At this point, you might be wondering who hasn’t seen The Batman. The film opened to critical and commercial success on March 4. Since then, it has earned $735 million as of this writing, making it 2022’s highest-grossing film thus far. Over the past few weeks, The Batman has slipped at the box office, falling first to The Lost City during the week of March 25 and then to Morbius the following week....
Through eight seasons and one limited series, Dexter was the cream of the crop when it came to serial killing storytelling on TV. That’s probably because shows that inhabit the mind of serial killers are quite rare for understandable reasons. It’s dark in there. Dexter “got away” with it because his code required the killing of fellow killers. Still, TV is a big medium and the public’s appetite for bloody crime dramas is just as vast....
He’s also put his preferred team back together too, as The Black Phone reunites Derrickson with Sinister co-writer C. Robert Cargill, as well as that picture’s star, Ethan Hawke. Also coming off the bench for this one is famed author Joe Hill, whose short story of the same name (from his 2005 debut collection, 20th Century Ghosts) is the basis of this sharply focused, frightening, and ultimately moving thriller. Set in 1978 in a Denver suburb, The Black Phone thrusts us right into the climate of paranoia that arose during that era as the result of a string of serial killers and child murders that made headlines, from the Hillside Strangler to the Zodiac Killer, and from the Son of Sam to John Wayne Gacy....
Though the latest Conjuring movie, The Devil Made Me Do It, is named after the Arne Johnson murder case, whereby a young man claimed the crime he committed was caused by demonic possession, there’s an entirely new subplot that carries the body of the new film. After the supposedly possessed Arne Johnson is held in custody awaiting trial for the murder of his girlfriend’s landlord, paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are on a mission to discover how and why these possessions took place....
The Expanse Season 3 Episode 5 This is one of those episodes of The Expanse that’s hard to judge. On the one hand, the cooler heads prevailing in war was inspirational, but on the other hand, the death and destruction caused by an admiral desperate to hold onto his power threw everything into chaos. Placing more reflective moments for Naomi, Prax, and Alex beside this military drama was disorienting even though the insights themselves were quite welcome....
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 4 The first three episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier were all about world-building. The first episode was about what our titular heroes were up to in a post-Blip world. The second episode focused on the new Captain America John Walker. The third episode was a Captain America: Civil War throwback by revisiting Baron Zemo and Sharon Carter. All the while, we’d check in on the Flag-Smashers and get an increased idea of what they’re about while there’s something in there about a mysterious evil threat in the background, ready to make a play....
The French Dispatch is Anderson’s homage to The New Yorker during the magazine’s heyday under founder/editor Harold Ross, fictionalized in the film as Arthur Howitzer, Jr., portrayed eccentrically by Bill Murray. With writers like James Thurber, A.J. Liebling, James Baldwin, and Rosamond Bernier, it was idiosyncratic and utterly original. In the film, the fictional French Dispatch magazine started in Liberty, Kansas and is now published in the sardonically-named fictional town of Ennui-sur-Blasé, France....
And of course, the ceremony wouldn’t be complete without some HUGE announcements regarding upcoming games. Last year’s event brought us the reveal of the Xbox Series X. How will The Game Awards top itself this year? Fans will just have to wait and see! Gamers can watch the festivities live in the stream below: Favorites at this year’s award ceremony include The Last of Us Part II (11 nominations), Hades (9 nominations), Ghost of Tsushima (8 nominations), Doom Eternal (5 nominations), Fall Guys (4 nominations), Half-Life: Alyx (4 nominations), and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (3 nominations)....
Contrasting with the potentially-controversial protagonist direction hinted in early reviews for Revelation, the driving concept for the long-planned Masters of the Universe live-action movie was to focus on the friendship between He-Man and his loyal giant green, orange-striped tiger steed, Battle Cat, as Goyer reveals to THR. Of course, most of the franchise’s various iterations present the narrative notion that Eternia’s sleepy slacker royal prince, Adam, secretly transforms into “the most powerful man in the universe” when he imbues himself with mystical energy from the Sword of Power, after which he directs said energy toward his cowardly talking pet tiger, Cringer, transforming him into the hero’s ferocious loyal steed, Battle Cat....
For over 80 years, trading cards have been an essential part of collectors’ lives. Whether baseball cards or Garbage Pail Kids, the card collecting bug bites early and often. This seems doubly true when it comes to cards inspired by the beloved heroes and villains of DC and Marvel Comics, who have been the subject of countless non-sport lines across the decades. These companies (and their independent peers) have released comic book characters into the pop culture landscape who have impacted our lives in ways that cultural anthropologists are still scratching their heads trying to figure out....
The Magicians Season 4 Episode 13 No one ever accused The Magicians of being afraid to take risks. Any pat endings, and there were a couple, were completely waved aside by the sheer magnitude of what Quentin did to save the world not only from the twin unkillable gods but also from a potentially omnipotent autocrat. We finally got a payoff to Penny’s mysterious meeting at the underworld elevator, and a surprising addendum to the musical episode actually outdid the original all on its own....
Director Bryce Dallas Howard’s two episodes of The Mandalorian — last year’s “Sanctuary” and season 2’s “The Heiress” — show her deep knowledge of what makes Star Wars tick. In particular, she knows how to deftly deploy the influences that make up the saga’s backbone. Star Wars began as a patchwork of classic sci-fi stories that inspired George Lucas. He originally wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie but couldn’t secure the rights, which is why it’s such a big influence on the original films....
“I thought I had a take on it, you know?” says Clooney, who also stars in his seventh outing behind the camera. “I felt like there was a story that I understood in a way about what we’re capable of doing to one another if we don’t pay attention, if we don’t listen to science, if we don’t pay attention to divisions and hatred and pay that forward. I thought I had an understanding of that....
In those final moments, Tom Cruise more than just rides off into the sunset; he gallops into the horizon, commanding a supernatural sandstorm that licks at his feet with the powers of Hell. Or is that the underworld? It’s a bit ambiguous, yet oh so clear: The Dark Universe has begun! Of course as we glimpse at the film, the world-building of this nascent shared universe may be occurring with a very different type of Mummy than as advertised....
Despite clocking in at under five minutes long, the scene is so memorable that Hocus Pocus 2 will attempt to recreate the magic of the original, this time with Midler’s Winifred Sanderson performing a rendition of Blondie’s “One Way Or Another.” But can it live up to what came before? Because the scene in the original Hocus Pocus is the greatest Halloween party in movie history… “I Put a Spell on You” Almost Didn’t Happen What is it about this scene in particular that is so utterly unforgettable?...
The first season of the Netflix adaptation of The Sandman, arguably one of the greatest and most important comics of all time, is complete, and can be considered a rousing success. But it leaves several questions open when it ended, and asks one big one for Dream with its final scene. Here is what happens in the final moments of The Sandman season 1 and what it might mean going forward....
Shannara Chronicles Season 2 Episode 1 Rejoice all you teenagers looking for exciting background noise to zone out to while scrolling through your newsfeeds: The Chronicles of Sha-nay-nay is back! The big question right now is – is it better than ever, or is it “meh”-er than ever? Because let’s be real: it’d be hard to top what this show had accomplished in its first year. I mean, my god. It was just so epic with its uh…sheer…y’know, epicness....
The lyrics are inspired sub-genre satire. “Everyday I try to smile, but can’t help but frown, Every day I draw my bath and pray I will drown,” Quilloughby (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) sings, and heaven knows he’s miserable, now and forever. Listen and abandon hope. The song captures the feel of the nihilistic depression rock of days past, and the episode caught the eye of the sardonic satiric subject. The episode’s guest character, Quilloughby and his band The Snuffs, is a more-than-farcical sendup of Morrissey, lead vocalist and lyricist for the Smiths, an ‘80s band that made depression hummable and declared meat murder....
Surprise! The Suicide Squad has a soundtrack for the ages. Ok, look, it’s a James Gunn movie. You are not surprised. But nevertheless, even by Gunn’s eclectic standards, The Suicide Squad soundtrack is just banger after banger. It’s more diverse than the ’70s AM radio-friendly (and Walkman-appropriate grooves) of his Guardians of the Galaxy “Awesome Mix” soundtracks, but serves the story just as well. Don’t forget, Gunn is known for writing the songs he hopes to use directly into his scripts....
Before that, Kelly’s plays were preoccupied with the suspicion of outsiders fostered by the so-called War on Terror, from which you might draw a straight line to Brexit and Trump. You could call his work a barometer for crisis, pointing audiences towards the thing we need to worry about next. Kelly’s latest project, he tells Den of Geek, was driven by a need to explore the reality-distorting effects of grief, and concern about growing isolationism....
