At an intimate reading of Megan Fox’s newly released poetry book Tuesday, Pretty Boys Are Poisonous, the Jennifer’s Body actress spent the last moments of the conversation answering questions from the audience. One 22-year-old attendee was brought to tears as she asked what Fox would tell her younger self. “I …
Read More »'The Royal Hotel' Is Every Woman's Toxic-Masculinity Nightmare
“They’re all nice for a minute,” says Kitty Green, director of the sizzling thriller The Royal Hotel. She’s talking about the men that make up most of the film’s ensemble cast — Australian miners in a remote, rugged, Outback town — who can pivot from playful pub banter to grinning …
Read More »The 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer' Double Feature Left Me Questioning Reality Itself
The double feature is something of a bygone pleasure. Sure, repertory theaters will curate stacked showings of classic fare or art house favorites for the cultured cinephile in us, but the first-run double — one you might randomly drop into knowing little about either movie — seems the relic of …
Read More »'Barbenheimer' Asks: Who Ruin the World? Men.
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 »'Barbie' May Be the Most Subversive Blockbuster of the 21st Century
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 »Trevante Rhodes' Fight for Hollywood Autonomy
While it’s unclear whether or not Trevante Rhodes is into astrology, it’s hard not to notice the ways in which he embodies the archetype of his zodiac sign, Aquarius: unconventional, independent, progressive, nonconforming, and most of all, a free spirit. When browsing Rhodes’ Instagram, one learns he has a thing …
Read More »The Macho Fury of 'Magazine Dreams,' Sundance's Most Divisive Movie
Elijah Bynum’s Magazine Dreams is both too much and not enough. At its center is a role for which star Jonathan Majors has said that he “ate 6,100 calories a day for about four months” to prepare — work that needed to pay off to convince us of its central …
Read More »Infidelity, Breakups and Oversharing: Have R&B's 'Toxic Kings' Taken It Too Far?
“If I Get Caught,” the first single from the R&B duo Dvsn‘s upcoming album, released last month, is far from subtle in its description of what some might call “toxic” behavior. In the chorus, destined for social media contagion, singer Daniel Daley informs us that “if I get caught cheating …
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