TV Updates Is The Crown tainted? Netflix’s royal soap opera, The Crown, returns on November 17. To date, it has been one of Netflix’s biggest success stories, though probably more for awards than ratings. (The Crown’s audience is comparable to traditional cable hits like Big Little Lies. season It’s nothing to sneeze By Sarah • Aug 12, 2019 03:53 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Scary Stories is about the power of stories Boy did those trailers do this movie no justice. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark adapts Alvin Schwartz’s books, famously and horrifically illustrated by Stephen Gammell, into a story about the power of stories, particularly how folklore is often wielded against women. Set in 1968, Scary Stories follows By Sarah • Aug 09, 2019 03:48 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Happy Anniversary, Spoiler Alert Marking movie anniversaries has become A Thing, and I’m not sure entirely what the point is except to make people feel old. Most movies aren’t actually worth lionizing in that way, but sometimes there is a movie milestone worth noticing (for example: it’s been 20 years since By Sarah • Aug 08, 2019 09:43 am
Amazingness Viral Nicolas Cage Nicolas Cage is a great actor with DEEPLY WEIRD TASTE, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he has gone viral recently for giving a bonkers performance in a direct-to-video gem called Never on Tuesday (for the young’uns, like Prem, who have probably never seen a VHS tape, By Sarah • Aug 07, 2019 03:47 pm
TV Updates Atlanta will eventually return The last episode of Atlanta aired over a year ago. It won’t be until some time in 2020 that Atlanta’s third season will air. Atlanta is a show that makes us wait. So it’s a minor relief that it has already been renewed for a fourth season, By Sarah • Aug 07, 2019 01:15 pm
TV Updates Is Colbert wasting Hannah Gadsby’s time? Hannah Gadsby had one of the biggest and best breakout moments of 2018 with her searing Netflix special, Nanette. That show, set up as a kind of two weeks’ notice to her comedy career, resulted in international acclaim, and she is now performing a new show, Douglas, off-Broadway (it will By Sarah • Aug 07, 2019 11:31 am
Gal Gadot Gal Gadot plays a real wonder woman Today in Oh God I Really Needed Some Good News, Gal Gadot will star in a limited series about Hedy Lamarr, the Hollywood It Girl and inventor who developed frequency-hopping radio signals, or as we know it: wifi. (She shares the patent with George Antheil, they had an amazing work By Sarah • Aug 06, 2019 12:40 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Hobbs & Shaw is perfectly dumb and so much fun Breaking away from the main body of the Fast/Furious franchise, Hobbs & Shaw unites the two most likable people from the franchise into a gloriously dumb spin-off meant to curtail further infighting with Vin Diesel. Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham blow off the Fast/Furious popsicle stand and set By Sarah • Aug 02, 2019 12:58 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Best Chris of the Week This should be an official ranking. The Top Chris leaderboard fluctuates regularly, based on who is doing what on any given day. For instance, this week, Worst Chris is Evans, because I realized he made like 90 Marvel movies and only took his shirt off once, and his near-constant shirtlessness By Sarah • Aug 02, 2019 11:23 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Shirtless Chris Evans in Red Sea Diving Resort In case you were wondering, yes, Chris Evans’ notoriously bad picker is still at work, cursing his non-Marvel repertoire with mediocrity (goddess protect Knives Out from the Chris Evans Curse). His latest, The Red Sea Diving Resort, is on Netflix now and it is a study in bland, formulaic filmmaking. By Sarah • Aug 02, 2019 10:03 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Queen & Slim, not Bonnie and Clyde A notable absence from this year’s fall festival tour (so far) is Queen & Slim, the feature film debut of “Formation” director Melina Matsoukas. I’m a little surprised Universal, the distributor, isn’t looking to put a little festival polish on this movie. It has as good a By Sarah • Aug 01, 2019 03:05 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Lupita Nyong’o kicks ass and sings songs Just when you think The Walking Dead rode the zombie train all the way into the ground, 2019 brings us a slew of zombie comedies to revitalize the genre. First we had the dry, sardonic The Dead Don’t Die, later this year we have Zombieland: Double Tap, and now By Sarah • Aug 01, 2019 11:52 am
Idris Elba Idris Elba tries to explain Cats Idris Elba is currently promoting Hobbs & Shaw—full review later this week, but in short: I kinda love it? I think? I’m so unused to liking anything Fast/Furious it’s hard to tell—and he stopped by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. While there, he mentioned By Sarah • Jul 31, 2019 03:22 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Scorsese’s Avengers Martin Scorsese’s long-gestating mob opus, The Irishman, is finally coming out later this year, thanks to Netflix. It stars Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran, a mob hitman who claimed on his deathbed to have killed Jimmy Hoffa. Al Pacino stars in The Irishman as Hoffa, and Harvey Keitel By Sarah • Jul 31, 2019 01:34 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews They’re fixing Lord of the Flies Luca Guadagnino continues to not make that Call Me By Your Name sequel as he is in talks to direct an adaptation of Lord of the Flies. This is not the gender-bent version previously announced, but a more traditional take on William Golding’s book. GOOD. A female-led version is By Sarah • Jul 30, 2019 04:20 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews RBatz is a crusty lighthouse keeper One of the outliers in this year’s Oscar race is The Lighthouse, the sophomore feature film from Robert Eggers. His previous film, The Witch, is a near-masterpiece, but Eggers, like Ari Aster, makes films in the horror tradition, so the Academy blows them off. This year, Eggers’ destined-to-be-ignored film By Sarah • Jul 30, 2019 04:04 pm
