Film
Every Quentin Tarantino Movie Ranked from Worst to Best
Welcome to Dissected, where we disassemble a band’s catalog, a director’s filmography, or some other critical pop-culture collection in the abstract. It’s exact science by way of a few beers. The time, we enter the quirky, warmhearted world of Wes Anderson. This article was originally published in 2018 and has been updated. It’s fun to look back at Quentin Tarantino’s trajectory over the course of 20-plus years helming films. Once hailed as the video store punk with a proclivity for pop culture, Tarantino was the darling of Sundance in 1992 and quickly made a name for himself. He was the motor-mouth with a subversive wit, killer soundtracks, and a love for comics, rockabilly, and creative uses of camp, and he spawned a whole lot of junky crime capers, not to mention a ton of snarky banter ...
Aunjanue Ellis: 5 Things to Know About the King Richard Star
Boasting a career spanning multiple decades, Aunjanue Ellis is on the cusp of Oscar glory for her turn in the Will Smith-led King Richard, portraying Oracene “Brandy” Price, the mother of tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams. While King Richard primarily follows the life story of the sisters’ father, Richard, the film highlights the wide scope of Oracene Price’s work and the important role she held in making her daughters the greatest tennis players of all time. Ellis delivers a dynamic, moving, and multifaceted performance that transcends mere biopic impersonation; instead, it taps into something deeper and rawer. Ahead of the Oscars on Sunday, where King Richard is up for Best Picture, Best Actor (Smith), Best Supporting Actress (Ellis), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, a...
Everything Everywhere All At Once Is A Lot, and That’s a Good Thing: Review
The Pitch: Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) has lived a life of quiet, overwhelmed lament. There are so many things she could have done, so many hers she could have been. Instead, she’s a middle-aged owner of a failing laundromat, with a miserable husband gunning for divorce (Ke Huy Quan’s Weymond), a withdrawn daughter (Stephanie Hsu’s Joy), and an increasingly frail father (James Hong’s Gong Gong) who doesn’t yet know that his granddaughter is gay. It gets worse: It’s tax season, and their unsympathetic IRS auditor (Jamie Lee Curtis‘ Deirdre) is breathing down their necks. As if that weren’t complicated enough, the IRS office becomes a battleground for the fate of the multiverse as Evelyn learns that she’s the only one who can stop a multi-dimensional agent of chaos named Jobu Tupaki fro...
Moonlight Soundtrack Gets Deluxe Vinyl Reissue for 5th Anniversary of Oscar Win
A24 has announced a deluxe vinyl box set of the Moonlight soundtrack in honor of the film’s historic Oscar win five years ago. The reissue will feature the full original soundtrack by Nicholas Britell as well as eleven previously unreleased tracks like “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue,” “I’ve Seen Good and You Ain’t It,” and “Why’d You Call Me?” In addition, the box set includes a dual bound sewn book; Britell’s original, handwritten score to “Little’s Theme”; and a commemorative essay by Moonlight director Barry Jenkins. Pre-orders are now ongoing. “It’s been so exciting to revisit Moonlight with Barry and to now present this five year anniversary edition deluxe vinyl,” said Britell in a statement. “Working on Moonlight was a truly unforgettable journey for all of us, and we are thrille...
Nicolas Cage Defends Marvel Movies from Scorsese and Coppola: “I Don’t See What the Issue Is”
Superhero movies have come to make a few enemies in the world’s more sophisticated cinephiles, but Nicolas Cage doesn’t mind the big-budget flicks. In a recent interview, the actor defended Marvel’s industry domination from vocal critics like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, saying, “I don’t see what the issue is.” Back in 2019, Scorsese proclaimed that Marvel movies were more like theme parks than cinema, while this year, Coppola — Cage’s uncle, for those unaware — described the franchise’s films as “one prototype movie that is made over and over and over and over and over again to look different.” When GQ asked Cage to comment on these theories, he didn’t understand the beef. “Yeah, why do they do that?” Cage said. “I don’t understand the conflict. I don’t agree with t...
Live-Action Voltron Movie Coming from Red Notice Director Rawson Marshall Thurber
Red Notice director Rawson Marshall Thurber is set to pilot a legendary robot in a live-action adaptation of Voltron. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Thurber will co-write the script with Ellen Shanman. World Events Productions, the company that owns the rights to the character, will serve as a producer through CEO Bob Koplar. The film is currently looking for a distribution home, though interest is reportedly high. World Events created Voltron: Defenders of the Universe in 1984. The show was a dubbed and recut version of the Japanese mecha anime Beast King GoLion, with an unrelated anime, Kikou Kantai Dairugger XV, serving as the basis for much of Season 2. The plot follows five space pilots who each steer their own lion robot. All fi...
Sandra Bullock Says She Regrets Making Speed 2: “I’m Still Embarrassed”
In her upcoming film The Lost City, Sandra Bullock plays a romance novelist whose go-to cover model (Channing Tatum) isn’t always too proud of his work. Bullock herself can relate to being ashamed of a past project: In a recent interview with TooFab, the actress admitted that she still has some regrets about signing on to the notoriously awful Speed 2: Cruise Control. The topic came up when the interviewer asked Bullock and her co-star, Daniel Radcliffe, if they had any past projects of which they were initially embarrassed, but eventually made peace with after seeing fans’ positive reactions. Radcliffe confessed that strutting around in a Hogwarts uniform on the set of Harry Potter didn’t always make him feel too chic, but he obviously grew to realize how spe...
It’s Official: Beyoncé Will Perform at the Oscars
It’s official: Beyoncé will perform at the 2022 Academy Awards. The Academy has announced that Queen Bey will perform “Be Alive,” her Oscar-nominated song from King Richard, during Sunday’s awards show. It’ll mark her first public performance since 2020. Additionally, the Academy has confirmed that Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas, will be on hand to perform “No Time to Die,” their Oscar-nominated theme song to the latest James Bond film of the same name. Related Video Two other Oscar nominees are also scheduled to hit the stage: Reba McEntire will sing “Somehow You Do” from Four Days Gold, and Sebastián Yara will perform “Dos Oruguitas” from Encanto. Van Morrison, the fifth and final nominee for Best Original Song, was also invited to perform “Down to Joy” from Belfast, but is ...
Billie Eilish to Perform at the 2022 Oscars
To the surprise of no one, Billie Eilish has been confirmed to perform at the 2022 Academy Awards, during which she’ll play the Oscar-nominated “No Time to Die” with her brother and collaborator FINNEAS. “No Time to Die,” the latest James Bond theme from the film of the same name, is up for Best Original Song. It’s a heavy favorite to pick up the award, having already snagged trophies at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and Grammys. As The Hollywood Reporter points out, the Oscars have a history of awarding Bond themes. Adele’s “Skyfall” from the 2012 movie of the same name was the first one to win the Best Original Song trophy, followed by Sam Smith’s “Writing’s on the Wall” from 2015’s Spectre. Advertisement Related Video Eilish and FINNEAS join Travis Barker as c...
Ben Stiller to Play Jack Torrance in The Shining Stage Adaptation
Jack Nicholson immortalized Jack Torrance in the 1980 film adaptation of The Shining, but Ben Stiller may soon take his own stab at the character on the stage. According to Variety, Stiller is in talks to star in Ivo van Hove’s upcoming theater adaptation of Stephen King’s classic story. van Hove’s production is scheduled to open on London’s West End next January, with rehearsals set to begin in the fall. According to Variety, the production is expected to stick more to King’s novel than Stanley Kubrick’s film, which King famously criticized for, amongst other things, attributing Torrance’s psychological breakdown to the isolation of the Overlook Hotel more than to the hotel’s supernatural forces. Simon Stephens has signed on as a writer, while Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender ...
How Turning Red and The Baby-Sitters Club Prove We Need More Teen Girl Tales
It’s a bit funny to remember how, thirteen years ago, the enemy of fandom had a face, and it was Robert Pattinson. This is a bit of an exaggeration, except maybe it isn’t, when one remembers how the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, that annual orgy of fandom love, featured a nasty undercurrent of young men “protesting” Twilight‘s invasion of Hall H. In the year 2022, of course, Pattinson has now been embraced to some degree by the fanboys as our newest on-screen Batman. But while that might have changed, the vibes of those lackluster protests remain a too-familiar echo of an attitude to which female members of fandom have always been aware: In the pantheon of the great media landscape which distracts and delights us daily, girly shit is always seen as second-class. Not important. Not because it’s...
Ukrainian President Zelensky Thanks Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher for Raising $35 Million in Aid
In just over two weeks, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have raised a whopping $35 million to provide humanitarian aid to refugees of Ukraine following the ongoing invasion by Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently hopped on Zoom with the couple to express his gratitude for the couple’s efforts, while also sharing a snapshot of the call on social media. “.@aplusk & Mila Kunis were among the first to respond to our grief,” Zelensky wrote on Twitter. “They have already raised $35 million & are sending it to @flexport & @Airbnb to help [Ukrainian] refugees. Grateful for their support. Impressed by their determination. They inspire the world.” Earlier this month, Kunis (who immigrated from Ukraine to the US in 1991) and her husband started a ...
