Amazon Prime Video is the place to go for movies this month, with a plethora of original films as well as new library additions for just about every movie fan. The Emma Roberts-led original Space Cadet hits the streaming service aptly on the Fourth of July, for anyone looking for a fish-out-of-water style comedy. My Spy the Eternal City, the newest film in the Dave Bautista-led family action series also drops on July 18. Action film fans are also in for a treat with recent films The Beekeeper and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning coming to Prime Video in July.As…

The Lord of the Rings films resonate with millions of people for as many reasons as the trilogy is long. The special effects are outstanding; the way the movies pluck exquisitely from the source material while carving their own path forward helps to satisfy all audiences; and director Peter Jackson immerses the viewers into a world that fully validates the high fantasy genre on the big screen. Still, all of these pros are outweighed by the series’ ability to resonate on a human level.  The friendships, love, and affection that the Fellowship of the Ring creates in the first movie…

Comedy is an art form that to truly succeed requires mastery of both subtlety and audacity, and a keen sense of timing. But usually two out of three is enough to pull some chuckles from an audience, and so a veneer of comedy finds its way into a lot of genres besides its own. And a little like how science fiction comments on our current era, comedy also tends to highlight current storytelling trends and topics, making it a natural companion to the speculative genre. Unlike how Airplane killed the disaster movie in the ’70s by brutally skewering every trope…

It takes a lot to take attention away from Superman. But that’s exactly what happened when set photos leaked from James Gunn’s upcoming Superman film. Sure, people were excited to get a much better look at David Corenswet’s costume—all bright colors and trunks on the outside—but even more excitement was directed toward Edi Gathegi, who looked like he walked right off the page of a Justice Society comic book in his Mister Terrific costume. Although the photos are leaks and not official pictures, the shots of Superman and Mister Terrific together feel thematically resonant. It’s almost like Mister Terrific is…

Columbia Pictures never wanted to make Ghostbusters. Well, to put a finer point on it, those who technically ran the studio out of New York City (then as a Coca-Cola subsidiary) wanted no part in the catching ghost business—so much so that lawyers got involved. But by the time the Manhattan executives heard about the project, the Columbia Pictures chairman out in actual Hollywood, Frank Price, had already greenlit the movie and put a seeming target on his back. Such was the opinion of “high-concept” and special effects-driven comedies in the early 1980s. Released 40 years ago this month, Ghostbusters…

Just because Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley is a little longer in the tooth doesn’t mean he can’t create just as much hijinx as he did in the ‘80s. The beloved Motor City detective is back in Netflix’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F on July 3, 2024, and we’ve got an exclusive clip to share featuring the hilarious mayhem of Detective Foley in a high-speed snowplow from early in the film. But that’s not all! The clip is introduced by none other than director Mark Malloy and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and afterwards they share a few behind-the-scenes stories of how it…

Russell Crowe, Academy Award-winning actor and all-around Generally Very Aussie Guy, has never turned in a bad performance. Some of his best films are benchmarks for who we are in modern pop culture, from his relentless turn as Maximus in Gladiator to his tactical and charming Captain Jack Aubrey in Master and Commander. The rest, well, they’re somebody’s favorite, anyway. And then, there’s his early ride to Hollywood as SID 6.7 in 1995’s Virtuosity, a brain-dead summer sci-fi flick that even Denzel Washington cannot help but sleepwalk through. The premise is classic ‘90s cheese on toast points: With appropriate magical…

Warning: spoilers for Doctor Who finale “Empire of Death”. The mystery of Ruby Sunday has been solved, and after teasing the parentage of Millie Gibson’s motherless Mancunian since she arrived in Doctor Who’s 2023 Christmas special, series 14 finale “Empire of Death” brought everything full circle. Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteen had been helping Ruby try to trace her family tree all series, and now, we know who her mother is… a regular human woman with no supernatural or alien connections. Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies has now confirmed that the big twist of Ruby’s mother being a young woman called…

While there were a solid handful of vital LGBTQ+ moments and characters in entertainment media before 2000, the dawn of the 21st century represented a new shift in queer programming. Hollywood directors felt more inclined to depict sexual awakenings, people coming out, and even same-sex intimacy on the big and small screens.  There is a direct correlation between the number of people who identify as LGBTQ+ and the corresponding queer-friendly media moments that may have spearheaded or served as inspiration for real-life authenticity. A tear-jerking scene or a powerful line delivery possesses the power to transform the way a viewer…

This Superman article contains spoilers. Look, out in the internet! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… a set photo! James Gunn’s Superman has started shooting in Cleveland, Ohio, where the Man of Steel’s creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster first met, and the set leaks continue unabated. Previous shots gave us looks at David Corenswet in costume as Superman and as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent, as well as Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific. The latest leak, however, hints at a surprising main villain for this young new Superman. The image shows Superman arrested…

Yesterday was the brightest day for a certain type of nerd. Not only did Variety announce that Lanterns, the television series based on Green Lantern, was given the green light for an eight-episode first season, but comic book writer Tom King and Damon Lindelof of Lost and The Leftovers fame would join True Detective: Night Country producer Chris Mundy as writers and producers. Yet, what will the average viewer think of when they hear about a new Green Lantern live action show? They’ll imagine Ryan Reynolds sitting in front of a garish green object and saying, “I Hal Jordan do…

Tales of Hollywood actors turning down profit participation in huge hits are rampant, as when Orson Welles rejected the initial $75,000 plus 10 percent of the gross offer on 1949’s The Third Man for a quick $100,000 dollars up front. Not bad for only ten days’ work. Plus, he needed cash to finance Othello right away so it all worked out… except The Third Man would ultimately become one of the most financially successful movies of Welles’ career. He later regretted this, of course, and if the director of Citizen Kane wasn’t enough of a genius to go for points,…

Anyone who has been to the movies lately has probably had a strange experience. After the trailers and soda commercials, but before the feature film, Wolverine looks out from the screen and talks directly to the audience. “Hey, Bub. You’re in a movie theater,’ he snarls, before unleashing a mostly censored litany of profanities. It feels weird, and not just because Wolverine isn’t really all that sweary. It feels weird because Deadpool breaks the fourth wall, not Wolverine, or anyone else, actually. Thankfully, the producers of Deadpool & Wolverine know that fourth-wall breaking is Deadpool’s domain alone. In a behind…

There must be something in the air (or perhaps just the blood) when the internet could get so worked up over a vampire movie trailer that wasn’t even online. Focus Features indeed exhumed an old school—and perhaps too often neglected—marketing trick when they put a coveted teaser only in theaters where it played for days ahead of its online debut. Attached since Thursday only to the healthy opening of elegiac gang drama The Bikeriders, the first trailer for Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu left cinephiles floored. And those who didn’t see it have been suffering from a severe case of FOMO. That’s…

With Superman (formerly Superman Legacy) currently filming in Cleveland, Ohio, photos are beginning to trickle out from the set, giving us a look not only at the film’s leading man, but also some of the other heroes poised to join him on screen. James Gunn’s take on the famous hero will feature appearances from Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), the latter of which, we get to see in action beside David Corenswet’s Superman thanks to photos from @clevelanddotcom via DC Film News. First look at Edi Gathegi’s MISTER TERRIFIC on the set of…

48 Hrs. Lethal Weapon. Hot Fuzz. The best buddy cop comedies adhere to a simple formula. One guy is straight-laced, by the book, and really good at his job. The other is a loose cannon, a wild card who pushes the boundaries and gets most of the attention. Rush Hour is no exception, pairing serious Hong Kong inspector Lee with a motormouth LAPD detective named Carter. Chris Tucker fits the bill for the latter role, coming off of big performances in Friday and The Fifth Element. But for the serious partner, they cast Jackie Chan, perhaps the greatest physical comedian…

“Oh baby, you are so talented,” exclaims Bart (Cleavon Little), the wily protagonist of Blazing Saddles. The first Black sheriff in the Old West town of Rock Ridge, Bart had to escape the genteel, devout, and very racist citizens by pulling a gun on himself and pretending that he is both his own captor and hostage. The ruse works, leading to Bart’s self-praise into the camera… he also acknowledges “they are so dumb.” Bart’s broad shenanigans match not only the stupidity of the townspeople but also the tone of the Mel Brooks classic. Written by Brooks and a host of…

The most popular thing to do when watching an anthology film is finding the connective thread. Whether they’re exercises in genre cinema or quirky odes to magazine journalism, the inherent appeal of three or more stories playing to you in bite-sized format is running your fingers along a strand that can then be tied around the whole experience like a tight bow. Well dear reader, believe me there’s enough material in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness to wrap itself all the way around your neck and squeeze. Unfortunately, a case can be made that Lanthimos suffocates the potential and life…

The 1970s was not just a prime decade for science fiction movies but an era in which those movies carried even more urgent messages about the many problems facing humanity on Earth. Sure, the sci-fi outings of the 1950s and early ‘60s carried warnings about nuclear destruction and radiation too, while the latter half of the ‘60s began delving into sociological examinations of race, youth culture, and radical politics. But the ‘70s introduced a whole new set of crises into the genre, in tandem with the growing awareness of such issues in the real world. Climate change, unchecked population growth,…

Quentin Tarantino‘s 1994 sophomore feature Pulp Fiction wasn’t just a major break out hit. It changed the face of cinema in the 1990s, both by helping bring attention to indie and foreign films, and by inspiring a host imitators. When audiences lined up to watch Tarantino’s bloody, whip-smart movie, studios rushed to fill theaters and video stores with more stories about loquacious hitmen, monologuing bank robbers, and foul-mouthed gun molls. In most cases, these knockoffs provided cheap thrills, heavy on the violence and pop-cultural references but low on Tarantino’s sense of composition and ear for unique dialogue. In the best…