The First Omen is a direct prequel to The Omen that exists very deliberately within that world. There are visual nods to the first film as well as introductions to characters who we will see in more depth in the ‘76 Richard Donner original. It’s an Easter egg hunter’s heaven. But The First Omen is still very much its own film, and it’s very deliberately a female one. Following Margaret (Nell Tiger Free), who travels to Rome to take the veil and be initiated into the church, it’s a movie populated predominantly with women, from the Abbesses and Sisters of…

This article contains massive Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ending spoilers. Adam Wingard grew up on the Shōwa era of Godzilla movies. That would be the period of time when Toho Studios produced monster movies during the reign of Emperor Hirohito—so all the kaiju flicks released between 1954 and 1975. This included ones where Godzilla was a scary emblem of nuclear radiation, sure, but more often than not, the Big G spent these decades as a glorified superhero who hung out with pals like Mothra or Anguirus on Monster Island. “Those were the movies that were playing on daytime…

There will be many comparisons in the next day or three between Godzilla Minus One, Takashi Yamazaki’s shockingly beautiful and elegiac epic about a giant lizard triggering nationwide trauma for a country in ruins, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the newest monster smash up between the Big G and the Ape from Skull Island. But right at the top, every reader should recognize this is a fruitless exercise; a contrast as meaningful as pondering the differences between a genuine Oscar winner and a Saturday morning cartoon. For make no mistake, Godzilla x Kong is a cartoon. I’m told…

The Enterprise-C has returned! Again! According to a Variety report about the future of the Star Trek franchise, the upcoming Section 31 movie will feature Kacey Rohl as a “young” Rachel Garrett, presumably before she became the captain of the Enterprise-C. It’s a surprising but exciting turn of events, to be sure, since Garrett has only appeared in a single episode of Star Trek, leaving much of her history yet to be explored. In fact, digging into more of Garrett’s story would be a way to unlock a piece of Star Trek captain lore that’s long been missing despite the…

Forty years later, it’s safe to say Sony and one of its most beloved film titles still ain’t ‘fraid of no ghost. They also apparently need not fear curmudgeonly film reviews either based on the solid performance of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire over last weekend’s box office. Despite receiving a tepid Rotten Tomatoes aggregate score of 44 percent, the fourth or fifth film in the franchise—depending how you count Paul Feig’s 2016 remake of the same name—opened above expectations with an estimated $45 million in three days. That is nearly identical to 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which opened at $44 million, and…

“Jar Jar Binks makes the Ewoks look like fucking Shaft.” – Tim Bisley, Spaced, “Change” (2001). Reviews for The Phantom Menace were, it’s fair to say, mixed. Looking back on it, that’s understandable. It’s a mixed film. After a lot of excitement and hype for the return of the game-changing franchise, some anti-climax was inevitable. 133 minutes and countless midi-chlorians later, a sense of disappointment gave way to rage for some (which, given Anakin Skywalker’s whole thing, is bleakly fitting).  Attack of the Clones had an improved, if not stellar, critical reception and Revenge of the Sith continued this trend…

Each new episode of Shōgun raises the stakes, deepens the political intrigue, and brings us closer to the brink of war. It’s a description that, years ago, would have applied to Game of Thrones, a show to which Shōgun has been compared ad nauseam. It’s not an inappropriate comparison. Both tout sprawling casts, sweeping locations, political intrigue, backstabbing, and characters residing in moral gray areas, ready to surprise and disappoint. Though, it may be more apt to compare the show to Japan’s Chanbara or samurai films. Given Shōgun’s intensity and cliffhangers, waiting a week between episodes is excruciating. Digging back into…

This article contains some Ghostbusters: forzen empire spoilers. You know about Zuul. You know about Gozer. You know about Vigo the Carpathian. You might even know about Dr. Rowan North. But for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, director Gil Kenan needed to pit the next generation of Ghostbusters against an all-new spook we’ve never seen before. “You don’t get many opportunities in this world to create a Ghostbusters villain. And I took on that role with relish,” Kenan tells Den of Geek. That enthusiasm resulted in Garraka, a horned creature who can not only cover the world in ice but also controls…

June 1982 saw the release of not one, but two movies about aliens bonding with humans. Both of them are remembered today as early masterpieces that confirm their directors’ skill and vision. One, of course, is Steven Spielberg‘s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which released on June 11, 1982. Two weeks later came The Thing, directed by John Carpenter. But in 1982, only E.T. earned praise. “In fact the film was an enormous failure,” Carpenter recently told The Guardian in his typically blunt manner in a feature that published Tuesday morning. But then that’s about as nostalgic as Carpenter often sounds, even…

Beau should not sleep. Earlier in the day, when he tried to leave his apartment to see his mother, Beau left his door open with the keys still in the lock. When he returned to the door after turning back to retrieve a forgotten item, his keys were gone. Worse, when Beau asks a man in the hallway about the missing keys, the passerby shouts, “You’re fucked, pal!” Yes, the above scene does occur in Beau is Afraid, last year’s weirdo epic starring Joaquin Phoenix as the titular disturbed man. But before he made Beau is Afraid as his third…

“There will always be war,” intones an authoritative voice at the end of the second trailer for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. “But to get home, Furiosa fought the world.” A narrator isn’t exactly something new to the world of Mad Max, as the 1981 sequel Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior opens and closes with voiceover, as does 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road. But in those cases, the narration served a basic expositional purpose, providing basic information for those who have not seen the previous films — something particularly important for The Road Warrior, as few Americans had the…

“When I was a kid, there was a gangster, real old school type,” recalls Oswald Cobblepot at the start of the trailer for The Penguin. Anyone who has seen a gangster flick before recognizes that kind of talk. Henry Hill, Tony Soprano, Michael Corleone — wiseguys love to wax poetic about the past. It’s no secret that the classic Batman villain was a highlight of 2021’s The Batman, with director Matt Reeves taking a more grounded approach to the bird-themed character that removed the bright colors and gimmicks. The Penguin’s storyline in the movie focused on his rise through the…

One day in 1979, the phone rang at producer Bob Weiss’ house. “Be on your property tonight,” said the voice on the other line. According to the book Wild and Crazy Guys: The Comedy Mavericks of the ’80s Changed Hollywood Forever by Nick de Semlyen, later that evening, an object came flying over the fence and onto Weiss’ backyard. It was the script for a Blues Brothers movie that Wiess commissioned from Dan Aykroyd, who created the musical comedy act with John Belushi for Saturday Night Live. If the way that Aykroyd delivered the manuscript was odd, the contents inside…

The second act of the 2024 remake of Road House climaxes with a nasty knockdown fight between UFC fighter turned bouncer Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Knox (UFC fighter turned actor Conor McGregor). Squishy sounds of smacked meat mix with a thumping rock song, like a second rhythm track every time the two ruffians punch each other. Early in the fight, the camera switches to first-person view as Knox batters his opponent before swinging around as Dalton takes his turn. It’s all bathed in yellow light, with the sickly glow cut only by neon beer signs hanging on the walls. In…

Alien is returning to the big screen, this time sans Ridley Scott in the director’s chair or Michael Fassbender’s android with a God complex. Shepherding the franchise forward into a new era is Fede Alvarez, the director behind the 2013 remake of Evil Dead and the 2016 slasher Don’t Breathe. As revealed in the first trailer for the film, Alien: Romulus looks like a return to the roots of the series: a space station and its crew, including star Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla), run afoul of a swarm of facehuggers and all hell breaks loose. The situation is very reminiscent of…

Things were going badly on Saturday Night Live‘s 1980-1981 season, even before producer Jean Doumanian realized than the January 10, 1981 episode was headed towards disaster. The previous season had seen the departure of Lorne Michaels and the entire cast, including founders Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, and Laraine Newman, as well as Bill Murray and Harry Shearer. Doumanian had tried to pitch her incoming group of comedians as the next generation for the hit series, but the performers quickly gained reputations as also-rans. Charlie Rocket was a less funny Chevy Chase, Gail Matthius an off-brand Jane Curtin, and…

Ghostbusters movies stretch credulity, but this is ridiculous. At the start of Ghostbusters II, Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) perform for bored kids at a birthday party. It’s only been five years since they blew up the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in downtown New York and destroyed Gozer’s portal atop a city high rise. And yet, no one remembers the work the boys did to save the city. In Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the Ghostbusters are completely unknown to Gen Z, even to the grandchildren of Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), even to a kid so into podcasts that he…

“How can a short, blond actor with the rough face of a professional boxer and a penchant for playing villains, killers, cranks, and cads pull off the role of a tall, dark, handsome, and suave secret agent?” So asks the front page of the website Daniel Craig is Not Bond, one of many fan-sites launched in the wake of the actor getting cast as James Bond for Casino Royale back in 2005. Nearly two decades later, the question seems laughable, as Craig elevated the franchise into something rich and emotionally dense, touching on qualities the series rarely attempted. The 20/20…

Every year, SXSW seems to grow in size and breadth. The opportunities to glimpse the future and connect with its architects in an intersection of disciplines—music, technology, television, and cinema included—can be overwhelming. And in 2024 alone, there were more than 115 films and 80 short features at the fest. It is impossible to see everything, yet our team of critics and journalists made a concerted effort to give it the old college try. Of the more than 40 projects we did glean between us, here were the ones that stood out most and we think should probably be on…

Inspector Dave Toschi needs a night off. After years of chasing the so-called Zodiac Killer, Toschi thought he had found his man, only for his captain to shoot him down, citing insufficient evidence to make an arrest. At the movie theater later on, the picture Toschi watches with his wife doesn’t make him feel any better. It’s Dirty Harry, the 1971 movie in which Clint Eastwood‘s Inspector Harry Callahan does battle with a killer called Scorpio. Frustrated by what he’s seeing, Toschi heads to the lobby for a smoke. As viewers shuffle out after him, one remarks, “Dave, that Harry…