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16 Mar

Terry Crews’ President Camacho Reveals 3-Step Plan to Save America in 2024

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In 2006, Terry Crews offered a glimpse of the future when he donned the star-spangled boots and leotard of President Camacho for Mike Judge’s Idiocracy. A simple comedy in its heyday, the film was about a schlub from the 2000s traveling to a distant future where Americans had elected a pro wrestler turned reality star as commander-in-chief. It was a future dominated by Crews’ well-coiffed Camacho. Barely a decade later, the same joke seems downright prophetic, a preview of the troubled and turbulent times that were to come after a reality star really became president. The times have been so…

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16 Mar

Shazam! Fury of the Gods Review: Orphaned DC Superhero Makes Case to Stick Around

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Poor Shazam. Its production and release hampered by COVID and now seemingly lame-ducked by the arrival of a new regime to run DC Studios, the big red-suited lug’s second movie, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, finally makes its lonely stand in an effort to tap into the good will generated by his 2019 big-screen debut and, perhaps, plead its case to keep this off-brand DC franchise going. We say off-brand because when the first Shazam! came out, it was a fun, funny, family-oriented, brightly-colored antidote to the ponderous, dark, heavy-handed edgelord theatrics of the Snyderverse that dominated DC for nearly…

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16 Mar

Tetris Review: Finally a Great Video Game Movie

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The Game Boy was slightly before my time, but I remember the Game Boy Color vividly. It was an introduction to handheld consoles, and a chance to finally have Mario and Pokémon in my pocket. Yet to my surprise, the best companion for long road trips was neither Pikachu nor those bouncy Italian plumbers; it was a game comprised of falling blocks and the Russian folk song “Korobeiniki.” It was Tetris. I’d been aware of Tetris before then. It existed on my mother’s computer, but it was barely considered a video game there. Mario or Sonic were games that kids…

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15 Mar

The Flash Movie Villain Finally Revealed in Merch Leak

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This post contains minor spoilers for The Flash movie. Everyone talks about Batman, Spider-Man, and the X-Men when talking about the great rogues galleries in superhero comics. But the Flash belongs up there with the rest of them. Even before writer Geoff Johns made the Rogues into a sympathetic team of lovable losers during his early 2000s run, Captain Cold, the Pied Piper, and the Weather Wizard were among the most interesting baddies that cape comics had to offer. So with Barry Allen set to make his big-screen solo (not really solo) movie debut in this year’s The Flash, fans…

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15 Mar

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 Star Reflects on “Upsetting Ordeal” of James Gunn Firing

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The behind the scenes drama of the MCU usually stays behind the scenes, but one of the most dramatic talent exits from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe happened in public. In 2018, director James Gunn was fired from the helm of the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie after some past unpleasant tweets were unearthed online by conservative commentators. Walt Disney chairman Alan F. Horn stated that the “offensive attitudes and statements” on Gunn’s Twitter feed were “indefensible” and “inconsistent” with the studio’s values, while Gunn said he took “full responsibility” for the way he conducted himself in the past. The Guardians…

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14 Mar

Did Scream 6 Already Spoil Scream 7’s Killer?

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This article contains Scream 6 spoilers It looks like we’ll live to slay another day, as the box office bloodbath of Scream 6 means things are looking rosy for a mythical Scream 7. We’ve come a long way from Drew Barrymore’s bob haircut of the original Scream, and while Wes Craven has sadly passed, we’re in safe hands with new franchise directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. After the confusingly titled Scream of 2022 made up for the mistakes of the criminally underrated Scream 4,  the directorial duo took us to the Big Apple for this year’s outing. Although Scream…

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14 Mar

Pi: Darren Aronofsky Reveals the Secrets of Making the Ambitious Sci-fi Movie

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The late 1990s might be remembered as a pretty good time for science fiction at the movies. There were Hollywood blockbusters with origins in sci-fi literature (Starship Troopers, The Fifth Element, Contact) and loaded with VFX razzle-dazzle, while at the same time smaller and/or independent productions were offering up more cerebral, complex, concept-driven ideas (Cube, Dark City, Gattaca). Nestled in the middle of all this, appearing in theaters at the tail end of 1998, was a film that was perhaps the tiniest of all with regards to budget and production, but at the same time one of the biggest in…

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13 Mar

Pink Floyd and The Many Myths About The Wizard of Oz and 2001: A Space Odyssey

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Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was announced in 1973 at a press conference held at the London Planetarium, a spectral site which mirrored the album cover’s beam of light refracted through a triangle into a rainbow. Perhaps the iconic prismatic image provided the initial idea for fans to sync the classic film The Wizard of Oz (1939) to the album’s rock soundscape. The band’s history with movies is vast and varied. They scored films in the aftermath of the demise and departure of the band’s founder, Syd Barrett. The success of Dark Side of the Moon also helped…

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13 Mar

Joker 2 Set Photos and Footage Reveal Lady Gaga’s New Harley Quinn

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The Joker sequel is happening. For all director Todd Phillips‘s insistence that his 2019 movie Joker wasn’t a traditional superhero movie, complete with a seemingly definitive end for Clown Prince of Crime Arthur Dent, he’s back with a sequel. That’s not too much of a surprise, given the $1.074 billion the R-rated movie earned at the box office. What is a surprise, however, is the movie’s highfalutin title, Joker: Folie à Deux, and Phillips’s plans to make it a musical. This time, the returning Joaquin Phoenix is joined by Lady Gaga as Dr. Harleen Quinzel aka Harley Quinn. You can see…

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13 Mar

Everything Everywhere All at Once: Where to Watch and Stream

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For all but the most hardcore movie buffs, Oscars night often brings a sense of déjà vu: for months, you’ve been meaning to watch all of the films nominated for Best Picture, but for whatever reason, you just didn’t get around to it. Occasionally, one of the movies that passed you by even ends up sweeping the Oscars, like Everything Everywhere All at Once did at this year’s ceremony. Your resolve has hardened – it’s time to check out the movie everyone’s been raving about! After being nominated for 11 awards, Everything Everywhere All at Once won Best Actress, Best…

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13 Mar

Does Everything Everywhere All At Once Winning Mean the Oscars Are Now Cool?

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Everything Everywhere All at Once got on a roll early Sunday night at the 95th annual Academy Awards, racking up early Best Supporting Actor and Actress wins for Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis respectively. By the time the ceremony was done three and a half hours later, the indie sci-fi movie about an immigrant woman and laundromat owner who saves the multiverse had racked up seven awards, including nearly all the heavyweights: Best Actress (Michelle Yeoh), Best Director (Daniels), Best Original Screenplay (Daniels), Best Editing (Paul Rogers), and, of course, Best Picture. It felt in some ways like…

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12 Mar

Tetris Is Definitely Not the Video Game Movie You’re Expecting

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Jon S. Baird has just closed Twitter. The trailer for Tetris was released an hour ago, and the director’s been watching the online reaction closely ever since. There’s one joke that everyone seems to be making—where are the talking tetriminos? “It’s absolutely not that at all,” the Scottish filmmaker tells Den of Geek with a laugh. “I hear that a lot, but I like that people are noticing that it’s a bit different.” Tetris is certainly a different proposition from other video game movies. Rather than being about falling blocks that need to neatly fit into lines, Tetris tells the…

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12 Mar

15 Oscar Movies That Were Nominated for Multiple Awards but Won Nothing

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In much the same way you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, you can’t have the Oscars without breaking a few hearts along the way. Over the years, a glut of films have swept the board at the Academy Awards. In 1991, The Silence of the Lambs became the first and so far only horror film to win Oscars in all five major categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Titanic, of course, won 11 Oscars in 1998 with James Cameron naturally declaring: “I’m the King of the World!”  More recently…

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11 Mar

The Oscars Have Ditched the “Fan Favorite” Movie Award and That’s a Good Thing

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In 1929 and at the first Academy Awards, two movies walked away with the top prizes: William Wellman’s Wings won for Outstanding Picture while F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise scooped up the Oscar for Unique and Artistic Picture. Both movies were ostensibly about love triangles, but the former was a romantic action picture while the latter was an Expressionist film rich in symbolism and allegory. That was the first and only time that two separate awards were given for what eventually became known as the Oscar for Best Picture. The Unique and Artistic Picture prize went away while Outstanding Picture remained–only it…

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11 Mar

Scream 6 Questions Whether We Even Need Scream 7

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This Scream 6 article contains spoilers. Scream 6 has a killer opening sequence. Right from the jump, this slasher saga changes formula for the second time in a row under Radio Silence’s stewardship. In 2022, this meant “opening kill” victim Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) getting to live despite being stabbed a horrifying seven times (a twist that audiences and Paramount marketers are no doubt even more thankful about now). In the 2023 iteration, filmmakers pivot the game again by staging an effective murder sequence that plays like a fiddle on the fears of any single person who’s used a dating…

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11 Mar

It’s Time to Reveal the Truth About the Star Wars Holiday Special

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On Nov. 17, 1978, Princess Leia sang these lyrics to the melody of John Williams’ Star Wars theme: “We celebrate a day of peace/A day of harmony/A day of joy we can all share/Together joyously.” It’s a rough moment in Star Wars history, and certainly, even the children of 1978 were uneasy about putting words to that iconic music. Chewbacca was wearing a red robe, Luke Skywalker had a haircut that didn’t make him seem like Luke at all, and Han Solo seemed like he wanted to be somewhere else. This was the ending of the Star Wars Holiday Special,…

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11 Mar

How The Beatles and Peanuts Creative Team Bonded at the Oscars

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“Happiness is a Warm Gun” isn’t the only connection between The Beatles and Peanuts. Both groups exemplified the optimism of the 1960s era. Charles M. Schulz’s Charlie Brown was so assured of positive outcomes he repeatedly tried to kick a field-goal-placed football held by the town’s resident five-cents-a-session psychiatrist, Lucy, in spite of the knowledge she would pull it out from under him at the last moment. He faced defeat and realized “the world didn’t come to an end.” When Schulz’s comic strip moved into animated TV specials, much of that expectant wonder was expressed through the music. Jazz pianist…

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11 Mar

The SXSW 2023 Documentaries You Can’t Miss

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SXSW’s documentary program has fast become one of the Film & TV Festival’s most exciting strands, and this year is no exception. Once again boasting an eclectic lineup that showcases a bevy of fascinating true-life tales from around the world, the docs class of 2023 is definitely one to keep an eye on.  This year’s roster sees a number of bold new voices and celebrated documentarians tackling a broad range of topics: from the perilous rise to fame of an Afghan sporting superstar to the daring performance art of a Russian queer icon; from the legendary creator of the first…

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11 Mar

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Review – The Movie This Game Deserves

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The world isn’t ending. Probably. Yet somehow in the realm of blockbuster cinema and high fantasy, it’s always seven seconds to midnight. Maybe that’s why the prospect of Armageddon has become so tedious at the multiplex? It may also be a factor in why Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldestein’s mirthful and easygoing adaptation of the famed roleplaying game, is so charming. At last, here is a crowdpleaser that actually pleases, and not least of all because the stakes are as small as an evening with some mates going on “a quest” by way…

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11 Mar

Scream 6’s Ghostface Killer Reveal Confirms We Can Move On From Sidney

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This Scream 6 article contains spoilers. There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully make a Scream movie. For instance, number one: you must involve Sidney Prescott. No Sidney equals box office death, okay? Number two: you must always have two killers who are connected to Sidney or her mother Maureen Prescott. The sin factor! It’s a sin. It’s an extension of number one. And number three: never, ever, ever under any circumstances say, “I know who the killer is.” Because you won’t be right. By this point, the rules that Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy)…

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