many years.  This is especially true when the villain is pitted against Superman, who Gunn asserts…
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02 Jun

Marcia Lucas: The Unsung Hero of Star Wars and So Much Else

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When Marcia Lucas died at the age of 80 last week, she left behind a host of incredible achievements. Most famous among them, her Best Editing Academy Award for 1977’s Star Wars, a vaunted accolade that still doesn’t fully capture the extent of her work on that film. Famously, it was Marcia’s skills that transformed the stuffy and plodding film directed by her then-husband George Lucas into a generational adventure movie. However, even that addition still fails to capture the breadth of Lucas’s contributions to cinema. Her work in the New Hollywood era continues to influence today’s cinematic landscape. Born…
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30 May

Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s Romantic Triangle Can Fix a Hated Comic Storyline

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Although not a one-to-one adaptation, Spider-Man: No Way Home borrowed several elements from the 2007 Marvel Comics storyline One More Day. In both stories, Peter seeks help from a magic-user in the hopes that it will improve the lives of his loved ones, even if it means that he loses his connection to them. Almost two decades later, One More Day remains one of Marvel’s most hated storylines. Now the newest Spider-Man movie Brand New Day might be adapting one of that’s story’s follow-ups, a tale somehow even more hated than One More Day. After having Doctor Strange wipe away…
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30 May

Backrooms Is the First Horror Movie of the AI Era

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
This article contains spoilers for Backrooms. Early in the new A24 horror film Backrooms, furniture salesman Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) stops his exploration of the space attached to the basement of his store because he thinks he hears a monster coming toward him. Clark desperately crawls up an incline on one side of the room, to a tiny brown door adorned with three door knobs. To his dismay, Clark discovers that two of the knobs do nothing, and only one opens the door, finally allowing him to crawl through. Clark needn’t have run from the noise, and not just because—as we…
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30 May

House of the Dragon Season 3 Trailer Reminds Us That Ruling Is Harder Than Fighting

Max SchindlerNew DVD release
In the very first shot of the latest trailer for House of the Dragon season 3, the camera pans over a field of dead bodies, ending with Daemon (Matt Smith) battering some schmuck in the mud. We’re then treated to images of people being stabbed, squished, and torched alive by dragons. Yep, this is a Game of Thrones show alright. House of the Dragon continues the HBO franchise’s central theme, one straight from the George R. R. Martin books: the fight to rule tends to decimate those who would be ruled. But with its focus on best-friends turned rivals Rhaenyra…
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29 May

A24’s Friday the 13th Series Must Not Try to Fix the Timeline

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It should be the easiest question in the world to answer. When does Friday the 13th take place? On Friday. The thirteenth day of the month. It’s right there in the title. But the Friday the 13th franchise can’t do anything the easy way, so if you thought that a series that took two and a half movies to establish its iconic killer would keep things simple, you thought wrong. The latest Friday the 13th entry, the A24-produced television series Crystal Lake on Peacock, is a prequel, and prequels always want to straighten things out, providing explanations for things that…
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