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06 Aug

Tim Roth Reveals Secret to Playing Great Marvel and Quentin Tarantino Villains

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Tim Roth was on his way to the Cannes Film Festival a couple of years ago when a script came through from his agent. It was for a movie called Resurrection. “I had taken my boy with me, my youngest,” Roth tells Den of Geek. “And I sat down and I read it, and I was kind of shellshocked afterwards. So my son was like, ‘What is that?’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know how you would describe it. It’s a psychological horror movie, but it’s a new thing to me.’ So he said, ‘Give it to me.’ He…

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05 Aug

They/Them: How the Kevin Bacon Horror Film Changes the Rules of Friday the 13th

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“We’ve come a long way, baby,” says Kevin Bacon with a laugh, when asked about starring in a new summer camp slasher movie more than four decades after launching his career with the definitive summer camp slasher movie, the original Friday the 13th. The new one is called They/Them, and it’s from Hollywood horror factory supreme Blumhouse, but it’s got an exceptionally modern twist (thanks to writer-director John Logan) on what quickly became a stale formula after Friday the 13th initially changed the game back in 1980. Bacon stars as Owen Whistler, who welcomes a new group of LGBTQ+ “campers”…

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05 Aug

Canceled Batgirl Movie Leaks Photo of Michael Keaton’s New Batman Costume

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There are many reasons that fans were looking forward to Batgirl, from watching a beloved character star in a Hollywood movie to following In the Heights break-out Leslie Grace as she becomes a superhero. For others, the biggest draw was seeing Michael Keaton don his black rubber suit once again as Batman. But the surprise cancelation of Batgirl, a movie nearly completed and originally headed to HBO Max, means that we won’t see Keaton alongside Grace’s Barbara Gordon or J.K. Simmons’ Commissioner Gordon. Yet, amid the fallout of the announcement, Adil El Arbi, who co-directed Batgirl with creative partner Bilall…

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05 Aug

Bodies Bodies Bodies Cast: Meet A24’s New Generation of Horror Stars

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What kind of friend are you? We all fall into certain friendship archetypes, whether we’re the responsible “parent” of the group, the instigator, or the one that never responds in the group chat. Sometimes we fill these archetype roles to bring out the best in our friend groups, but more often than not these roles are set in stone during our youth, before we define ourselves, and coalesce into something toxic and decidedly unfriendly. Taking a psychological approach to exploring lifelong friendships, digital communication, and Gen-Z individualism, A24‘s SXSW breakout horror film Bodies Bodies Bodies is sure to stir up…

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05 Aug

Prey Review: Predator Franchise Finally Hits Its Stride

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Prey is the fifth installment in the Predator franchise (and seventh if you count the two Alien vs. Predator films). It’s also easily the third best in the series by default, following the original Predator and 2010’s underrated Predators. The bar is, admittedly, fairly low for this series, which is marked by pretty unwatchable entries like Shane Black’s 2018 The Predator and 1990’s Predator 2 (although some Den of Geek staff keep threatening to write a re-appreciation of the latter). Nevertheless, we’re pleased to say that Prey takes an approach that is both fresh and back to basics with this…

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05 Aug

Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan Taught Marvel and Star Wars One Key Sequel Trick

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Comebacks are funny. Most of the time, in order for a comeback to make sense, everyone has to be aware of the thing or person that had left and is now returning. After all, the Empire can’t strike back if you’re not aware of how it was doing beforehand. This may seem obvious, but it’s worth noting because every once in a while, in big sci-fi narratives, the opposite occurs: a comeback is a huge deal, but knowledge of anything pre-comeback is optional, or perhaps, irrelevant. It sounds nuts, but this specific kind of comeback perfectly describes Khan Noonien Singh…

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04 Aug

How Bullet Train Pulled Off a Brad Pitt and David Leitch Reunion Years in the Making

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When it comes to action cinema, David Leitch is one of the genre’s hottest directors working today. His first official film in the director’s chair was Atomic Blonde, but he also served as the uncredited co-director of the first John Wick. Since then, he’s directed Deadpool 2 and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. His latest film is another off-the-rails actioner. Bullet Train stars Brad Pitt as Ladybug, an assassin hired to do a job while confined on the fastest train in the world—and it’s packed with a horde of rivals. It’s a non-stop thrill ride of ultraviolence that…

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04 Aug

Bullet Train Review: Even Brad Pitt Can’t Save Quentin Tarantino Knockoff

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1997 called and wants its Quentin Tarantino knockoff back. That’s the bottom line on Bullet Train, a new dark comedy/thriller directed by David Leitch (Deadpool 2, Hobbs and Shaw). Overlong, tedious, and endlessly self-satisfied, this is a movie that thinks it’s funny to score a montage of violence to an Engelbert Humperdinck song (which is announced as it happens). Even 25 years ago, the idea got stale fast as one Tarantino wannabe after another tried and failed to emulate the original. The film thinks it’s being clever, but the mix of pop culture-drenched, faux-savvy dialogue, ironic and plentiful needle drops,…

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04 Aug

Bodies Bodies Bodies Review: A24 Horror Cuts Up Youth Culture

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It’s been a minute since I was in college. Enough of one I feel the need to add that qualifier while thinking back to the drinking games of yore we used to play: Never Have I Ever; Circle of Death; Flip Cup. In retrospect, these were contests of folly—poor excuses to drink, yes, but also to poke and probe your friends far more than necessary. Truly, one of the festivities was designed to get folks to admit they’re the weirdo who never did that (or maybe the only freak who would). Fortunately, none of these misspent nights ever had a…

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04 Aug

Why the Definitive Cut of Prey Is in Comanche

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The first tribal pipe ceremony that filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg participated in took him by surprise. Rather than occurring out on location, and in the wilderness where much of his upcoming Predator reimagining, Prey, takes place, it was during the day before principal photography started on Stoney Nakoda Nation lands that a small group of filmmakers were invited to participate in a ritual with local Indigenous leaders. “It was profound in that it wasn’t out in the camp we had set up,” Trachtenberg explains to Den of Geek. “It was just in an office, and it was a very moving experience…

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03 Aug

Why Kevin Smith Wouldn’t Make Clerks Today

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Among the many Cinderella stories that came out of the indie filmmaking scene of the 1990s, none was more unlikely or foulmouthed than Clerks. Written and directed by Kevin Smith in his spare time while working a dead end day job at a New Jersey convenience store, this grainy, black and white, and 16mm film exists purely because a storyteller with a few months of film school under his belt (and a willingness to max out credit cards to the tune of $28,000) wrote what he knew. Smith’s Clerks became the most unlikely of generational touchstones: a passion project that…

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03 Aug

Why Fantastic Four Is the Perfect Movie to Open Marvel Phase 6

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Let’s face it, Phase 4 of the MCU has been… messy. Even the best recent entries, such as Shang-Chi or Ms. Marvel, feel either disconnected from the rest of the universe or overburdened by expectations. The relatively clean line of the first three phases, building first to The Avengers and then to Infinity War and Endgame, appears missing among the many movies and shows added to the MCU since the end of the Infinity Saga. However, with the announcements at SDCC of Phase 4’s end this year with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and that the relatively short Phase 5 only…

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03 Aug

Bodies Bodies Bodies and the Horror of Living Extremely Online

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The cast of Bodies Bodies Bodies was encouraged to play “the game” on one of their first nights together. “Bodies Bodies Bodies” is technically a fictional activity—an intentionally potent blend of all those toxic college drinking games you might’ve played back in the day (or still do). In the new film, they’ve been distilled into a veritable car wreck of bad decisions. In other words, “the game” is the perfect setting for an A24 horror-comedy. It also proved to be a hell of an icebreaker for the young Gen-Z actors who would soon be asked to embody the worst case…

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03 Aug

Batgirl Canceled: Where Does This Leave the DCEU and Michael Keaton’s Batman Return?

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Warner Bros. Pictures has had a string of recent successes in the realm of superhero movies and intellectual property management. But it doesn’t feel that way, huh? To be sure, Matt Reeves’ The Batman reinvigorated that character’s brand, grossing $770 million in a meager 45-day theatrical window, which is well up since the same character headlined the disastrous 2017 release of Justice League to the anemic tune of $658 million. It also wasn’t that long ago when Joker (2019) won multiple Oscars, including for Best Actor, after grossing over $1 billion on a $70 million budget. WB is making money…

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01 Aug

The Best Movies Streaming on Plex in August

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We’re in the dog days of summer, and if you’re looking for refuge from the heat, consider cozying up on the couch with the air conditioning blasting and Plex TV streaming on your home entertainment system! Plex’s collection, The Cinephiles — A24 on Plex, is still ongoing, but there are a plethora of films from distributors big and small streaming on Plex. With Plex, you can explore both crowd-pleasing blockbusters or hidden gems you may have missed. Plex offers a one-stop-shop streaming service offering 50,000+ free titles and 200+ of free-to-stream live TV channels, from the biggest names in entertainment,…

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01 Aug

How Avengers: The Kang Dynasty Can Build to Secret Wars in Marvel Phase 6

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No matter how popular Iron Man and Black Panther were, the MCU really came together for most casual viewers when the primary villain took center stage. After years of cameos and hints, Thanos the Mad Titan fully emerged in Avengers: Infinity War, giving the previous decade of movies renewed focus and purpose. Although we know that Jonathan Majors’s Kang the Conqueror will be the overall bad guy in Marvel’s Phases 4 through 6, aka The Multiverse Saga, he’s very much in the nascent stages. We met a variant of Kang in the finale to Loki, the chatty He Who Remains,…

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01 Aug

Star Trek Finally Reveals Uhura Became Captain of Her Own Starship 

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Nichelle Nichols — famous for playing Nyota Uhura in Star Trek and six classic-era Trek feature films — has died at the age of 89. Her legacy as an activist and icon will live on not just in Trek, but also in the countless people she inspired. Martin Luther King Jr. was a personal fan of Nichols on Star Trek, as are Barack Obama and Stacey Abrams. She changed the direction of NASA forever by recruiting the first Black and female American astronauts ever and changed the way mainstream science fiction TV actually looked. Basically, without Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek…

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01 Aug

HBO Max New Releases: August 2022

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And just like that, winter has come again. HBO Max’s list of new releases for August 2022 is highlighted by the return of the king. Or more accurately: the return of the queen … of the Seven Kingdoms. Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon is set to premiere on HBO and HBO Max on Aug. 21, just over three years after Game of Thrones concluded in controversial fashion with “The Iron Throne.” This new series is a prequel, depicting the civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons from George R.R. Martin’s lore. When dragon fights dragon,…

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01 Aug

New on Netflix: August 2022 Releases

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Just a few months ago, Netflix appeared to be on a very rough track. Then Stranger Things season 4 came around and led to a less-apocalyptic-than-expected Q2 earnings report for the streamer. With its new releases for August 2022, however, Netflix is going to have to find another hit to keep the good vibes rolling. Here are some of their best options. Perhaps the biggest breakout candidate for Netflix this month is The Sandman on Aug. 5. Though Neil Gaiman’s classic comic has long been thought to be unadaptable, the folks behind 10-episode series are betting they’re the ones for…

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01 Aug

Hulu New Releases: August 2022

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You ever notice how HBO’s releases tend to do the heavy lifting in HBO Max’s content library? That makes plenty of sense given that HBO has a track record of producing hits well before the streaming era even began. Well, a similar concept is now playing out over on Hulu. Like many monthly releases before it, Hulu’s list of new releases for August 2022 is highlighted by a whole bunch of FX TV shows. The initiative once known as “FX on Hulu” is no more but that’s not stopping the cable network-turned quality TV brand from churning out some intriguing…

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