Posts

Pop Culture Imports: A Cult Japanese Reality Show Returns, A Samurai Bloodbath, And One Of The Best New Netflix Animes By Hoai-Tran Bui/March 23, 2018 7:00 am EST (Welcome to Pop Culture Imports, a column that compiles the best, wackiest, and weirdest foreign-language movies and TV shows streaming right now.) It’s nearly the end of March and spring is in full bloom. Or at least, it’s supposed to be. Four days into spring, and the northeast has already been ravaged by a massive snowstorm, cancelling flights and closing down governments....

Taika Waititi And Other Famous People Are Getting Together (Virtually) To Read ‘James And The Giant Peach’ By Chris Evangelista/May 18, 2020 12:30 pm EST Taika Waititi and some very famous friends are getting together (virtually, of course) to read Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach. The series hopes to provide “children and families the opportunity to come together and experience the story in new ways, in a time when COVID-19 has left children out of school and families around the world in isolation at home....

The Morning Watch: ‘Star Wars’ Skywalker Saga Trailer, ‘Last Christmas’ Cast Reviews Holiday Movies & More By Ethan Anderton/Nov. 13, 2019 5:00 am EST The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows. In this edition, watch a powerful Star Wars trailer for the entire saga using the music from the most recent The Rise of Skywalker trailer....

The Morning Watch: ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ In 5 Minutes, ‘The Simpsons’ Steamed Hams In LEGO & More By Ethan Anderton/June 19, 2020 5:00 am EST The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows....

By Ben Pearson/July 29, 2019 3:00 pm EST William Golding’s 1954 novel tells the story of a group of British boys who survive when a plane crashes on an uninhabited island, and it details the power structures that form when the boys try to form a society as they wait to be rescued. It’s a giant allegory about power and the horrors of war and the dangers of operating as a collective, and it’s been required reading in high school English classes for decades....

Tiffany Haddish Joins The Meta Movie In Which Nicolas Cage Plays A Fictionalized Nicolas Cage By Ben Pearson/Sept. 21, 2020 3:30 pm EST Can a single movie contain the unbridled energy of both comedian/movie star Tiffany Haddish and the frequently unhinged cinematic whirlwind that is Nicolas Cage? We’re about to find out, because Haddish has been cast in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, the upcoming meta action-comedy in which Cage plays a heightened version of himself who ends up being forced to channel his most famous characters in order to save the day....

VOTD: Look Back On The Legacy Of ‘Empire Strikes Back’ With ‘The Mandalorian’ Filmmakers & More By Ethan Anderton/Dec. 17, 2020 12:30 pm EST Lucasfilm is making one final push to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back with a series of videos looking back at the making of the Star Wars sequel that changed everything. Earlier this week, a batch of outtakes and unused footage from the film arrived online, and now a new featurette has the filmmakers from The Mandalorian and other upcoming Star Wars TV shows reminiscing about the legacy of the sequel, from favorite moments to the most influential scenes....

‘Bad Boys For Life’ Digital Release Coming This Month, Blu-Ray In April By Chris Evangelista/March 23, 2020 3:00 pm EST The surprisingly good (maybe even great?) Bad Boys For Life is about to come home. The sequel is due to hit digital at the end of March, almost a full month before its Blu-ray release. This somewhat early digital release is likely meant to coincide with several other big titles that have scored early releases in the wake of the coronavirus....

‘Beforeigners’ Trailer: What Happens When Vikings And Citizens From The Stone Age Suddenly Appear In Modern Day Society? By Ben Pearson/Feb. 20, 2020 2:00 pm EST If you find yourself getting bored by the TV shows you’re watching, here’s one with a fascinating twist that seems worth checking out. It’s called Beforeigners, and it’s a show that imagines a scenario in which people from the Viking era, the Stone Age, and the late 1800s suddenly flash into existence in modern day Norway with no explanation....

‘Daybreak’ Review: Netflix’s Post-Apocalyptic Show Is A Disappointing, Snarky And Unfaithful Take On The Graphic Novel By Vanessa Armstrong/Oct. 17, 2019 8:00 am EST Daybreak, Netflix’s foray into creating a snarky, post-apocalyptic high school dramedy, is ostensibly based on the eponymous graphic novel by Brian Ralph. The similarities between the show and the book, however, stop after the shared title, the post-apocalyptic setting, and certain characters breaking the fourth wall (for a couple episodes, at least)....

/Filmcast Ep. 544 - Jojo Rabbit By Slashfilmcast/Nov. 27, 2019 8:47 pm EST Happy Thanksgiving from Slashfilmcast! David and Devindra review Jojo Rabbit, the latest film by Taika Waititi. Find out whether the mix of humor and drama work well together in this WWII satire. Stay for the after dark as the duo cartalk about Ford, Ferrari, and Tesla. Read about how James Mangold captured 100mph in Ford v Ferrari here....

‘Freaks’ Directors Zach Lipovksy And Adam B. Stein On How They Made The Wildest Indie Superhero Movie Ever [Interview] By Jacob Hall/Sept. 12, 2019 8:00 am EST I spoke to Lipovsky and Stein over the phone and learned about the origins of Freaks, the importance of making a film over which they had total control, and what advice they’d offer to other independent filmmakers hoping to get something made. Freaks opens in theaters on September 13, 2019....

‘Little America’ Will Release All Its Episodes At Once On Apple TV+ And Has Already Been Renewed For A Second Season By Chris Evangelista/Dec. 13, 2019 12:30 pm EST Apple TV+ is changing things up a bit. Up until now, the streaming service has been releasing its original shows on a weekly basis. But with its upcoming series Little America, they’ll be giving subscribers the opportunity to binge by dropping the entire series at once....

‘Lost Girls’ Trailer: Amy Ryan Discovers A Sex-Trafficking Ring After Her Daughter Goes Missing By Ethan Anderton/Jan. 16, 2020 12:00 pm EST The 2020 Sundance Film Festival kicks off next week, and while there will be plenty of new indie movies that you’ll have to wait several months to see in theaters, some of them will be available for you to watch sooner than you think. One of them will be Lost Girls, a new thriller inspired by Robert Kolker’s best-selling true story of the same name that finds a mother (Oscar nominee Amy Ryan) searching for her missing daughter, only to uncover a sex trafficking ring that has taken many more girls, and is seemingly of no consequence to the police department that is supposedly on the case....

‘Serendipity’ TV Series Based On The John Cusack, Kate Beckinsale Movie In The Works At NBC By Hoai-Tran Bui/Aug. 23, 2019 3:00 pm EST NBC’s next choice of movie to adapt to TV may prove serendipitous. The network as put into development a Serendipity TV series, inspired by the 2001 Miramax romantic-comedy starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. The series will be an hourlong romantic comedy series from Miramax TV....

‘Soul’ Filmmakers On That Big Emotional Moment, The Cat Conundrum, And More [Interview] By Ben Pearson/Dec. 25, 2020 8:00 am EST Soul marks another step forward for Pixar into fascinating narrative storytelling that is not only meant for young children. In fact, this may be the least kid-centric movie they’ve made in quite some time. Don’t get me wrong – the movie is very good and has plenty of the typical Pixar qualities we’ve come to expect from that studio....

‘The Falcon And The Winter Soldier’ Footage Description Introduces The New Captain America By Chris Evangelista/March 11, 2020 2:00 pm EST Disney held a shareholders meeting today, and they debuted some new footage from several projects. But we, the common folk, can’t see any of it. We have to grovel down here in the mud. The best we can do is use someone’s second-hand footage description and bring it to you, reader....

‘The Prodigy’ Review: This Killer Kid Pic Goes To Some Dark Places, But Remains Far Too Predictable By Chris Evangelista/Feb. 8, 2019 7:00 am EST That’s not to say The Prodigy is something to be casually tossed off. In fact, Nicholas McCarthy’s horror film has a lot going for it. McCarthy’s direction is certainly assured, and not at all lazy, like the work of so many modern horror filmmakers. The director, who is also responsible for the very creepy indie horror film The Pact, has a great handle on camera movement and placement – he always knows the right spot to place the camera for maximum tension, with shadows lurking around the frame....

‘The Report’ Trailer: Adam Driver Investigates The CIA In This Riveting Political Thriller By Chris Evangelista/Oct. 15, 2019 3:30 pm EST I saw The Report more than half-a-year ago at Sundance, and yet the movie has lingered with me ever since. It’s a powerful political drama/thriller, and it features what might just be the best performance of Adam Driver’s career. Driver has quickly risen to be an actor worth paying attention to, and his work in this year’s Marriage Story is phenomenal....

‘The Secret Garden’ Review: An Adaptation Quite Contrary To Its Source Material But Just As Magical By Hoai-Tran Bui/Aug. 5, 2020 8:00 am EST I’ve always viewed The Secret Garden as a sort of “Gothic romance for beginners,” with a dose of that childish whimsy that made Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 classic such a fixture on our childhood bookshelves or our televisions in the form of the various film and made-for-TV adaptations over the years....