This year we’ll be getting seven superhero movies. Seven. For reference, that’s how many Superman movies have been made in the last 40 years. (If that seems low, fret not – two of 2017’s super-films will include the Man of Steel.) We’re living in the golden age of caped crusaders, but what brought on this […]
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To watch the Alien prequels — Prometheus (2012) and now Alien: Covenant — is to marvel at the changes in astronaut-hiring practices that must have been implemented between the earlier chapters and the later ones. The characters in Ridley Scott’s 1979 original, set in 2124, are competent spacefarers who encounter difficult situations. But the people in Prometheus (set in […]
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Across five decades and now eight films, the Alien series has been a staple of the film geek’s life longer than some film geeks have been alive. The horror diehards will tell you it never got better than the original. The action nuts will tell you James Cameron delivered the franchise’s true masterpiece. The hipsters […]
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English dude-bro Guy Ritchie, having made his mark on the Sherlock Holmes mythos, turns his attention now to a famous Brit who probably actually existed. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, which Ritchie co-wrote with Joby Harold and Lionel Wigram, applies the same kind of whirling, modern, masculine energy to Arthur and Excalibur that he […]
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After Eddie Murphy(‘s social media team) tweeted then deleted a tease about it, Paramount Pictures confirmed the implausible: a sequel to 1988’s Coming to America is currently in development. The announcement raised the expected questions. Will Arsenio Hall return? Does McDonald’s-knockoff McDowell’s serve breakfast all day now? Will the Jheri curl subplot continue? And above […]
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How do we measure the importance of an artist? One way is to look at how often their influence is identified in the work of other artists. But an even better yardstick might be to gauge how often their influence is misidentified. By this standard, there may be no more important artist in cinema today […]
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Everyone knows how filmmaker-driven the Alien franchise has been. Yes, even your Aunt Beth knows this. The series started the careers of Hollywood mainstays Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and David Fincher, besides giving French wunderkind Jean-Pierre Jeunet a shot at a big-budget blockbuster. Most astonishing of all is the fact that the genius Paul Anderson […]
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In this week’s episode of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, entitled Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the ragtag group of space-rogues led by self-described “Star-Lord” Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) meets a new friend: Peter’s father, played by Special Guest Star Kurt Russell! Peter never knew anything about his dad, only that he was not an […]
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If you know me in real life, first of all you’re welcome, but secondly, you also know that I’m someone who goes out of his way to avoid insulting another person’s beliefs. That overly considerate mentality combined with my vast movie knowledge means that when friends and strangers ask if they should watch certain films, […]
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A certain breed of movie fan knows immediately why something called The Overlook Film Festival would be held at a place called the Timberline Lodge. The Timberline Lodge? In Oregon? Why, that’s the place that stood in for the fictional Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s movie version of The Shining! What better place to hold […]
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This may be news to you, especially if you hate kids, don’t have kids, or work from home, but April 27 is Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. Founded by Gloria Steinem way back in 1993 with the goal of exposing young girls to the workplace, it was expanded beyond its clearly sexist […]
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Maybe it’s the fashion or the facial hair, but Hollywood’s got it bad for the ‘70s right now. From the world of television (Showtime’s upcoming comedy series I’m Dying Up Here or HBO’s The Deuce) to film (Sofia Coppola’s remake of 1971’s The Beguiled), there’s a marked uptick in returning to the world of the […]
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