Movie Reviews and Previews Disney’s Aladdin Dilemma Disney’s live-action conversion machine rolls on, with the next project up for conversion being Aladdin. The beloved musical is being directed by Guy Ritchie, which sounds like a nightmare. And it’s already proving challenging as a massive worldwide casting search for Aladdin has yielded no results, and production By Sarah • Jul 11, 2017 12:49 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews The Hiddles-Dream is dead (probably) There was a tremendous amount of speculation last year about Tom Hiddleston and James Bond. It was fueled by Hiddleston’s performance in The Night Manager as well as Hiddles’ general thirstiness for the role, and then we spent months arguing over whether or not his relationship with Taylor Swift By Sarah • Jul 10, 2017 01:09 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Keanu Reeves in The Bad Batch There are movies that are not good, there are movies that are bad, and then are movies that are gross. Bad movies are common, but gross movies are few and far between. The last gross movie I saw was the Salma Hayek torture porn debacle Everly, two and a half By Sarah • Jul 07, 2017 01:16 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal in Okja First and most important the “animal endangerment” warning: Okja can be hard to watch. While it’s not as bloody as it could be, it’s frank about the slaughterhouse and the treatment of animals raised to slaughter in agri-business abattoirs. It’s not exploitative, but there are a couple By Sarah • Jul 07, 2017 11:40 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Goop at the movies Here is Gwyneth Paltrow yesterday in the Hamptons, hosting a screening of Despicable Me 3 to kick off a run of movie-related sh*t at goop MRKT (sidebar: the way goop punctuates drives me nuts). What does goop sell for the movies? Gluten-free candy, definitely. Minion-themed children’s yoga mats? By Sarah • Jul 06, 2017 02:35 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler in The House Yet another R-rated comedy bit the dust as The House bombed over the July 4th weekend. Following on the heels of Rough Night’s similar disappointment, there’s a lot of hand-wringing over what is wrong with Hollywood, why is this summer bad, do people hate franchises now, is it By Sarah • Jul 06, 2017 09:32 am
Movie Reviews and Previews The Beguiled Is What It Is And what it is, is a dreamily rendered impressionist drawing room drama, a psycho-sexual thriller buttoned up in a prim and proper façade. Sofia Coppola’s latest meditation on privileged femininity is an adaptation of Thomas Cullinan’s novel of the same title, and it’s a beautiful idea of By Sarah • Jul 05, 2017 11:16 am
Movie Reviews and Previews The Rock tries again Baywatch sh*t the bed last month, but before that, F8 of the Furious was a monster hit. So it’s been a rollercoaster year for Dwayne Johnson, and it’s not over yet. The first trailer for Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was released yesterday, priming the pump for By Sarah • Jun 30, 2017 11:35 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Homecoming The heart of Spider-Man: Homecoming is a story about a kid anxious to grow up and join the world of adults. Peter Parker (Tom Holland) chafes against the rules put in place for him by his mentor, Tony Stark (RDJ, who keeps evolving this character in ways that keep his By Sarah • Jun 29, 2017 03:20 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Hugh Jackman’s un-Great Show The first trailer for Hugh Jackman’s PT Barnum passion project, The Greatest Showman, has arrived and I have learned a few things: 1) This is a musical. (Shudder) 2) PT Barnum is a hero now. 3) This looks like some family-friendly sanitized sh*t. Jackman is, of course, a By Sarah • Jun 29, 2017 11:22 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Jon Hamm and Jamie Foxx in Baby Driver I didn’t list Ansel Elgort in the title because Ansel Elgort is not the best thing about Baby Driver. The latest film from Edgar Wright—the film he made after his Ant-Man deal fell apart at Marvel—Baby Driver is slightly more plotty than films like John Wick and By Sarah • Jun 29, 2017 10:08 am
TV Updates GLOW: A 1980s feminist power ballad SPOILERS Inspired by the real-life “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling” that was briefly popular in the 1980s, GLOW is not a biography, but a fictionalized behind-the-scenes comedy. Alison Brie stars as Ruth, a struggling actress who latches onto professional wrestling as her last best shot at making it. Betty Gilpin (Nurse By Sarah • Jun 28, 2017 10:08 am
Movie Reviews and Previews The Incredible Jessica Williams One of the biggest hits at Sundance this year was The Incredible Jessica James, starring Jessica Williams. You might recall that at Sundance, Salma Hayek devoured her own foot while talking over Williams at a luncheon for women in the film industry. Kathleen covered it here, and I forgot how By Sarah • Jun 27, 2017 03:01 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Math-Man Returns Today in Holy Sh*t Random But Awesome News, Warner Brothers is planning a sequel to the bonkers assassin movie, The Accountant. This is the “so dumb it’s fun” movie in which Ben Affleck plays an autistic assassin who does math on the windows because he’s a super-genius By Sarah • Jun 27, 2017 10:13 am
Movie Reviews and Previews International box office is rescuing bad franchises Transformers: Broken Car Alarm opened with a dismal $69 million over a five-day opening weekend. It’s enough to open at #1 but it’s one of those “congratulations on being the toughest poodle” sort of wins – and that’s still a piss-poor result for a Wednesday-Sunday opening run. It’ By Sarah • Jun 26, 2017 12:12 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Robot Trash Fire: A Transformers Review In case you didn’t hear, Transformers 5 had the worst opening weekend in the franchise yet, but also debuted with $265 million. We’ll talk about it in a separate post to follow. The movie begins with a prologue, and the prologue is insane. It’s the Dark Ages By Sarah • Jun 26, 2017 11:21 am
