It was an initially groan-inducing idea 20 years ago: a remake of George A. Romero‘s 1978 zombie classic Dawn of the Dead. That film was arguably the Romero’s masterpiece, a biting satire about American consumerism that still feels relevant today. But the Zack Snyder version that followed turned out to be much more worthy of the Dawn name than anyone expected from a director making his feature film debut. More of a reimagining than a traditional remake, 2004’s Dawn of the Dead was a gorier, balls-to-the-wall action flick featuring zombies that didn’t just shamble down the post-apocalyptic street but sprinted…

How is it forty years since 1984?? Well, that’s just how time works, my friends. It was a time before mobile phones. Before the internet. Before we got worried about and then forgot about Y2K. It was the year in which George Orwell envisioned a world of doublethink, room 101 and Big Brother. And it was several years before Room 101 and Big Brother would come to mean TV shows and not dystopian ideals. But we digress… Fortunately, the very nature of films is that the passing of time does not erode the quality of a classic movie, and even…

A lot goes into a good performance – from research to blocking to facial expressions and beyond. But at its core, an acting performance comes down to reading lines of dialogue on a piece of paper. Many actors do their level best to read the lines as written. Some other actors, bless them, like to get a little more creative. Television and film are filled with fascinating line readings from actors. Whether it’s an emphasis on an unusual syllable or just an outright scream, certain performers are able to make dialogue feel particularly vibrant. As pop culture travelers ourselves, we’ve…

Quentin Tarantino loves film. Few filmmakers can boast such a wide knowledge of movies, especially the B-films and grindhouse works that have inspired his greatest cinematic accomplishments. Tarantino also loves to talk about future projects. Put those two passions together and you get a guy who often teases movies he never actually ends up making. Of course, it’s not always talk. Many of his best movies, including Kill Bill and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood started as ideas that he blabbed about to anyone who would listen. But while that approach builds excitement, it also sets up fans for…

AMC drama Mad Men is one of the best TV series of its era – or any other for that matter. The seven season-long saga of 1960s Madison Avenue advertising executive Don Draper (Jon Hamm) has rightfully taken its place among the classics in the TV canon. In addition to its greatness, however, another thing that Mad Men should be remembered for is its bizarre commitment to secrecy. Mad Men was one of the most spoiler-phobic TV shows ever. Showrunner Matthew Weiner insisted that AMC’s promos for the drama reveal next-to-nothing about upcoming plots. A typical “on the next episode…

RoboCop became both a blockbuster and a controversial critical darling upon its release in 1987 due to a mix of jet black humor and as subtle as a jackhammer social commentary sticking a perfect landing. Its success was a surprise to an industry that had looked at Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner’s original script with its simplistic one-word comic book title and assumed it was fated to be a high-concept stinker. The 2023 RoboDoc documentary miniseries does a terrific job of chronicling the effort it took to turn RoboCop into both a box office win and an enduring cult masterpiece…

Zack Snyder made his name with his gruesome, much more action-y remake of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead in 2004. The director then tried to line up an even bigger sequel called Army of the Dead for years, but there were many detours along the way, including his eventual role as the chief architect of the early DCEU. He finally returned to his long-lost zombie sequel in 2021, this time as the launching point of a whole new cinematic universe for Netflix, which also included a crime thriller prequel called Army of Thieves and even an animated series…

Over the past several days, a new viral story spread around social media when (thanks to a New York Post write-up), the juxtaposition of the terms “A.I.” and “girlfriend” became a chilling promise of things to come. That’s at least one way to interpret Late Checkout CEO Greg Isenberg’s prediction that the next growth industry for artificial intelligence is “dating.” In a social media post on X, which is the platform formerly known as Twitter, Isenberg recounted how he met a 24-year-old “single guy” who told him he spends $10,000 a month on “AI girlfriends.” The anonymous man even described…

The long-awaited trailer for Transformers One has finally been released and it… was not what anyone was expecting. Early details first confirmed in April 2020 revealed the film would be a fully animated prequel. Set on the home planet of the Transformers, Cybertron, the film takes place several years before the main story that’s been adapted so many times in both live action and animation, and focuses on the early relationship between Autobot leader Optimus Prime and Decepticon leader Megatron. The implication of that premise was that we’d finally receive key context as to the motivation behind the two most…

This Rebel Moon article contains spoilers. Love him or hate him, you cannot deny Zack Snyder garners more attention than most filmmakers working today. It’s no surprise that his fans have been champing at the bit to see his the second part of his dark sci-fi epic, which it titled Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver. Snyder debuted Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Light in December. That film introduced viewers to a futuristic science fiction world, drawing from beloved tropes about scrappy rebels, mysterious prophecies, and a totalitarian empire. The movie pulls ideas from Star Wars, the samurai…

This article contains possible spoilers for Dune: Part Three and Dune Messiah. When Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune: Part One opened in 2021, it only took Warner Bros. six days to announce the sequel. However, when Dune: Part Two opened this past March 1—despite doing huge business and clearly paving the way for a third chapter—it took the studio over a month to confirm a film of Dune Messiah was in development. Why the delay? Well, lots of possible reasons, actually.  Even though Dune: Part Two is likely to soon cross the $700 million mark at the global box office, it was…

Way back in 2002, the excitement for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones diminished somewhat. Late Night with Conan O’Brien sent Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to mock the fans lined up for the premiere, resulting in a segment in which comedian/puppeteer Robert Smigel launched nerd jokes at the assembly. Most of the jokes were pretty obvious, including the last bit, in which a man cosplaying as Mr. Spock gained the knack for cursing and walked up and down the line with his middle finger extended. But while the perceived Star Wars vs. Star Trek rivalry has become…

There is a lot that can be and has been said about the dance scenes in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. Little of it has been positive in the 17(!) years since the movie’s release. Undeniably leaning into the director’s goofier comic sensibility, the film twice detours from its dour tone—which begins when Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) dons the bad juju vibes of an alien symbiote—in order to have a laugh-out-loud dance break. In one sequence near the end of the second act, and after Peter has permanently scarred and attempted to kill his BFF (James Franco), Maguire’s protagonist struts down…

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth mythology includes several epic and powerful love stories. Aragorn and Arwen are probably the best known thanks to the Lord of the Rings films, plus Sam and Rosie get married at the end, and the extended editions also feature Éowyn and Faramir’s relationship, though that one was a bit rushed even in the books. But book fans also know the stories of Tuor and Idril, Elwing and Eärendil, and the rather more tragic story of Aegnor and Andreth, among others. The love story that meant the most to Tolkien himself, though, was the story of Beren and…

Bigfoots or Sasquatches, these creatures that straddle the line between man and beast are a captivating blend of mystery and fascination. Picture cavemen of colossal stature, untouched by the need to shave their skin. That’s your typical bigfoot. These enigmatic beings have also found their way into the spotlight of cinema, becoming iconic movie stars in their own right.  While they may have fewer film representations than their arctic counterparts, the yeti, Bigfoot has left an indelible mark on Hollywood. Whether these creatures were scene stealers or the main attraction, the Sasquatch has carved a unique place in cinema history.…

Civil War is an extremely powerful, effective movie that thrusts you into the middle of an American civil war seen through the eyes of a war photographer. It’s brutal. It’s extraordinarily violent. The sound design is bordering on abusive. And if you watch it in IMAX you can reasonably expect to leave the theater with more than a little motion sickness. It is, however, excellent, with great performances from Kirsten Dunst as the older, jaded photographer and Cailee Spaeny as the reckless youngster new to the game. So see it. But we’d be very surprised if you decide to rush back…

This article contains massive spoilers for Civil War. Barely in cinemas for 24 hours, the already most debated aspect of Alex Garland’s Civil War has been its ambiguity. Despite being a picture centered around journalists, Garland’s vision of social collapse in the United States remains curiously spartan when it comes to background details. It suggests polarization has become so extreme that Americans are dying by the tens of thousands (if not more). Yet by design, Garland does not explain the root cause of that polarization or much else of what led to the last bedraggled days of an unnamed president…

The United States is tearing itself apart in a maelstrom of sectarian divisions. Armed groups freely patrol vast swaths of so-called “sovereign” territory. The constant threat of violence hangs over the country, and states are openly rebelling against the powers of the federal government. The world’s oldest continuous modern democracy seems poised on the brink of melting down. And, oh yeah, a new movie is coming out: Alex Garland’s Civil War. While the above scenario is a slightly exaggerated version of what’s actually happening in the U.S. today—and, it seems, for the past eight years—one can squint a little and…

The debut of Amazon’s Fallout series is a major moment for fans of the gaming franchise who have long dreamed of an adaptation of the legendary RPG franchise. Of course, since every episode of that series is being released at once, there’s a good chance you’ll finish the post-apocalyptic series pretty quickly and be left feeling as empty as an apocalyptic wasteland. Thankfully, there is no shortage of tremendous post-apocalyptic movies out there to help you fill that void. From some of the most shocking films ever made to bonafide action classics, the post-apocalyptic genre is a surprisingly robust slice…

As much as we love them, the Star Trek movies have their share of mistakes. God stealing a starship, John Harrison revealing himself as Khan, McCoy shaving off his beard in The Motion Picture. But it looks like the movie franchise is about to outdo them all. Paramount has officially added the next Star Trek movie to its 2025 release schedule. According to TrekCore, the project currently called Untitled Star Trek Origin Story will begin production this year, with Seth Grahame-Smith writing and Toby Haynes directing. The film will take place decades before the 2009 Star Trek reboot from J.J.…