“Let’s face it, I had a bad script,” director Michael Bay said on the commentary track of his debut feature film, Bad Boys. Bay isn’t wrong. Bad Boys relies on buddy comedy tropes already established in 1974’s Freebie and the Bean and 1982’s 48 Hrs., complete with nonsense plot points. “But I had real comic talent in my two stars.” Bay of course means Martin Lawrence and Will Smith. Drawn from the popular sitcoms Martin and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Lawrence and Smith saved the movie from the clunky script (and, be honest, Bay’s incoherent direction) with their easy…

The movies are in trouble. Or so we’re told frequently and often in the trades, on social media, and simply among industry gossipers convinced the sky is falling. In terms of ticket sales for conventional blockbusters, this summer is indeed off to a sluggish start. But if you focus only on the nickels and dimes, you likely are missing why you fell in love with movies in the first place. And there’s been quite a bit to love, or at least respectfully admire, in the first half of 2024. While a few genuinely great blockbusters on this list have struggled,…

This article contains spoilers for Hit Man. “People are disappointed when they learn that hit men don’t really exist,” explains Gary Johnson. That might be a surprising statement given that it occurs early on in a movie called Hit Man. Throughout the film, Gary (Glen Powell) dons different disguises to meet with people who want to pay him money (or video games or boats) to kill people. But then again, it’s all a ruse, a police sting operation that mild-mannered teacher Gary does as a side gig. As Gary explains, his job is to become the type of hitman that…

This article contains multitudes of Hit Man spoilers. The words “true story” are always a curious thing to see at the beginning of a film. Sometimes the term is applied to sober-eyed dramas that seek to convince you they’re nearly documentaries. Think of your Spotlights and All the President’s Mens. More often than not though, the phrase is used as a marketing gimmick for stories where the word “truth” is an abstraction. Think Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Which is what makes another Texan director’s latest indie effort, the beguiling Hit Man now on Netflix, so amusingly slippery. Richard Linklater…

A cowardly governor hides under the covers, clutching his wives and hoarded riches. Outside the governor’s guard squabbles with warriors hired to provide extra protection. They all fear a secret defender of the people, a masked hero who has never failed to escape the grasp of oppressors. The warriors and the guards draw their weapons, ready and waiting. But when a sleekly masked figure all dressed in black lands within their midsts, they can do nothing to stop him. He floats above their heads, dives below their punches, and deflects all of their attacks. He leaps from their heads and…

There is a new Hunger Games movie in the works, and this time it will be a prequel about Haymitch Abernathy, the District 12 tribute and champion played by Woody Harrelson in the original cycle of films in the 2010s. The news came simultaneously Thursday with the announcement of the book upon which the film will be based: Suzanne Collins’ forthcoming The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. According to the press release, the new Young Adult novel and film will follow the events of the 50th Hunger Games, aka the Second Quarter Quell, when Haymitch became an unwilling tribute…

Yaphet Kotto as Jean-Luc Picard? Wesley Snipes as Geordi? Jenny Agutter as Dr. Crusher? Gene Roddenberry considered all of these actors for Star Trek: The Next Generation before casting Patrick Stewart, LeVar Burton, and Gates McFadden. However, the most surprising alternate idea for a TNG character involved Tasha Yar, the ill-fated security chief aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise. The Tale of Macha Hernandez The TNG series bible, released before the show premiered as a guide for writers and actors, describes Yar in terms similar, if not completely one-to-one, with the character we know from the series. “Born at a ‘failed’ Earth…

“When did our professor get hot?” This is a query posed by one enterprising student in a psychology 101 seminar to another. In that exact moment, they’re watching their part-time instructor, a previously nebbish Glen Powell, begin acting like… well, how you might expect Glen Powell to act if you’ve seen Top Gun: Maverick and Everybody Wants Some!! (although in those flicks he never was so cocksure while explaining the societal virtues in summary execution). And honestly, you cannot help but feel like those surprised coeds. Not in regard to realizing Powell is hot. There’s a reason or two a…

This article contains spoilers for The Acolyte episode 2. What we know about the Jedi in Star Wars can — and has — filled not only several films and TV shows but a ton of books and comics, too. And, tellingly, one seclusive Jedi practice while introduced on screen in the films, was only given a name in the comic books. We’re talking about “the Barash Vow,” a Jedi tradition first explicitly mentioned in 2017 in issue #2 of Marvel’s first Darth Vader comic book miniseries. But, at this point, the Barash Vow is a big deal in Star Wars…

Science fiction cinema came of age in the 1950s, beginning an ascent out of the drive-in schlock market that culminated in the boldly experimental yet still commercially viable efforts of the 1960s. That fed directly into the next decade, with sci-fi in the 1970s taking on (for the most part) the same subversive attitude as most other movies made during that era. But sci-fi movies also entered blockbuster territory in the ‘70s as demonstrated by the massive success of films like Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman: The Movie, Logan’s Run, and Alien. The studios realized that…

Peaky Blinders caught the imagination by swerving the unexpected. Creator Steven Knight put the whole thing on a tilt from the start by not setting his gangster drama in London, but in (then) unfashionable Birmingham. He made family leader Tommy Shelby not the eldest but the middle brother. He mad Helen McCrory’s indelible Polly Gray not Tommy’s mother but his aunt. His working class characters weren’t to be pitied, but feared and respected… Nothing, from the contemporary rock music to the interweaving of Romany culture, was quite what period audiences had come to expect. Knight’s slanted take on historical drama…

Ishana Shyamalan has long been transfixed by the spell of folklore and the stories we leave only half-remembered. This was true of her work as a director on Servant, the cryptic Apple TV+  series executive produced by her father M. Night Shyamalan, and it’s true of her new horror film The Watchers, a movie set in the most menacing “enchanted forest” you’ll ever see. But for Ishana, it goes back even further than that. “I think this particular mythology is something I connected very strongly to as a child,” Shyamalan says when we sit down with her ahead of The…

This article is presented by Roborock. The start of The Garfield Movie finds Garfield and Odie taking it easy, riding atop a Roborock intelligent robot vacuum cleaning their owner Jon’s floor. Garfield and Roborock both know that the real fun of cleaning – is not having to do it yourself.  Garfield has long been a proud indoor cat, who knows the pleasures of taking it easy and pulling pranks. But Garfiled also appreciates the finer things in life, such as a plate of steaming lasagna, snuggling with his toy bear Pooky, and, of course, a clean house.  Roborock also understands…

Deadpool & Wolverine is not in theaters for almost another two months, but the hopes and aspirations of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—and perhaps now the summer movie season box office itself—are already being placed on Ryan Reynolds’ broad, leather-clad shoulders. So it’s not like the Merc with a Mouth needed any more pressure. Yet pressure he might receive if the latest report out of Deadline is true: director Shawn Levy has entered early talks to helm the next Avengers movie. The discussions are apparently in early stages, with the trade noting Levy has been handed the latest draft of the…

The first full teaser for Alien: Romulus contains lots of nods to Alien and Aliens. Not only does it integrate the famous tagline for the first film, but we get plenty of cool guns, facehuggers on the attack, and even a xenomorph rising from the water. In other words, all things that made Aliens great. The connections between Alien and Aliens make sense. Director Fede Álvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues have made clear that Romulus takes place between those two landmark films. However, the standout, most shocking scene pays homage to Alien 3, a movie so divisive that even director…

Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the Belgian directing duo behind Bad Boys: Ride or Die, are what people are really talking about when they speak of Michael Bay. In these dark days of anonymous blockbusters with no personality or pop, it is indeed common for people to wax nostalgic about Bay, wishing that Bayhem would one day return to American screens in its full glory. It’s a weird sentiment though, and not just because Bay hasn’t gone anywhere (in fact he continues to release movies every two or three years, most recently 6 Underground in 2019 and Ambulance in…

Godzilla Minus One is a rare beast. Despite being derived from a franchise that’s nearly three-quarters of a century old, and which has had more installments than there are days in a month, Takashi Yamazaki’s latest reinvention of the Big G feels fresh. It’s a true spectacle of emotion and cultural angst; a film that remarkably takes a piece of pop culture furniture like the giant irradiated lizard and makes him scary again. In Godzilla Minus One, the titular creature is not only a dazzling sight of cinematic carnage candy, but he’s also a potent metaphor about war, destruction, and…

Within the wonderful world of kids’ movies lies a subgenre that doesn’t get discussed enough: the “Kids on Bikes” adventure movie. A combination of early adventure movies and the “latchkey” kid culture that afforded teens and pre-teens incredible new freedom, these movies occupy a unique space. They’re often intended for audiences in the same young age ranges as their protagonists yet they explore more adult themes and genuinely dangerous situations through the lens of an often wistful version of a particular kind of childhood. And yes, they explore those topics with the help of bikes. Some are scary, some are…

In Simon Pegg’s immortal comedy series Spaced, his character Tim declares: “Every odd-numbered Star Trek movie is shit.” This is, of course, hilarious today, because Pegg was in two odd-numbered Trek films, and even co-wrote the 13th movie, 2016’s Star Trek Beyond. But, the fandom myth of the odd-numbered Star Trek “curse” almost certainly begins with 1984’s Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Released in movie theaters on June 1, 1984, the third Star Trek feature film was really the second part of what would become a trilogy of films, concluding with The Voyage Home in 1986. But, more…

“Eddie… my home has found me,” the symbiote Venom warns his host Eddie Brock in the first trailer for the third Venom movie, Venom: The Last Dance. For the longest time, that statement wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense. After all, Venom’s “home” was Battleworld, the planet where the Beyonder took a cadre of heroes and villains in the 1984 Marvel Comics crossover Secret Wars. When Spider-Man’s costume was ruined, a machine on Battleworld created a new one for him, which later revealed itself to be a malevolent symbiote. When Peter abandoned the suit, it bonded with the equally…