When the credits rolled on Star Trek Generations back in November 1994, some fans (including this writer) breathed a sigh of relief. While we respected William Shatner and his central role in making Star Trek happen, we also felt his time had passed. After Generations, we could finally move on from an aging The Original Series cast and focus on the continuing film adventures of Captain Picard and The Next Generation. But there were also of course some fans (including one named William Shatner) who weren’t too happy. After all, James T. Kirk had died after falling from a rusty…

Imagine James Bond without a car. It’s not easy. Even in Ian Fleming’s early 007 novels, beginning with Casino Royale in 1953, Bond is obsessed with his supercharged Bentley and is constantly thinking about who is a good driver and who isn’t, and just how fast he or other people go—from allies like Felix Leiter to enemies in SMERSH and SPECTRE. Bond isn’t exactly the original fast-and-furious action hero driver, but when we think of the most famous suave secret agent, we have to imagine him behind the wheel of some kind of amazing car, one which almost always has…

This article contains spoilers for Uglies and the novels Pretties and Specials. In the world of the new sci-fi dystopian movie Uglies, people fall into two categories. There are the Pretties, the people who have been altered according to a surgical procedure, and the Uglies, people who have not undergone the procedure. At the start of Uglies, 15-year-old Tally Youngblood (Joey King) wants nothing more than to be a Pretty. At the end of the film, Tally has achieved her dream. But like everything else in Uglies, the surface doesn’t tell the whole story. Here’s what happened at the end…

The last time I remember really noticing Demi Moore in a movie was in Margin Call. The film was an excellent (and unfortunately still timely) portrait of the type of Wall Street backbiting and greed that precipitated the 2007 housing collapse. It’s also an ensemble where Moore stands out while still being positioned in support of male co-stars like Jeremy Irons and Kevin Spacey, one of whom scapegoats Moore’s character in her biggest scene. Before that film, it was The Joneses and Mr. Brooks, where Moore twice played “the wife,” which often is Hollywood code for the most underwritten character…

The definition of a “Baby Boomer” has always been a tenuous thing. Offically the term refers to the giant uptick in birthrates after the end of World War II. When American G.I.s (as well as victors and survivors in every other part of the globe) got home, many were eager to marry, settle down, and start producing nuclear families. Even so, the Baby Boomer label applies to anyone born between the years 1946 and 1964. Consider that while Kamala Harris reads as a significantly younger individual than her political rival today, she is still technically a Boomer (albeit by less…

There’s been a murduh! There have been multiple murders, in fact, between the pages of these crime novels, all of which are on their way to the screen. Featuring Nordic noir, dark comedy, secret-infested thrillers, literary detective novels and cosy crime, this little bunch of books have all been optioned, and will, industry-willing, be seen in cinemas and on TV before too long. If you want to get ahead of the curve when they blast onto Netflix and the like, then get reading. After all, these mysteries won’t solve themselves… Dark Pines by Will Dean (2018) The first in Will…

A venomized horse. Rhys Ifans as a guitar playing hippie. Tom Hardy‘s Eddie and Venom in Vegas. The latest trailer for Venom: The Last Dance features several over the top elements. But the most compelling may be the white-haired figure glimpsed throughout the clip, a figure sitting on a throne. That, is Knull — God of the Abyss, God of the Symbiotes. Check out the trailer below: Knull only lasted a few years in the pages of Marvel Comics, but he had an immediate impact. Created by writer Donny Cates and artist Ryan Stegman, Knull debuted in 2018’s Venom #3…

Like millions of other people around the world, the announcement Monday of James Earl Jones’ passing hit me particularly hard. A mountain of a man and a talent, Jones carved out a stunning career on stage and screen. Yet for many children of the ‘80s, ‘90s, and later, his very voice symbolized something profound, whether it was used for operatic villainy in the Star Wars films or nigh divinity in The Lion King. It’s all the more impressive, too, when you know Jones developed that rich and ultimately generation-shaping baritone out of serious hardship. As a boy, Jones grew up…

This article contains Rebel Ridge spoilers. There is plenty of action in Jeremy Sauliner’s Rebel Ridge, which is streaming today on Netflix. Of course this is something of a given for the director of Green Room and Hold the Dark. Sauliner is nothing if not a filmmaker who knows how to suffuse spartan rural settings with massive amounts of tension—and then often bloody action to release the dread. Yet the scene that got me on my feet wanting to cheer, even in a living room, is not when Aaron Pierre’s righteously vindicated Terry Richmond physically manhandles a podunk police chief…

Here is the plot of every Tom Cruise movie: Tom Cruise is awesome. Some people think that Tom Cruise isn’t awesome. Tom Cruise does something awesome. Everyone now knows that Tom Cruise is awesome. Just plug in a few character names and occupations, and you’ve can summarize Top Gun, The Color of Money, Cocktail, Jerry Maguire, and more. Maverick is awesome, but Iceman doesn’t believe him until Maverick does something awesome and now Iceman knows. Vincent Lauria is awesome, but Fast Eddie doesn’t believe him until Vincent does something awesome and now Fast Eddie knows. Jerry Maguire is awesome, but…

“A boy’s best friend is his mother” is a quote from which famous 1960 psychological horror movie?PsychoVillage of the DamnedHouse of UsherPeeping TomWhich of these is NOT a rule to successfully survive a horror movie, according to Wes Craven’s Scream (1996)? Don’t wear a red shirtDon’t say “I’ll be right back,” “Hello?” or “Who’s there?”Don’t drink or do drugsDon’t have sexThe main antagonist in Netflix’s true crime-inspired Mindhunter is Dennis Lynn Rader, a real-life serial killer who gave himself which three letter nickname?BTKBTSBSCBHSIn Killing Eve, Jodie Comer plays international hitwoman Villanelle (a codename she takes from a bottle of French…

James Earl Jones, who died at age 93, is a cultural icon. He is internationally loved for roles in The Lion King, Coming to America, Roots, Field of Dreams, and the Star Wars and Jack Ryan movie franchises. The Mississippi-born actor won three Tony Awards, two Emmys, a Grammy, several Academy Award nominations, and the 2011 Honorary Lifetime Achievement Oscar. However, some of his most potent performances are not in heavy rotation at easily accessible media outlets and streamers. This is a shame because Jones leaves behind a vast and versatile artistic portfolio, and some of his finest characterizations came…

It’s a boastfulness so outrageous, so overblown, that we cannot help but immediately recognize it as an echo of the braggart who has dominated the world stage for nearly a decade. An actor clearly made up to resemble Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) sits in the back of a limousine and claims his latest construction effort is “going to be the finest building in the city, maybe the country.” But then there’s an awkward pause. The budding real estate mogul realizes his exaggerations haven’t crossed into the realm of cartoonish bravado. So he hastily adds on “[the biggest] in the world!”…

Ever since Peter Parker launched himself from a dingy New York apartment at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, dressed in a familiar costume he made himself, people have wondered what was next for our favorite wall-crawler. Now that Shang-Chi‘s Destin Daniel Cretton has been reportedly tapped to direct the fourth MCU Spider-Man film, the first without John Watts at the helm, and star Tom Holland is set to reprise his role, we can make some educated guesses about the direction of the franchise. The Evolution of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man Tom Holland’s Peter Parker entered the MCU in Captain…

Even though it’s been 20 years since Spider-Man 2 was released, the film still holds a soft spot in the hearts of fans thanks to its story, cast, and characters, in addition to Sam Raimi’s incredible filmmaking skills of course. One character who has managed to withstand the test of time and develop a small following of his own over the years is none other than Peter Parker’s (Tobey Maguire) boss at Joe’s Pizza, Mr. Aziz. Played by the incredibly talented Aasif Mandvi, Mr. Aziz has become an icon in his own right, despite his limited screen time. Talking with…

Jim Carrey might have been a familiar face to fans of the sketch comedy series In Living Color and anyone who stumbled upon future cult favorites like Once Bitten and Earth Girls Are Easy, but to most regular moviegoers he was a virtual unknown. That all changed in 1994 with a trio of hits built on his dizzying array of facial expressions, catchphrases, and impeccable comedic timing. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective might have been his first big hit, and Dumb and Dumber is an enduring favorite, but The Mask represents the oddity in the pack. It’s a big, colorful comic…

It begins with just a chair. The first thing a smiling Scotsman takes from the ever so accommodating Americans is a swimming pool chair which their daughter left a towel on. She’s in the water, technically, and there’s only a handful of items on it, but surely James McAvoy’s grinning Paddy sees that when he asks milquetoast father Ben (Scoot McNairy) if he can take it—right? The wash cloth is clearly visible, but the smile is so friendly, and his charm so ingratiating, you’re tempted to simply write it off as benign obliviousness. Plus, he’s James McAvoy! That is the…

When Saturday Night Live (or just “Saturday Night” in its first season) debuted in 1975, it was like an atom bomb went off in the American zeitgeist. It is hard to remember half a century later with the series still going strong as a landmark piece of institutional broadcast television, but back in ’75 it was as if the counterculture had invaded TV. That was its appeal to younger Baby Boomer viewers of its era, and that is the excitement which Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night looks eager to rekindle next month. The new backstage dramedy is set on the evening…

David Lynch‘s 1984 film version of Frank Herbert’s legendary sci-fi novel Dune has been a perpetual black sheep of the surrealist director’s filmography, with his later neo-noir projects like Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive held in much higher regard by cineastes. While the failure of Dune dissuaded Lynch from making further big budget movies, it had a major downstream effect on his later works especially when it came to casting. (Think: Kyle MacLachlan, Everett McGill, Brad Dourif, Alicia Witt, etc.) What many of his fans do not realize (and which I wrote about briefly in my book A…

It’s not terribly often that a movie actually warrants a TV spinoff or retelling. Aside from franchises, sequels, trilogies, and the like, movies are generally made to tell a story from start to finish in a few hours or less. However, there are occasionally stories, characters, or premises that benefit from the additional time that television provides. Television gives storytellers the ability to dive deeper into a characters’ psyche or explore an aspect of worldbuilding that could only be briefly touched upon in the limited runtime of a movie. It gives creatives more room to play in and craft compelling…