Pixar’s Inside Out 2 is indisputably one of the biggest movies of the summer. Unfortunately, even its billion dollar box office earnings can’t overcome one major failing, in my eyes: the vilification of broccoli. Like in the first film, young teenager Riley despises broccoli. It’s the food that first triggered...
Did Ti West cut an entire gay subplot from Maxxxine?
Ti West’s new horror-thriller Maxxxine, the third movie in his trilogy starting with X and Pearl, includes an odd detail that’s easy to miss, since no one ever remarks on it: The title character’s best friend, Leon (Moses Sumney), has a cast on one arm. It’s grubby and inked-up, suggesting...
Maxxxine isn’t just paying homage to exploitation thrillers… it is one
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” ―Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night Ti West’s Maxxxine, the third movie in the horror trilogy West started with 2022’s X and Pearl, features an early scene where a man’s naked scrotum is graphically...
Rejoice! Save up to 50% on the Complete Calvin and Hobbes for Prime Day
It’s come to our attention that not everyone yet has experienced the joy that is Calvin and Hobbes. Maybe it’s because they have been waiting for the right moment to dive in. Maybe they grew up without knowing about Bill Watterson’s seminal comic series. Whatever the reason, let’s fix that....
House of the Dragon finally gives a tour of Harrenhal, Westeros’ most haunted castle
[Ed. note: This story contains spoilers for House of the Dragon season 2 episodes 3 and 4.] House of the Dragon is no stranger to the supernatural. Not only does the HBO fantasy drama series boast plenty of low-key magic — not to mention, y’know, dragons — but it’s also...
Yorgos Lanthimos on how to be an actor in his movies: ‘You might feel ridiculous’
In the new anthology film Kinds of Kindness, surrealist Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos tells three stories with the same group of actors — Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, and more. He recasts each of them in every segment: Plemons is a put-upon office worker, a paranoid cop,...
Kalki 2898 AD has the ultimate recipe for a sci-fi epic: Star Wars + Hindu myth + RRR
Actor Amitabh Bachchan is a metaphorical giant of Indian cinema, a superstar of proportions that dwarf even A-list American celebrities. In the Indian sci-fi epic Kalki 2898 AD, his stature becomes literal: In his role as the 7-foot-tall immortal warrior Ashwatthama, the 81-year-old towers over his younger co-stars, all of...
The Acolyte can and should indulge in the Star Wars sequel trilogy’s Knights of Ren lore
Ever since George Lucas claimed the “echoes” between his original and prequel Star Wars trilogies were “poetry,” the mega-franchise has faced criticism of trapping characters in an everything-is-connected universe. When Kid Anakin is building C-3PO and Boba Fett’s dad is the base DNA for the Stormtroopers, Star Wars’ poetry suddenly...
Nosferatu is coming to make vampires scary again
There’s been no shortage of vampire movies and TV shows in the last couple of years. There was Renfield, Abigail, Interview with a Vampire, What We Do in the Shadows, and more, all exploring different genres (with varying degrees of success) through the lens of everyone’s favorite creatures of the...
No one should be as good as Antony Starr is at being Homelander
One of the hardest things to understand from the outside of any group operating under a cult of personality is just how intoxicating a personality can be. A charismatic presence, given a regular amount of your time — say, every Sunday morning, or even better, every evening after dinner —...