In the increasingly distant past, Mystery Science Theater 3000 was ground-breaking television. Part send-up of 1950s kid’s programming, part puppet show, part showcase for co-creator and prop comic Joel Hodgson, MST3K became a cult sensation, especially after it moved from a Minnesota public access channel to what would become the cable channel Comedy Central in 1989. So enduringly appealing was the concept of watching a human host make fun of cheesy movies with his robot pals that MST3K endured a change of hosts from Joel to Mike Nelson in its original run, a Netflix reboot in 2017 that brought comedian…

A great television series can hide behind a terrible first impression. Sometimes the pilot is awkward, the characters feel unfinished, the jokes land badly, or the premise seems unsure of what it wants to be. That can be surprising when the same show eventually becomes a cultural favorite with devoted fans and unforgettable episodes. Reddit users named series that made them question why anyone kept watching, only to discover that patience paid off. Some needed a new cast member, others needed time to find their rhythm, and a few were almost completely reinvented. These are shows worth giving another chance.…

Movie sets have rules for almost everything, but famous actors can sometimes negotiate an entirely different set of privileges. Once a performer becomes valuable enough to a production, unusual requests can make their way into contracts, shooting schedules, costumes, scripts, and even the final edit. Some of these arrangements exist for practical reasons, while others come from years of bargaining power or simply reflect a star’s very specific preferences. The strangest examples can sound completely made up until the behind the scenes stories reveal what actually happened. These are some of the unusual freedoms, demands, and creative privileges that movie…

Fame can make someone’s earlier life seem almost impossible to imagine. It is easy to picture a future movie star, musician, or television personality as someone who was always destined for the spotlight, but many famous people spent years doing completely ordinary work before anyone knew their names. They waited tables, worked office jobs, taught classes, sold clothes, drove trucks, and handled the same everyday responsibilities as millions of other people. Some were already pursuing entertainment on the side while paying the bills, while others stumbled into their eventual careers unexpectedly. These surprisingly normal jobs offer a glimpse at lives…

We all know plenty of movies with special effects that will last forever, made by cutting edge technologies and techniques that pushed the industry forward. We also know movies deemed like little more than trash, released rather recently, with effects that make them seem from many decades ago. We’re not here to celebrate the former, but to mock the latter. This has become particularly noticeable in recent blockbusters, where enormous CGI-heavy sequences can expose rushed production schedules and overloaded visual-effects teams. From superhero disasters to ambitious science fiction, these recent movies show that throwing more money at a screen doesn’t…

The world of comics is lousy with Superman homages. Marvel has Hyperion, Sentry, Blue Marvel, and Guardian. Homelander and Omni-Man show the dangers of being Superman. Anime fans have All Might in My Hero Academia. Heck, DC itself has Mon-El, Icon, and Apollo (no, Captain Marvel doesn’t count). While all these versions have their positive attributes, no homage quite captures the beauty and optimism of the original article. None, except the Samaritan, the star of the 1995 story “In Dreams.” Most of “In Dreams” follows a day in the life of the Samaritan, a day he divides into half-seconds as…

Some actors seem to arrive on screen fully formed, with the face, style, and presence audiences eventually learn to recognize. Their first major roles can tell a very different story. Early performances often came with unusual haircuts, different physiques, younger faces, or character styling that made the person behind the performance surprisingly hard to spot. In some cases, the transformation was simply the result of time, while others were shaped by costumes, makeup, or a role that demanded a completely different image. These early appearances can feel like forgotten snapshots of stars before their familiar screen identities settled into place.…

We tend to think inventions begin with someone identifying a problem and then creating exactly the thing needed to solve it. History is considerably messier than that. Some of the products we use every day started life with a completely different job, while others emerged from experiments that technically failed at what they were supposed to accomplish. A children’s toy once cleaned dirty wallpaper, packaging material began as an attempt at home decor, and one of the world’s most recognizable household sprays started out in the aerospace industry. Sometimes inventors spotted a better use for something they’d already made. Other…

When people say that reality beats fiction, it does not only mean that it can be more cruel or fantastical. They can also mean it can be more outlandish, to the point that historical things happening in fiction can be seen as poor writing. Or at least, too hard to believe. But these things really did happen, at least according to historical accounts. These aren’t urban legends or exaggerated internet trivia, either. They’re documented events that actually happened, even when the circumstances sound completely ridiculous. From bizarre disasters to astonishing political episodes, these are the moments when history briefly became…

Ridley Scott’s new film, The Dog Stars, is set for its theatrical release this week, and its director still seems to be as fired up about the state of storytelling as he was when he claimed that most of the filmmaking world’s output these days is “shit,” suggesting that Hollywood seems fixated on telling the same three stories these days. “Look, everything now is about a murdered girl in the woods, or an FBI agent who is better than anyone else – or a superhero,” he told The Times. “Fuck me! There have to be other stories to tell.” Though…

This article contains spoilers for Lanterns season 1 episode 2. We still aren’t getting many scenes of Hal Jordan and John Stewart in green tights, but the second episode of Lanterns has a lot of comic book weirdness. Not only do the Manhunters get a mention and John makes a construct, but we also see a lantern tucked away in a pocket dimension. Hal and his fellow GLs have been keeping their lanterns in pocket dimensions since John Broome and Gil Kane have been telling their stories in the early Silver Age. But the most exciting reference might be the…

This article contains spoilers for Lanterns season 1 episode 2. We’re only two episodes in, and Lanterns has already had a lot more comic book weirdness than some detractors had guessed from the trailers. But when John Stewart asks Hal Jordan about Manhunters, Lanterns gets really weird. Most fans of Green Lantern comics know Manhunters as the killer androids created by the Guardians of the Universe before the Green Lantern Corps, unfeeling and brutal enforcers of justice who have become one of the Lanterns’ most bitter enemies. But behind the scenes, the Manhunters are some of the most convoluted characters…

This article contains spoilers for Lanterns season 1 episode 2. At the start of Green Lantern #192 (1985), by Steve Englehart and Joe Staton, the supervillain Star Sapphire carries Hal Jordan into the air and drops him. Despite the fact that Hal no longer wears a power ring, having rescinded his membership in the Green Lantern Corps months earlier, he remains unafraid. He looks around as he plummets, searching for a way to continue his mission, despite the fact that he no longer has superpowers. Nothing from that issue appears in the second episode of Lanterns, “Trust Fall,” but it’s…

The past week has turned into full-blown chaos for Rockstar Games, as a wave of leaked Grand Theft Auto VI footage has spiraled into a legal fight over the identity of the person, or people, behind them.  The ordeal started roughly around August 18, when gameplay clips began circulating online under the alias “Cyberleek.” The material, ranging from short clips to map details, spread first through underground forums before jumping to mainstream platforms like Twitter/X and Reddit.  The leaker also launched a website featuring a manifesto, dubbed “The CYBERLEEK Edict,” that criticized monetization practices in the gaming industry and Rockstar…

The hunt is back on. Netflix’s Blue Eye Samurai is officially gearing up for another round of blood-soaked justice, and fans finally have a date to mark on their calendars.  The streamer announced that season 2 will premiere sometime during January 2027 at Anime NYC, ending a wait that has stretched on since the series first debuted in late 2023. Alongside the announcement, Netflix also released a teaser trailer that offered a first look at what’s ahead for Mizu’s bloody quest for revenge.  Blue Eye Samurai became one of Netflix’s most acclaimed animated series almost immediately after release, holding a…

At first glance, the new movie Colony seems to cover a lot of the same ground that South Korean director Yeon Sang-ho explored in his 2016 breakout Train to Busan. In Colony, people transform into rabid killers and invade a public space, this time a shopping mall instead of a commuter train. But where the monsters of Train to Busan remained mindless beasts, Colony features creatures who evolve and learn to communicate and become a single community. And that’s truly scary to Director Yeon. “For me, zombies illustrate the peril of collectivity,” Director Yeon tells Den of Geek. “They can…

Two creative forces from two very different disciplines — one a blockbuster filmmaker with a penchant for spectacle and humanity, the other a nature documentarian with decades of field experience — have formed an unlikely partnership for a new project about the world of nature. Jon Favreau, director of Iron Man and the live-action remake of The Lion King, first formed a creative bond with Mike Gunton, the legendary producer behind Planet Earth II, while both executive produced the Apple TV dinosaur series Prehistoric Planet.  Now Favreau and Gunton have come together again for Lion, a new National Geographic documentary…

This article contains spoilers for Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Jane Schoenbrun‘s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a distinctive film, a mix of surreal postmodernism, gender critique, and surprising humor. It’s also a celebration of ’80s slashers, filled with references to movies that most people dismiss as tasteless trash, even if icons like Jason and Freddy remain in the popular culture. The specificity in those references reveals Schoenbrun’s deep love for subgenre, as does the movie itself. Among the many other things it does spectacularly well, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma also argues…

“What kind of edgerunner are you?” That’s a question asked…nay, screamed midway through a brand new first look at the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season 2 (styled Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2), the next standalone installment set in Netflix’s anime adaptation of the Cyberpunk 2077 universe. It’s a good question too, as fans of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (which includes notable names such as Cyberpunk tabletop RPG creator Mike Pondsmith and acclaimed video game industry visionary Hideo Kojima) have also wondered what kind of edgerunner they’re going to get to see next. The first season of the Netflix series provided an open-and-shut case, which means the…

This article contains full spoilers for Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Trailers for Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma made clear that the film would celebrate ’80s slashers. What’s more surprising is the fact that Jane Schoenbrun‘s latest is also about junk food. Not only do up-and-coming director Kris Williams (Hannah Einbinder) and reclusive actor Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson) eat a lot of candy throughout the movie, but a stand-out scene involves the latter seductively placing pieces of KFC on a silver platter to serve to the former. While preparing the meal, Billy half-apologizes for serving take-out,…