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25 Jan

Bank of Dave, Men and the Underrated Genius of Rory Kinnear

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When you look at his body of work, it’s hard to believe Rory Kinnear is only 44: the man’s covered a hell of a lot of ground. He’s earned his place as a household name with roles like Tanner – M’s efficient Chief of Staff in several Bond films including Skyfall – and Detective Nock in Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game, but while many actors would be rightly chuffed to bag these roles, they’re merely the tip of Kinnear’s acting iceberg. Few actors, for instance, can claim to be responsible for a scene that has been burned onto our…

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25 Jan

Star Trek Insider Casts Doubt on Future Franchise Movies

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If there’s anybody who knows about Star Trek, it’s Jonathan Frakes. The man who joined the franchise as Commander William T. Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation has been a mainstay ever since. Not only has he directed episodes of nearly every series that followed, including the movies First Contact and Insurrection, but he’s played Riker (Will or doppelganger Thomas) in most as well. So if Number One has an opinion about Trek, fans would do well to listen. In a recent article for SFX Magazine (via SlashFilm), Frakes shared his opinion about the future of Star Trek movies.…

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25 Jan

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Star Teases the Movie’s Big Reveals

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This article contains Loki spoilers Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania might seem like a weird movie to kick off Phase 5 of the MCU. The Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) solo movies have been wholesome family capers to date, with the first movie focusing on Lang’s path from recently-released small time criminal to budding superhero, and the second building up the Ant-Fam’s bond while they endeavored to help a suffering woman called Ava Starr, who was putting others in danger. The third film has a bigger agenda, though. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will see Lang and co. pulled into the…

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25 Jan

Teen Wolf: The Movie Review — Is There Any Bite Left?

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This Teen Wolf: The Movie review contains no spoilers. Riddle me this: Is a Teen Wolf still a Teen Wolf when he becomes a full-grown “Man Wolf”?  That’s essentially the premise of Teen Wolf‘s comeback movie which brings Tyler Posey’s Scott McCall back on our screens for the first time since 2017.  Now in his mid-thirties, our not-so-Teen Wolf is still the Alpha, but Beacon Hills is no longer the place it once was. Fifteen years or so have passed since everyone last walked off together dramatically on the long-running MTV series. Jumping ahead to 2026, Scott’s pack has now…

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24 Jan

Ms. Marvel Just Fixed an MCU Continuity Error

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Continuity is the bane of shared universe stories. Comic creators and fans have long wrestled with the difficulties of maintaining a single ongoing story told by hundreds of different collaborators over a series of decades. DC Comics has used multiple crises to explain why Batman is sometimes a lone creature of the night and sometimes a member of the very public Justice League, before finally embracing Hypertime and insisting that it’s all canon. Under the reign of editor Stan Lee, Marvel adopted the No-Prize, handing out an empty envelope to anyone who could provide a compelling reason for Spider-Man complaining…

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24 Jan

The Biggest Snubs at the Oscars 2023

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It was a morning full of surprises in Hollywood. Few in the Oscar prognostication pool predicted that Netflix and Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front would score an astounding nine nominations, dominating not just in the Best International Film category, but also appearing to be a real contender in Best Picture following a string of technical awards. Similarly, after earning a notoriously mixed reception—culminating yesterday in a Razzie nomination for Worst Picture—Andrew Dominik’s Blonde is still an Oscar-nominated film, with Ana de Armas pulling out a surprise nomination for Best Actress. So for many folks, especially those at…

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24 Jan

The Last Jedi’s Most Divisive Twist Wasn’t Rian Johnson’s Idea

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Someday, peace will come to our galaxy. But for now, the war rages on with no end in sight, as warriors from each side gather their armies and ready their weapons, preparing to respond to the next strike. That war, of course, is about 2017’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the Rian Johnson-directed middle chapter to the Sequel Trilogy. Five years after its release, the film is still heavily debated within the fanbase, with some taking exception with Johnson’s storytelling choices, such as turning Luke Skywalker into a bitter old man who tosses aside an elegant lightsaber and devoting a…

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24 Jan

Star Wars Just Improved Upon a Classic The Phantom Menace Moment

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This Star Wars article contains spoilers for The Bad Batch. Clone Force 99 is back in action, and while we know season 2 of Dave Filoni’s Star Wars: The Bad Batch is building toward a unified adventure, the first crop of episodes has taken the anthology approach by splitting up our characters and sending them off on their own arcs. But on top of throwing new challenges at our heroes, The Bad Batch‘s latest episode, “Faster,” also improves on an idea originally used in George Lucas’ most divisive Star Wars prequel.  Out of all of Lucas’ Skywalker Saga films, it’s…

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24 Jan

Oscars 2023: Where to Stream the Best Picture Nominees

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The ballots are in—or at least the nominations! And with them, we now have a pretty clear idea of what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences deems to be the best films of 2022. The enviable Oscars short list for Best Picture this year went much as how we predicted at the start of the month—with our top seven “Best Picture frontrunners” all making the cut. Nonetheless, as with 2022 before it, this year marks a surprisingly competitive Best Picture race. After The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin, and Everything Everywhere All at Once were all deemed to…

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23 Jan

JUNG_E Cast: Kang Soo-yeon and Who’s Who in the Latest Netflix Hit

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This JUNG_E article contains spoilers. From Yeon Sang-ho, the director of Train to Busan, JUNG_E is a sci-fi drama set in a dystopian future where the Earth has been ravaged by climate change and is no longer habitable. Humans are forced to abandon the planet for man-made shelters in space, though not every shelter is on board with their proposed leadership. What remains of humanity becomes engulfed in a civil war between the Allied Forces and the Adrian Republic. But there’s more to JUNG_E than war games and big CG-laden battles. Deep down, Sang-ho’s newest film is about the ethics…

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23 Jan

Spider-Man: No Way Home Almost Brought Back a Surprising MCU Villain

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This article contains Spider-Man: No Way Home spoilers Look, Aunt May is always on the verge of death. It doesn’t matter what universe poor Peter Parker is in, his beloved old Aunt is always in danger and sometimes, she slips into oblivion. Or gets pushed into oblivion. Yes, she always come backs to life, sometimes when Peter makes a deal with the devil for some reason, but Aunt May’s precarious health has always been an important part of Peter’s story. Not even casting the vivacious actor Marisa Tomei could prevent that fundamental fact. So when Spider-Man: No Way Home storyboard…

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22 Jan

Invaders From Mars: The Sci-Fi Classic That Inspired The Spielberg Generation

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Invaders from Mars may have appeared at first glance to be just another cheesy, cheap sci-fi B-movie made during the 1950s. It was, after all, a time when the genre was booming and both major studios and independent film producers started churning out shockers about alien invasions and giant insects at an alarming rate. But thanks to a dedicated cult following and some dogged technical detective work, a brand new 4K Ultra HD restoration of 1953’s Invaders from Mars has finally surfaced to re-introduce us to a surreal classic that had a profound effect on a generation of filmmakers who…

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22 Jan

New Gods for a Lunar New Year: A Guide to China’s Light Chaser Fantasy Films

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The Lunar New Year is a time of feasting and family gatherings. It’s also a time for new movies. China’s Lunar New Year film rush is on par with the holiday film rush in the West, with dozens of premieres jockeying to be the season’s number one blockbuster. In the Chinese queue for this year are films like Donnie Yen’s Kung Fu fantasy Sakra, The Wandering Earth II, the prequel to China’s visionary 2019 sci-fi, and the eagerly anticipated action comedy, Everything Under Control.  It often takes a few months for new Chinese films to cross the pond to the…

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21 Jan

The Best Screenlife Horror Movies

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Thanks to the runaway success of The Blair Witch Project in 1999, found footage movies quickly became the hottest thing in horror. By relying on camcorders, surveillance footage, and other unlikely camera sources, filmmakers could not only add some verisimilitude to their stories but could also do it on the cheap. But just as quickly, found footage became the most hated subgenre, as fans and critics decried its rigid constraints, laughing at the ridiculous ways characters justified recording when they should be running.  Just as the subgenre died, a new and more relevant approach emerged: desktop movies taking place entirely…

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20 Jan

Channing Tatum Really Didn’t Want to Be in the G.I. Joe Movies

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“G.I. Joe is the codename for America’s daring, highly trained, special mission force.” So declares the voiceover in the theme song for G.I. Joe, the cartoon show that dominated after-school televisions in the 1980s. And by that criteria, Channing Tatum seems like the perfect choice to play Duke, leader of the Joes. Is he highly trained? Of course! Have you seen Step Up or Magic Mike? Is he daring? Anyone who caught his cameo in This is the End would give a resounding “yes”! But the song also tells us that G.I. Joe “never gives up” and is “always there.”…

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20 Jan

The Glorious, Good-Natured Mess of Miami Connection

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This article contains Miami Connection spoilers Friends through eternity. Loyalty. Honesty. These are the core tenants of Dragon Sound, a rock and roll band made up of black belts in Tae Kwon Do who also happen to all be orphans. Ridiculous? Yes. But it’s that sort of excessive cheese that makes Miami Connection such a wonderful movie, and not in an ironic way.  If you know anything about Miami Connection, you probably learned about it from a lover of “so bad, it’s good” movies. Filmed in 1987, Miami Connection was created by Tae Kwon Do Grandmaster Y.K. Kim as a…

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20 Jan

Who Should Be the Villain of Marvel’s New Fantastic Four Movie?

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2023 is a big year for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Marvel Studios and Disney moving its ongoing saga into Phase 5. Fantastic Four won’t be releasing until the MCU reaches Phase 6, but the narrative arcs that are sure to be vital for the movie will likely begin to take shape far before that. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Qunatumania, for instance, will potentially feature plenty of close ties to Fantastic Four; as the scientific premise of both projects is an easy parallel to make.  When speculating on the villains for the next chapter in the big screen history of…

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20 Jan

Bank of Dave: What Happened in Real Life?

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It’s not surprising that Bank of Dave – Netflix’s latest film, based on the heartwarming true story of Burnley businessman Dave Fishwick trying to open a community bank – has captured people’s attention. The real man himself delightedly shared the news it was number one in Netflix UK’s Top 10 Films soon after its release: WOW!! JUST WOW!!!Bank of Dave is Number ONE! @Netflix Top 10 Films #BankofDave #Netflix @NetflixUK pic.twitter.com/qqIi99LDzY— Bank on Dave (@FishwickDavid) January 19, 2023 Indeed, Burnley businessman Dave Fishwick is as real as they come, a joyful, larger-than-life character that – judging from his social media…

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20 Jan

How WW2 Turned Marilyn Monroe into a Movie Star

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Late during an autumn night in 1954, Marilyn Monroe stood above a New York City subway grate at the corner of Lexington and 52nd. As a train passed beneath her feet, and a gust of air rushed ever upward, a smile erupted across her face. Cinematic history was made. The sequence in question was filmed for The Seven Year Itch, Billy Wilder’s exceedingly ‘50s romantic comedy. But while that movie’s antiquated plot has long since faded from memory, the vision of Monroe in the white dress never did. For many it is the encapsulation of Monroe’s mystique: an innocent (some…

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19 Jan

Cloverfield Director Reveals His Original Sequel Idea

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Despite its kaiju trappings, Cloverfield always seemed like an unlikely movie to earn a sequel, let alone a franchise. One of the best entries of the 2000s found footage craze, Cloverfield was less a killer monster movie and more character driven, focusing largely on Rob (Michael Stahl-David) making his way across a devastated New York City to reunite with his ex-girlfriend Beth (Odette Yustman). When their story ended, so did sequel chances. But that wasn’t always the plan. Talking about the movie’s 15th anniversary, director Matt Reeves recalled the sequel hook he included in the original film. “I did something…

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