Movie Reviews and Previews Happytime Murders is aggressively mediocre You may have heard that The Happytime Murders, the R-rated puppet noir starring Melissa McCarthy, is getting hammered with bad reviews. It’s currently standing at 27% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s the worst movie of the year or it’s the worst movie ever, depending on who you ask. By Sarah • Aug 24, 2018 12:08 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews “Post-Hunk” Chris Hemsworth The Greater Hemsworth covers GQ this month, getting ahead of Bad Times at the El Royale, a movie that probably won’t justify this level of marketing. The interview is pretty good because the writer, Lauren Larson, examines Hemsworth in context of a shifting ideal of Hollywood masculinity, and how By Sarah • Aug 23, 2018 11:51 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Prehistoric dog bonding in Alpha Albert Hughes’ boy-and-his-dog fable Alpha is equal parts Planet Earth and The Black Stallion. It’s a beautifully shot nature-oriented story about a prehistoric boy and his prehistoric dog, a wolf he dubs “Alpha”, as they mutually recuperate in a cave. Though there are sequences of no dialogue, there is By Sarah • Aug 22, 2018 02:05 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Bond Chaos Back in the spring it came out that Danny Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge were working on a script for Bond 25 and that Boyle was maybe-probably going to direct it. Everyone leapt on it like it was a done deal but it sounded wishy-washy to me, and I specifically By Sarah • Aug 22, 2018 10:17 am
Top Reads Asia Argento and the messy reality of now In the initial reporting of what would become the Harvey Weinstein scandal, one of the most vocal accusers was Italian filmmaker and actress Asia Argento. She gave Ronan Farrow a detailed account of Weinstein’s predation and abuse, and this year at Cannes she gave a scathing speech condemning the By Sarah • Aug 20, 2018 01:37 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Crazy Rich Asians beat Mark Wahlberg The summer of the rom-com continues as Crazy Rich Asians debuted with a $34 million five-day total ($25 million of which came from the typical Friday-Sunday frame). This is a GREAT result for anything that isn’t a franchise entry, and it’s especially great for a romantic comedy, long By Sarah • Aug 20, 2018 09:18 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman This has been a hell of a year for black American cinema, from the cultural phenomenon of Black Panther, to Blindspotting’s spoken-word musing on race and class, to Boots Riley’s masterpiece Sorry to Bother You, and we still haven’t gotten to new films from Steve McQueen and By Sarah • Aug 17, 2018 03:39 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Ike Barinholtz gets his shot I’ve been low-key calling out Ike Barinholtz for a while as a consistent scene-stealer. Last year, in my review of Snatched, I wrote, “Ike Barinholtz steals every scene he’s in [… ]he’s so good, he’s entering Jason Mantzoukas territory as a secondary player who really needs his By Sarah • Aug 17, 2018 02:18 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Mark Wahlberg in Mile 22 Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg have enjoyed a productive and mostly successful creative partnership. Berg likes making movies about macho All-American Heroes who Get Things Done while the nerds around them make no meaningful contributions, and Wahlberg likes playing macho All-American Heroes who Get Things Done while the nerds around By Sarah • Aug 17, 2018 01:14 pm
Quiveration Domhnall Gleeson out for a walk Here is Domhnall Gleeson walking around New York City for your Friday consumption. I have not given up on making him the Internet Boyfriend of 2018, but he is not cooperating and campaigning as needed to make it happen. Gleeson keeps a low profile, and grist for the digital mill By Sarah • Aug 17, 2018 11:22 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Netflix is coming for Oscar And they’re doing it with an Oscar darling. The teaser for Roma, Alfonso Cuaron’s new film, has been released and it looks gorgeous and emotional (aka it looks like an Alfonso Cuaron film). It’s being released by Netflix but will be getting an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run, and By Sarah • Aug 16, 2018 01:41 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Disney confirms James Gunn is done With them, at least. Despite cast support and widespread public support, Disney will not be rehiring James Gunn. According to Variety, studio chairman Alan Horn met with Gunn as a “courtesy” to “clear the air” which sounds like corporate-speak for reiterating his ass is grass and no amount of pressure By Sarah • Aug 16, 2018 01:03 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Slender Man: The Internet Makes A Bad Movie Creepypasta, the corner of the internet dedicated to ghost stories, urban legends, and horror stories, birthed a modern urban legend in 2009. On the Something Awful forums user “Victor Surge”, real name Eric Knudsen, posted a photo with a tall, reedy faceless being lurking in the background of the shot. By Sarah • Aug 16, 2018 12:22 pm
TV Updates All of the famous people… …Are in Matthew Weiner’s new show, The Romanoffs. Of course, when you make Mad Men, one of the most admired dramas of all time, people will be eager to sign onto your next project but even still this cast list is INSANE. The trailer is a who’s who By Sarah • Aug 15, 2018 04:02 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Another award season entrant There are TOO MANY MOVIES. TIFF keeps adding to their lineup—now mulleted medieval Chris Pine is opening the fest—and trailers keep dropping and it’s TOO MUCH. I’m dreading making my schedule because it will be impossible to see everything I want. Last year felt thin, but By Sarah • Aug 15, 2018 12:11 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Crazy Rich Asians review As the first predominately Asian film Hollywood has produced since The Joy Luck Club twenty-five years ago, Crazy Rich Asians has many eyes on it for many reasons, and it has the unenviable task of being everything to everybody. Adapted by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim from Kevin Kwan’s By Sarah • Aug 14, 2018 04:21 pm
