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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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14 Feb

The Fantastic Four Cast Reveal Proves Marvel Studios Understands the First Family

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1961’s Fantastic Four may have kicked off the Marvel Universe, but the FF aren’t really superheroes. They are explorers, they are scientists, and yes, they do fight supervillains such as Doctor Doom, but at their heart, the Fantastic Four are a family. So when Marvel officially announced the cast for next year’s Fantastic Four movie with a Twitter post, the good news isn’t the cast. Pedro Pascal has long been rumored to play Mr. Fantastic Reed Richards, as has Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm-Richards aka Invisible Girl/Woman, Joseph Quinn as the Human Torch/Johnny Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm,…

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13 Feb

Deadpool 3 Theory Suggests Doctor Doom Is Hiding in Plain Sight

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The MCU has a villain problem. People said same thing the first few years of the franchise’s existence, but those complaints fell away as Loki, Killmonger, and especially Thanos entered the fray. Now that Jonathan Majors’s off-screen problems have presumably brought an end to Kang the Conquerer in the MCU, the question has come up again. Josh Brolin recently teased Marvel Studios might bring back Thanos in some way, although he stopped short of confirming it would be in the role of big bad once again. That would be one way to re-energize the MCU with a popular villain. That…

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13 Feb

Madame Web Reviews and First Reactions Are In

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From the moment the infamously bad first trailer dropped, we knew Madame Web was going to be an absolute vibe. But even putting aside lines about researching spiders in the Amazon right before the main character’s mom died, Dakota Johnson’s recent press tour for the movie hasn’t exactly helped this latest Sony superhero foray feel like a winner, either. For example, while lauding director S.J. Clarkson during an interview with EW, Johnson shared this little tidbit about the way the film was shot: “I’ve never really done a movie where you are on a blue screen, and there’s fake explosions…

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12 Feb

Almost Three Decades Later, Twister Is Finally Getting the Sequel It Deserves

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“Don’t breathe. Don’t look back,” commanded the tagline for the movie Twister from 1996. Apparently, that’s not a warning that Universal Pictures wants to heed. Instead, they’re looking back to the ’90s with a new adventure about storm chasers and the flying cows in their wake with the upcoming sequel Twisters. That said, first trailer for Twisters features no familiar faces. Not only do we see no characters played by actors who sadly passed in the interim, such as Bill Paxton’s Bill or Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Rusty, but also missing is Helen Hunt’s protagonist Jo. In their place is a…

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12 Feb

How a Failed Beverly Hills Cop Pitch Led to Sylvester Stallone’s Wildest Movie

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Two shady figures walk into a club, raising the suspicions of Detective Axel Foley. Foley needs help to deal with both men, but the pair of officers keeping an eye on him — Sergeant Taggart (John Ashton) and Detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) — don’t trust him. Furthermore, he’s in a public place, which means that his actions could harm civilians. After his pleading convinces Taggart and Rosewood to help out, Axel approaches one of the potential troublemakers. “Phillip!” Foley shouts, adopting the stagger and slurred speech patterns of a drunk man as he approaches the confused suspect. Foley continues…

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12 Feb

Deadpool 3 Trailer Brings Back Wolverine and a Familiar X-Men Villain

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To say that all eyes are on Wade Wilson in 2024 is an understatement. With most superhero movies struggling to make a dent at the box office last year, studios will next look to the performance of Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine as a referendum on the state of the genre. Fortunately, Ryan Reynolds‘ latest turn as the Merc with a Mouth looks absolutely insane in the first trailer, which premiered during Super Bowl LVIII. As the trailer reveals, Deadpool is stepping into the multiverse with the help of Matthew McFayden’s mysterious Marvel character and the TVA from Loki. But…

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10 Feb

The James Bond Movie Moments That Defined 007 on the Big Screen

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There’s no question that the James Bond film franchise – the second longest-running such series in cinema history after Godzilla – comes with certain expectations in the minds of viewers. We can predict, mostly like clockwork, that 007 will wear a tux at some point in every film, he will bed at least one or more beautiful women, he’ll drive an Aston Martin (or some other high-end vehicle), and that he’ll have one polite conversation with the villain before the shooting really starts. There will also be a surreal, psychedelic credits sequence, often a big action scene before the credits,…

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10 Feb

Why Digimon: The Movie Had That Inexplicable Angela Anaconda Short

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Digimon: The Movie. Angela Anaconda.  “Two properties tied together by forces beyond their control. You could even call it destiny.” That’s how Angela Anaconda expert Alexandra Bender summarized the intertwined legacy of these two franchises and its spot on. In 2000, Digimon: The Movie premiered in theaters but before fans could watch the flawless masterpiece they were greeted with an unexpected Angela Anaconda short film that in the years since has drawn no shortage of ire.  The four-minute short features the characters and distinctive cutout animation of the Angela Anaconda TV series, which at that time was airing on the…

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10 Feb

The Best Thing About Madame Web So Far Is Dakota Johnson’s Mesmerizing Press Tour

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Don’t get me wrong. I was one of the few people who was genuinely looking forward to seeing Madame Web after the first trailer dropped in November. It’s still so rare to get superhero movies that have a majority female cast, that I was ready to fight for this movie against all odds. After watching Dakota Johnson’s incredible takes during the Madame Web press tour, however, it seems like this may be a movie that not even the cast is very interested in fighting for. Johnson’s carefree attitude on the Madame Web press tour isn’t a surprise given her iconic…

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09 Feb

Kenneth Branagh’s Next Poirot Movie Should Skip His Favourite Agatha Christie Book

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In 2017, on the press circuit for his first Hercule Poirot film Murder on the Orient Express, Kenneth Branagh was asked by French newspaper Le Figaro to name his three favourite Agatha Christie Novels. The actor-director picked Orient Express, of course, and two others: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, published in 1926, and, published a decade later in 1936, Murder in Mesopotamia. “I like one, Roger Ackroyd, because it’s deep in the heart of England so it’s classic Christie, village green…,” said Branagh. “And the other one because it’s in a super-exotic archaeological dig and she knew those really well…

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08 Feb

The Marvels: What Happened to the Second Bangle?

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This post contains spoilers for The Marvels. For a variety of reasons, The Marvels left a lot of lingering questions in the minds of viewers. One of the biggest concerns the movie’s MacGuffin itself, the bangle that the villain Dar-Benn uses to fight the heroes and restore her home planet Hala. In the climactic scene of The Marvels, the central trio defeats Dar-Benn and Ms. Marvel takes her bangle, pairing it to one she received from her grandmother. But when Kamala returns to Earth and hugs her parents at the end of the movie, she’s only wearing one bangle. She…

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08 Feb

Be Warned That Hunter Schafer’s Cuckoo Trailer Has a Terrifying Jump Scare

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Creepy noises. A distorted voice booming from speakers. A solitary girl walking into the night. These sorts of things are a dime a dozen in horror trailers, and can be used in even the most inconsequential straight-to-Tubi fare. But when those same elements come in a teaser for an upcoming Neon release, we have to take notice. Neon just dropped the first teaser for Cuckoo, directed by Tilman Singer and starring Euphoria‘s Hunter Schafer. As you can see in the video below, the trailer truly does tease the viewer, giving us little go on. Schafer’s character slowly makes her way…

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08 Feb

Dune 2 Will Change This One Thing About the Paul Atreides From the Book

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Young Paul Atreides strides across the sands of Arrakis, the planet that will become the setting of his ascension. Although he has never before left his watery home planet of Caladan, the Fremen of Arakis seem to know him. “Lisan al-Gaib,” they shout at the sight of him, calling him a messiah. Although the Mentat Thufir Hawat dismisses the Fremen’s behavior as “Harkonnen’s rules,” Paul suspects the truth. His mother’s religious order, the Bene Gesserit have been seeding prophecies about him, preparing them for allegiance. Although the above scene occurs early in Dune, it also points to a major theme…

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08 Feb

Netflix’s One Day TV Series Solves the Film’s Biggest Issue

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In August 2011, rioting broke out on the streets of Huddersfield. Bricks were thrown at shopfronts, windows were smashed and CCTV cameras were destroyed. The cause of the violence wasn’t explicitly the rickety Yorkshire accent of Brooklyn-born Anne Hathaway in recently released film One Day, but we can’t rule it out as a contributing factor. Hathaway’s accent in One Day wasn’t as much bad as it was senile, forgetting for large chunks of the film who it was and what it was supposed to be doing. It went up hill and down dale with all the control of Compo in…

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07 Feb

Lisa Frankenstein Review: All Vibes, No Beating Heart

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The opening of the cheekily-titled Lisa Frankenstein tells you all you need to know at the start: After a Tim Burton-esque credit sequence detailing the short, sad, tragically unmarried lifespan of The Creature (Cole Sprouse), we flash-forward to today—that is, 1989—where sparkly goth teenager Lisa Swallows (Kathryn Newton) traces an etching over his gravestone. Like one of her peers doodling an imagined married name in her notebook, she caps off the “Frankenstein” with her own name scrawled in fuchsia lipstick. All this is set to When In Rome’s yearning banger “The Promise,” an ambitious needle drop that director Zelda Williams…

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07 Feb

The Marvels Has So Many Plot Holes

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This post contains spoilers for The Marvels. With the exception of maybe Avengers: Endgame, no MCU movie just ends. Borrowing from the comic book medium in which its characters were born, MCU films end with cliffhangers and portends, mid- and post-credit scenes that tease up the next movie or storyline. That’s certainly the case with The Marvels, the latest MCU entry and latest indication that the superhero boom is now a whimper. The post-credit scene offers yet another nod to the X-Men, but that’s not the only question viewers have after watching The Marvels. As David Crow put it in…

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07 Feb

A Quiet Place: Day One Trailer Looks Like the Cloverfield Sequel We Never Got

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New Yorkers minding their own business when aliens attack from the sky? That sounds like a Cloverfield! Well, the first Cloverfield from 2008, anyway. The teaser for the film promised hip New York teens filming themselves during an alien invasion. Between the Escape from New York homage and the name “J.J. Abrams” — better known at the time for Alias and Lost instead of Star Trek Into Darkness or Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker — the Cloverfield trailer created a buzz that concealed the finished product from director Matt Reeves and writer Drew Goddard. Cloverfield left viewers hungry for…

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