“A B-movie with A-movie ideas.” That is how an eminently driven, and fictional, film director describes the horror movie sequel she’s developing in MaXXXine. Yet Ti West’s assertion through her will be lost on no one walking into this third triumphant installment of the decade’s most unlikely franchise. What began as a lean and mean throwback to ‘70s independent sleaze in all its shadings—from the grindhouse to the porno shop—has turned into a tryptic of longing and ambition, love for cinema’s power and anguish at beholding the full desolation its legacy can bring. When the trilogy concludes this Fourth of…

Driving into town in his beat-up Chevy Nova, Detroit detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) still cannot believe the sights of Beverly Hills. He looks with bewilderment at high-fashion stores, a man dressed like a rockstar, and a blonde in a Corvette who offers a playful wink despite her boyfriend in the adjoining seat. Foley ends the sequence with his infectious chuckle, out of place in Beverly Hills but not out of ideas. When Foley returns 40 years later for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, he repeats the drive in yet another beat-up vehicle. He notices a new set of California…

Let’s face it, streaming services have lost a lot of their appeal. Between their ever shifting libraries, their kneecapping of theaters, and their tendency to overwhelm viewers with substandard garbage, it’s hard to be excited about our streaming present. Heck, most services now play the same couple of ads over and over, even for paying customers! With every annoying insurance ad and every movie suddenly shoved from a service you bought to a different service you don’t have, Tubi looks better and better. Tubi is one of many free streaming services available online. Like most other services, free or otherwise,…

Deadpool isn’t just another superhero. He’s also one of the biggest nerds in the world, a guy who knows nearly everything about the Marvel Universe on page, screen, and beyond. How else could he keep making these snide remarks to the camera and his countless readers? Still, in the latest teaser for Deadpool & Wolverine, the Merc With a Mouth seems to have forgotten about an important detail. The new quasi-trailer finds the titular duo of Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) and Logan (Hugh Jackman) deep within the Void: a wasteland last seen in Loki‘s first season. This Mad Max-ian hellscape…

Hell yeah! HBO and Max’s new releases for July include the two-episode debut of Harley Quinn spinoff series Kite Man: Hell Yeah! (July 18) that follows the titular villain and his girlfriend the Golden Glider as they take their relationship to the next logical step – opening a bar for supervillains together. Hilarious hijinks are bound to ensue as Gotham’s hottest new bar takes off. Football fans will get to follow the New York Giants in this season of Hard Knocks: Offseason starting July 2. This non-scripted series will follow the team as they prepare for their highly anticipated 100th…

Star Wars: The Acolyte continues to be the most exciting offering on Disney+ in July, with the season finale airing on July 16 at 6 p.m. PT/ 9 p.m. ET / 1 a.m. GMT. With the identity of the Stranger revealed and only three episodes left, this show is ramping up speed for what is sure to be an epic finale. For families, or even the young at heart, Descendants: The Rise of Red arrives on July 12, joined by sing-along versions of the first three Descendants movies for your karaoke viewing pleasure. The first seven of Bluey‘s new minisodes…

On June 30 1999, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s infamous creation, South Park, made its leap from Comedy Central to the silver screen with South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. Possibly the fastest example of a TV series making the jump to film, South Park was greenlit right at the end of the first season, and production started during the second and third seasons. Bigger, Longer and Uncut would go on to fully highlight the sheer magnitude of Parker and Stone’s comedic and satirical strengths, working as a metatextual commentary on censorship and scapegoating while dealing with its own veritable…

Netflix has a couple of major series airing all or part of their final seasons in July 2024. The hit Spanish drama Elite is set to premiere its eighth and final season in full this month with one final mystery (July 26), Vikings: Valhalla is setting off on one final adventure with its third season (July 11), and Cobra Kai is also entering its swan song era with the first part of its final sixth season arriving on Netflix July 18. The most notable movie offering this month is Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (July 3). Thirty years after his…

If we listen to each other’s heart, we’ll find we love A Goofy Movie as cinematic art! Okay, that isn’t how the lyrics to the now famous “I 2 I” song first heard in 1995’s A Goofy Movie go but they reflect how the world at large views the film these days. Thanks to a generation of kids watching the movie over and over on VHS, endless cosplays of rock star Powerline, and the irresistible god-tier quality of Tevin Campbell’s musical contributions, A Goofy Movie is more beloved today than it’s ever been. But with so many repeated viewings little…

Hulu is giving Shark Week a run for its money this July with not one but seven National Geographic specials dropping on the streaming service at the start of the month. From Shark Beach with Anthony Mackie to Baby Sharks in the City, there are plenty of options for fans of these fearsome finned creatures. Hulu also has a couple of fun offerings for adult animation fans with the full second season of Marvel’s Hit Monkey dropping on July 15 and Futurama returning for its 12th season on July 29th. There’s not really anything notable in the way of original…

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…