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24 Feb

Why It’s Impossible to Do a Beatles Biopic in a Single Movie

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As a musical unit, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr enjoyed the most unique experience in popular entertainment. While Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra similarly spent the most exciting periods of their careers circumnavigating hordes of rabid fans, persistent, compulsory photo-ops, and suitcases of ticket sales cash, they still broke through as solo song interpreters. The Beatles, by contrast, became a global phenomenon as a group, and a very busy one, in and out of the studio, mostly writing their own music. In keeping with the musical unit’s consistent commitment to innovation, Apple Corps. and Sony Pictures…

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23 Feb

The Worst James Bond Character Ever Was Inspired by a Series of Car Commercials

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Even the most die-hard 007 fans know that James Bond movies don’t always hit. There’s the yellow face of You Only Live Twice, the pigeon double-take in Moonraker, the surfing in Die Another Day. But never has the franchise done worse than when a certain Louisiana police officer bumbles into the otherwise solid Live and Let Die. Yes, I’m talking about Sheriff J.W. Pepper, a loudmouth distraction who sort of makes sense in the American-set Live and Let Die, but then he somehow also shows up in Thailand to further drag down The Man With the Golden Gun. Modern viewers…

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23 Feb

Does Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla Treat Elvis Presley Fairly?

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This article contains Priscilla spoilers. Director Sofia Coppola scrubs at tarnished memories for the biopic Priscilla. It’s a bold choice since Elvis Presley disciples prefer admiring unvarnished relics in a still-flourishing golden hue. The film’s primary source and title character, Priscilla Presley, has offered no apologies for her time with the mythological musician, just the facts as she remembers them. These recollections do not diminish her love of the man who came to define her existence, but they cloud his legacy to this day. “Why are you coming for my dad and my family?” Elvis’ daughter Lisa Marie Presley wrote…

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22 Feb

Tom Cruise Moving Away from Action Movies Could Be Great News

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The last American movie star. The savior of cinema. Maverick. There are plenty of superlatives thrown around Tom Cruise these days—including by us—and for good reason. In an era where audiences increasingly only venture to the theater for familiar intellectual property (if at all), Tom Cruise remains one of the last old school marquee names people turn out for in order to watch the actor. And more often than not, they’re justified in that trust, because Cruise has spent his middle-age proving that like his most popular alter-ego—Navy pilot Pete Mitchell—he has no intention of turning in his wings. It’s…

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21 Feb

Salem’s Lot Movie Update Is Exciting News for Stephen King Fans

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For a guy who writes about awful stuff happening to people, Stephen King sure likes liking things. Just think about how many times he’s used his position to praise other creatives and projects. “I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker,” declared his blurb for the American release of Books of Blood. “Tight, terrific, and very, very scary. Reminded me a bit of Duel,” he said of The Fall on Twitter in 2022. “Wish I’d written it.” Heck, his horror history book Danse Macabre ends with an appendix recommending over 100 books and nearly 100…

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21 Feb

Borderlands Movie Trailer Retains the Games’ Divisive Sense of Humor

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Lionsgate has finally released the first trailer for Eli Roth’s Borderlands movie nearly 10 years after the project was announced. While the preview is relatively light on plot details, it certainly emphasizes the “edgy” style of humor that has helped make the Borderlands game franchise so notable and sometimes divisive.  The Borderlands franchise has only grown since the original Borderlands game was launched way back in 2009, but the series has remained remarkably consistent during that time. Most of the Borderlands games feature a group of treasure hunters navigating cel-shaded wasteland environments, a ton of loot to collect, and an…

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21 Feb

A24’s New Civil War Trailer Turns a Far-Right Fantasy Into a Nightmare

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When the first trailer for Alex Garland’s Civil War dropped several months ago, many viewers were immediately put on edge by visions of war-torn cityscapes, or clouds of smoke billowing above small towns. Mind you, this sadly looks like the nightly news on nearly any given Tuesday. However, in Garland’s hands, these “reports” were occurring in the good ol’ US of A. The call was coming from inside the house. Others, however, were somewhat bemused by the first trailer, at least as judged by social media posts or our comments section. Skeptics decried the incredulity of the film’s so-called “Western…

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20 Feb

Madame Web Really Doesn’t Understand Spider-Man’s Most Important Line

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This Madame Web article contains spoilers. “With great power comes great responsibility” might be the most important line in superhero fiction. It crystalizes a theme present in the best superhero stories even before Spider-Man‘s debut in 1962’s Amazing Fantasy #15, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s Superman tales and Bill Parker, and C.C. Beck’s Captain Marvel adventures. The line transforms superhero stories from mere power fantasies to stories about service and care, about empowering others instead of consolidating power for yourself. So when a member of Las Arañas, Madame Web‘s ill-advised magical natives, tells Cass Webb (Dakota Johnson), “When you take…

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19 Feb

Why the Producer of Dune and King Kong Threw Away the Rights to Silence of the Lambs

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As attention turns to the Oscars around this time every year, it’s easy to get caught up remembering some of the big winners. One of the most notable champs was The Silence of the Lambs, which took home the “Big Five” awards in 1992: Best Picture, Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Best Actress (Jodie Foster), Best Director (Jonathan Demme), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ted Tally), as well as Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing to round it out.  And despite owning the film rights to works of author Thomas Harris, super-producer Dino De Laurentiis saw none of that windfall, be…

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17 Feb

The Most Underrated Action Movies of the 1980s

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The 1980s was a seminal period in the development of what we now define as the action movie. This was the decade that cemented the statuses of both Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger as the muscle-bound box office behemoths eating the competition for breakfast. Having emerged off the back of critically acclaimed efforts like Rocky and The Terminator, the years that followed saw the pair hone their greased-up on-screen personas to fine effect. It wasn’t all about the muscles though. The 1980s also ushered in the era of the everyman action star with Bruce Willis in Die Hard and Eddie…

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16 Feb

Dune 2 Just Spoiled One of Its Top Secret Characters

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This Dune article contains spoilers. After ingesting the Spice Melange, Guild Navigators working for CHOAM gain precognitive abilities, allowing them to chart paths for interstellar space travel, making Arrakis, the only source of Spice, the most important planet in the galaxy. Such is the premise of Frank Herbert‘s Dune novels, which inspired the 2021 blockbuster and Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming sequel, Dune: Part Two. In the first movie, the Spice enhances young Paul Atreides’ burgeoning prescience. That effect gives Paul visions of his future leading the Fremen with Chani at his side. But it also tells him things about others, as…

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16 Feb

The Best Part of Madame Web Happens After the Credits

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This post contains spoilers for Madame Web. There are exactly two good things in Madame Web. No, it’s not the meme-worthy line about moms and Amazons, which doesn’t even appear in the movie. Neither is it all of the winks toward Peter Parker nor the young female Spider-heroes who (spoiler) have only two brief scenes in costume. No, one good thing in Madame Web is the old-school Marvel logo that opens the film. The simple flipping of comics pages that dissolves into the big red block with the word “Marvel” in white font, before MCU movies replaced it with their…

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16 Feb

Which Agatha Christie Poirot Book Should Kenneth Branagh Film Next?

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Anybody who looked carefully at the Christmas presents unwrapped by the family in Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographically inspired 1969-set film Belfast will have spotted a copy of Agatha Christie’s The Hallowe’en Party. It was an Easter egg for the eagle-eyed, teasing which Hercule Poirot story the actor-director and screenwriter Michael Green were planning to tackle next on the big screen, after 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express and 2022’s Death on the Nile. Green and Branagh took several liberties with The Hallowe’en Party, changing its title to A Haunting in Venice, much of its plot, and moving it from the English…

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16 Feb

Fantastic Four: Why the 1960s Setting Is a Perfect Choice for the New Movie

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Ben Grimm is mad. The ace pilot would do almost anything for his college pal Dr. Reed Richards, the super-genius who has designed an experimental rocket. But Ben worries about cosmic rays surrounding the planet and threatens to drop out of the project. “Ben, we’ve got to take that chance,” interjects friend Sue Storm. “Unless we want the Commies to beat us to it.” With that Ben takes up the mission. Because if there’s one thing that Benjamin J. Grimm hates (beyond being called a coward, which Sue also does), its Commies. Well, at least that’s what Ben hated in…

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16 Feb

What Oppenheimer Leaves Out From the True Story

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This Oppenheimer article contains spoilers. Oppenheimer is more than just 2024’s apparent Best Picture favorite and one-half of the “Barbenheimer” movement that shattered modern box office expectations. It’s a sweeping examination of the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer and how his work on the atomic bomb reshaped the course of human history. Of course, even the most thorough examinations of significant real-life figures and events can’t quite cover everything you need to know about the true stories they try to tell. More importantly, many of those movies often intentionally alter or exclude certain details for the sake of storytelling. Understanding…

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16 Feb

Dune 2 First Reactions Are In

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Dune: Part Two is one of the most highly-anticipated films of the year and for good reason. With Part One, director Denis Villeneuve brought forth a mesmerizing vision of a psychedelic war epic full of action, drama, and tragedy, while remaining faithful to one of the best and most complex sci-fi novels ever published. Frank Herbert‘s world of scheming, manipulations, combat, prophecies, and drug-induced dreaming comes to life in the desert sands of Villeneuve’s movie. But that film ended on a cliffhanger, with Timothy Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, the promised messiah of Arrakis, taking only his first steps toward his destiny.…

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15 Feb

Madame Web Completely Wastes Its Biggest Spider-Man Universe Cameo

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This Madame Web article contains spoilers. It’s a big year for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. While Disney powers forward with Deadpool & Wolverine as its lone theatrical release for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sony has three Spider-adjacent movies in the form of Kraven the Hunter, Venom 3, and Madame Web. Potential connections between the first two and the Marvel Cinematic Universe remain unclear, whereas Madame Web serves as an unconnected origin story for Dakota Johnson’s Cassandra Webb. As the name suggests, it’s Cassandra who is at the center of the spandex-clad caper, although she’s not alone. Johnson is joined by Sydney…

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15 Feb

Madame Web Completely Wastes Its Biggest Spider-Man Universe Cameo

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This Madame Web article contains spoilers. It’s a big year for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. While Disney powers forward with Deadpool & Wolverine as its lone theatrical release for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sony has three Spider-adjacent movies in the form of Kraven the Hunter, Venom 3, and Madame Web. Potential connections between the first two and the Marvel Cinematic Universe remain unclear, whereas Madame Web serves as an unconnected origin story for Dakota Johnson’s Cassandra Webb. As the name suggests, it’s Cassandra who is at the center of the spandex-clad caper, although she’s not alone. Johnson is joined by Sydney…

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15 Feb

Star Wars Actor Finally Addresses That Bizarre Palpatine Twist in Rise of Skywalker

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There’s no denying that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker certainly made some… interesting storytelling choices, especially with its main villain, who somehow returned to strike back at Rey and the Resistance. Not only does the movie reveal that Supreme Leader Snoke was just one of Emperor Palpatine’s clones all along, and that he’s been secretly preparing for the return of the true Empire and the Sith on Exegol, but we also get the biggest twist of all: Rey (Daisy Ridley) is his granddaughter. The Emperor’s family tree is more complicated than that, though. Technically, Rey’s father, Dathan, is a…

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15 Feb

The Screen Test That Saved Planet of the Apes From Oblivion

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Planet of the Apes is one of the most successful and durable science fiction franchises in Hollywood history. Starting in 1968 with the original film, the Apes series has generated more than $2.1 billion in box office grosses over the course of just nine movies, with a highly-anticipated 10th entry, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, due for release this May. The property has also spawned both a live-action and animated TV series, books, comics, video games, and toys – the latter produced in the wake of the first film’s success and arguably the template for future movie merchandising…

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