“Rey Skywalker.” With those two words, the final words spoken in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, many fans threw up their hands in disgust. Honestly, no part of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker worked beyond clunky fan service that, ironically, only further alienated viewers. But even by those standards, Rey’s nonsense turn to adopt the Skywalker name made the universe feel smaller, reducing a vast a galaxy into just supporting players in the lives of two bloodlines and family dynasties. Given the sour taste that Rise of Skywalker left in the fandom’s mouths, news of a new film by…

Legendary actor Gene Hackman has passed away at the age of 95. While the circumstances of his death are still being investigated (he, his wife, Betsy Arakawa, and their dog were found dead in their New Mexico home), those details can only help us understand this loss rather than truly process it. The great Gene Hackman is gone. Of course, it’s been quite a while since we’ve seen Gene Hackman grace a screen of any size. Aside from some interviews and public appearances (and an accidental cameo on an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives), Hackman’s last movie was the…

It was a career highlight that “blew people away,” wrote Today. Her big moment “jolted awake” and stunned audiences, enthused the LA Times. And it was an “emotional career revelation,” as per The Independent. Such were the heaps of praise showered onto Demi Moore—albeit not for her genuinely amazing career highlight in Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. The performance itself was indeed a stunning tour de force where Moore personified the pressures felt by millions of women, be they entertainment legends or otherwise. In the film, Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle is a former Oscar winner and movie star reduced to destroying her…

For better or for worse, Kathleen Kennedy is often the one ultimately held responsible for the highs and lows of this era of Star Wars. The sequel trilogy she shepherded introduced a new generation to a galaxy far, far away while still giving longtime fans a (mostly) fulfilling end to this saga. And yet in the nearly six years since that saga ended with Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, Lucasfilm has struggled to figure out its next chapter on the big screen. With Kathleen Kennedy’s rumored exit from Lucasfilm, it doesn’t seem likely that these struggles will…

For decades some critics have argued the Oscars award the most acting, not the best acting. The claim is demonstrable, too, as seen by Joaquin Phoenix‘s subtle work in The Master or You Were Never Really Here going looked over, but his big showy take in Joker gaining recognition. See, yet again, Jessica Chastain’s win for an over-the-top turn in The Eyes of Tammy Faye after putting in incredible work in The Tree of Life and Take Shelter. And, to be fair, at one point in Sing Sing, Colman Domingo does give what you might expect from a typically Oscar-nomianted…

Have the bad guys finally won? After decades of taking down megalomaniacs with designs on the world, James Bond appears to have been bested by a bald man with far too much power. No, not Blofeld. Jeff Bezos, whose company Amazon just secured all creative rights to the James Bond franchise. Okay, that might be a bit hyperbolic, but Amazon’s takeover does feel like the final battle lost on the pop culture landscape. Imperfect as it has been, the James Bond franchise was among the last to be run by actual people who cared deeply about maintaining the series’ integrity…

LEGO Batman has been going strong for nearly two decades. During the first run of the theme from 2006-2008 and its rebirth in 2012, the Caped Crusader has been a consistent cash cow for the toy company. In fact, despite the rest of LEGO‘s DC exports, such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman, fading off into the ether in recent years, Batman has remained a strong player in the pantheon of licensed themes.  LEGO has continued to adapt many of the different iterations of Batman into sets throughout the years. Just last year, the group dipped their toes into the…

This post contains spoilers for Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah. Paul Atreides wasn’t the only one sad to see Duncan Idaho die while battling Sardaukar troops in Dune. Audiences also mourned the loss of Idaho’s performer Jason Momoa, whose carefree attitude lightened the sometimes too-heavy mood. While everyone else is brooding about prophecies and land rights, Duncan Idaho is making fun of Paul’s skinny little arms. So those same fans are probably thrilled to hear a report from insider Jeff Sneider, who indicated that Momoa has joined the cast of Dune 3, which director Denis Villeneuve hopes to start filming this…

A set 65 million years in the making. Dinosaur and LEGO fans alike can rejoice because the biggest Jurassic Park LEGO set of all time has just leaked. Allegedly just 25 more pieces than the 2019 set 75936: T. rex Rampage, the 76968: Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus is rumored to be the new set joining the theme this year. You can view the leaked images from Instagram below:  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Claudio Tavella (@itavix_bricks) 76968: Dinosaur Fossils: Tyrannosaurus  Release date: March 1, 2025 Price: $249.99 This massive brick-built rendition of the T. rex skeleton is…

Stephen King’s 1980 short story “The Monkey” (which can be found these days in his outstanding 1985 collection, Skeleton Crew) tells the story of Hal Shelburn, a man who is obsessed with an old toy from his childhood, a wind-up monkey that seems to cause death whenever it claps its cymbals. The tale is in many ways vintage King, with incidents and/or cursed objects from someone’s past re-emerging into the present to haunt that person once again. The Monkey, writer-director Osgood Perkins’ adaptation of King’s story, makes a number of structural, character, and narrative changes to the tale while keeping…

A decade isn’t really such a long time ago, but it feels like ages ago if you’re a Star Wars fan who’s lived through the many highs and lows of the franchise since Disney acquired the rights to George Lucas‘ empire. That must go double for Daisy Ridley, who in that span of time has not only starred in a trilogy of Skywalker films—while experiencing all the good and the bad that comes with landing a role of that cultural magnitude—but also several more intimate indies, including the well-regarded Magpie and Sometimes I Think About Dying. Now she’s also a…

Osgood Perkins is having fun these days. And you know what? He’s earned it. One of the more interesting horror directors to emerge in the last decade, Perkins finally had his mainstream breakthrough last year by writing and helming the surprise indie curio of the summer: Longlegs, an achingly bleak movie about the things the Devil, and your parents, make you do. With his follow-up, a liberal adaptation of a Stephen King short story about cursed toys and even more accursed childhoods, he’s pretty much tackling the same subject matter again, but he does so with a reckless mean streak…

“The coldest blood runs through my veins, you know my name,” croons Chris Cornell at the start of Casino Royale, the film that rebooted the James Bond franchise with a new approach and a new face as 007. Yet, as many times as the guy playing James Bond changed, fans could count on one constant name: Broccoli. But that’s about to change. Amazon Studios has announced a “joint venture” with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the current heads of Eon Productions, to “house the James Bond intellectual property rights.” Although the announcement makes clear that Broccoli and Wilson “will…

It has been nearly a decade since Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens debuted in theaters. The film was a once-in-a-generation event, as the final domestic box office gross is still the highest in cinematic history (unadjusted for inflation). Suffice it to say, the flick was an honest-to-goodness pop culture phenomenon, and with it, came all of the collectible merch. In fact, fans got their hands on The Force Awakens merchandise a few months ahead of schedule, with their release commemorated by Disney’s first “Force Friday” in early September 2015.  While every subsequent Disney Star Wars theatrical effort…

In the final moments of Dune: Part Two, Chani storms out of Paul’s court and back into the desert. Disgusted by the megalomania she sees in the man she once loved, Chani readies her hooks for the oncoming worm, which she’ll ride away from here. For a while, it looked like director Denis Villeneuve would do the same. After mounting the massive productions that were Dune and Dune: Part Two, Villeneuve had hinted that he might want to leave Arrakis for a bit and pursue another project. However, the Canadian filmmaker more recently changed his position, and revealed that he…

Genre filmmaker Osgood Perkins is on a roll after the moderate success of 2020’s fairy tale terror Gretel & Hansel, as well as the summer phenomenon that was 2024’s supernatural serial killer thriller, Longlegs. Now this week sees him tackling a story by the king of horror himself, Stephen King, with the comedic splatter film The Monkey. It’s looking to be another ace in the hole for the rising director too.  The Monkey was partly shepherded by Conjuring Universe impresario James Wan as a producer through his Atomic Monster banner. Wan is one of those guys like Jordan Peele, John…

“Tell me, O Muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he made movies about Batman and Oppie.” That’s been the cry of every movie fan since Christopher Nolan announced that his next movie would be an adaptation of epic Homeric poem The Odyssey. Surprisingly, we don’t have to rely on secrets of the Muses to learn about one aspect of Nolan’s approach. The first image of star Matt Damon as hero Odysseus has hit the internet, giving us our first indication of Nolan’s thought process. And must of us are reacting by nodding and saying, “Yep,…

Daisy Ridley has never loved heights. That might be surprising for some who naively believe a Jedi cannot experience fear. But more realistically, it’s simply impressive since her new action-movie, director Martin Campbell’s Cleaner, stars Ridley as a window-cleaner… who must dangle precariously off the side of a building for much of the film’s taut 96-minute running time after terrorists commandeer the building she’s working in. “It came to it,” Ridley says of the day she was first harnessed mid-air, “and I thought ‘I really don’t like this.’ Of course I knew I wouldn’t really be dangling on the side…

Osgood Perkins is taking a big step into King country this week as he turns Stephen King‘s 30-page, 1980 short story “The Monkey” into one hell of a bloody fun ride. The film, like the original story, focuses on twin brothers named Hal and Bill (Christian Convery as children) who discover an old drumming monkey toy among the detritus left by their deadbeat dad. Here’s the problem: Every time the monkey is wound and bangs his little drum, someone dies… horribly and ironically. The curse of this monkey follows the boys into adulthood where they are now played by Theo…

“It’s based on a Saturday Night Live sketch.” As hard as it might be to believe, there was a time about three or four decades ago when that was an intriguing proposition. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd proved their movie star bonafides by being on a mission from God, and Mike Myers reminded millions of Americans they’ve been sleeping on Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” for years. There’s a reason they kept making SNL movies: the show’s best sketches are funny, so why not a film about those same characters? These days, the answer is obvious. Sometimes what works as a punchline…