Welcome to Movie DNA, a column that recognizes the direct and indirect cinematic roots of new movies. Learn some film history, become a more well-rounded viewer, and enjoy likeminded works of the past. The plot of The Lovebirds is inconsequential. This is the sort of movie that merely serves as a vehicle for the romantic…
Welcome to 4:3 & Forgotten — a weekly column in which Kieran Fisher and I get to look back at TV terrors that scared adults (and the kids they let watch) across the limited airwaves of the ’70s. One of the oddly accepted aspects of human existence is the reality that each year sees over one million people…
The unkillable badass movie is one of our favorite subgenres. Whether it’s vampires, highlanders, or mouthy mercs, we’ll devour their adventures of clinical disregard for us feeble, disposable sacks of flesh. Try as hard as they might to make their neverending slog through life look dreary; we just want to take two hours to contemplate…
They’ve been around for less than a decade, but Vinegar Syndrome has quickly become one of the top specialty home video labels. They’re a genre label focusing on exploitation fare like horror, porn, action, and all manner of weirdness, but the one constant is the attention and affection they give to each and every release….
This essay is part of our series Episodes, a bi-weekly column in which senior contributor Valerie Ettenhofer digs into the singular chapters of television that make the medium great. From 1959 to 1964, Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone was the boldest, smartest vision of America — what it has been, what it is, and what it someday could…
Welcome to Filmographies, a biweekly column for completists. Every edition brings a working actor’s resumé into focus as we learn about what makes them so compelling. On the big screen, Karen Gillan is fighting until she’s blue in the face. Embracing the mantle of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s alien antihero Nebula brought the lanky redheaded…
Welcome to this week in home video! Pick of the Week Lonely Are the Brave [KL Studio Classics] What is it? A cowboy struggles to remain free in the modern world. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWhy see it? This is a terrific film, and it might just feature my favorite Kirk…
This article is part of our ongoing Star Trek Explained series, featuring the insights of our resident Starfleet officer Brad Gullickson. After a bit of a dry spell, we are drowning in Star Trek content. CBS All Access dipped its toes into the franchise with Star Trek: Discovery, and now they’ve waded out into the…
Welcome to Pitch Meeting, a monthly column in which we suggest an IP ripe for adaptation, then assign the cast and crew of our dreams. Funny animal comics are a staple. Everyone loves a good Donald Duck or Bloom County. No matter how wretched Garfield’s behavior accelerates, his adorable whiskers spark forgiveness for his misanthropic…
There are few directors who can match David Fincher‘s perfectionism in their own craft and fewer still who can match him in reputation. More than perhaps any other director since Stanley Kubrick, Fincher is known for his excruciatingly meticulous dedication to filmmaking. From perfecting minute details with digital retouching to pushing actors with fifty or…
Welcome to The Prime Sublime, a weekly column dedicated to the underseen and underloved films buried beneath page after page of far more popular fare on Amazon’s Prime Video collection. We’re not just cherry-picking obscure titles, though, as these are movies that we find beautiful in their own, often unique ways. You might even say we…
Welcome to this week in home video! Pick of the Week Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn What is it? The adaptation the character deserves. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWhy see it? Cathy Yan’s pop-colored explosion is every bit a girl-power extravaganza, but it’s also just…
The gay subculture of early Hollywood has gained more attention recently thanks to the Netflix series Hollywood. While the show does feature portrayals of some real celebrity characters, its main focus is on the fictional minority characters and the made-up success story of their diverse film. Many stars in Hollywood from the 1930s suppressed their…
Welcome to 4:3 & Forgotten — a weekly column in which Kieran Fisher and I get to look back at TV terrors that scared adults (and the kids they let watch) across the limited airwaves of the ’70s. Horror has a definition, and you should probably go Google it to see what it is. That said, it’s also something…
Welcome to Horrorscope, a monthly column keeping horror nerds and initiates up to date on all the genre content coming to and leaving from your favorite streaming services. There’s an episode of The Twilight Zone where a bookish bank teller accidentally becomes the last man on earth. And sure, it stinks that the human race has…
There’s no denying that we are in strange times, and that’s no more evident than in the fact that when I say “we” I’m referring to people all over the world enduring the same situation simultaneously. There’s safety in staying at home, now more than ever, but for many of us that means wiling away…
I spend a lot of time worrying that Better Things will hurt me. Pamela Adlon’s fantastic FX series, which just finished its fourth season, is by no means pain-free. The life-inspired series about a single mother raising three daughters (or possibly two daughters and a gender-nonconforming kid) has its share of emotional bumps and bruises,…
When a piece of art, or an artist, profoundly infects your being, altering the course of your life through a cataclysmic shattering of your accepted world order, you are compelled to share that experience with others. Think back to the first time you saw Night of the Living Dead, or Dawn of the Dead, or…
Welcome to Filmographies, a biweekly column for completists. Every edition brings a new actor’s resumé into focus as we learn about what makes them so compelling. Chris Evans is a touchstone of American pop culture. Twenty years ago, he emerged in Hollywood during what now feels like a completely different era of popular moviemaking. His…
I’m lying down now. I’m looking at the hole you made in the ceiling. In 1998, a French production house launched an international cinematic project, commissioning filmmakers from ten different countries to envision the impending turn of the millennium. The endeavor was called 2000, Seen By…, and its standout was a 95-minute film from Taiwanese filmmaker…
After years of fans being teased about the possibility, a sequel to the 1993 sci-fi action comedy Demolition Man may finally be coming to fruition, according to original star Sylvester Stallone. He just told his Instagram followers: “I think it is coming. We’re working on it right now with Warner Brothers, and it’s looking fantastic,…