Film
LeBron James and Bugs Bunny Team Up in First Trailer for Space Jam: A New Legacy: Watch
After a whole lot of teasing and an even longer wait time, Space Jam: A New Legacy finally has a trailer. LeBron James, Bugs Bunny, and the Looney Tunes crew show off their basketball skills in the clip and set the bar high for the anticipated sequel in the process. Watch it below. James will follow in the footsteps of Michael Jordan once again, and this time it’s not just because of his basketball accolades. James is a genuinely good actor — as proven in Trainwreck, his debut role in a movie — and should nail his role playing himself in the sequel to the 1996 smash hit alongside a fictional family: a younger son named Dom (Cedric Joe), an older son named Darius (Ceyair Wright), his daughter Xosha (Harper Leigh Alexander), and his wife Kamiyah (Sonequa Martin-Green). The sequel’s plot revo...
An Animal Ethologist Reviews Godzilla vs. Kong
Godzilla vs. Kong (HBO Max) In the super-sized slugfest Godzilla vs. Kong, now in theaters and streaming on HBO Max, two of cinema’s mightiest monster-movie titans go toe-to-toe on a cross-continental rampage, leaving comically outsized destruction in their wake and finally answering the question of which beast can truly claim the title of “king of the monsters.” In one corner, there’s Godzilla, the noble warrior Kaiju, he of the atomic breath, armored scales, and ear-splitting roar. In the other, there’s King Kong, the greatest of the great apes, who can extend one finger in a gentle caress or ball his hands into fists to hurl a fearsome haymaker. That this massive, long-fated melee between giant lizard and giant ape is not a bastion of scientific accuracy somewhat comes with the blockbus...
Concrete Cowboy Rides Into a Summer of Predictability: Review
The Pitch: Idris Elba has the gravity and laconic cool to make a great cowboy, and clearly Netflix knows this. Before the star-studded Western The Harder They Fall arrives later this year, though, Elba is saddling up for a less traditional take on the genre. Enter Concrete Cowboy. Based on Gregory Neri’s 2009 novel Ghetto Cowboy, the coming-of-age story follows Cole (Caleb McLaughlin), a troubled teenager who’s been sent to stay with his father Harp (Elba) in North Philadelphia for the summer. Harp, as we learn, is involved with a group of Black cowpokes who ride and tend to a stable of horses in the city. Cole takes a liking to this club, but also can’t shake his loyalty to an old friend who sees drug-dealing as his ticket out of the neighborhood. This may sound mildly outlandish, but it’...
Rachel Sennott Is an Anxiety-Ridden Revelation in Shiva Baby: Review
The Pitch: A bisexual college student struggling to figure out her career path (Rachel Sennott) attends a Jewish funeral service with her parents, where she attempts to juggle well-meaning family friends, a run-in with her ex-girlfriend, and an accidental encounter with her sugar daddy. Social Anxiety on Steroids: Never have I wanted to attend a family function less than in Shiva Baby, Emma Seligman’s grand-slam of a feature directorial debut. Old flames, sugar daddies, and painfully awkward altercations with relatives are the sparks that set this 75-minute marathon of full-body-cringe rolling — and from the second Danielle sets foot into the Shiva, neither Seligman nor the torrent of stressors lets up. To create genuine anxiety and stress in an audience is no easy task, and to sustain tha...
Margot Robbie Says Quentin Tarantino Has a “20-Hour Cut” of Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood
Margot Robbie and Quentin Tarantino on the Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood set, photo via Andrew Cooper/Sony We know full well there’s more of the Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood story for Quentin Tarantino to tell. The filmmaker has long teased plans for a four-hour director’s cut, he’s penning a novel that is set to expand the story further, and there’s that dream of an actual Bounty Law TV series. But according to one of the original film’s stars, there’s one particularly long version of Once Upon a Time that could span nearly a full day. Speaking with Variety about her recent film Promising Young Woman, Margot Robbie teased that Tarantino has a 20-hour cut of his twisted tale of ’70s Hollywood. “There’s a 20-hour cut of Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood that would…...
James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad Gets Surprise Second Trailer: Watch
April Fool’s Day has been full of the suspected pranks and goofs, but this is no joke. James Gunn has shared another trailer for The Suicide Squad that features loads of new footage from the upcoming blockbuster. This new preview arrives less than a week after Warner Bros. unleashed the film’s R-rated trailer on audiences last Friday, which is an usual amount of successive promotion for a movie of this caliber. Either way, audiences surely won’t be complaining because this new trailer is stuffed with sneak-peaks of the highly-anticipated entry in the DC Extended Universe. Whereas the last trailer focused on film’s primary Squad members (like Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn and Idris Elba’s as Bloodsport), this one makes room for a whole slew of kooky side-characters like King Shark, Weas...
Steven Yeun to Star in Jordan Peele’s Next Movie
Fresh off a history-making Oscar nomination, Steven Yeun has been cast to star in Jordan Peele’s next movie at Universal, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Our 2020 Performer of the Year joins Keke Palmer for the feature film, which is due in theaters on July 22nd, 2022. Other details about the project are scarce, aside from Peele serving as its director and producer. Yuen recently became the first Asian American actor to be nominated for Best Actor at the upcoming Academy Awards for his starring role in Minari. In the A24 movie, the Walking Dead actor plays the father of a South Korean immigrant family trying to achieve the American dream in the ’80s. The emotional drama was dubbed our third favorite movie of 2020. Palmer’s most recent film is the 2020 comedy 2 Minutes of Fam...
A24 Releases Trailer for Zola, Stripper Film Based on Viral Twitter Thread: Watch
A24 has released the official trailer for their new movie Zola, which premiered at Sundance in early 2020. The film is based on a viral Twitter thread that tells the true story of two strippers who embark on a treacherous road trip across Florida. Directed by Janicza Bravo and starring Riley Keough as Stefani and Taylour Paige as Zola, who fall in love with one another and trek across the state to see how much money they can make as dancers. The two are joined by Stefani’s erratically violent boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun) and her “roommate” X (Colman Domingo), but shortly into the trip, Zola realizes that Stefani is a sex worker and Derrek is her pimp. The real Zola recounted the wild tale in a famous 2015 Twitter thread that was then adapted into a slightly dramatized R...
Netflix Lands Knives Out Sequels for $450 Million
Netflix has purchased the rights for two sequels to Rian Johnson’s 2019 murder mystery, Knives Out, for a cool $450 million, according to Variety. Johnson will write and direct both sequel movies, with Daniel Craig returning as Southern detective Benoit Blanc. According to Deadline, casting will begin immediately and the first movie will begin shooting on June 28th in Greece. One of the best films of 2019, the Oscar-nominated Knives Out raked in $311.4 million on a $40 million budget. An apparent bidding war between Netflix, Apple, and Amazon drastically drove the prices up for the sequels. The first Knives Out film is centered around the murder of late mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey, with his entire family falling under suspicion for the crime. Blanc attempts to crack the case...
Ranking: Every Godzilla Movie from Worst to Best
Godzilla vs. Kong (HBO Max) Godzilla is an icon. Over 65 years and through 33 movies, the creature has come to define the kaiju subgenre, while mining potent metaphors from rubber-suited destruction. The big guy even earned himself a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame along the way. From his origins as a specter of the atom bomb to the lovable defender of Tokyo from hosts of malevolent monsters and everything in between, Godzilla is almost always at his most entertaining when the destruction ramps up and the fighting begins. As Godzilla vs. Kong roars into theaters and living rooms to reunite the legend with his famous friends and foes, here’s how all of the live-action films stack up against one another. 33. All Monsters Attack (1969) [embedded content] It turns out even Godzilla is not i...
Britney Spears Responds to Documentary: “I Cried for Two Weeks”
Framing Britney Spears, the documentary exploring Britney Spears’ controversial conservatorship, premiered back on February 5th. Since then, nearly everyone has commented on the film, including her father Jamie Spears, media stars, and even Justin Timberlake. However, one crucial voice has been missing from the discourse on the documentary — Britney Spears herself — and now she’s finally speaking up about it. In a new post on Instagram, Spears revealed that she’s only seen parts of Framing Britney Spears. Understandably, she had been putting it off due to the overwhelming nature of its content and the massive response from viewers. “My life has always been very speculated… watched… and judged really my whole life,” reads the caption. “I didn’t watch the documentary but from what ...
Chris Rock Hunts for Jigsaw in New Trailer for Spiral: From the Book of Saw: Watch
Spiral: From the Book of Saw is the upcoming ninth installment in the Saw horror franchise, starring Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson, and 21 Savage. The film has been finished for a while now, but its release was delayed over a year due to the pandemic. It’s finally set to hit theaters on May 14th, 2021, and to drum up anticipation, Lionsgate has unveiled a new trailer. Watch it below. Spiral is directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, who previously helmed Saw II, III, and IV. Rock himself conceived the screenplay, which casts him as a police detective hot on Jigsaw’s trail after being personally contacted by the psychotic serial killer. Jackson plays his father, who himself is a veteran of the police force, while Max Minghella rounds out the cast as Rock’s partner. Watch the tr...
