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16 Sep

Unforgiven: Clint Eastwood’s True Last Western Remains One of the Greatest

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As he glancingly returns to the genre with his new film, Cry Macho, it’s worth taking a look at the last Western that Clint Eastwood made, 1992’s Unforgiven. While he’s circled back to certain themes and concepts endemic to the Western in films since then, Unforgiven was his last film specifically and explicitly set in the Old West and was — as he said at the time — his final word on the subject. Eastwood has pretty much stayed true to that, even as Unforgiven stands nearly 30 years later as a masterpiece in its own right and arguably one…
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16 Sep

Is Jeopardy! Finally Preparing Ken Jennings for the Hosting Job?

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What if the right Jeopardy! host was the obvious choice all along? Sony Pictures Television, the studio behind Jeopardy!, announced today that two guest hosts will see the beloved quiz show institution through to the end of the calendar year, following the ousting of the former executive producer and the show’s (poor) choice to replace Alex Trebek, Mike Richards. Former guest host Mayim Bialik, who has already secured a job hosting primetime Jeopardy! specials, will begin her next guest hosting stint on September 20 and end it the first week of November, for seven weeks total. Ken Jennings, the undisputed…
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16 Sep

Lady of the Manor

Max SchindlerMovie reviews
Stoner-slacker Hannah (Melanie Lynskey) is hired to portray Lady Wadsworth (Judy Greer), a Southern belle who died in 1875, in a tour at Wadsworth Manor. Hannah, a hot mess, figures she can fake it —until the ghost of Lady Wadsworth appears! Lady Wadsworth tells Hannah it’s time to change her wild ways — and she’ll haunt her until she does.Rated: RRelease Date: Sep 17, 2021
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16 Sep

Squid Game Doesn’t Waste Its Brutal Premise

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This Squid Game review is based on the first two episodes. It contains minor spoilers. Squid Game uses a premise we’ve all seen before: People are thrown into an artificial arena where they must fight for their lives. In Netflix‘s new series, the arena is a massive, secret compound; the competition is a series of children’s games; and the people are 456 contestants who desperately need the ₩45.6billion ($39 million) prize money more than they need the illusion of safety the outside world periodically provides. Some competitors, like central protagonist Ki-hoon (Lee Jung-jae), have fallen into debt, compounded by a…
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16 Sep

Link Tank: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Remake Cast Has Been Announced

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The cast of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air remake has been announced and it’s full of fine actors, but there’s no way they’ll live up to the original crew, right? “The remake, called Bel-Air, is going to be a serialized one-hour dramatic “analog” of the original. The new take is meant to lean into the darker side of the premise: Will moving from the dangerous streets of West Philadelphia (born and raised) to the rich world of Bel-Air.” Read more at The Mary Sue Marvel star Anthony Mackie is set to lead a Twisted Metal TV adaptation based on the…
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16 Sep

Riverdale Creates Its Own Church Because Why Not?

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This Riverdale review contains spoilers. Riverdale Season 5 Episode 16 “Being canonized has always been one of my life’s goals.” And so it came to pass that Cheryl Blossom turned water into maple syrup. Goddamn Riverdale is glorious trash. In what is either very subtle marketing for The Eyes of Tammy Faye or just the best direction this show has taken since everyone was hopped up on Jingle Jangle, the Blossom family’s “Church of Jason” antics came into sharp focus this week. Although relegated to a B or C plot, this plotline — which works equally well as a satire…
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16 Sep

The Secrets of Marvel’s Eternals

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This article contains Eternals spoilers. It’s not hard, when a Captain America or an Iron Man movie hits, for Marvel to have a comic on shelves that new fans can be pointed toward as an accessible way to get to know the characters. The same can’t be said for The Eternals. In a lot of ways, Jack Kirby’s most bizarre creations – god-like beings, created by the all-powerful Celestials to do battle with the deformed, wild Deviants – have endured despite their relative scarcity. The sum total of what can be reasonably called Eternals stories only runs to about 50…
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16 Sep

Star Trek Canon Wants Justice For Tasha Yar

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This Star Trek article contains minor spoilers for Lower Decks Season 2, Episode 6. Tasha Yar deserved better. When the oil slick creature known as Armus killed off Tasha in The Next Generation episode “Skin of Evil,” the fandom let out a collective groan. As its first season wrapped up, TNG was already down one fantastic character and the franchise wouldn’t get another female head-of-security on a regular basis until Nhan appeared in Star Trek: Discovery, 31 years later. But, like some kind of self-aware rogue A.I., the canon of Star Trek itself seems to want justice for Tasha Yar.…
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16 Sep

Copshop Sees Joe Carnahan Perfect His Quentin Tarantino Impression

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Joe Carnahan’s Tarantino impression, the same one he’s been tweaking since Narc and Smokin’ Aces, has never been closer to the genuine article as it is in his latest, Copshop. The gnarly throwback crime thriller has all the tenets of the most famous ‘70s-worshipping auteur; a grooving, percussive soundtrack, chatty lead characters, unhurried pacing, and trigger-happy scumbags who populate this pulpy, shoot ‘em up B-movie that will leave genre fans pleased as punch.  This deceptively knotty copsploitation flick finds scuzzy Vegas fixer Teddy Muretto (Frank Grillo) on the run after he flips on his high-profile clients. With professional hitman Bob…
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16 Sep

American Horror Story Double Feature Delves Into New Motherhood Nightmares In ‘Gaslight’

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This American Horror Story: Double Feature review contains spoilers. American Horror Story Season 10 Episode 5 As the story picks up steam, American Horror Story taps into some pretty classic horror tropes yet again to enrich its story. One of the things that initially caught my eye about the series when it first hit the airwaves ten years ago was the way in which the show was clearly written by horror fans and went out of its way to reward horror fans with little Easter eggs. Maybe it’s a shot from a classic movie. Maybe it’s a snippet of a…
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16 Sep

Archer Season 12: Casey Willis On Sterling And Cyril’s Emotional Breakthrough

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This article contains spoilers for Archer season 12 episode 5. Archer has a fascinating relationship with change. Major elements like the show’s genre have transformed, but a constant through the years are the characters and their relationships with one another. The series has made it clear that these character dynamics are quite toxic in many ways, some of which have left the characters looking for ways to grow. The most recent seasons have prioritized the cause and effect nature of Archer waking up from his coma and returning to work, which has left everyone feeling very raw and vulnerable, including…
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16 Sep

The Many Saints of Newark Will Not Be Just Like The Sopranos

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The Sopranos was the premier gangster series and it changed television. The HBO show drew from David Chase’s memories, expertise, and love of mob movies of the past. The Many Saints of Newark has all those things, but it won’t just be a big screen version of the influential small-screen hit. It will be a fully formed gangster movie. During an interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Jon Bernthal, who plays Tony’s father Giovanni “Johnny Boy” Soprano in The Many Saints of Newark, admitted he hasn’t yet seen the film, and couldn’t give too much away even if he…
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16 Sep

Nightbooks Ending Explained

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This Nightbooks article contains spoilers. Plenty of scares await Alex (Winslow Fegley) and Yazmin (Lidya Jewtt) when they become trapped in the haunted apartment of the evil witch Natacha (Krysten Ritter) in the Netflix horror movie Nightbooks. he only way they can hope to stay alive is to prove their usefulness to their captor — Yazmin as a house worker and Alex as a storyteller who must write a new scary story for Natacha every single night. At first, we think Alex’s assignment is just for the witch’s amusement. She’s spooky as hell, so why wouldn’t she like a good…
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15 Sep

Cry Macho

Max SchindlerMovie reviews
Mike Milo (Clint Eastwood) is a one-time rodeo star and washed-up horse breeder who, in 1979, takes a job from an ex-boss to bring the man’s young son home from Mexico. Forced to take the backroads on their way to Texas, the unlikely pair faces an unexpectedly challenging journey, during which the world-weary horseman finds unexpected connections and his own sense of redemption. Rated: PG-13Release Date: Sep 17, 2021
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15 Sep

Netflix Wants Its Own Korean Variety Show Hit

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It’s no secret that Netflix is going to continue to invest heavily in the Korean entertainment industry, with the hope of not only expanding its presence in the East Asian country, but also growing its reach in other countries where K-culture is a hot commodity (which, yes, includes the United States). One look no further than the teaser Netflix just dropped for its upcoming “Global Fan Event” TUDUM (a phonetic spelling of its distinctive intro sound that accompanies its logo), which mostly features stars from around the world awkwardly trying to figure out not only how to say “TUDUM.” In…
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15 Sep

Deathloop Proves Incredibly Flawed Games Can Still Be Masterpieces

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Deathloop‘s initial reviews have everyone buzzing about this timed PS5 exclusive from developer Arkane Studios (the team behind modern classics such as Dishonored 2 and Prey), but I’m a little worried that the positive buzz surrounding this game is going to give people the wrong impression about what kind of experience it actually is. When a game starts getting perfect scores, it’s tempting to start telling yourself it must be perfect. Well, no game is perfect, and Deathloop is one of the most imperfect major games I’ve played in quite some time. It’s loaded with obvious shortcomings that will surely…
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15 Sep

Cry Macho: Clint Eastwood Movie Not Quite Tough Enough

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Cry Macho is the 39th feature film directed by Clint Eastwood, coming almost exactly 50 years after he made his directorial debut in 1971 with Play Misty for Me. It’s also Eastwood’s first time onscreen since 2018’s The Mule, which he also directed; he did not appear in his last effort behind the camera, 2019’s Richard Jewell. We mention all this simply because those last two films were far superior to this one, so it’s difficult to say if Cry Macho represents a decline in the 91-year-old filmmaker’s abilities or is just a more casually produced effort than those last…
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15 Sep

Host Director’s Dashcam Takes Pandemic Horror to Scarier Place

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Creating an interesting protagonist in a horror movie is a difficult thing. Conventional wisdom suggests they should be blandly appealing, and thereby a surrogate for any viewer to insert themselves into the nightmare. More often than not though, they are treated as disposable. Interchangeable faces who eventually become pieces of meat, lambs to the slaughter. Whether by fluke or design, the “heroes” of entire popular movements in the genre—slasher flicks in the ‘80s, torture porn in the 2000s—eventually devolved into figures of ridicule: victims who the audience would root against, sometimes uncomfortably so. All of which is a long way…
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15 Sep

Twisted Metal: Who is Anthony Mackie’s John Doe?

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Deadline is reporting that Marvel star Anthony Mackie will join PlayStation Productions’ live-action Twisted Metal series in the role of John Doe. While we still, unfortunately, don’t know much about the series at this time, all current reports indicate that the John Doe character is expected to be one of the show’s leads. So who is John Doe? That’s a great question that John Doe himself would also like to answer. Sony officially describes John Doe as “a smart-ass milkman who talks as fast as he drives.” They also note that the character has “no memory of his past” and…
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