Film
The Wire Star Sonja Sohn on Wanting to Give Back to Baltimore With Her New HBO Documentary The Slow Hustle
The Slow Hustle is a story about corruption and a story about persistence. The HBO documentary, directed by Sonja Sohn, is technically focused on the unsolved murder of Baltimore police detective Sean Suiter. But the story that emerges is a portrait of a police force so weighed down by corruption and other issues that it’s incapable of finding the truth behind what happened to one of its own — raising the question of what function the police serves in our society. The project is Sohn’s second documentary, following the 2017 film Baltimore Rising, which she directed after spending time in Baltimore after the uprising that occurred after Freddie Gray’s death — though it hadn’t originally been her idea to direct that film. Instead, after getting to know some of the activists involved in the u...
Don’t Look Up Is a Smug Satire About the End of the World: Review
The Pitch: What would happen if you found out the world was ending and — get this — no one in power was going to do anything about it? That’s the discovery that Michigan State astronomers Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) make, right after scoping out a nine-kilometer comet that’s about to slam into the Earth in six months’ time. Their entreaties to the aloof President of the United States (Meryl Streep) and her sycophantic failson Chief of Staff (Jonah Hill) fall on deaf ears; they’ll cling to even the .01% chance the two Midwestern hayseeds are wrong. To drum up public support for any effort to deflect the comet, Mindy and Dibiasky go on a whirlwind media tour that takes them from the smug, peppy cohosts of a morning talk show called the Dai...
Neo Still Knows Kung Fu in Final The Matrix Resurrections Trailer: Watch
As tickets for the theatrical release of The Matrix Resurrections go on sale, a final full-length trailer for the blockbuster sequel has been released. While we don’t much deeper into what is sure to be the complicated plot of the fourth Matrix film, the new preview does provide a look at even more of the movie’s gorgeous action. We get to see numerous close-quarter fight scenes, gun fights, and explosions, all while getting teases of the mysterious story surrounding Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss). Whatever is going on here, it seems like Neo and Trinity are (to make a parallel to a completely different franchise) the Keymaster and Gatekeeper of the scenario. Neo begins to regain his memory as he encounters familiar moments like déjà vu: red and blue pills, whi...
Colin Farrell to Reprise His Role as The Penguin in The Batman Spinoff Series
With Matt Reeves’ The Batman set to arrive in a matter of months, Colin Farrell has signed on for an HBO Max spinoff series based on his character The Penguin. According to Variety, he has been tapped to both star in and executive produce the show. While the series will reportedly dive into Penguin’s rise to power in the Gotham criminal underworld, it’s not clear if it will be a direct follow-up or a prequel. We’ll have to wait until The Batman hits theaters on March 4th, 2022 to see if the character is already a villain or just beginning his descent. One of the most infamous members of Batman’s Rogues Gallery, the Penguin, aka Oswald Cobblepot, has a rich history of live-action portrayals. On the TV side, Burgess Meredith played the top-hat-and-monocle wearing baddie in the 1960...
Marvel Greenlights Shang-Chi Sequel
Marvel and Disney+ have announced a sequel to the recent blockbuster hit, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. While a title has yet to be announced, as Deadline reports, the film will bring back writer and director Destin Daniel Cretton. “Destin is an amazing collaborator who brought a unique perspective and skill to Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings,” said Kevin Feige, President, Marvel Studios and Chief Creative Officer, Marvel. “We had a fantastic time working together on the film and he has so many intriguing ideas for stories to bring to life on Disney+, so we’re thrilled to expand our relationship with him and can’t wait to get started.” That mention of Disney+ is not accidental; Cretton has also been tapped for an unspecified Marvel serie...
Sylvester Stallone Sparks QAnon Speculation with Coded Selfie
Could Sylvester Stallone be a believer in QAnon? That’s what supporters of the fringe conspiracy movement are asking after the actor posted quite the telling selfie on Thursday via social media. “Heading Into the Storm…..” the Rocky star captioned the snap wearing a baseball hat emblazoned with the letter ‘Q’ while aboard a private jet. Aside from the obvious letter on the hat, the phrase “the Storm” is another notable QAnon reference, having gained popularity among the extremist alt-right movement as a reference to some future date when the ring of high-profile child abusers running the country — including members of the Hollywood glitterati and Democratic leaders — will be rounded up and arrested on the instruction of Donald Trump. Of course, “the Storm” has been prophesied by Q before, ...
Stephen Sondheim Voted for Team America: World Police for Best Picture at Academy Awards
Legendary Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim wrote a letter to Trey Parker in 2005 informing the South Park creator that he had voted for Team America: World Police in Academy Awards’ best picture category. In light of Sondheim’s passing last month, the Twitter account for another one of Parker’s beloved projects, The Book of Mormon, shared a letter sent to Parker by Sondheim in February 2005. “I saw Team America and voted for it as the best movie of the year (a fat lot of good it did you),” Sondheim writes in the letter. “I gather from friends to whom I’ve burbled on about it that it was treated rottenly by the critics and that you are much discouraged. I can’t blame you, but then again this is the time of discouragement. In any event, congratulations to you and your partner [Matt Stone]....
First Look at Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Sequel Reveals It Will Be Two Films: Watch
With little fanfare on a random Saturday night, a first-look at the highly anticipated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse sequel has swung online. Not only does the teaser revealed the official title — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse — but it confirms it will be split into two films, with Part One releasing on October 7th, 2022. The teaser picks up right where the Academy Award-winning 2018 animated adventure left off. Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is chilling on his bed when Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) pays him a visit through an interdimensional portal. She convinces Miles to don his Spider-Man suit to come for a swing, only the next time we see him, he’s tumbling through the multiverse. Suddenly, he’s intercepted by another dimension-hopping Spidey: Spider-Man 2099, who debuted in...
Alec Baldwin Could Still Be Charged For Rust Film Set Shooting
Last week, during his first interview since the tragedy on the set of indie film Rust, Alec Baldwin claimed that he didn’t pull the trigger on the prop gun that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. He also said that he’s “been told by people who are in the know… that it’s highly unlikely that I would be charged with anything criminally.” But Santa Fe County District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies, who’s leading the investigation, says the actor and several others could still be charged for their roles in the event. “Everyone involved in the handling and use of firearms on the set had a duty to behave in a manner such that the safety of others was protected,” Carmack-Altwies told TMZ. “It appears that certain actions and inactions contributed to this outcome.” Investigation...
Guillermo del Toro Turns From Gory Monsters to Gauzy Film Noir with Nightmare Alley: Review
The Pitch: When we first meet Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), he’s burying a body under the floorboards of a country home and setting it aflame, burning his past and his previous life to the ground, presumably to start anew. Eventually, his wanderings lead him to a run-down carnival deep in the sticks, where he quickly ingratiates himself with the freaks and geeks who populate it. It’s not long before he sees the flim-flams underpinning each of their acts — particularly the mentalism of fortune teller Zeena (Toni Collette) and her drunken husband, Pete (David Strathairn), who correctly divines the identity of objects with the help of verbal codes — and wants in on the action. Stars in his eyes, Stan makes his way to the big city with young, virginal carny Molly (Rooney Mara) in tow...
Alec Baldwin Says He Didn’t Pull the Trigger in Rust Tragedy During Hour-Long ABC News Interview
The tragedy which took place on the set of the indie film Rust is one that shook the industry, and while the horrific accident happened over a month ago, the truth of what occurred is still slowly coming out. Now, Alec Baldwin has stepped forward to give his version of events to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Prior to the airing of Thursday’s interview, ABC News had teased the part of the conversation where Baldwin claims to have not pulled the trigger that day, saying that “No, no, no. I would never point a gun at anyone and pull a trigger at them. Never.” The full interview began with Baldwin explaining why he chose to sit down with Stephanopoulos in the first place, saying that while the investigation continues, “I really feel like I can’t wait for that process to end in February or March...
R.I.P. Jonshel Alexander, Child Actor in Beasts of the Southern Wild, Shot and Killed
Jonshel Alexander, the former child actor who co-starred in the 2012 Oscar-nominated drama Beasts of the Southern Wild, was shot and killed over the weekend in her home state of Louisiana. She was 22 years old. As multiple outlets report, she and an unidentified man were both shot in a vehicle in New Orleans on Saturday. She was pronounced dead at the scene, while the man drove himself to the hospital for treatment. Alexander leaves behind a one-year-old daughter. Alexander was only 12-years-old when she played Joy Strong, friend of the protagonist Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), in Benh Zeitlin’s debut feature film. She beat out over 4,000 other actors for the part, her mother Shelly Alexander recalled. “She brought life to everything. Jonshel was feisty, jazzy, spoiled...
