You can scarcely surf the great streaming ocean without happening on a serial killer documentary or series, a fact that probably says more about us than the entertainment industry. All options, however, are not created equal. For every few quick-and-dirty procedurals, you’ll find something with real style and personality — …
Read More »
Maybe it’s the cumulative effect of watching so much top-notch talent being wasted. Or the woozy sensation of being subjected to two hours of cut-rate CGI effects apparently purchased in a bulk deal. Or the blatant product placement for Burger King jalapeño poppers. Or the in-joke nod to Beetlejuice, a …
Read More »
Horrible crimes have been committed amid Tokyo’s shadowy nightlife, and a young Western woman is in the middle of it. So are the police and the media, each handling things as they’ve been taught, which doesn’t endear them to each other. No, it’s not another season of HBO’s Tokyo Vice, …
Read More »
This weekend, legions of movie lovers will descend upon theaters, popcorn in hand and catheter in place, girding themselves for the single most unlikely double feature ever conceived by the internet. When it was announced that Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan‘s big-budget, bigger-canvas biopic about the man dubbed “the father of the …
Read More »
“A pimp, a ho, and a drug dealer walk into a bar,” says one character in They Cloned Tyrone, writer-director Juel Taylor’s conspiracy thriller/comedy/cautionary tale. It should be noted that the person making this statement is white, racist as hell, and works for a shady branch of the government that …
Read More »
It doesn’t take long for the new Netflix/A24 documentary The Deepest Breath to let you know an ill wind is blowing. “I accepted that she was doing a dangerous thing,” intones the father of Alessia Zecchini, one of the world’s elite freedivers. “Extreme sports have extreme consequences,” says the father …
Read More »
In the beginning, there were simply explosions. Smaller bangs — the big one would come much later, in the New Mexico desert. But for J. Robert Oppenheimer, the quantum physicist who would guide the greatest scientific minds of his generation toward creating a doomsday device, it was all just a …
Read More »
It’s tough to sell a decades-old doll and actively make you question why you’d still buy a toy that comes with so much baggage. (Metaphorically speaking, of course — literal baggage sold separately.) The makers of Barbie know this. They know that you know that it’s an attempt by Mattel …
Read More »
In the first episode of the new miniseries Justified: City Primeval, our old friend Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) — the quick-drawing, fast-talking, Stetson-wearing U.S. marshal from Harlan, Kentucky — is called to testify about a fugitive he brought back to Detroit. Defense attorney Carolyn Wilder (Aunjanue Ellis) calls him out …
Read More »
After his junior year at Kansas, basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain was ready to leave college to make some money. The NBA didn’t take players who left school early, so instead of playing competitively, Wilt joined the world-famous Harlem Globetrotters on a lengthy tour of Europe. Seeing Wilt, one of the …
Read More »