After a long wait, the U.S.S. Enterprise has received a response from the planet Eminiar VII. They had hoped to contact the planet and establish diplomatic relations with the inhabitants in the star cluster. But the message they receive in return is simple: stay away. When Kirk gets that reply, he intends to respects their wishes. But no sooner does he order the Enterprise to change course than a man arrives on the bridge and overrides Kirk. This moment must have shocked the first viewers of “A Taste of Armageddon” from the first season of The Original Series of Star…

This article appears in the SXSW 2024 issue of Den of Geek magazine. Check out all of our SXSW coverage here. There are meet cutes, and there are meet cutes. And then there is the ballad of Solène Marchand and Hayes Campbell: the fortysomething single mother chaperoning her daughter at this year’s Coachella and the boy band superstar who’s headlining the show. Such are the twists and quirks of the heart, as well as The Idea of You, a beloved romance novel by Robinne Lee turned one of the buzziest new comedies at this year’s fest. Arriving with no less than Anne Hathaway…

There is something innate in the American character which inspires and deludes us of our place in history, past and present. Call it a devotion to American exceptionalism, cynicism, or opportunism, but even Senator Josh Hawley—the Missouri politician who spent months fermenting discontent and conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, and who on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021 raised his fist in solidarity with a crowd of insurrectionists—seemed bewildered when the mob he played to actually stormed the barricades. There is footage of him fleeing for his life while Capitol Police officers like Brian Sicknick died defending the…

As Christopher Nolan basks in the afterglow of Oppenheimer’s dominant performance at the 96th annual Academy Awards – including a best picture win for the film and a long-overdue best director nod for Nolan himself – speculation is growing about what the British filmmaker will tackle next for his 13th feature. Nolan is typically reticent to speak about future projects; with the director working on a more or less three-year cycle for his last several films, he might not even officially say anything about his new movie until later in 2024 or early in 2025. But according to rumors that…

Shaun and his best mate Ed are in trouble. They’ve discovered two zombies in their garden, and the lumbering flesh-eaters show no signs of stopping. However, Shaun and Ed have found one way of slowing the approach: throwing records. And so, as the two zombies grow closer, Ed and Shaun rustle through the latter’s collection. “Sign o’ the Times … Purple Rain,” Ed suggests as projectiles, only to have Shaun tell him no. That is until Ed reaches a low point in Prince’s discography, the Batman soundtrack. “Throw it,” Shaun commands, striking a blow against the living dead. The above…

In the new horror movie Immaculate, Sydney Sweeney plays a devout nun named Cecilia, who, after learning that she is somehow with child, is pursued by both the manipulative clergy inside her convent in Italy and servants of darkness. But before she became the young blonde prey in this “nunsploitation” flick, Sweeney was the one doing the chasing. Sweeney first heard of Immaculate many years ago, when she was just 16 years old. “I auditioned for it, was obsessed with it, and didn’t get it,” she tells Den of Geek while promoting the film at SXSW 2024. “And then I…

Everything about the first trailer for the reboot of The Crow looks familiar. Sure, some of that is to be expected, as the 2024 movie retells the story from the 1994 cut classic. And yes, The Crow 2024 does make some obvious choices, casting Bill Skarsgård as a weird tall skinny guy and Danny Huston as a bad guy. But besides the paint-by-numbers approach that director Rupert Sanders seems to be taking with the property, the really familiar part is The Crow‘s approach to comic book adaptations. Those young enough to have listened to the soundtrack to The Crow back…

“I wanted to experiment: can I develop a family which was not unlike my own upbringing?” says Nicolas Cage, while talking to Den of Geek about his new movie Arcadian, which premiered at SXSW 2024. “My dad did most of the heavy lifting, he did the raising because my mom sadly couldn’t be around. So it was just my father, and in this case, myself and my older brother. I saw that family dynamic in the [Elia] Kazan picture, East of Eden.” From that description, you might imagine Arcadian to be an austere drama, something that takes place in a…

Ryan Gosling is probably one of the best physical comedians of his generation. Writing these words a handful of days after the Oscars where, even though he didn’t take home a prize, Gosling won the night by belting “I’m Just Ken” in Margot Robbie’s ear, is to state the obvious. But it wasn’t that long ago when the actor was mostly renowned for playing remote and aloof characters. Think First Man’s Neil Armstrong, Blade Runner 2049’s K, and Drive’s, um, Driver. It’s thus satisfying to see audiences finally come around to recognizing the star’s stealthily hilarious comic timing. (Alas, the…

Doctor Octopus! Green Goblin! Mysterio! Spider-Man has a baddie line-up to rival that of any other superhero. Even better, the best of the worst regularly get together to form a supervillain team, the Sinister Six. Why the very idea is enough to send any superhero fan’s heart aflutter. And make a Sony executive’s bank account howl in hunger. That’s undoubtedly why Sony has tried so hard to make a Sinister Six movie happen, first in The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel, and then in its Spidey-less Spider-Verse with Venom, Morbius, and Madame Web. But before both of these disastrous failures,…

It is not original to observe that despite being about salvation, much of traditional Roman Catholicism seems rooted in pain and agony. Like many children before me, I recall vividly the first shudder that accompanied seeing an idol of Christ graphically bleeding on the cross; and when fundamentalist filmmaker Mel Gibson made his movie about Jesus, it was entirely fixated on the passion (read: torture) this messiah endured. The actual resurrection and salvation, meanwhile, was not even deigned a footnote. Folks should believe what they want to believe—and there are many beliefs, indeed, in a religion with 1.4 billion souls…

The highly-anticipated sequel to Matt Reeves’ The Batman has been pushed back from its original Oct. 3, 2025 release date on the Warner Bros. slate. The movie will now release Oct. 2, 2026. That means there will now be an over four-year gap between the first film, which saw Robert Pattinson don the cape and cowl, and Part II. This will of course come as disappointing news for DC fans who have been awaiting the second installment in what’s meant to be a whole trilogy of Batman movies from Reeves and Pattinson. But it isn’t all bad news for Batfans,…

Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour has taken the world by storm for the past year, and doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. For fans who haven’t been able to score tickets to the live shows, or simply for those who wish to relive the experience at their leisure, the show has also received theatrical release, for purchase digitally and soon will be available to stream on Disney+. But each version of The Eras Tour concert movie has its differences, with the Disney+ edition touting itself as being “the concert film in its entirety for the first time,” according to…

There is a scene late in Dev Patel’s directorial debut, the ferocious and ferociously entertaining Monkey Man, where the filmmaker, star, and co-writer rips a guy’s throat out. In the realm of action cinema, that is of course nothing new. However, the way it occurs here is. When Patel’s Kid finds his hands otherwise occupied, the feral protagonist improvises by catching a switchblade between his teeth and slowly unfurling its knife. He then drags its nasty end from ear to ear across the neck of a man he is wrapped around. The moment is intimate, drawn out, and very, very…

What the heck is Sasquatch Sunset? Sure, we watched the trailer released earlier this year, but that didn’t help much. Outside of brief introductory text and quotes from critics, the wordless trailer introduces us to a group of Bigfoots in their natural wooded habitat. We watch them frolic in the woods, pound sticks on trees, and, yes, screw. Although Sasquatches have appeared in film before, they usually have a clear and definable purpose. They’re monsters in movies such as Willow Creek or slightly bigger pets in comedies like Harry and the Hendersons. But Sasquatch Sunset doesn’t seem to fit into…

The term “scream queen” gets thrown around a lot, even applied to actors who have only done a handful of horror films. But if any young performer deserves the title, it’s Samara Weaving. Not only does she star in the very gruesome post-apocalyptic horror-action movie Azrael, directed by E.L. Katz (Cheap Thrills) and written by Simon Barrett (The Guest), which just premiered at SXSW 2024, but she’s been in The Babysitter, Scream VI, and Ready or Not, among others. In fact, when we ask Weaving at the festival whether she likes being referred to as a “scream queen,” she answers…

Even though Rachel Zegler has only been working in Hollywood since 2021, she’s already racked up quite the resume. From her first screen role as Maria in Steven Spielberg’s take on West Side Story to her recent turn as folk singer Lucy Gray Baird in the Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Zegler has more than proven her capabilities as an actor and singer. But even with her iteration of Snow White still yet to be released, the captivating performer already has her sights on another classic musical character. While promoting her new A24 disaster comedy, Y2K,…

AOL Instant Messenger. Nintendo 64. Sisqo’s “The Thong Song.” Nu Metal and all things Limp. If you understood any of the above words, chances are you remember the turn of the millennium with fondness, as well as a degree of cringe. But if you don’t know these ancient relics, you probably still recognize the youthful and eagerly game faces that director Kyle Mooney has cast in his directorial debut, Y2K. Either way, the former SNL alumni has bet heavily on cultivating retro good vibes for his house party of a horror-comedy, and after watching the film at its world premiere…

This article appears in the SXSW 2024 issue of Den of Geek magazine. Check out all of our SXSW coverage here. Grand Theft Hamlet is about as absurd a mash-up as its title would have you believe. It’s a documentary about Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, two actors left jobless at the height of the pandemic who decide to put on a live-streamed production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto Online.  Partway through the film, which was shot entirely in-game, as Sam is rehearsing the play’s famous “To be or not to be” speech on the beaches of Los Santos, a…

Pageantry. Screw ups. Touching tributes. Private beefs made public. There are plenty of reasons to watch the Oscars. But they all amount to partaking in, witnessing, movie history in its many forms — the high art, the gossip, the record-breaking moments when an arthouse director becomes a household name.  However, there are a lot of ways to set a record. There are big moments like Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King tying the record with 11 trophies or Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite becoming the first film not in English (or silent) to win Best Picture. And then, beyond…