Film
Sundance Review: Karen Gillan Faces Herself in Riley Stearns’ Deadpan Dual
This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The Pitch: Sarah (Karen Gillan) is dying of a rare, incurable disease. It’s no big shakes, though, because up to now she hasn’t really lived: she has a strained, distant relationship with her boyfriend (Beulah Koale), her mother is disapproving, and she can’t even be bothered to cry when she receives her prognosis. Still, she unthinkingly accepts an offer to go through the process of “replacement”: growing a clone of her that will learn the ins and outs of her life, then take over when she dies. But ten months of watching her double (also Gillan, obviously) insinuate herself into her life, Sarah learns that she’s making a full recovery. But she’s got two problems: a) her boyfriend and family like the double more t...
Sundance Review: 892 Turns Real-Life Tragedy Into Mawkish Melodrama
This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The Pitch: On July 17, 2017, former Marine lance corporal Brian Brown-Easley (John Boyega) walked into a Wells Fargo bank branch in the Atlanta suburbs, with a grey sweatshirt and backpack, and handed the teller a simple note with four words: I have a bomb. Soon, he’s taken hostages, with police negotiators and a confused media scrambling to defuse the situation. His demands? A measly $892 in disability funds denied to him by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Those are the circumstances reconstructed in Abi Damaris Corbin’s 892, a well-intentioned and occasionally striking thriller that charts the heartbreaking moments of a desperate man’s last gasps at visibility and relevance. Related Video Attica! T...
Sundance Review: In Jesse Eisenberg’s When You Finish Saving the World, Everyone Loses
This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The Pitch: What happens when tensions between an equally oblivious mother and son (Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard, respectively) finally boil over? In Jesse Eisenberg’s directorial debut, the answer is, unfortunately, sort of nothing. There’s something to be said for slice-of-life films like this one, adapted from Eisenberg’s 2020 audio drama of the same name and co-produced by Emma Stone and husband Dave McCary. The film raises plenty of interesting questions, particularly around the ideas of altruism, actual moral goodness in a world perpetually concerned with what looks good, and the tried and true theme of generational divide. The simmering story only runs 88 minutes (a dream!), but, throughout that runtime, When...
Arnold Schwarzenegger Involved in Multi-Car Collision in Los Angeles
Arnold Schwarzenegger was involved in a multi-car collision in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood on Friday night. According to the Los Angeles Times, a female driver of one of the vehicles involved in the accident was taken to a local hospital with minor injuries. Schwarzenegger himself was not injured. TMZ reports that Schwarzenegger was attempting to make a left turn in his GMC Yukon when he collided with a red Toyota Prius. Schwarzenegger’s Yukon also struck a Porsche Cayenne. The driver of the Prius sustained an injury to her head and was taken by ambulance to an area hospital. Advertisement Related Video Police do not believe alcohol or drugs were a factor in the crash, and Schwarzenegger was not given a ticket. A spokesperson for the actor said he cooperated with police, and ...
Holy Bat-Marathon! Robert Pattinson’s The Batman Is Longest Batman Film Ever
Pack an extra Bat-Bladder for this one: Robert Pattinson’s The Batman is the longest film ever to star the Caped Crusader, with a run time stretching out to two hours and 55 minutes including credits. Not only is this Dark Knight also the longest knight, it instantly becomes one of the lengthiest superhero movies in the history of the genre, slotting in just behind the three hour, one minute Avengers: Endgame. Director Matt Reeves‘ new take on Bruce Wayne’s second job has been given a PG-13 rating, dashing the hopes of thousands of Pattinson stans hoping for a glimpse at the Bat-Penis. Zoë Kravitz stars as Catwoman, and she promised extra-realistic combat after training with videos of catfights. As for the villains, Colin Farrell is unrecognizable in prosthetics as the ...
HBO Max Announces A Christmas Story Sequel with Original Ralphie Actor
HBO Max is developing a sequel to the classic holiday movie, A Christmas Story, with Peter Billingsley, the child star of the original 1983 film, set to reprise his role as Ralphie. A Christmas Story Christmas, as its so elegantly titled, will be directed by Clay Kaytis (The Christmas Chronicles), with a script penned by Nick Schenk (Gran Torino, The Mule). Billingsley will also serve as a producer on the film alongside his friend and collaborator, Vince Vaughn. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the sequel will be set in the 1970s and sees “an adult Ralphie return to his house on Cleveland Street to deliver his kids a magical Christmas like the one he had growing up.” Advertisement Related Video Production on the film is scheduled to begin next month in Hungary, presumably with the goal...
Neil Young Unveils Documentary on Making of New Album BARN: Watch
Back in December, Neil Young and Crazy Horse released BARN, an album recorded in a restored 19th century farm shed. Now, they’ve released a documentary on the making of the album. Stream it for free via YouTube below. Recorded in the Summer of 2021, BARN (the album) marked Young’s 14th long player with Crazy Horse, and saw the folk veteran reunite with longtime bandmates Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina, and Nils Lofgren. Directed by Young’s wife Daryl Hannah, BARN (the film) takes an organic approach to documenting the recording process. Single shots depict the band recording entire songs, which is Hannah’s attempt to show the group’s chemistry and prove that no studio tricks polished the album’s finished product. The documentary enjoyed a limited run in theaters last month to coincid...
Scientists Name Spider-Killing Worm After Jeff Daniels
When a hairy, scary spider climbs up the water spout, count on Jeff Daniels to wipe that spider out. He did just that in the 1990 horror comedy Arachnophobia, and he’ll continue doing so in spirit as tarantobelus jeffdanielsi, a tarantula-killing worm recently discovered by scientists at the University of California, Riverside. Tarantobelus jeffdanielsi is a type of nematode, or roundworm, of which there are more than 25,000 described species. But via Science Daily, this is only the second such nematode known to specifically infect tarantulas. “His character in [Arachnophobia] is a spider killer, which is exactly what these nematodes are,” said parasitologist Adler Dillman, who led the team that discovered the nematode. Advertisement Related Video “When I first heard a new species of ...
Machine Gun Kelly Put Thorns on Megan Fox’s Engagement Ring So That “If She Tries to Take it Off, it Hurts”
Hollywood’s cringiest couple is back with more vomit-inducing romantic lore. In a new interview with Vogue, Machine Gun Kelly said he designed Megan Fox’s engagement ring to have thorns on it so that “if she tries to take it off, it hurts.” “It’s a thoroughbred Colombian emerald, with no treatment,” MGK (born Colson Baker) said of Fox’s Stephen Webster-designed, admittedly gorgeous ring. “It was just carved into the teardrop, straight out of the mine. And the diamond was directly from Stephen. The concept is that the ring can come apart to make two rings. When it’s together, it’s held in place by a magnet. So you see how it snaps together? And then it forms an obscure heart. And you see this right here? The bands are actually thorns. So if she tries to take it off, it hurts…Love is pa...
Michael Mann Announces Heat 2, a New Novel That’s Both Prequel and Sequel
For the first time in over 25 years, you can “spot the heat around the corner.” Michael Mann has announced Heat 2, his first novel co-written with Edgar-winner Meg Gardiner that will serve as both a prequel and a sequel to the 1995 film. Heat 2 arrives August 9th from William Morrow and Michael Mann Books, and pre-orders are now ongoing. Heat followed the pursuit of career criminal Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) by LAPD cop Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), while paying special attention to the way they relate to each other more than most of the people around them. The famed dinner scene raised the emotional stakes of the final shootout, while also marking the first time that De Niro and Pacino had appeared together on screen. “It’s been my intention for a long time ...
Robert Pattinson to Star in Bong Joon Ho’s Next Movie
Self-proclaimed weirdo Bong Joon Ho and documented weirdo Robert Pattinson are slated to work together soon. The Parasite mastermind will write and direct a currently untitled sci-fi film, with the latest Batman in talks to star, as first reported by Deadline. Bong’s next project will be based on Mickey7, a forthcoming novel from author Edward Ashton which has been described as a combination of Andy Wier’s The Martian and Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter. Its protagonist, Mickey7, is killed during his risky expedition in colonizing an ice world called Niflheim. However, his body is regenerated after his death with most of his memories intact. After the rest of the world presumes him dead, Mickey7 then discovers that a clone, Mickey8, has taken his place. (So, what we’re hearing is we might ...
Crypto Collective Spent Millions on Copy of Dune Book Thinking It Gave Them IP Rights
Cryptocurrency collective Spice DAO purchased a rare copy of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune, spending millions — more than one hundred times the estimated auction price — because they were apparently under the mistaken impression that owning a book was the same as owning intellectual property rights. Christie’s auction house thought that the book would sell for between €25,000 and €35,000, or about $28,000 to $40,000 USD. That’s still a lot for a book, which is based on a cinematic adaption of Frank Herbert’s Dune that acclaimed avant-garde director Alejandro Jodorowsky attempted and failed to make in the 1970s. This copy is one of about ten bibles Jodorowsky created in an attempt to convince studios to finance the project. He didn’t succeed, but the curios have gained a c...
