This article contains major spoilers for Dune: Part Two and minor spoilers for the next book in the series, Dune: Messiah. When the story of Dune: Part Two ends, Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atredies has everything you might want in the universe: the love of his life, the betrothed hand of a princess—who, for the record, is not the same woman—and the literal throne to the galaxy. There’s all that and more, so why does the second half of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of this iconic novel end on such a feeling of despair and doom? Well, the legions of Fremen fanatics…

After weeks of moving through scuzzy bars with off-beat cybernetic accouterment, toiling under a static-grey sky to gain control of cyberspace, our heroes have made it to Zion. The Rastafarians who greet these travelers from a ship named for an important historical figure pay little mind to our male protagonist. However, they cannot believe their luck in meeting his female companion, whose reputation far exceeds his. Regardless of the chilly reception, the protagonist remains undeterred. Zion is, after all, a key part in mission to understand a powerful AI controlling reality. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the above description…

The casting of The Crown’s Emma Corrin in Deadpool & Wolverine’s in a lead role has led to plenty of speculation as to whether they’re playing the film’s villain. Although some thought she’d be playing a variant version of Deadpool to give a twist on Lady Deadpool, others were adamant she’d bring Cassandra Nova to the party. Now, it looks like the latter has been confirmed. As seen on the US Copyright Office site, Corrin’s character is listed as “Cassandra Nova,” seemingly confirming they’ll be playing the villainous twin sister of Charles Xavier. Introduced in 2001’s New X-Men #114, Cassandra…

You don’t have to go too far into the biographies of bad boy New Hollywood directors to find examples of impropriety. William Friedkin tossing around poor Linda Blair for The Exorcist. Francis Ford Coppola going full Kurtz for Apocalypse Now. Paul Schrader doing… well, Paul Schrader things. But there’s one guy who doesn’t fit the bill, despite palling around with the others: George Lucas. For better or worse, the soft-spoken and intellectual Lucas doesn’t seem to push his actors to extremes (well, there were a few not okay comments to Carrie Fisher). And yet, that’s exactly what had to happen…

If you were a teenager in the 1990s (like me!), few things mattered to you like The Crow. The 1994 film captured goth/grunge cool. From its origins as an indie comic book to its legendary soundtrack to its tragic production, The Crow captured the mood of a generation. Which is to say that the first look at Bill Skarsgård in the upcoming remake of The Crow might be a bit of a shock. And if you were a teenager in the ’90s, your heart isn’t what it used to be, so you might want to sit down. Have a look…

Even if you don’t know an El-Aurian from an Illyrian, even if you can’t tell the original Enterprise from the Enterprise-D, you’re probably familiar with one of the fundamental rules of Star Trek: redshirts always die. Unlike many of the popular misconceptions about the series (Kirk doesn’t actually chase women, for example), the redshirt stereotype does have grounding in the show. Over the course of three seasons in The Original Series, 26 characters wearing red tunics died, as opposed to 15 wearing gold and blue combined. But that trend stopped with the Star Trek movies, and continued to fall away…

This article contains mild spoilers from the Dune novel. Director Denis Villeneuve faced many dilemmas when crafting the finale of his two-part Dune adaptation. Frank Herbert’s narrative is sprawling, and the climactic confrontation between Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and the forces of the Emperor (Christopher Walken) was full of landmines in terms of excessive exposition and outdated sensibilities. In fact, as last lines of a famous book go, we’re not sure if “we who carry the name of concubine—history will call us wives” would have flown for modern audiences buying tickets to this weekend’s Dune: Part Two. So it is…

Warning: contains spoilers for Wicked Little Letters. Wicked Little Letters is remarkable for two things: being stuffed with the kind of language to make a sailor blush, and generosity to the real-life figures who inspired its story. If the film had told the complete tale of the poison pen campaign that scandalised 1920s Littlehampton, audiences may not feel as ready to empathise with Edith Swan or Rose Gooding. As played by Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley – two actors who never stop reminding you that no matter what despicable things their characters say or do, they’re flesh and blood people…

For all its influence and vision, Frank Herbert’s original Dune novel never quite hit the note the author intended. With its sweeping sci-fi vistas of desert worlds and space age T.E. Lawrences, it’s easy to see why some readers got lost in the adventure of it all—or simply extracted those fun bits for their own riffs on galaxies far, far away. Still, it was never Herbert’s goal to pen a white savior narrative about Paul Atredies, a boy hero plagued by prophecies of genocide. After viewing the second volume of Denis Villeneuve’s grand but immensely foreboding adaptation of Dune, it’s…

It’s hard to believe it’s been 47 years since we first witnessed the adventures of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, but across the nine-movie Skywalker saga, two standalone movies, a multitude of TV series, and one questionable Holiday Special, we’ve learned it’s a big ol’ galaxy out there. With enough characters to fill a Death Star, it’s inevitable that not every player in this grand space opera would get the same attention as Luke, Han, and Leia.  In fact, the franchise has allowed a few characters to slip to the sidelines. From major players who were discarded into the trash…

Within weeks of its release in the summer of 2008, The Dark Knight cemented its place in popular culture. People were quoting the Joker, debating Batman’s questionable surveillance tactics, and praising the film’s grounded take on superheroes, even before the movie hit home video. Obviously, The Dark Knight means a lot to everyone who sees it. Well, almost everyone. A key part of the movie doesn’t mean anything to one of the most important people involved in the movie: director Christopher Nolan. “I’m plagued by a line from The Dark Knight, and I’m plagued by it because I didn’t write…

Anne Boleyn has been played on screen since the silent movie era. She’s been portrayed as a six-fingered boo-hiss villain, a Saturday Night Live punchline, a ghost haunting Princess Diana, and in recent stage musical Six, a Kate Nash-style aitch-dropping popstrel. Now, Henry VIII’s second wife is trending on TikTok as a new generation gets sucked into the scandals of the Tudor court and stakes their allegiance to her, the Spanish queen unseated for her, the simpering virgin who followed her, or any other player during this eventful period in history when the king of England made the position of…

Before Blu-ray or DVD, before you could just open up an app on your phone and stream things, there was the beloved VHS tape, that most bulky of physical media. Whether you rented them from Blockbuster, owned a library of them and organized them neatly in the shelves running alongside your home entertainment center, used them to record your favorite movies or TV shows, or simply prayed for your teacher to pull one out on a Friday afternoon in middle school, the VHS tape was king of ’80s and ’90s home media. There was simply nothing better than the experience…

Hallmark Channel is capping off a month of original films themed around Jane Austen’s works with the premiere of a new feature-length adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. The classic story about whether young women should choose husbands based on romantic notions of love or practicality has been adapted for both television and film several times before. Many fans may remember either the 1995 film adaptation directed by Ang Lee or the 2008 BBC and PBS television miniseries starring Dominic Cooper and Charity Wakefield.  This Sense and Sensibility stands out from the other recent period adaptations of Austen’s works, however, as…

As a musical unit, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr enjoyed the most unique experience in popular entertainment. While Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra similarly spent the most exciting periods of their careers circumnavigating hordes of rabid fans, persistent, compulsory photo-ops, and suitcases of ticket sales cash, they still broke through as solo song interpreters. The Beatles, by contrast, became a global phenomenon as a group, and a very busy one, in and out of the studio, mostly writing their own music. In keeping with the musical unit’s consistent commitment to innovation, Apple Corps. and Sony Pictures…

Even the most die-hard 007 fans know that James Bond movies don’t always hit. There’s the yellow face of You Only Live Twice, the pigeon double-take in Moonraker, the surfing in Die Another Day. But never has the franchise done worse than when a certain Louisiana police officer bumbles into the otherwise solid Live and Let Die. Yes, I’m talking about Sheriff J.W. Pepper, a loudmouth distraction who sort of makes sense in the American-set Live and Let Die, but then he somehow also shows up in Thailand to further drag down The Man With the Golden Gun. Modern viewers…

This article contains Priscilla spoilers. Director Sofia Coppola scrubs at tarnished memories for the biopic Priscilla. It’s a bold choice since Elvis Presley disciples prefer admiring unvarnished relics in a still-flourishing golden hue. The film’s primary source and title character, Priscilla Presley, has offered no apologies for her time with the mythological musician, just the facts as she remembers them. These recollections do not diminish her love of the man who came to define her existence, but they cloud his legacy to this day. “Why are you coming for my dad and my family?” Elvis’ daughter Lisa Marie Presley wrote…

The last American movie star. The savior of cinema. Maverick. There are plenty of superlatives thrown around Tom Cruise these days—including by us—and for good reason. In an era where audiences increasingly only venture to the theater for familiar intellectual property (if at all), Tom Cruise remains one of the last old school marquee names people turn out for in order to watch the actor. And more often than not, they’re justified in that trust, because Cruise has spent his middle-age proving that like his most popular alter-ego—Navy pilot Pete Mitchell—he has no intention of turning in his wings. It’s…

For a guy who writes about awful stuff happening to people, Stephen King sure likes liking things. Just think about how many times he’s used his position to praise other creatives and projects. “I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker,” declared his blurb for the American release of Books of Blood. “Tight, terrific, and very, very scary. Reminded me a bit of Duel,” he said of The Fall on Twitter in 2022. “Wish I’d written it.” Heck, his horror history book Danse Macabre ends with an appendix recommending over 100 books and nearly 100…

Lionsgate has finally released the first trailer for Eli Roth’s Borderlands movie nearly 10 years after the project was announced. While the preview is relatively light on plot details, it certainly emphasizes the “edgy” style of humor that has helped make the Borderlands game franchise so notable and sometimes divisive.  The Borderlands franchise has only grown since the original Borderlands game was launched way back in 2009, but the series has remained remarkably consistent during that time. Most of the Borderlands games feature a group of treasure hunters navigating cel-shaded wasteland environments, a ton of loot to collect, and an…