Drama
TNT’s Snowpiercer Lays Just Enough Track for a Second Revolution: Review
All Aboard: Nearly seven years after scientists accidentally froze the Earth to its core and the last of humanity boarded Mr. Wilford’s 1,001-car ark of a train, the unticketed stowaway class in the vessel’s tail plan insurrection against the higher classes. Their meager rebellion, doomed from the start, mercifully gets cut short when one of its leaders, Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs), a homicide detective in his previous life, gets summoned by Head of Hospitality Melanie Cavill (Jennifer Connelly) to solve a murder towards the front of the train. Not only does working this freezing “cold case” allow Layton the opportunity to gather intelligence and form alliances up-train necessary to the rebellion, but he also stumbles upon a complicated web of secrets and lies woven to keep Wilford’s etern...
Tom Hardy’s Capone Is an Absolute Horror Show of Decaying Tropes and Hungry Ghosts: Review
The Pitch: Alfonse Capone (Tom Hardy) was once the scourge of the FBI and law enforcement across the nation. He was Public Enemy Number One, the king of Chicago’s underground, the scourge of FBI agent Elliot Ness, who lived high on the hog and killed people with a gold plated Tommy Gunn. Now? It’s the mid-40s and untreated syphilis has caught up with the aging Capone, decrepit before his time and the FBI is getting sick of surveying him at his home on Palm Island, Florida. Supervising Agent Crawford (Jack Lowden) thinks there’s something Capone still knows, that he’s still hiding. Capone, now going by Fonzo to keep his profile low — even as he lives on a sprawling estate with his wife (Linda Cardellini), full battery of protection, and serving and gardening staff — starts to imagine he can...
Kurt Cobain’s MTV Unplugged Guitar to Be Auctioned Off Amid Family Dispute
Kurt Cobain’s guitar from Nirvana’s legendary MTV Unplugged episode will be auctioned off on June 19th by Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, California. It’s a 1959 Martin D-18E acoustic-electric guitar and it’s reportedly valued at $1,000,000. The Martin D-18E comes with its original hard-shell case decorated by Cobain, including a flyer from Poison Idea’s 1990 album Feel the Darkness, three baggage claim ticket stubs, and an Alaska Airlines sticker. The case also contains Cobain’s half-used pack of Martin guitar strings, three guitar picks, and a suede “stash” bag with tiny utensils. The guitar is the latest Cobain item from MTV Unplugged to be auctioned off following his sweater, and its current ownership is not without controversy. Over the past several years, Frances Bean Cobain and ...
Hulu’s The Great Never Lives Up to Its Name: Review
The Pitch: In 18th century Russia, a penniless Prussian noble named Catherine (executive producer Elle Fanning) is betrothed to Emperor Peter (Nicholas Hoult). Catherine, who makes up for what her family lacks in finance with the kind of sick optimism preserved for golden-haired, porcelain-perfect teenage girls in these types of fairy tales, travels across Europe and Asia with wide-eyed hopes of marital bliss, a progressive Russia, and maybe even some pull in court. Of course, as these things go, Catherine’s husband is loutish, childish, and more concerned with drinking himself into a stupor than just about anything else. Catherine is forced to grow up, fast. Their marriage quickly devolves into a battleground. A mere six months in and with all of her dreams shattered in pieces at her feet...
Mark Ruffallo Pulls Heartbreaking Double Duty in HBO’s I Know This Much Is True: Review
The Pitch: Based on the Wally Lamb novel of the same name, I Know This Much is True charts the string of tragedies that surround the Birdsey brothers, Dominick and Thomas (both played by Mark Ruffalo) – identical twins born on New Year’s Eve, 1949, and who seem to have been born to suffer. And they do, through abusive childhoods in the 1950s to the early signs of Thomas’ paranoid schizophrenia in their college years. Cut to 1990, when Thomas, amidst a mental breakdown, lops off his own hand in a public library, a move that gets him institutionalized in a high-security mental facility. Terrified at his brother’s living condition, Dominick works tirelessly to get him out. But in doing so, he’ll have to work through some deep-seated issues of his own. Misery Loves Company: Dere...
Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods Receives Netflix Premiere Date
There’s a new Spike Lee joint heading to your home. Today, the legendary filmmaker announced that Da 5 Bloods, his highly anticipated follow-up to 2018’s BlacKkKlansman, will premiere on Netflix on Friday, June 12th. Starring Chadwick Boseman, Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Paul Walter, and Jean Reno, the film follows four veterans who return to Vietnam searching for the remains of their fallen squad leader — and some treasure. Lee directed and co-wrote the script with Danny Bilson, Paul DeMeo, Matt Billingsly, and Kevin Willmott, the latter of whom aided Lee and Charlie Wachtel on their Oscar-winning script for BlacKkKlansman. Editors’ Picks Check out Lee’s announcement below, followed by its swanky poster, and revisit our 2018 Filmmaker of the Year interview in which the legend dis...
Thousand Pieces of Gold Cast and Crew Reunite for COVID-EODROME on Twitch
COVID-EODROME, a new weekly movie review series for our newly minted Twitch channel, returns to review the latest Video On-Demand releases. Hosted by The Spool’s Editor-in-Chief Clint Worthington and RogerEbert.com’s Scout Tafoya, the show provides some much-needed film criticism for your quarantine. Starting at 2:30 p.m. EST / 11:30 a.m. PST, the series will spotlight three new releases: –First up is Martha Stephens’ new drama To the Stars, which stars Kara Hayward, Liana Liberato, Shea Whigham, Tony Hale, and more. It’s currently streaming on Hulu. –Next up is Coky Giedroyc’s comedic adaptation of Caitlin Moran’s How to Build a Girl, which stars Beanie Feldstein and premieres this weekend on VOD. –And finally, we have Driveways, the final film to star the late Brian Dennehy. It...
Damien Chazelle’s Netflix Series The Eddy Is A Mess Without the Music: Review
The Pitch: The Academy Award-winning wunderkind director Damien Chazelle has made his name largely on films all about jazz, from his 2009 indie debut Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench to 2014’s searing music-school drama Whiplash and to 2016’s widescreen musical throwback La La Land. But with The Eddy, he’s one of the lead behind-the-scenes voices on an eight-episode limited streaming series set largely in a smoky Parisian nightclub whose creative leader is a mercurial ex-jazz pianist (André Holland) with a dark past, a troubled daughter, and thugs threatening him. So, to paraphrase Barton Fink, it’s an Oscar-winning director, one of the best actors of his generation, and Netflix. Whaddya need, a road map? The Language of Music: The first thing to know about The Eddy is that, apparentl...
