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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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15 Sep

Will Nightbooks 2 Happen?

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You’ve just watched Nightbooks with your family, and depending on how your kids reacted to this frightening children’s horror movie, you’ve either been left wanting more or are wondering if you’ve traumatized your little ones for good. Indeed, the latest Netflix chiller from director David Yarovesky (Brightburn), based on the children’s book by J.A. White, is genuinely scary in a way that might take you back to your days of watching Are You Afraid of the Dark? or Goosebumps as a kid. While the movie is ostensibly about two kids stuck in a fairy tale being spun by a cruel…
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15 Sep

As Spider-Man Rumors Persist, Andrew Garfield Reveals a Downside to its Fame

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Andrew Garfield’s personal life can currently be described as events that occur when he’s not publicly denying rumors of involvement with Spider-Man: No Way Home. The actor, who broke big from relative obscurity with his two-film run in director Marc Webb’s abruptly-ended duo of The Amazing Spider-Man films, has been bombarded by questions—in some cases accusations—that he, along with preceding portrayer Tobey Maguire, will appear in Marvel’s multiverse-threaded threequel alongside current star Tom Holland. While he is undaunted in his denials, the actor is also reflecting on the path that playing Spidey has set for him. Garfield’s Spider-Man turn will…
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15 Sep

Will Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story Reignite Love for Movie Musicals?

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The musical genre has made a remarkable recovery in the 21st century. Once relegated to one of the “relics” of pop cultures past, and often put in the same neglected box as Westerns and biblical epics, genuine toe-tappers that were both original and based on Broadway shows surged to new popularity in the 2000s and 2010s. This began with the one-two punch of Baz Luhrmann’s decadent Moulin Rouge! (2001) and Rob Marshall’s more traditional Oscar winner Chicago (2002). Yet fans of the revived art-form should be watching how Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story is received this December very carefully. Judging…
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15 Sep

Blue Bayou

Max SchindlerMovie reviews
Antonio LeBlanc (Justin Chon), a Korean adoptee raised in a small town in the Louisiana bayou, is married to the love of his life Kathy (Alicia Vikander) and step-dad to their beloved daughter Jessie. Struggling to make a better life for his family, he must confront the ghosts of his past when he discovers that he could be deported from the only country he has ever called home.Rated: RRelease Date: Sep 17, 2021
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15 Sep

How the Live-Action Cowboy Bebop Will Stay Faithful to the Anime

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Ask anybody about their favorite anime and if Cowboy Bebop—a sci-fi Western about the misadventures of a gang of bounty hunters on a ship called the Bebop—isn’t at the top of their list, it probably won’t be too far down. Although the series aired its entire run of 26 episodes on Adult Swim way back in 2001, there’s never been anything else quite like it. With its dynamic animation, its mashup of genres, and its vibrant jazz soundtrack, it’s a singular artistic triumph. The text displayed during the show’s opening titles even asserts that it’s “a new genre itself.” Even…
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15 Sep

What If…? Episode 6 Review: Killmonger to the Rescue

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This review contains spoilers for Marvel’s What If…? episode 6. Episode 6 of Marvel’s What If…?, entitled “What If… Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?”, might be the flattest episode to come out of the series so far, but it at least works in the way the other Disney+ Marvel shows work. It takes a character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe who didn’t get quite enough time in the spotlight and gives us more. In this case, it’s the charismatic Black Panther villain Erik “Killmonger” Stevens. As he was only relevant to the Black Panther movie, we get to see the character…
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15 Sep

A Toy Store Near You Gets Ready for Season 4 at Amazon (Exclusive)

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So many toy stores, so many viewers. The Nacelle Company, which brought us Netflix’s The Movies That Made Us and The Toys That Made Us, is making more toy stories. The studio has given the green light to A Toy Store Near You season 4, which will continue its run on Amazon Prime Video. Directed by Nacelle Company CEO BrianVolk-Weiss, the series attracted an overwhelming surge of viewership through unexpected times. A Toy Store Near You focuses on the toy collector community, a small and tight knit group, which is apparently growing, partially because of the series. “People are literally…
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15 Sep

Link Tank: Colin Farrell’s The Penguin is Getting an HBO Max Spinoff Series

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Colin Farrell’s portrayal of The Penguin in Matt Reeves’ The Batman is getting his own spinoff show for HBO Max. “Though that film isn’t hitting theaters until next year, a crime procedural focused on Commissioner Gordon and the Gotham Police has already been announced for HBO Max. And now there’s a second spinoff in the mix: a Penguin-based spinoff, starring Colin Farrell, has been greenlit at HBO Max.” Read more at Inverse After a brief cameo in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Tim Roth is ready to make a splash once again in the MCU. “Tim Roth…
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15 Sep

How Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Can Become Canon Again

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After years of rumors, reports, and leaks, Lucasfilm Games finally has a new Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game in the pipeline. Mind you, it isn’t the threequel most players hoped for, but a remake of the original, spearheaded by Aspyr, the veteran studio that’s spent the last few years porting Star Wars classics to modern consoles, including next-gen and mobile versions of Knights of the Old Republic and its beloved sequel. But a remake of one of the best Star Wars games ever made is a different challenge altogether. Much will be said about what should and…
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15 Sep

Nightbooks: A Kids Movie That’s Too Scary?

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I’m not quite sure who Nightbooks is for. As marketed, the latest Netflix original film appears to be a fantasy-driven horror film for kids and tweens. But the movie itself, which deals with themes of child abuse and features some objectively terrifying monsters, may be too dark for that demographic. This can be an issue with book-to-film adaptations. What works for kids in a literary format can sometimes be too scary once brought to life on-screen. That being said, for adults and kids who have a high tolerance for horror, the Sam Raimi-produced Nightbooks is definitely worth a watch. A gorgeously…
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15 Sep

Star Trek: Ranking the Stories Set in the Present Day

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So the new Star Trek: Picard trailer has dropped and among the big plot twists it revealed are the fact that Picard & Co are going to be travelling back to Earth, circa 2022 AD. We’re looking forward to exciting scenes of people from the 24th century being unable to drive cars (despite the pretty lengthy car chase we saw in the last episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks), Q and Picard sparring again, and wondering how Guinan fits into all this. My personal theory is that after her adventures with Picard and Mark Twain in the 19th century, Guinan…
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15 Sep

Halloween Kills Will Be Bigger and Bloodier Than the Last Film

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In 2018 David Gordon Green made a bold choice. By taking on a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, Halloween, he retconned out every other film in the franchise. Carpenter himself was on board as executive producer and composer and amazingly both fans and critics loved it. Perhaps even more extraordinary, its arrival seems to mark a resurgence in slashers across the board, with this year’s Fear Street, Candyman (also a sequel to the original), and a Scream refresh on the horizon for 2022.  So now, with the second part of his Halloween trilogy on the way, any hint…
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15 Sep

Michelle Gomez: Meet Doom Patrol Season 3’s Madame Rouge

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Michelle Gomez is one of our generation’s best character actors. She’s been blessing genre fans with incredible performances like Missy in Doctor Who, Madame Satan in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and most recently as the dynamic and dangerous Miranda in The Flight Attendant. So the announcement that she’d be joining HBO Max’s groundbreaking superhero series Doom Patrol was a match made in heaven. Gomez will be playing Madame Rouge, a sometime ally, sometime antagonist of the motley crew. To celebrate her arrival, we spoke to Gomez about her new role, her penchant for playing complex women, and the grotesque hilarity…
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15 Sep

Bad Tales

Max SchindlerMovie reviews
Once upon a time, in a small family suburb on the outskirts of Rome, the cheerful heat of summer camouflages a stifling atmosphere of alienation. From a distance, the families seem normal, but it’s an illusion: in the houses, courtyards and gardens, silence shrouds the subtle sadism of the fathers, the passivity of the mothers and the guilty indifference of adults. But it’s the desperation and repressed rage of the children that will explode and cut through this grotesque facade, with devastating consequences for the entire community.Rated: Not RatedRelease Date: Jun 04, 2021
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15 Sep

Stargirl: Bringing the Evil of Eclipso to Life

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This article contains Stargirl spoilers. Stargirl Episode 6 Throughout Stargirl season 2, there’s been a looming puppet master in the darkness. Working through the mysterious Black Diamond wielded by Cindy Burman (Meg DeLacy), Eclipso has been helping the teen put together a new iteration of the Injustice Society of America. But in a shocking–or not so shocking–twist this week, Eclipso finally revealed his hand. The nefarious demonic creature had been playing Cindy all along. His aim was to use Stargirl’s staff to free himself, meaning he could live outside of possessing Cindy Burman. It was a grim surprise for the…
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