For a generation of children, the sight of lion prince Simba watching his father, Mufasa, die in a wildebeest stampede in 1994’s The Lion King represented a first encounter with mortality. Disney’s animators render the moment with a terrible poignancy that can stay with a person for the rest of their life. Mufasa…

Fifty years after Steven Spielberg made a whole nation afraid to go in the water, sharks still prowl the summer movie season. This is, in fact, the fourth consecutive year that a descendent of Jaws will descend upon multiplexes during the warmest season—next month brings the gnashing teeth and ominous fins of a 47…

Director Michael Dowse’s new film is the buddy action comedy Stuber, starring Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista. In honor of it hitting theaters today, we sat down with Dowse to talk about the film and the action movies that influenced it.

Every director, it could be argued, likes to play god. But very few are actually willing to literally play God, to take on the Creator as an acting role. That’s what John Huston did in The Bible: In The Beginning…, his 1966 epic. Huston had to cast someone as the actual voice of God, the booming that comes down from…

The bullets are already flying by the time the gun-toting burglar Abe (Frank Grillo) tumbles into the opening shot of Point Blank, leaping from a mansion balcony to the strains of Black Flag’s hardcore anthem “Rise Above.” Exchanging shots with a couple of goons in ski masks, he runs, bleeding, through the…

From writer-director Lulu Wang, The Farewell follows the Chinese-born, U.S.-raised Billi (Awkwafina), who returns to China upon learning her grandmother Nai-Nai has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. When she arrives, she discovers that the rest of the family has decided not tell Nai-Nai of her illness. With…

The Lion King, Disney’s latest attempt to make a new hit from the blueprint of one of its old ones, begins the exact same way as the 1994 animated smash on which it’s based: with a blood-red sun peaking over the horizon of the African Serengeti, a single chanting voice rising with it. What follows is a shot-for-shot…

After enduring the physical and psychological torment inflicted upon her unnamed character in Lucky McKee’s 2011 film The Woman, it makes sense that Pollyanna McIntosh would want to lighten things up a bit. And it’s her prerogative to do so in Darlin’, a direct sequel to The Woman that marks McIntosh’s debut both as a…

Mona May has been working in Hollywood as a costume designer since the early 90s, styling movies such as The Wedding Singer, Stuart Little, Enchanted, and of course, Clueless. We sat down with the accomplished designer to talk about the joy of designing for Enchanted, and how costuming the titular CGI mouse from Stuart…

Betty Gilpin and Natalie Morales star in the new buddy action comedy Stuber, which hits theaters this Friday. We recently sat down with the pair to talk about the film, and their weirdest rideshare experiences.

On Monday, the announcement went out that Netflix would be picking up the tab for a new blockbuster thriller from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, called Red Notice. Co-starring Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, the film looks like surefire crowd-pleasing entertainment, an action-comedy heist flick that will doubtless play to…

The Blair Witch Project, which turns 20 this week, wasn’t the first thriller to present itself as the raw video recordings of a doomed camera crew. The infamous Cannibal Holocaust got there almost 20 years before it, and nearly a decade before that, The Legend Of Boggy Creek blurred the line between documentary and…

Nobody gets sliced or diced in Sword Of Trust, but neither is the film’s title wholly metaphorical. There’s an actual sword to be reckoned with, one that was allegedly instrumental in the South winning the Civil War. If that sounds like obvious nonsense to you, join the club: Birmingham pawn shop owner Mel (Marc…

We’ve never had the chance to sit down with Tzi Ma, best known for starring in films like Dante’s Peak, Rush Hour and Arrival, and his appearances on shows like Veep and The Man In the High Castle. In honor of his new film The Farewell, we sat down with the accomplished character actor for a video version of our…

Schlock-doc cable television reached its highest (or maybe lowest) point in the late ’90s. During that era, random channel-surfing could almost always turn up a grimy true-crime exposé, history of American UFO sightings, or countdown of the most haunted hotels in America thanks to shows like Ripley’s Believe It Or Not,…

Memories both joyous and painful are recreated and thus transformed in Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes, Terence Davies’ 1988 and 1992 masterpieces about his white working-class upbringing. Some thirty years on, Ray & Liz, an autobiographical debut feature from Richard Billingham, attempts to do the…

Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista star in the new buddy action comedy Stuber, which hits theaters this Friday. We recently sat down with the pair to talk about the film, and how spending hours together on set turned them into the best of friends.

If you’ve heard anything about The Farewell other than it stars rapper-turned-actress Awkwafina, maybe it’s the tagline: “Based on a true lie.” The lie in question isn’t a treacherous one, but it is illegal—at least in the States, where it’s expected that if you’re diagnosed with a terminal illness, well, you’ll be…

Meryl Streep is generally cited as one of the greatest actors of our time. She’s got 21 Oscar nominations and three wins; the actors tied for second place—Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson—only have a measly 12 nominations apiece. She’s a master at accents, from Polish (Sophie’s Choice) to Australian (A Cry In The…

Even if you’ve never seen Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, it’d be nearly impossible not to be familiar with its big 11 o’clock number, “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend.” Marilyn Monroe’s exuberant ode to gold-digging has been homaged, reimagined, and satirized by everyone from Madonna to Moulin Rouge! to Crazy…