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27 Jun

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi Film Trilogy Shelved After Solo Problems

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The overall response to Obi-Wan Kenobi may have been positive, but there is one complaint that many fans seem to share: they want to see more. For some, that desire comes from a love of the characters, especially after showrunner Deborah Chow crafted a suitable bridge between the Star Wars prequels and the original trilogy, forcing Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan to face for the first time his former apprentice Anakin Skywalker in the form of Darth Vader, played by Hayden Christensen. For others, that desire comes from a sense that the series rushed through events, not giving viewers enough time to…

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25 Jun

Blade Runner Became a Sci-fi Classic by Being a Terrible Philip K. Dick Adaptation

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The title of the 1982 film Blade Runner is taken directly from a book. Well, from two books: the 1979 novella Blade Runner (a movie) by William S. Burroughs, which, in turn, was based on the 1974 novel The Bladerunner by Alan E. Nourse. Both of those books are science fiction stories set in the near future, but have nothing to do with escaped androids. Instead, the movie’s plot is based on the 1968 novel by Philip K. Dick called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It’s tempting to say that Ridley Scott’s science fiction masterpiece took the name Blade…

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25 Jun

Ethan Hawke: Horror’s Unique Scream King

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Kind blue eyes. That’s the most striking part of the poster for The Black Phone, the latest Blumhouse horror movie from director Scott Derrickson. Filling the poster is the face of the Grabber, a kidnapper and child murderer who terrorizes a Denver suburb in 1978, covered with speckled gray paint. A mask covers the Grabber’s jaw, giving the killer an unsettling permanent grin, while a top hat and wide glasses accentuate his upper face. But it’s those eyes that stand out the most, somehow kind and sad, despite their ghastly surroundings, making the Grabber all the more terrifying.  In that…

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25 Jun

Elvis: Colonel Tom Parker Really Was That Bad

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Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis stars Austin Butler as the hip-swiveling titular hound dog and Tom Hanks as his manager Colonel Tom Parker. In this Elvis Presley biopic, the musician is presented as a mythic figure and true life superhero, saving the world from repressive rhythms to become the King of Rock and Roll, while Parker comes off as the cartoon villain, and not only because Hanks sounds like the Dutch uncle of Looney Tunes’ Foghorn Leghorn. As Parker confesses at the beginning of the movie, “There are some who’d make me out to be the villain of this here story.” And…

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25 Jun

Elvis: Where You’ve Seen Austin Butler Before

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While reviews of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis are a little mixed as to how successful the director’s signature frenetic style was for a biopic about the King of Rock’n Roll, critics and audiences seem to unanimously agree that star Austin Butler has captured the spirit of Elvis Presley. In fact, Butler has so taken on the King’s mantle—the hair, the eyes, the hips—that even Presely’s surviving family, including wife Prisicilla, daughter Lisa Marie, and granddaughter Riley Keough have enthusiastically endorsed the film. Lisa Marie declared Butler “channeled and embodied my father’s heart and soul beautifully.” It’s a career-making turn for the…

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24 Jun

What Is Marvel Planning for MCU Phase 5?

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This article contains MCU spoilers Where is the Marvel Cinematic Universe heading? That’s a question on the minds of many fans, and the answer may be unveiled sooner than you think. It was recently announced that Kevin Feige would finally reveal more about Phase 5 of the MCU in the near future; in the upcoming months in fact! But according to the Marvel Studios boss, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise for those who have been paying attention. He told Total Film in an exclusive interview, “I think there have been many clues already, that are at least apparent…

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24 Jun

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Hints at MCU Doctor Doom

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This post contains spoilers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness With Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness now available to stream on Disney+, fans can slow things down and look closely at the many easter eggs hidden in the movie. Unsurprisingly, the cameo-laden Illuminati scene gets the most attention, in which Professor Xavier of the X-Men and the Black Bolt of Inhumans return to screen. Even more surprising was the appearance of “the world’s smartest man” Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, of the Fantastic Four, played not by previous actors Ioan Gruffudd or Miles Teller, but by John Krasinski of The Office fame. With more…

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24 Jun

The Brain From Planet Arous: Inside a Cerebral Cult Classic

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Early science fiction movies presented mind-bending possibilities for audiences who were new to the idea of alien invasion. Made five years after the July 1952 Washington, D.C., “Big Flap” UFO sightings, The Brain from Planet Arous (1957) presented a more thoughtful takeover: alien possession. Gor, an evil intergalactic brain, invades the human body of an atomic scientist, with plans to conquer the world. The cult classic has been restored with a 4K transfer by the best minds at the Film Detective for a special edition Blu-ray and DVD. The low-budget, independently produced feature was directed by Nathan Juran, the genre…

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24 Jun

Everything Everywhere: What Does the Everything Bagel Mean?

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This article contains Everything Everywhere All at Once spoilers. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a film that fires several ideas at you a minute. Some of them are profound; some of them are surreal; some of them are outright ridiculous; and some of them are all three of those things, existing in a nebulous five-dimensional space. One of those ideas, resting at the very heart of the movie, is the Everything Bagel. This existential enigma, first teased by Stephanie Hsu’s Jobu Tupaki persona, is an object whose ripples are felt throughout the film long before we learn what it…

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24 Jun

The Thing: What Order Did the Alien Infect the Cast?

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When John Carpenter’s The Thing hit theaters back in June 1982, the only thing scarier than the film were the reviews. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it “instant junk” while Cinefantastique featured The Thing on one front cover alongside the question, “Is this the most hated movie of all time?” Yet, if anything, the past 40 years has seen The Thing become one of the most beloved sci-fi horror movies of all time, influencing everything from Stranger Things to Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. To paraphrase Die Hard 2, it was simply a case of being in…

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24 Jun

Thor: Love and Thunder First Reactions Pour In

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We’re just two weeks away from the release of Marvel’s latest MCU installment, but Thor: Love and Thunder has now had its premiere in Los Angeles, so we get to read all the first reactions from those who were invited to attend! As always, we absorb these reactions with a hefty fistful of salt, but anticipation and goodwill for this movie has been high ever since it was first announced. Returning director Taika Waititi essentially reinvented the Thor franchise with his 2017 Marvel outing Thor: Ragnarok by capitalising on the more comedic side of the central character and, as a…

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23 Jun

Thor: Chris Hemsworth Talks Future MCU Exit

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Of the big three who founded the Avengers, no one would have expected Thor to be the last one standing. Iron Man launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier is considered by many to be one of the best in the franchise. But while Thor and Thor: The Dark World both have their fans, neither seemed to have quite the same cultural impact as the movies starring Tony Stark or Steve Rogers. As we head toward the close of the MCU’s phase four, Tony and Steve are long gone, and Thor is about the…

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23 Jun

Elvis Review: Austin Butler Will Leave You Shaken

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The long shadow cast by Walk Hard remains an impressive thing. Despite debuting to mostly inattentive critical notices and abysmal box office, Jake Kasdan’s vicious send up of music biopics continues to loom over this lucrative, and often ludicrous, subgenre. Thanks to later dramatizations of the life and times of Freddie Mercury or Aretha Franklin, John C. Reilly’s turn as Dewey Cox is still relevant for predicting the flattening effect Hollywood can have on wildly different creative journeys. Which makes Baz Luhrmann’s gaudy and happily glossy Elvis a fascinating surrender to indulgence. Never a filmmaker to be accused of subtlety,…

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23 Jun

How Julius Caesar Inspired The Wicker Man

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For much of Robin Hardy’s cult classic of British cinema, The Wicker Man, you would be excused for not realizing you were watching a horror movie. Granted, this cornerstone of folk horror is bizarre from the word go, and more than a few scenes border on the perverse, yet it functionally is not trying to scare you; the movie prefers to madden and intrigue via the mystery of a missing child on a remote Scottish isle. It also infuriates, because the vanished lass’ only hope is our sour protagonist Sgt. Neil Howie (Edward Woodward), a stick in the mud who…

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23 Jun

Why Ethan Hawke First Said No to The Black Phone

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The Black Phone, the new horror movie out from Blumhouse and Universal Pictures, is a reunion of sorts: directed by Scott Derrickson, written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, and starring Ethan Hawke, it’s the same principal talents who last came together for Derrickson’s acclaimed 2012 horror film, Sinister (which was also produced through the Blumhouse brand). The Black Phone is the kind of intimate horror tale that Derrickson has done his best work with in films like Sinister and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and it’s also got the added pedigree of being based on a short story by…

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22 Jun

Understanding Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness If You Skipped WandaVision, Loki, and What If…?

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This post contains major spoilers for WandaVision, Loki, and What If…?. Mere weeks after it debuted in theaters, the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe entry Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hit Disney+ on June 22. Great news for fans of superheroes, but there’s always a catch! Multiverse of Madness is the 28th feature film in the franchise, and that’s not counting numerous one-shots and television specials. So while the movie is explicitly a sequel to 2016’s Doctor Strange, which traced Dr. Stephen Strange’s journey from arrogant surgeon to Master of the Mystic Arts, it has more in common with several other MCU properties, especially…

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22 Jun

Everything Everywhere, Doctor Strange, and Why We Now Love Multiverses

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This article contains mild Everything Everywhere All at Once spoilers. Everything Everywhere All at Once has just arrived to streaming, but the Daniels-directed indie darling is only the latest (and let’s be honest, best) in a recent flurry of activity across the multiverse. The film was the first of several major releases to feature the multiverse this year, opening just slightly before Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which in turn was the second multiverse movie to feature Doctor Strange after Spider-Man: No Way Home, which itself was the second multiverse-themed movie in recent years to feature Spider-Man (with…

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21 Jun

The Black Phone Review: Ethan Hawke at His Most Evil

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After a few years toiling away in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where he directed and co-wrote 2016’s Doctor Strange before leaving the sequel, director Scott Derrickson is back where he belongs. The purveyor of two of the best horror films of the past 20 years—2005’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose and 2012’s Sinister—Derrickson is again in his genre element with The Black Phone. He’s also put his preferred team back together too, as The Black Phone reunites Derrickson with Sinister co-writer C. Robert Cargill, as well as that picture’s star, Ethan Hawke. Also coming off the bench for this one…

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18 Jun

Jurassic World and Star Wars Trilogies Prove Legacy Sequels Don’t Work in Long Run

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This article contains Jurassic World Dominion spoilers. Colin Trevorrow was supposed to direct Star Wars: Episode IX back when it was called Duel of the Fates. This bit of barroom trivia will forever remain a “what if” among fans. What if the “final” Star Wars movie, at least in the Skywalker Saga, did not just revert to playing the hits for longtime fans? What if the newest movie continued on threads weaved by its controversial predecessor The Last Jedi? We of course will never truly know what might’ve been in the case of that franchise, despite Trevorrow’s early draft and…

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18 Jun

Lightyear: Easter Eggs and Classic Sci-Fi Movie References

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This article contains Lightyear spoilers. The conceit of Lightyear, this year’s soft-boiled sci-fi animated film from Pixar, is that in 1995, Andy from Toy Story had a favorite film—and Lightyear is that film. The team that created the movie envisioned it as a classic sci-fi feature that had already been around for a while before Andy received his Buzz Lightyear toy. Director Angus MacLane even told reporters at an early release presser that he imagined by 1995, Lightyear and Buzz had already been through a number of retellings: from the initial film that was made in the late ‘70s or…

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