This article might contain potential spoilers for Captain America: Brave New World. Who is Giancarlo Esposito? Okay, we know who Giancarlo Esposito is. He’s best known as Gus Fring from Breaking Bad and Moff Gideon from The Mandalorian. Meanwhile to some of us old people, he will forever be Buggin’ Out from Do the Right Thing. But who is he in the MCU? Esposito has long been rumored to join the gargantuan franchise, something made more real when the actor shared to social media some of his recent talks with Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige. However, we now have more…

As of this past Saturday, Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One is officially on Netflix in North America, and millions of subscribers are getting the chance to learn why kaiju fans and beyond have been losing their minds about the movie with a giant irritated lizard. Seriously, no less than Steven Spielberg is reported to be a great admirer of Minus One, with the Jaws filmmaker telling Yamazaki he’s watched the film three times. There is of course a sound basis for this (and not just because Godzilla Minus One in part alludes to Jaws). Not since perhaps the original 1954…

Put on any action movie made between 1903’s The Great Train Robbery and 2017’s John Wick, pay attention to the risks playing out before you, and you’ll never stop asking why the hell aren’t stunt performers lauded for their efforts by the Academy Awards. In the 1970s, one of the greatest and most underrated decades for action movies, you could still see every danger to life and limb on screen. CGI wasn’t around yet, and the law was barely paying attention. The result is an era where bloody martial arts imports and Blaxploitation commentary blended with tight-wire action and terrifyingly…

Netflix’s list of new releases for June 2024 look suspiciously like last month’s. That’s because the biggest item on the schedule is Bridgerton season 3 once again. The final four episodes of Bridgerton‘s third season will premiere on June 13. Polin fans everywhere, rejoice! Other TV items of note this month include the third and final season of Sweet Tooth (June 6), Worst Roommate Ever season 2 (June 26), and That ’90s Show Part 2 (June 28). Bridgerton aside, Netflix’s original movie options this month might be even more impressive than the TV slate. Richard Linklater’s Hitman, which stars Glen…

Oi there, listen up! Amazon Prime Video’s list of new releases for June 2024 includes another season of its biggest, bloodiest hit. The Boys season 4 premieres its first three episodes on Thursday, June 13. Based on the trailers, The Boys is really leaning into the political side of its social satire with a presidential election underway and Homelander on trial for the small matter of killing a guy last season. The season will continue to air on Thursdays, culminating with the finale on July 18. Amazon is really leaning into its sports offerings this month as well. Fans will…

Hulu has to be pretty pleased with its list of new releases for June 2024. That’s because it’s about to be the summer of The Bear once again. The Bear season 3 premieres all of its episodes on June 27 on Hulu. This FX dramedy has proven to be one of the most successful shows of its era. Jeremy Allen White stars as Carmy Berzatto, a world-famous chef who returns home to Chicago to help his floundering family restaurant after the death of his brother. Season 2 saw The Original Beef of Chicagoland crew transform the spot into fine dining…

With its list of new releases for June 2024, HBO streamer Max is finally headed back to Westeros. The highlight of this month is undoubtedly the premiere of House of the Dragon season 2 on June 16. Episode 1 will drop on both HBO and Max that Sunday night at 9 p.m. ET. With the infamous Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons now underway, the next batch of episodes for this Game of Thrones prequel should be truly epic. Arriving before House of the Dragon season 2 is another story of a fraught succession. Ren Faire,…

With its list of new releases for June 2024, Disney+ isn’t going to beat the “only a Star Wars and Marvel streamer” allegations. That’s because there is just one major new release and it’s of the Star Wars variety. Thankfully, Star Wars: The Acolyte, premiering on June 4, sounds pretty good! This series from Leslye Headland (Russian Doll) is set during the end of the High Republic era and will follow a respected Jedi master (played by Squid Game‘s Lee Jung-jae) investigating a crime that brings him back into contact with his former Padawan (Amandla Stenberg). Aside from that, Disney+ has…

Twin movies. Doppelgängers. Rapid fire remakes. Whatever you want to call them, Hollywood studios have a long and painful history of rushing concepts that run the gamut from similar to identical into theaters at virtually the same moment. Oftentimes the belief is if you get before the cameras first, the competitor(s) will throw in the towel and cancel production. Yet once in a while what seems like a turf war played out in industry trade papers, where the disputed territories are overlapping ideas or historical personages, spills out into the multiplex as “the same movie” comes to cinemas weeks or…

When filmmaker Jeff Nichols finally saw Jodie Comer on the London stage, one thought kept racing through his head: this might be the greatest actor he’s ever seen. In retrospect that’s a bit ironic since by the time the English-born Comer starred in Prima Facie, a searing one-woman play about a rising barrister in the British legal system, she’d already met and agreed to star in Nichols’ passion project: The Bikeriders. And the writer-director had of course seen her before, be it in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, BBC’s Killing Eve, or even opposite Ryan Reynolds in the high-concept comedy,…

Alien didn’t just spring fully formed out of the heads of director Ridley Scott and writers Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett, Walter Hill, and David Giler. Its combination of “monster on the loose” and “haunted house in space” scenario was perhaps the ultimate distillation of a long line of sci-fi and horror pictures that had come before it, from quick B-movie cheapies to some of the genre’s most elegant offerings. What Alien did under the visionary hand of its director, however, was meld all those influences together in a way that transcended the schlockier elements of the film’s influences and elevated…

So you might have heard: despite being a fantastic spectacle and exactly what you want out of a summer post-apocalyptic race into the Wasteland, Furiosa had a rough opening weekend. Like worst opening weekend for a Memorial Day chart-topper since 1984 “rough.” And a mere four days after this stumble began, the debate’s already arisen on whether this was a one-off disappointment due to being a recast prequel movie, or if it’s a sign of larger systemic issues in the industry. Either way, it’s part of a May which has sent a chill down studios’ spines. Generally considered the launchpad…

Every April 5th, Star Trek fans celebrate First Contact Day. As established in the 1996 movie Star Trek: First Contact, First Contact Day celebrates the anniversary of Vulcans establishing contact with humans, after the latter launches their first warp-capable vehicle. From that moment, humanity took its first steps into the wider galaxy, establishing Starfleet and then exploring the cosmos, as documented in the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise. But apparently First Contact and Enterprise weren’t enough to tell that Star Trek origin story. According to a report by THR, the first film in production will be an origin film “set…

“You break the rules and become a hero,” Wanda Maximoff tells Stephen Strange at the start of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. “I do it and I become the enemy… doesn’t seem fair.” That line from should confuse some viewers. After all, such rule breaking didn’t occur in 2016’s Doctor Strange, to which Multiverse of Madness is a sequel. It happened in Avengers: Infinity War. And Wanda’s rule-breaking happened in WandaVision. During the drive to Avengers: Endgame, this type of comprehensive world-building was a feature and not a bug of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But it’s become a…

Nearly seven years after its release, one of the most controversial scenes in Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi continues to be when Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master and veritable legend, tells the next generation about what the Jedi really represent. While training the franchise’s newest protagonist, Rey (Daisy Ridley), Mark Hamill’s now grizzled and ancient Luke intones, “The Jedi are romanticized, deified. But if you strip away the myth and look at their deeds, the legacy of the Jedi is failure; hypocrisy; hubris.” The scene wasn’t taken well by some corners of the Star Wars fandom in 2017, and…

“What do you people out there want?!” a Warner Bros. executive might be forgiven for asking after arguably the worst Memorial Day weekend box office in 40 years. Despite Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga opening to glowing reviews, glitzy standing ovations at the Cannes Film Festival, and as part of a revered IP franchise whose last installment is considered one the best summer movies ever—Mad Max: Fury Road is a six-time Oscar winner!—the prequel’s box office still marked the lowest debut for a number one Memorial Day release since Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And that came out…

This article contains Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga spoilers. It all begins with a a peach. That is the first thing audiences are asked to bear witness to at the start of George Miller’s long-awaited Furiosa. And it’s this simple luxury for which young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) will soon be cast out of paradise. Never one to make a play toward subtlety, even when he strives for plenty of nuance, Miller knows exactly what kind of loaded comparisons he’s demanding audiences to make. A girl; a red, ripe piece of fruit; and a forbidden act that invites lifelong punishment. Despite…

This article contains Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga spoilers. Furiosa’s world is not a romantic place. George Miller’s post-apocalyptic Wasteland is barely habitable and fit for the toughest of survivors only. The young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) must learn this fast in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga when she is snatched from her idyllic home. Her mother tries desperately to rescue her and very nearly manages but instead is caught, tortured, and killed by Dementusm (Chris Hemsworth) and his men in front of her daughter. Dementus wants to know where Furiosa’s home is. But Furiosa knows she can’t tell him, even…

“Jesus, Jesus help me,” sings Bono, front man of the classic Irish rock band U2. “I’m alone in this world, and a fucked up world it is too.” Even though U2 fans had long grown used to Bono’s mixture of Christian faith and endless ennui by the time the band released the techno-infused album Pop in 1997, the frankness displayed in the song “Wake Up Dead Man” shocked and dismayed listeners. Alongside the playful dance track “Discothèque” and sultry numbers such as “The Playboy Mansion” and “If You Wear That Red Dress,” “Wake Up Dead Man” had a raw honesty…

This article contains full spoilers for Atlas. After surviving an attack orchestrated by the rogue synthetic Harlan (Simu Liu), cyber analyst Atlas (Jennifer Lopez) lands in her mech-suit on a mysterious new planet. And it is there that she notices a strange flower, which the artificial intelligence Smith (voiced by Gregory James Cohan) informs her has never been seen before. When Smith asks what she wants to call the flower, Atlas responds with an uncreative name: “Planty.” Although Atlas insists that she’s making a joke, Smith accepts the name, and Planty returns at the end of the film as a…