breaks

13 Feb

How Fear of Rain Breaks New Ground For Thrillers

New DVD releasebreaks, ground, thrillers

With the new psychological thriller Fear of Rain, actor turned writer-director Castille Landon takes a sharp turn away from her two previous directorial efforts, the family films Apple of My Eye and Albion: The Enchanted Stallion. Her third movie focuses on Rain Burroughs (Madison Iseman of the last two Jumanji sequels and Annabelle Comes Home), a young girl diagnosed with schizophrenia who isn’t sure what’s real and what isn’t — including the boy at school (Israel Broussard) who takes an interest in her. Despite the entreaties of her parents (Katherine Heigl and Harry Connick Jr.) and the threat of being…

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16 Jan

Promising Young Woman: Director Emerald Fennell Breaks Down the Ending

New DVD releasebreaks, director, emerald, fennell, promising, woman, young

Contains spoilers for Promising Young Woman “Where does the pleasure stop and the truth begin?” poses Emerald Fennell, director of Promising Young Woman, a highly distinctive rape-revenge thriller starring Carey Mulligan which feels like a total subversion of the subgenre. Fennell’s debut is an incredibly contemporary, candy-colored fable about a former medical student, Cassie, who has dropped out of University and instead pursues a secret second life as an avenging angel, feigning extreme drunkenness until inevitably a ‘good guy’ picks her up and takes back to his home.  It’s very dark subject matter painted in bright, engaging strokes, and an…

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15 Oct

Talalay’s Terrors! The Director Breaks Down Her 5 Scariest Scenes

Netflix, New DVD releasebreaks, director, scariest, scenes, talalay, terrors

Rachel Talalay knows horror. The British-American filmmaker got her directorial start with 90s horror flicks Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare and Ghost in the Machine before helming cult classic Tank Girl. In the last few decades, she has directed dozens of TV episodes that dip or full-on dive into That Most Chilling Genre. From Doctor Who and Doom Patrol to Supernatural and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Talalay has been asked to tell many a spooky story. Talalay’s latest, A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting is a feature film adaptation of the kids comedy horror book series from Joe Ballarini,…

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05 Sep

How Mulan’s Main Antagonist Almost Breaks the Disney Mold

New DVD releasealmost, antagonist, breaks, disney, mulan

This article contains MAJOR spoilers for Disney’s Mulan. You can read our spoiler-free review of the film here. A recurring visual motif in Disney’s 1998 animated Mulan is the titular warrior staring at her own face, rendered unfamiliar by makeup and wondering at how to reconcile the image of that stranger with the truth of herself hiding inside. The film’s core “I Want” song, “Reflection,” articulates this ambivalence, this sense of carrying two selves, with lyrics like: who is that girl I see / staring straight back at me / why is my reflection someone I don’t know. The Mulan…

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24 Aug

NOS4A2 Showrunner Breaks Down Season 2 Ending and Teases What’s Next

New DVD releasebreaks, ending, nos4a2, season, showrunner, teases

The following contains spoilers for NOS4A2 season 2. The first season of NOS4A2 ended with ambiguity. Charlie Manx is left injured and brain-dead, permanently trapped in the hospital. Vic McQueen discovers that she’s pregnant, putting a damper on her attempts to escape Haverhill and her old life. Bing Partridge is on the run from the cops, Manx’s partner in crime now left without a boss and with the authorities nipping at his heels. If the show stopped there, there’d be hanging threads, but there was confidence enough that evil was stopped, until it’s shown that a well-meaning mechanic bought the…

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19 Aug

Lindsay Ellis Breaks Down Axiom’s End

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This post is sponsored by Hugo-nominated video essayist Lindsay Ellis has published her first novel, Axiom’s End, a first contact adventure story set in an alternate history 2007. Billed as “Stranger Things meets Arrival” by the publisher and “the Arrival that fucks” by Ellis, Axiom’s End follows Cora Sabino, a young women who wants nothing to do with the alien contact cover-up her father, whistleblower Nils Ortega, has devoted his life to exposing. Of course, then one of the aliens comes to life and decides that Cora is the only human he will communicate with, Cora doesn’t have much of…

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14 Jul

Who is Fleabag Talking to When She Breaks the Fourth Wall?

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This article contains spoilers for the ending of Fleabag. Even people who have yet to immerse themselves in the hope, wonder, and agony of Fleabag probably know the structural “gimmick” of the Emmy-winning Amazon Prime series: protagonist Fleabag, played by series creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge, routinely breaks the fourth wall. Throughout the series, she turns to the camera, and tells the viewer what she is really thinking and feeling, usually in the form of a snarky joke. The series ends with Fleabag walking away from the camera, leaving us viewers behind. While the “mystery” of who Fleabag is talking to may…

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24 Apr

Netflix’s Extraction Director Breaks Down That One-Take Action Sequence

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The new Netflix movie Extraction stars Chris Hemsworth (Avengers: Endgame) as Tyler Rake, a highly efficient mercenary who is dispatched to Dhaka, Bangladesh to rescue the teenage son of a drug lord from an even more ruthless one. With a big bad kingpin controlling the streets, Rake and Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) must fight for every inch of the way to get out of the city and make it to freedom. Produced by Anthony and Joe Russo (from Joe’s screenplay) and directed by Sam Hargrave, stunt coordinator and second unit director on the Russos’ Marvel movies, Extraction is already getting a…

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17 Nov

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Max SchindlerMovie reviewsbreaks, internet, ralph

Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 leaves Litwak?s video arcade behind, venturing into the uncharted, expansive and thrilling world of the internet ? which may or may not survive Ralph?s wrecking. Video game bad guy Ralph (John C. Reilly) and fellow misfit Vanellope von Schweetz (Sara Silverman) must risk it all by traveling to the world wide web in search of a replacement part of save Vanellope?s video game, Sugar Rush. In way over their heads, Ralph and Vanellope rely on the citizens of the internet ? the netizens ? to help navigate their way, including a website entrepreneur…

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