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. Each person who watches the Atlanta episode “Teddy Perkins” has a different what-the-fuck threshold, a point at which the sheer ambitious absurdity of the entry becomes crystallized in our minds…

Welcome to this week in home video! Pick of the Week Better Days What is it? A bullied girl and a thuggish boy fall in love. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWhy see it? This heavy, suspenseful drama won’t leave you unscathed, and it’s unsurprising to learn that it recently swept the…

The list of new arrivals to Shudder for April 2020 is below, but first, I’m going to celebrate five films currently available on the world’s best horror streaming service. I’ve previously highlighted some great horror/comedies there as well some some fun horror flicks from the 80s, but sometimes it’s not laughs and zaniness you want….

Welcome to the first installment of Franchising the Score, a column that will explore countless musical scores from all of your favorite movie franchises. But we’ll start with maybe the most famous of all, so strap yourself in while we make the jump to hyperspace and travel back a long time ago to a galaxy…

Old Hollywood is rewritten in Ryan Murphy‘s latest endeavor, which employs a group of minority underdogs for a fictional success story set in 1940s Los Angeles. The Netflix limited series Hollywood follows a gay African-American screenwriter (Jeremy Pope), an Asian director (Darren Criss), and an African-American actress (Laura Harrier) as they work on a movie that aims…

Welcome to 4:3 & Forgotten — a weekly column in which Rob Hunter 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. Movies about Satanic cults and witch covens tend to adhere to the same familiar beats. That’s especially true for the films…

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…

Amazon Prime Video is the only streaming service with a cost that also gets you free shipping, and that my friends is a deal. They’re in the original programming game, but their biggest offering remains the ton of films available to watch anytime for Prime members. The complete list of titles hitting Amazon Prime this month…

Ryan Murphy‘s Hollywood is an alternate history of Tinseltown in its Golden Age, a fantasy narrative in which the underdogs and the minorities win the respect they never got in our own timeline. Now we are able to relive the glamour of the 1940s while watching a wildly different story than we’re used to. The worldbuilding…

Steven Spielberg‘s Indiana Jones films are, quite simply, some of the most beloved action movies ever committed to celluloid. The franchise acts as a four-film highlight reel of every pre-show Saturday serial ever made, in other words: it’s just plain fun. Photography on Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984),…

Hulu has been stuck in the third-place position when it comes to movie streaming behind Netflix and Amazon Prime because most people still see them strictly as a home for next-day television. They have movies too, though, and more than a few of them are gems that make Hulu a destination beyond last night’s TV…

Welcome to this week in home video! Pick of the Week Butt Boy What is it? A hard detective investigates the abduction of a young boy. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWhy see it? Here’s the thing. This is a sincere film about a cop with issues chasing a killer with a…

This edition of Movies to Watch After… recognizes the direct and indirect cinematic roots of Extraction as we recommend fans go back and learn some film history, become more well-rounded viewers, and enjoy likeminded works of the past, even if it’s the fairly recent past. As always, we try to point you in the easiest…

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. The late, great Robert Bloch remains best known as the creator of Psycho (1960) as it was his novel from the…

Cannabis isn’t the reefer madness your grandma made you believe! Welcome to Higher Education, a column that investigates – and destigmatizes – marijuana in movies and TV. While cannabis has been consumed for centuries, we don’t have a lot of first-hand accounts of what stoners enjoyed doing while high before the 1960s, outside of what…

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. In all the resume dissections featured in Filmographies so far, this column has yet to really delve into the work of the most blockbuster-adjacent of actors (bar indie favorites…

This edition of Movies to Watch After… recognizes the direct and indirect cinematic roots of Sergio as we recommend fans go back and learn some film history, become more well-rounded viewers, and enjoy likeminded works of the past, even if it’s the fairly recent past. As always, we try to point you in the easiest…

Welcome to this week in home video! Pick of the Week When the Wind Blows [Synapse Kids] What is it? An elderly married couple cope with nuclear winter. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWhy see it? Everyone knows about Threads and The Day After, but for my money this mid 80s animated…

What’s in a name? A lot apparently. Spider-Man: Homecoming was a cute little nod of a title, winking at an audience eager to have Spider-Man back in the fold of the Marvel Cinematic Universe while also acknowledging he’s a high school hero. Spider-Man: Far From Home works given the plot driving the movie, but it’s…

Netflix. The streaming platform has ingrained itself more fully in our collective consciousness than perhaps any other technology in the past five years. It’s a part of our lexicon (who hasn’t heard of ”Netflix and chill”?). It’s a way to socialize (see: the massive popularity of the Netflix Party Chrome extension). Netflix has become so…

If Hollywood did anything right during the studio era, it was escapism. We’re lucky enough to get to watch the fantastic musicals and comedies of that time whenever we may need them. For the days when we are stuck inside, there are no better movies than those that make you sing and dance. And no…