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16 Sep

Pearl Review: Wild A24 Horror Improves on Ti West’s X

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There are a lot of shocking moments strewn throughout Pearl. But maybe the most shocking thing about it, in a larger sense, is that it actually turned out to be better than the movie it sprang from. During a mandatory quarantine in New Zealand prior to shooting X, Ti West and star Mia Goth fleshed out an origin story for Pearl, the murderous elderly woman in that movie played by a prosthetically aged-up Goth. Improbably, the outlines of those discussions became the script for Pearl. Shot in secret immediately following the filming of X, the prequel looks and sounds like…

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14 Sep

Canceled Batgirl Film Gets Unofficial Trailer

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Even weeks after new Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav abruptly canceled the nearly-completed Batgirl movie, people are having a variety of reactions. Michael Keaton, who was slated to reprise his role as Batman in the movie, seemed fairly nonchalant when asked about it at the Emmy Awards. “I think it was a business decision; I’m going to assume it was a good one.,” he told TVLine. Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah have received support and encouragement from a variety of filmmakers, including Edgar Wright and Kevin Feige. But perhaps the best reaction has come from a more unofficial source.…

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14 Sep

Pinocchio (2022) vs. Pinocchio (1940): What are the Differences?

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When you wish upon a star, it doesn’t matter how original you are. That’s certainly Disney’s hope at the beginning of the new, Robert Zemeckis-directed Pinocchio. The film marks the latest “live-action” remake of a classic from the Walt Disney Animation Studios catalog. And in this case, it’s pulling from one of the oldest. Walt Disney’s original Pinocchio was only the second feature-length film made by his animation house after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs from three years earlier. Pinocchio is also where the Walt Disney Company got its unofficial theme song, “When You Wish Upon a Star.” To…

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13 Sep

Indiana Jones 5 Producer Confirms Relationship Between Indy and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Character

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The search for Indiana Jones news continues! The long-in-production fifth Indiana Jones movie did get some attention during the studio showcase at last week’s D23 fan expo, but while the general public learned that John Rhys-Davies would return as Sallah, and Harrison Ford and his Temple of Doom co-star Ke Huy Kwan shared an adorable photo op, only those in attendance got to see a trailer. And nobody, present at the Expo or otherwise, learned the title of the upcoming film. I don’t know if Disney expects us to look for clues in words engraved on the shield of a…

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13 Sep

Why the New Thunderbolts Cast Makes Total Sense for the MCU

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This article contains MCU spoilers Back at San Diego Comic Con, Marvel Studios announced that Thunderbolts would be the grand finale to MCU Phase 5. Fans had been excited to see if the classic Marvel Comics antihero squad would emerge in the MCU, and now we know that they will. Not only that, D23 has given us a look at what the team’s roster looks like! It’s a wild line-up that makes plenty of sense and has the potential to be an awesome team-up movie. Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is calling the shots, and Yelena Belova appears to…

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13 Sep

Clerks III Review: Kevin Smith Closes Up Shop with Grace

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The more things change, the more they stay the same. That may be the overriding theme of Clerks III, the third, and perhaps final, entry in writer-director Kevin Smith’s Quick Stop convenience story trilogy that has been the anchor for nearly his entire canon of films. While certain life-shaking events have taken place in the 16 years since Smith made Clerks II—events which we won’t reveal here—the new movie gets the most mileage out of familiar situations and characters in the orbit of the Quick Stop, the fictional New Jersey store based on Smith’s own early work history at a…

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12 Sep

Kevin Smith’s Clerks III Script Left Rosario Dawson Shocked

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While she did make a relatively brief appearance in 2019’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, as a completely different character, Kevin Smith’s Clerks III marks Rosario Dawson’s first major return to Smith’s View Askewniverse since her character Becky Scott debuted in Clerks II back in 2006. By the end of that film, the sexually liberated, commitment-averse Becky had become pregnant with the child of Clerks mainstay Dante Hicks (Brian O’Halloran) and accepted his sudden proposal of marriage. But the thing about happy endings is they only work if you stop the story at a certain point. Hence why Dawson tells…

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12 Sep

Indiana Jones 5: Why James Mangold Replaced Steven Spielberg as Director

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This past weekend at Disney’s D23 Expo, an emotional Harrison Ford showed a room packed with Indiana Jones fans the first official trailer for Indiana Jones 5. Standing onstage alongside producer Kathleen Kennedy, co-star Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and director James Mangold, Ford said, “Indiana Jones movies are about mystery and adventure, but they’re also about heart, and I’m really, really happy that we have a really human story to tell, as well as a movie that will kick your ass.” Ford also told the crowd, “This is it,” confirming that this will be the last time he’ll don Indiana’s signature hat…

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12 Sep

See How They Run Review: A Crime Caper For Fans of Knives Out

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You don’t have to have seen Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap to enjoy wonderful theatreland-set, whodunnit See How They Run. Nor does it spoil things if you have (you probably still wont guess the ending of the film). Nor do you need a working knowledge of Agatha Christie herself, the peculiar contract that exists around The Mousetrap, 1950s London, Richard Attenborough and other real-life celebrities of the time, or indeed Tom Stoppard’s play The Real Inspector Hound. But part of the beauty of this incredibly meta, zippy, crime caper is that after the credits roll you’re probably going to want to…

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12 Sep

Comparing The Three Versions of Star Trek: The Motion Picture

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Some 44 years after it went into production, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is finally complete. We don’t say that frivolously. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is one of Hollywood’s most famous “unfinished” films. Rushing to meet a December 7, 1979 release date, with many of the visual effects being completed right up until the last possible minute by Douglas Trumbull (who had replaced the previous VFX supervisor), director Robert Wise (The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Sound of Music) pretty much just stopped working on the film, carrying the first available print on a plane to the movie’s…

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11 Sep

Matt Smith Deserved Better Than Morbius and Now Has It with House of the Dragon

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This article contains spoilers for Morbius and the first three episodes of House of the Dragon. What the hell is he doing? That was certainly my first thought while witnessing Matt Smith strut his stuff and show off a new beach bod in Morbius. I wasn’t alone. In the months since that dubious attempt at a superhero-vampire hybrid bled out on the multiplex floor, the scene has become a legend among the terminally online. Even before Morbius’ streaming release (and subsequent premiere on Netflix), watching Smith’s evil Milo the Vampire boogieing to “EKSE” was transformed into an instant meme. On…

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11 Sep

Why Filmmakers Thought Al Pacino’s Scarface Should Never Be Made

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Al Pacino created an urban legend with Tony Montana, and Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983) is an icon of the gangster film genre; one of an unholy trinity alongside The Godfather (1972) and Goodfellas (1990). But when it premiered in New York, Steven Bauer, who played Manny Ribera in the film, remembers Martin Scorsese turning around halfway through the movie to warn: “You guys are great, but be prepared, because they’re going to hate it in Hollywood. Because it’s about them.” The same could be said about the original Scarface. Studio filmmakers saw producer Howard Hughes as a rich interloper,…

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11 Sep

From Fantastic Four to Deadpool: The Unanswered Marvel and MCU Questions of D23

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Coming less than two months after its blowout panel/spectacle at 2022’s San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel Studios’ presentation at parent company Disney’s own D23 Expo was preceded by massive expectations out in fandom and the Twitterverse. The reasoning was that Marvel – even after laying out all of Phase 5 and parts of Phase 6 in Hall H – was going to spring even more mind-melting announcements on the fans at D23 (cue the “Henry Cavill for Doctor Doom” tweets). The truth is, there was quite a bit of excitement at Marvel’s D23 throwdown. The full lineup of Thunderbolts was unveiled,…

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10 Sep

Ranking the Best Dracula Performances in Movies and TV

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Bram Stoker once envisioned his most successful novel, Dracula, as a stage play. The actor he wanted to play the title role, Sir Henry Irving, walked out of the table read, yawning and griping about wordiness. It was probably the most auspicious walkout in horror entertainment history. Had Irving starred in a bomb, Bela Lugosi, Frank Langella, Gary Oldman, and quite a few other actors wouldn’t have been able to don the cape. Dracula wasn’t the first book about vampires, but it was the first time Vlad “the Impaler” Tepes was portrayed as one. Until then, people thought of him…

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10 Sep

Thor: Love and Thunder – What Brett Goldstein’s Hercules Means for the MCU

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This article contains Thor: Love and Thunder spoilers. The Prince of Power has arrived! In the final post-credit scene of Thor: Love and Thunder, a humiliated Zeus (Russell Crowe) plots his revenge against Thor and the other superheroes who take the worship due to gods. He sends them a god in the form of a hero with his son, Hercules, played by Ted Lasso’s Brett Goldstein. Love and Thunder doesn’t give us much about the new hero, as we hear Goldstein growl only one line. But Hercules has a long history in the comics, which give us some indication of…

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09 Sep

Is Morbius Part of the MCU? The Adrian Toomes and Spider-Man Connections

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This article contains Morbius spoilers. The superhero vampire movie Morbius is now available on Netflix. It’s an unremarkable movie (at best), but it’s gained notoriety through memes and bad reviews. But thanks to Netflix, more eyes will be on Matt Smith’s sexy dance moves and Jared Leto’s slow-motion, brushstroke-enhanced acrobatics than probably in the entirety of its disappointing theatrical run. Morbius is a Marvel Comics character who has menaced Spider-Man on the page since 1971. The Morbius post-credits scenes involve Adrian Toomes, AKA the Vulture, who was last seen in the 2017 MCU movie Spider-Man: Homecoming. This could be confusing…

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09 Sep

The Rings of Power Just Pulled Off a Fun Two Towers Callback

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This Lord of the Rings article contains spoilers for The Rings of Power. The Rings of Power continues establishing the kingdoms of the Second Age in episode 3. After first showing us the many lands of the Elves and taking us back to the mines of Moria, this week’s episode focuses in on Numenor, the island paradise where Men now rule after fighting alongside the Elves in the war against Morgoth. By the time of The Lord of the Rings books and movies, this kingdom no longer exists, as after a great downfall, the Numenoreans migrated to Middle-earth to form…

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09 Sep

How Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Handled Sequel Expectations Without T’Challa

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“It was a unique experience to step back into this world without our leader.” That’s how Lupita Nyong’o describes reprising her character Nakia for the sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Everyone feels pressure when following up a hit movie, especially one that so defined culture like the original Black Panther. But director Ryan Coogler and his cast faced a unique challenge with the untimely and shocking death of star Chadwick Boseman. Not only did the death rob us of one of our most exciting actors, but it also left a giant hole for the other performers to fill. How can…

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09 Sep

The Chaotic Queer Joy of A Knight’s Tale

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Aside from being a rollicking, romantic romp, The Mummy (1999) has carved out an iconic place among movie lovers for what Tor.com’s Leah Schnelbach describes as its chaotic bisexual energy. Here is a movie with an ensemble cast whose combined hotness, sheer charisma, and bucking of gender and societal norms make it so that anyone can see themselves in a variety of characters—and perhaps make some breakthroughs in realizing who they’re attracted to. As Maggie Tokuda-Hall summed up, “Hot people being horny on main; campy violence; himbos.” But while The Mummy is a unique modern classic, it’s not the only…

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08 Sep

Glass Onion: Knives Out 2 Looks Like Stealth Remake of Underrated ‘70s Murder Mystery

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Did you know that Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins wrote a mean-spirited murder mystery film? Yes, that Sondheim of West Side Story (and perhaps more aptly Sweeney Todd) fame and that Perkins of Psycho infamy. To this day, not many folks are aware. But Rian Johnson has been for a long time. He previously cited The Last of Sheila, which was made from Sondheim and Perkins’ script, as one of his favorite whodunits in the lead up to Knives Out’s 2019 release. Now with our first trailer for Johnson’s follow-up, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, it would seem the…

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