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11 Jan

Upcoming Sci-Fi Movies in 2025

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With the spice giving everyone Dune fever and Star Trek in a second renaissance, sci-fi fans have had it good these past few years. 2025 doesn’t have another Dune movie in store, but it does have a new James Cameron film, and it’s hard to get better than that. Additionally, we’ve got some smaller stories coming to streaming services, a few reimagingings of classic tales, and another movie about dino DNA. What more could you want? Star Trek: Section 31 (Jan 24) Star Trek: Discovery might be done, but the world it established continues. Star Trek: Section 31, premiering straight…

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10 Jan

Team America Predicted the Downfall of Political Discourse in Our Culture

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On Oct. 15, 2004, comedian Jon Stewart visited the CNN debate show Crossfire. Then hosted by conservative Tucker Carlson and liberal Paul Begala, Crossfire purported to examine issues from two opposing perspectives, giving viewers a more objective look at complex concerns and offering middle ground. But Stewart wasn’t interested in playing the show’s usual game. “I’m here to ask you to stop… stop hurting America,” he said with just a little of his trademark sarcasm under his plea. “And come work for America.” When the hosts tried to play off his comment by joking and asking about the pay, Stewart…

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10 Jan

Video Nasty: the True Story Behind the 1980s-Set Banned Horror Movie Series

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When the UK Department for Public Prosecutions published in 1983 a list of “video nasty” titles which could result in prosecution for distributors, it didn’t know that it was setting horror fans a Pokémon-style “gotta catch ‘em all” challenge. The films that appeared on the list became the DPP 72, an infamous collection of cult horror movies curated by moral outrage. In new 1980s-set Irish comedy-drama Video Nasty on BBC Three, Dublin teenagers Billy (Justin Daniels Anene) and Con (Cal O’Driscoll) are one title away from completing their illicit DPP 72 collection. Through underground deals, back-of-a-van trades and overseas pen…

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09 Jan

DGA and SAG Nominations Shift Oscars 2025 Race

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While the New Year’s barely begun, the contours of its awards race are rapidly coming into focus. Sunday night marked the first major televised awards show of the year with the (surprisingly) re-embraced Golden Globes declaring The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez the Best Pictures of the year in separate genres. However, the Golden Globe Foundation consists of fewer than 70 members, nearly all of whom are journalists. Conversely, the Oscars’ Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is made up of roughly 10,000 people who work within the film industry itself. Which makes organizations like the Screen Actors Guild and…

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09 Jan

5 Things We Want from Movies in 2025

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It is 2025. Heaven help us. A year that not long ago sounded like science fiction—and well beyond even Stanley Kubrick’s musings for the world of  tomorrow—has come. And with it is a film and television industry in a state of upheaval… or perhaps dawning opportunity. After spending the first half of this decade recovering from one crisis after another, be it COVID, self-inflicted delays in negotiating the 2023 strikes, or just the continued fallout from streaming’s ascent (and more recent bumpy plateauing), many in Hollywood and beyond are hoping 2025 marks a fresh start. “Survive until 2025” was a…

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08 Jan

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl Easter Egg Sneaks in Original 1980s Gromit

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The sight gags in Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit films are all part of their charm, from Gromit’s vinyl collection (mostly Bach) to his highbrow reading matter (Crime and Punishment by Fido Dogstoyevsky, The Republic by Pluto…) to his alma mater (where else would a clever canine graduate from but Dogwarts University?). The background details invite multiple rewatches as well as giving Aardman Animations a chance to nod towards their wider world and company history. Shaun the Sheep fans will have enjoyed spotting a cameo from the farmer of Mossy Bottom Farm in recent outing Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most…

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08 Jan

Upcoming Horror Movies to Watch in 2025

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With Immaculate, Nosferatu, The Substance, Longlegs, and more, 2024 set a high bar for spooky stuff. But 2025 looks set to keep the scares going for another year. From big studio blockbusters to grimy little indies to interesting art films (don’t call it elevated), 2025 has something for everyone who needs a good scare in the new year. Wolf Man (January 17) Scary 2025 starts on a strong note with Leigh Whannell‘s return to the world of Universal Monsters. As he did with Invisible Man from 2020, Whannell promises to bring a kinetic visual style and social relevance to the…

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07 Jan

The Life Aquatic Is Wes Anderson’s Most Underrated Movie

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Twenty years ago, Bill Murray sat perfectly center of frame in an ornate Italian theater near the Mediterranean. In the reality of this shot, he was portraying a storyteller within a story—a filmmaker named Steve Zissou, who after enjoying decades at the top of the international film scene has entered a fallow period. We later learn it’s been nine years since his last “hit documentary” and his reputation as a Jacques Cousteau-like oceanographer-turned-director died at roughly the same time as disco. Yet there he was still in the gilded halls that a filmmaker like Wes Anderson would recognize fresh off…

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04 Jan

Oscars 2025 Frontrunners and Contenders

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Happy New Year! Yep, it is again that time when the culture wakes back to life, groggily wiping away the mist left by another long (and hopefully restful) holiday season. Yet if you’re in the awards season game, either as a voter, prognosticator, or (Thalberg help you) a hopeful for nomination, it’s been anything but quiet. In fact, Oscars buzz has been burning bright for months and is now about to grow into a roaring fire. As miraculous as it sounds, the Golden Globes have survived their PR nightmares of a few years ago and are back to their weekend…

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03 Jan

Skeleton Crew’s Giant Crab Is Hiding Some Surprising Star Wars Callbacks

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Star Wars: Skeleton Crew may have just given us another terrifying space creature to haunt our nightmares, but there’s more than meets the eye to the giant crab monster that Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) and KB (Kyriana Kratter) run into on the outskirts of Lanupa in episode 6 “Zero Friends Again.” It turns out that this giant crab, named Tet’niss according to Art Director and Fabrication Supervisor Mark Dubeau, doesn’t just have a bunch of junk in its trunk – some of the pieces of trash stuffed in its shell are deliberate callbacks to the greater Star Wars universe and the…

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01 Jan

How Marvel’s What If…? Season 3 Teases Thunderbolts and Captain America 4

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This article contains spoilers for season 3 of Marvel’s What If…? The third and final season of Marvel’s What If…? is full of new and exciting peeks at worlds that exist outside of the MCU’s “Sacred Timeline.” From old Hollywood glamour to Russian buddy comedy hijinks to old West shootouts, this season certainly has fun playing in the Marvel sandbox. But despite the fact that the majority of these stories are pretty significant deviations from the characters we know in the MCU, this season does do a good job of setting up important parts of upcoming movies Thunderbolts* and Captain…

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01 Jan

Jason Momoa as Lobo Casting Tests New Ground for Audiences and Superhero Movies

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It’s official: Aquaman and Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa has been tapped to play Lobo in the new cinematic DC Universe. After years of speculation, the actor confirmed his casting as the intergalactic bounty hunter via an Instagram post, with a simple caption reading, “They called.” DCU-head James Gunn validated this with his own post, a picture of Lobo smoking a cigar. The character is now set to make his debut in 2026’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, opposite fellow Westeros-performer Milly Alcock as the eponymous hero with Cruella (2021) and I, Tonya (2017) director Craig Gillespie at the helm. …

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01 Jan

The Must-Watch Movies Coming in 2025

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Should old acquaintances be forgot and never brought to mind? Frankly, we’re not certain of that any more than we are about the rest of the “Auld Lang Syne” lyrics. But as fun as it is to dwell on the year that was in cinema during this season—with awards voting at a full roar and everyone’s best-of lists flooding the internet (including ours!)—it’s also good to look ahead. 2024 indeed marked an odd time for movies with delays caused by last year’s strikes turning the Hollywood spigot down to a trickle. But things promise to be running full steam ahead…

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30 Dec

Galaxy Quest’s R-Rated Origins Hilariously Linger in the Final Cut

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Galaxy Quest is a perfect motion picture. Argue with a wall … preferably one of the many chrome walls aboard the NSEA Protector. Released on Christmas Day 1999, well in advance of geek culture going fully mainstream, the Dean Parisot-directed film feels like it had early access to decades of modern internet debates, takes, and controversies. That’s because, in a way, it did. Even before wide adoption of social media turned fandom into a contact sport, Star Trek die hards were the vanguard of obsessive message board discourse. Galaxy Quest operates as a gentle satirical takedown of this passionate population…

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29 Dec

Nosferatu and the Role of Paganism in Robert Eggers Movies

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This article contains massive Nosferatu spoilers. Judging by his filmography, it’s probably safe to say Robert Eggers is not strictly a religious man. His first film did, after all, end with a Puritan girl finding liberation from her Calvinist upbringing by selling her soul to the Devil and floating above a fire fed by the fat of her siblings’ flesh. And that’s the happiest finale thus far to an Eggers joint. With those humble beginnings, the influence of religion, tradition, and magic would continue to course throughout all four of Eggers’ feature films to date, from his malevolent exploration of…

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28 Dec

Nosferatu Proves Bill Skarsgård Is a Movie Monster Icon Worthy of the Silent Era

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There are some Nosferatu spoilers in this article. Among the of the many impressive things about Robert Eggers‘ Nosferatu is how the marketing team kept the look of its main monster a secret. In posters and trailers, Eggers and his team used shadows and silhouettes to suggest the presence of the vampire Count Orlok, building on the visual style set by German Expressionist F.W. Murnau, who directed the original Nosferatu in 1922. That sense of mystery pays off with the reveal of Orlok in the film. A grotesque beast, furs draped over his hideous body, Orlock glowers from under a…

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28 Dec

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey Cast: Who Is Playing Who?

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Christopher Nolan has taken viewers from the streets of Gotham City to the shores of Dunkirk, and from the deepest recesses of the dreaming mind to the edges of a black hole itself. Yet the announcement of his latest project has raised more than a few eyebrows. Homer’s Ancient Greek epic The Odyssey seems like a strange choice for a filmmaker who has devoted his work to puzzle box stories about troubled great men. As different as The Odyssey might be for Nolan, we do already know we can count on one thing. He’ll have a great cast joining him…

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28 Dec

Street Fighter: An Appreciation for Raul Julia’s M. Bison

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Even if you’ve never seen the 1994 film adaptation of Street Fighter, you probably know about one scene; a legend on the internet. M. Bison, a military dictator and the primary villain of the games and the movie, listens as his captive Chun-Li (Ming-Na Wen) explains her desire for revenge. Chun-Li remembers her father leading a band of farmers against Bison’s nascent army, driving them out of the village, but at the cost of his life. Chun-Li savors every word of her speech, pausing to scoff at her recollection of Bison’s thugs running from peasants, and even at his shooting…

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27 Dec

Nosferatu: Willem Dafoe Is the Best Van Helsing We’ve Ever Had

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This article contains spoilers for Nosferatu. Anyone who sees Willem Dafoe‘s name in the cast list for Robert Eggers‘s Nosferatu thinks they know what to expect. Dafoe has worked with Eggers in the director’s two most recent films, giving gonzo performances in each. In The Lighthouse, Dafoe channels Patchy the Pirate to deliver ornate curses when his fellow lighthouse keeper insults his lobster. Dafoe plays a Norse magician in The Northman, urging the king and the prince to act like dogs, scrambling around on all fours and farting wildly. Given that his character in Nosferatu, Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz,…

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26 Dec

Nosferatu and the Aching Beauty of That Ending Shot

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This article contains major spoilers for Robert Eggers’  Nosferatu. It is only in Nosferatu’s final breath that the film’s lighting at last appears golden, pure, and radiant to behold. There at the end of all things and inside the Hutter bedroom—which like previous Nosferatu films is marred by the repression of its period and two separate twin beds for a newlywed couple—goodness has again won out over the dark. The morning dawn bathes a world previously defined by shadow and gloom with every shade of rose and resplendency; and a cold home glows. Somehow though, this warmth makes the final…

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