Movie Reviews and Previews The Kitchen doesn’t belong in August A year ago, we learned that Tiffany Haddish, Melissa McCarthy, and Elisabeth Moss were co-starring in a movie, The Kitchen, about mob wives who take over when their husbands go to jail. I’ve been super into this movie ever since, and the first trailer has done nothing to dissuade By Sarah • May 31, 2019 01:16 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews RBatz IS a lock after all Update: Batman waffling is over, Robert Pattinson got the job. Yesterday we heard that Robert Pattinson, despite earlier reports, had not actually locked down the role of Batman in Matt Reeves’ upcoming Bat-movie, and that he would be screen testing against Nicholas Hoult for the role. Now, though, Deadline is By Sarah • May 31, 2019 12:33 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews RBatz is not a lock A couple weeks ago we learned that Robert Pattinson is up to be the new Batman, taking over the role from Ben Affleck. Lainey dubbed him the “Millennial Batman”, I think we should call him “RBatz” if he gets the gig. And it is an IF, as a report yesterday By Sarah • May 31, 2019 09:55 am
Business of Hollywood Talk more about money! Award season roundtables are a cottage industry now, and with Emmy nominations looming, The Hollywood Reporter is back on their bullsh-t with a comedy ladies’ roundtable of hopeful nominees. The group includes Jane Fonda, Regina Hall, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Alex Borstein, Tiffany Haddish, Maya Rudolph, and Natasha Lyonne. It’s a By Sarah • May 30, 2019 03:38 pm
Music Jukebox movies have arrived A while back, jukebox musicals were all the Broadway rage, thanks to shows like Mamma Mia! and Rock of Ages. Now, the jukebox movie has come to take over Hollywood. It was inevitable, really, in the age of Big IP, that as soon as one person made money off framing By Sarah • May 30, 2019 11:06 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Octavia Spencer in Ma When discussing the trailer for Ma, the horror movie starring Octavia Spencer, I said, “Even if this turns out more camp than high art—a real possibility with a Blumhouse production—I’m cool with it.” Well, guess what. Ma is not camp. It’s certainly not high art. It By Sarah • May 29, 2019 04:27 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Mena Massoud is pure diamond in Aladdin Aladdin had a shame-faced ad campaign that made it seem like Disney was embarrassed of the movie, and the most interesting thing about Aladdin was #HotJafar. So I am quite shocked to report that Aladdin is not terrible. And it won the box office this weekend with a $105 million By Sarah • May 27, 2019 10:21 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Terminator is back, for real this time Terminator is an unkillable franchise. No matter how bad the movies get—and they have gotten VERY bad—every few years a new one is announced. And not reboots! They keep trying to build off the same lore and continue the original story, but much like Star Wars, it turns By Sarah • May 24, 2019 01:06 pm
Game of Thrones Why do we love Westeros and Avengers? Over the last decade, twin forces emerged to fuel the pop culture realm of film and television: the Avengers and Game of Thrones. This is the decade that saw the rise of binge watching, a new Batman AND a new Superman, and the return of motherf-cking Star Wars, and yet By Sarah • May 23, 2019 03:08 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews The Biennial Vanity Fair Star Wars Ad In what is now a biennial tradition, Vanity Fair has a bunch of beautiful new Star Wars portraits and photos from Annie Leibovitz covering their new issue—let’s be honest, this is a very fancy, very splashy ad. This year there are two covers: Rey and Kylo Ren. They By Sarah • May 23, 2019 09:21 am
TV Updates Barry: The other HBO show that ended this week Game of Thrones concluded this week, and we will discuss its finale for a long, long time. But it’s not the only HBO show that wrapped up on Sunday night—it’s not even the best HBO show that wrapped up this week. The best HBO finale this week By Sarah • May 21, 2019 02:52 pm
Game of Thrones Game of Thrones Winning Odds: Let’s talk about the winner SPOILERS Before the final season of Game of Thrones started, I handicapped the odds of the remaining major players winning the Iron Throne. When I ran down the odds for House Stark, I gave them the best odds of winning, but I disqualified Bran because his whole Three-Eyed Raven deal By Sarah • May 20, 2019 10:40 am
Game of Thrones Game of Thrones: The Saga of House Stark GET OUT OF HERE! THERE ARE MAJOR SPOILERS We’ll argue about this ending forever, but after the last three weeks, as Game of Thrones descended in a seeming death spiral, it’s a relief that the finale episode works as well as it does—and it DOES work. If By Sarah • May 20, 2019 10:13 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Chris Rock is rebooting Saw This is the second weirdest headline of the week. It turns out that Chris Rock—yes, comedian and filmmaker Chris Rock—is a fan of the Saw horror franchise, you know, the torture porn movies with the serial killer who sets elaborate Rube Goldberg traps for his victims. Rock is By Sarah • May 17, 2019 04:14 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Budget John Wick Keanu Reeves is hailed for launching an original action franchise, and rightly so, because in the age of Big IP, that is nearly impossible. But he is not the only actor to front an original action franchise—Gerard Butler has his own original action franchise in the “Fallen” series. You By Sarah • May 17, 2019 03:29 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Robert Pattinson is our new Batman We knew that Ben Affleck was done, and Batfleck was no more. Now, we know that the next actor in line for Batman is none other than Robert Pattinson. It was a real record-scratch moment when the news broke, but frankly, it’s no stranger than when Heath Ledger was By Sarah • May 17, 2019 09:45 am
