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Easter eggs have become far too commonplace in movies nowadays. It's gotten to the point that they distract viewers from paying attention to the story unfolding on the screen, because to get sucked into the emotion of a movie might cause you to miss a glancing reference to an obscure Marvel character or a deep Mario Kart cut — which, upon spying it, will allow you to laugh many decibels too loud so as to alert every single person in the theater that you are the knowingest knower who ever did know.

Before Easter eggs became a matter of competitive viewing, they were just innocuous bits of ephemera scattered in and around the frame that you might not notice until a subsequent viewing. Some directors invited their audiences to be on guard for obligatory bits, but for the most part, they were wholly unexpected. And, oh yeah, we didn't call them Easter eggs.

Humantis is a 9-minute stop-motion animated short film about a species of creatures that look like a cross between a mantis and plants. They are all white in color and they spend their time performing intricate dance numbers in the forest. But one of these Humantises finds out that her skin color is turning from white to shades of green. She tries her best to hide it from her people and refuses to accept that she is undergoing a radical transformation. Now, whether or not she’ll manage to adapt to these changes or succumb to her insecurities is what forms the crux of the story. I sat down for a virtual interview with its writer and director, Paris Baillie, to have a chat about the true meaning behind her short film, the beauty of stop-motion animation, and more.

Film Fugitives: Coming up with an idea for a film is huge task?...

It's hard to believe that we're more than a decade removed from the last feature-length Muppet movie. In the spring of 2014, Disney released the final Muppets movie -- at least, the final one for now. "Muppets Most Wanted" was, like its 2011 predecessor "The Muppets," a fun, family-friendly homage to the Muppet movies of old. The 2011 film, starring Jason Segel and Amy Adams, was as much about the Muppets themselves as it was a reference-laden film riffing on the 1979 classic "The Muppet Movie." And just as "The Great Muppet Caper" sent Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, and Miss Piggy to Europe for a rollicking heist movie, "Muppets Most Wanted" sent its gaggle of Muppet characters away from the United States for an adventure that ran them afoul of Interpol and the world's first and second greatest criminal masterminds. 

Muppet movies are also nothing if they're not delightfully self-referential, breaking the fourth wall with ease.

Ketchup Entertainment dropped the trailer for “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie” on February 28 ahead of its March 14 theatrical release. The indie picked up the Daffy Duck and Porky Pig sci-fi origin story last year after Warner Bros. Discovery killed it for tax purposes (like the live-action/animated Looney Tunes hybrid “Coyote vs. Acme”).

The franchise’s first fully 2D-animated theatrical feature finds Daffy and Porky (both voiced by Eric Bauza) stumbling onto a secret alien plot to take over the world via mind-control and chewing gum. But they attempt to gum up the works with their inimitable antics.

Director Peter Browngardt (“Looney Tunes Cartoons”) admirably captures the essence of the wacky odd couple with wit and warmth, channeling the outrageous look and gags of his favorite Warner Bros. director Bob Clampett. “We wanted the audience caring about these characters,” Browngardt told IndieWire, “but still also...

Not many awards shows that have lasted 3 hours and 45 minutes have ever had a preponderance of viewers agreeing that this length was justified. Sunday night’s 67th annual Grammys telecast might be the exception that belongs in that very rarefied strata — a show so solid, so relatively fat-free, that you might not even have minded if it’d stretched a bit further to take up a few minutes in the east coast’s following calendar day. It had everything you could want out of a Grammycast: horse races that people actually cared about, a sense of connection to the real world outside of that suspense, and nary a dud across 16 packed performance slots.

Sure, you checked your watch… but at least partially in amazement that the show was still sustaining itself this flawlessly, this many hours in. Easily the best Grammys yet to be produced under the Ben Winston/Raj Kapoor/Jesse Collins administration,...

Quentin Tarantino is no stranger to defending his views as he’s had to push back on controversy surrounding violence in his movies or racial content or character portrayal, such as Bruce Lee fans criticizing him for his scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Tarantino seems to now be a target for his praise of the movie Joker: Folie à Deux, which was panned by critics and fans alike and flopped at the box office. The director had gone on to say that Joaquin Phoenix had given “one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in my life.” And explained, “I really, really liked it, really. A lot. Like, tremendously, and I went to see it expecting to be impressed by the filmmaking. But I thought it was going to be an arms-length, intellectual exercise that ultimately I wouldn’t think worked like a movie, but that...

Last Updated on December 9, 2024

John Waters’ annual top 10 movies list is always an eclectic one, filled with movies on the fringe that we may have never even heard of, ever a champion for the maligned. But the most interesting addition this year is one that got a lot of attention this year – just for all the wrong reasons.

Taking the #6 spot on his list of the top 10 movies of 2024 for Vulture, John Waters picked Todd Phillips’ much-derided Joker: Folie à Deux, which had all of the hype possible behind it but flopped with critics and audiences. In his write-up, Waters told us just what worked for him: “Finally, a love story I can relate to. So insane, so well thought out, so well directed, so much smoking! It’s Jailhouse Rock meets Busby Berkeley with a 9/11 That’s Entertainment! ending that will make you shake your head in cinematic astonishment.

Critics be damned, John Waters is not afraid to drop a cinematic hot take.

The legendary cult filmmaker and ‘King of Filth’ defended critically-panned DC sequel Joker: Folie à Deux as a “well directed” followup and praised Lady Gaga‘s performance while ranking his favorite films of the year.

“Finally, a love story I can relate to,” wrote Waters in his Vulture Top 10 list. “So insane, so well thought out, so well directed, so much smoking! It’s Jailhouse Rock meets Busby Berkeley with a 9/11 That’s Entertainment! ending that will make you shake your head in cinematic astonishment. Stupid critics. Gaga so good. Joker so right. Die, dumbbells, die!”

Joker: Folie á Deux was ultimately a critical and commercial flop, grossing $206 million worldwide on an estimated $190 million budget, and receiving a 32% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes. Quentin Tarantino previously defended the sequel as well.

The Todd Phillips-helmed musical...

As 2024 winds to a close, film fans and critics alike begin to assemble their best of the year lists. And what list would be complete without at least one surprising entry, a film that sticks out like a sore thumb from its brethren. That's certainly the case with John Waters, the Pope of Trash himself and the creator of such gloriously quirky and even disgusting cinematic experiences, like Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, and Serial Mom.

The filmmaker released his annual top 10 list via Vulture, and amid some of the more expected titles, coming in at number six is Todd Phillips' much-maligned musical sequel Joker: Folie à Deux. It's not impossible, but the likelihood the vehicle for Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga will make many any other best-of lists this year is pretty slim. It boasts both a 32% critics and audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, with Glenn Kenney of RogerEbert.com saying...

Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie à Deux will be available to stream on Max from December 13 before hitting HBO linear on December 14 at 8 p.m. Et, and the downbeat musical sequel's final worldwide box office totals are in.

The film grossed just $206 million at the global box office (including $58 million in North America), and is expected to lose at least $150 million to $200 million for the studio.

This is a far cry from the first Joker movie, which took in over $1 billion worldwide and was the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time before Deadpool and Wolverine surpassed it earlier this year.

Some notable names have come out in defence of Joker: Folie à Deux, and we can now add legendary director John Waters to the list.

"Finally, a love story I can relate to," Waters said of the film after sharing his top 10 of 2024 list. "So insane, so well thought out,...

Quentin Tarantino made headlines for defending “Joker: Folie à Deux” earlier this year against the onslaught of critical pans, and now another filmmaker is joining him by naming the maligned sequel one of the best movies of 2024. “Pink Flamingos” and “Hairspray” icon John Waters published his annual top 10 list on Vulture and “Joker: Folie à Deux” is in the sixth spot.

“Finally, a love story I can relate to,” Waters writes. “So insane, so well thought out, so well directed, so much smoking! It’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ meets Busby Berkeley with a 9/11 ‘That’s Entertainment!’ ending that will make you shake your head in cinematic astonishment. Stupid critics. Gaga so good. Joker so right. Die, dumbbells, die!”

Waters’ list is topped by Kristen Stewart’s lesbian thriller “Love Lies Bleeding” and includes several Oscar contenders such as “The Brutalist,” “Emilia Perez,” “Hard Truths” and “Queer.” The “Joker” sequel is easily...

John Waters is wading into the “Joker: Folie à Deux” critical controversy — and is already making a splash.

Waters released his annual list of the best films of the year, as published by Vulture, and bestowed the number six slot to Todd Phillips’ polarizing sequel.

“Finally, a love story I can relate to,” Waters wrote. “So insane, so well thought out, so well-directed, so much smoking! It’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ meets Busby Berkeley with a 9/11 ‘That’s Entertainment!’ ending that will make you shake your head in cinematic astonishment.”

Waters added, “Stupid critics. Gaga so good. Joker so right. Die, dumbbells, die!”

“Joker: Folie à Deux” received quite the support from subversive auteurs like Quentin Tarantino, who said that director Phillips harnessed the Joker mentality while helming the feature.

“He’s saying fuck you to all of them. He’s saying fuck you to the movie audience. He’s saying fuck you to Hollywood.

The premise of The Performance, which is based on a 2002 Arthur Miller short story, is intriguing and more than a little pertinent for these times even though it is set in 1937.

Harold May (who changed his last name from Markovitz) is a struggling entertainer who is tap-dancing his way through life as leader of an American dance troupe. He gets an opportunity that on the surface of things seems irresistible when he is offered more money than he could imagine to perform just one night in Berlin. There is danger there, however, as Harold is a Jewish American and Germany is seeing the rise of Nazism and antisemitism. Nevertheless, he is somewhat in denial thinking he will be immune to all of this, the money is too tempting, and the chance to take this job with his troupe cannot be passed up.

What he doesn’t realize is just exactly...

This story contains spoilers for the Nov. 26 episode of “Dancing With the Stars”

In Tuesday night’s Season 33 finale of “Dancing With the Stars,” the five final couples competed for the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy with a “redemption” dance assigned by the judges in which they tackled a style they had previously gotten wrong.

The second round featured several eye-popping freestyle routines, including the showstopper of Chandler Kinney and Brandon Armstrong — the first Black duo in the finale — staging a multi-decade tribute to renowned African-American dancers like the Nicholas Brothers that had Carrie Ann Inaba saying, “You’ve changed the future for people to come!” While Kinney seemed a shoo-in to take home the top prize, she shockingly ended in third place.

And the winner of Season 33 was “The Bachelor” star Joey Graziadei and partner Jenna Johnson, with Olympian Ilona Maher and her partner Alan Bersten taking second. Super Bowl...

Helen Gallagher, the spunky Broadway triple threat who received two Tony Awards and starred as the matriarch Maeve Ryan for all 13-plus years of the ABC soap opera Ryan’s Hope, has died. She was 98.

Gallagher died Sunday at a hospital in Manhattan, Edith Meeks, executive and artistic director at New York’s Herbert Berghof Studio, told The Washington Post. Gallagher taught a class in “Singing for the Musical Theater” there for years.

The radiant singer, dancer and actress received her first Tony in 1952 for her portrayal of showgirl Gladys Bumps in a revival of the Rodgers & Hart musical Pal Joey, then landed another in 1971 for her turn as flapper Lucille Early, another wise-cracking character, in a revival of Busby Berkeley’s No, No, Nanette.

“When Miss Gallagher sings the blues of a lovelorn wife with piece of chiffon and a chorus of properly epicene tailor’s dummies, she makes the...

It’s Musicals Week at IndieWire. With “Wicked” about to sparkle over theaters, we’re celebrating the best of the movie-musical genre.

It was the fall of 2018, and for a week or so, my co-writers, producers, and I were on a pitch tour, taking our idea for an original film musical around to every major studio in Los Angeles. As part of our pitch, we played a few sample compositions to give backers an idea of the vibe of music featured in the film and even sang a bit of one of the songs we planned on incorporating into the script.

For my collaborators and I, this was always a crucial element in getting our story across — this was a Musical, guided by song and informed by our characters’ taste and appreciation of the form. And every time my co-writers would burst into a duet as I narrated the circumstance,...

It’s Musicals Week at IndieWire. With “Wicked” about to sparkle over theaters, we’re celebrating the best of the movie-musical genre.

The musical sometimes feels like a relic of a long-dead Hollywood studio system. But IndieWire’s picks for the 100 best movie musicals of all time show that the musical remains a genre that captures movies’ ability to create story worlds that move freely between reality and fantasy better than any other. The worst examples come from filmmakers who give license to music, color, and movement to run amok; the best transcend artifice and integrate songs that become expressions of pure character emotion. Musicals offer endless possibilities, but success demands a complete mastery of the medium.

The best movie musicals of all time have faced obstacles as varied as their creators’ styles and tastes. That’s in part because its integration of at least two art forms — music and film always,...

“The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie” is one of the animated delights of the year. In the franchise’s first fully 2D-animated theatrical feature, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig (both voiced by Eric Bauza) discover a secret alien plot to take over the world via mind-control and chewing gum, gumming up the works with their inimitable antics in the process.

Peter Browngardt (“Looney Tunes Cartoons”) captures the essence of the wacky odd couple with wit and warmth, channeling the outrageous style of Bob Clampett. But were it not for Ketchup Entertainment, “The Day the Earth Blew Up” would’ve been killed off by Warner Bros. Discovery for tax purposes like the live-action/animated Looney Tunes hybrid “Coyote vs. Acme.” Thankfully, “The Day the Earth Blew Up” will receive a Best Animated Feature Oscar campaign from Ketchup (with a qualifying run starting December 13) ahead of its theatrical opening February 28, 2005.

For Browngardt,...

Early in Emilia Pérez, Zoe Saldaña’s frustrated attorney, Rita, is seen working on trial documents ahead of defending a man who likely pushed his wife off their balcony. After printing her documents at an outdoor food market inexplicably equipped with a printer, you almost expect her to turn to the camera and say what we can glean from the words on her computer screen: that this will be a film about violence. Instead, she sings. Because why not?

As Rita stands up, she slips into fantasy, and as she starts dancing down a crowded Mexico City street, arms akimbo, Jacques Audiard’s film immediately announces that it will make everything, earnestly and sloppily, as plain as possible through Clément Ducol and Camille’s songs. Before the film has really kicked into motion, it’s already established that it will do little with any particular panache, but gosh darn it,...

In a twist for the ages, the greatest joke of Todd Phillips’ Joker sequel––which contains far fewer punchlines than the first, regardless of how they land––is the movie itself. Not in craft, but the film’s holistic departure from its predecessor. After an explosive response, Phillips and co-writer Scott Silver knew exactly what chaos people would be expecting from a prison-liberated Joker in round two, and they played to it. Joker: Folie à Deux is a prank on incels and anarchists everywhere, a dark, soft, sing-songy dismemberment of the very concept of the Joker that roused fandom to begin with.

This time, Phillips doesn’t risk misinterpretation. He’s less interested in commenting on society than in cooling down society’s temper. The twist of this sequel isn’t just a left turn but a franchise reversal, almost as if to take it all back––a betrayal.

All together now: “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”

So goes the oft quoted maxim of producer Sam Goldwyn, speaking not in malapropism mode but properly enunciating a straightforward commandment for Hollywood filmmakers: keep your personal politics off screen and remember that the public comes to the motion picture theater for entertainment not lectures. Goldwyn’s rule was a guiding principle throughout the classical Hollywood era.*

The sentiment behind the saying is making a comeback. After being whiplashed by critics who’ve persistently linked box office disappointments to liberal political messaging, the success of the relatively talking points-free Twisters, A Quiet Place: Day One and Deadpool & Wolverine has revived the ancient wisdom.

Of course, Hollywood cinema has always telegraphed messages — often most effectively when it was unaware of sending them. In promoting the benefits of postwar capitalist democracy, no flag-waving lecture from an on-screen patriot...

Blossom in John Krasinski's If stands out among the other imaginary friends with its classic animation. Blossom's Betty Boop-inspired design caused creative challenges for the VFX team. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's voice work as Blossom adds depth to the character in If.

Among the many great, magical characters in John Krasinski's If, Blossom (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) stands out for her personality and her classic animation. If has one of the most stacked casts in recent movie memory with Ryan Reynolds, Fiona Shaw, and Krasinski himself in live-action roles, and a who's who of popular actors in voice roles, including everyone from Jon Stewart to Awkwafina. These voice actors portray the many imaginary friends that Bea (Cailey Fleming) and Cal (Reynolds) help relocate to needy children.

Like Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends before If, the creatures in the movie all have unique and charming designs. One of the main imaginary friends is Blossom,...

The end of the Maxxxine trilogy lands in theaters this weekend. The trilogy of horror films explores generational journies of starlets and women reaching for superstardom. How they find that success varies greatly, from infamy to adult films and even iconic roles in B-movies. Ti West and Mia Goth collaborated to write Pearl while waiting to shoot X, while West wrote each of the other stories. With that much control over the franchise, we’ve assembled nine movies that inspired the horror showcases.

The Movies That Influenced X The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

The most obvious influence on X comes from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The 1974 horror classic not only broke the mold of what was possible in the genre. It also helped define a specific aesthetic that would be borrowed, recycled, and reused for years. Many grindhouse movies, including Ti West, Rob Zombie, and others, openly crib off The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Somewhere between Sausage Factory and the world’s most inappropriate sex ed class lies Spermageddon, an animated feature from Norway that turns one of the body’s fluids into a gross-out comic spectacle. If you didn’t know that sperm cells could sing, dance, read science textbooks and make lots of butt jokes, well now you know.

Hatched from the minds of director Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow, The Trip) and animator Rasmus A. Sivertsen (Bold Eagles), the movie is both an illustrative teaching tool for adolescents curious about the inner workings of their private parts, and a button-pushing, secretion-shooting exploitation flick aiming to get laughs out of everything from masturbation to contraception to the formation of bowel movements.

Premiering in Annecy’s Midnight Special section, Spermageddon will play best with the kind of rowdy late night audience looking for a good time, both on the screen and perhaps off it.

Writer-director Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams opens on a nighttime shot of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan skyline in the distance. The year is 1984, and the Twin Towers loom, figuratively and literally, as ghostly figures. Berger’s breathtaking adaptation of Sara Varon’s graphic novel of the same name isn’t about the towers in any specific fashion, but about a world in which change is the only constant, life of any kind is at the mercy of randomness, and joy and melancholy are in ongoing symbiosis. In other words, our world—albeit one populated here, not by humans, but by anthropomorphic, humanoid animals.

Our surrogate in this world is Dog. At home by himself on a summer night, he’s drawn to a television commercial’s beckoning text (“Are you alone?”) and orders the product advertised, initially unseen by the viewer. Robot is soon delivered (some assembly required), and...

John Krasinski’s “If” presents a menagerie of celebrity-voiced imaginary friends who are in search of existential purpose after their kids grow up and forget them. Enter Ryan Reynolds, who runs a matchmaking service for the “IFs,” who live in a secluded retirement home at Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park in Coney Island.

Framestore handled the audacious fusion of live-action and CG animation and VFX (800 shots) spread across their London, Montreal, and Mumbai studios. Led by animation director Arslan Elver and VFX supervisor Chris Lawrence, the team worked closely with director-actor Krasinski to get believable performances out of the IFs on set or in post. Krasinski saw them as visceral, hyper-real puppets. The techniques included stand-ins to help the voice actors deliver full performances, placing the animated characters in the shot with VR, or the use of home-shot reference footage from the animators.

There are three hero characters: Blue (Steve Carell), a sweet,...

Spoiler Alert: The following review contains some spoilers.

Like a rose blooming amid a minefield, it’s a miracle that Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez” exists: a south-of-the-border pop opera about a most unlikely metamorphosis and the personal redemption it awakens in a stone-cold criminal.

With a Palme d’Or to his name and the cojones to tackle his third movie in a culture and language that are not his own (after “Dheepan” and “The Sisters Brothers”), the director of “A Prophet” takes audiences into the macho realm of Mexican cartels, where Manitas del Monte — a fearsome drug lord with a silver grill and a voice like gravel — wants out, not because he’s had a crisis of conscience, but because he’s decided to embrace his true self … as a woman.

Pardon me if I’ve mixed up the pronouns there. Audiard’s dazzling and instantly divisive film — which...

Clockwise from top left: The Big Lebowski (Universal), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Warner Bros.), Half Baked (Universal/Screenshot/YouTube), Heavy Metal (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)Graphic: AVClub

Congratulations, you’re high (in a state where it’s legal)! Depending on your mood and level of baked, you may find yourself...

The preview opening of the new exhibit Meet the Stars: 100 Years of MGM Studios and the Golden Age of Hollywood on Thursday night was a crowded, buzzing affair. Held at the Hollywood Heritage Museum in the historic Lasky DeMille Barn across from the Hollywood Bowl, the event showcased the items of over 20 movie collectors. Memorabilia hunters, dressed in fedoras and flirty ’40s dresses, gabbed about their latest finds with others who have a similar passion.

The highlight of the night was when the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to former MGM child star Cora Sue Collins (who played a little Greta Garbo in 1933’s Queen Christina), the last surviving MGM contract player from the 1930s. Sitting at a tableau that recreated a party thrown for her by MGM in 1935, Collins elegantly thanked everyone for their well wishes. Actor George Chakiris was also in attendance, and he posed next to a costume...

All Ryan Gosling needed was a 40-piece orchestra, 62 dancing Kens, over 24 gigantic Barbie heads, four “cameo Kens” and a Guns N’Roses surprise to turn his highly anticipated performance of “Barbie” track “I’m Just Ken” into one of the most unbelievable moments in award show history.

After all the protracted speculation about whether Gosling would perform “I’m Just Ken” at the Oscars, the news broke in late February that he had been confirmed for a song and dance extravaganza. But in fact, Oscars producers had been talking to Gosling for months.

“Ryan Gosling is a true professional, that man — we met with him on Zooms months ago, talking about that performance,” said Molly McNearney, who produced the show with Raj Kapoor, Katy Mullan and Rob Paine. “Greta Gerwig weighed in creatively as well. He was so committed to it. His choreographer, Mandy Moore, is exceptional — she was on all the calls.

While many film genres originated during the silent era, the musical had to wait until the advent of sound in 1927 in order to flourish. Led by the movies of Busby Berkeley, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers, the musical became one of Hollywood's most popular genres during the 1930s. As the Golden Era progressed, MGM emerged as Hollywood's premier studio for producing musicals.

Golden age musicals featured world-class dance choreography, iconic songs, elaborate set designs, gorgeous black and white, and Technicolor cinematography. Hollywood's Golden Era, which ran from the early 1930s until the mid-1960s, produced some of cinema's greatest musicals.

Updated on February 8, 2024, by Michael Colwander: Movie musicals have gotten off to a good start in 2024 with Mean Girls and will bookend it with the first part of the long-awaited film adaptation of Wicked. For those who have begun their musical kick, there are plenty of great musicals from the Golden Era of film.

For those of a certain age, "Capote's Swans" may bring to mind "Berkeleys's Beautys," the array of leggy dancers in actor/choreographer Busby Berkeley's exquisite dance numbers in low-budget musicals for Warner Brothers in the 1930s. For others, it may evoke Charlie's Angels, the famed 1970s series that prompted the phrase Jiggle TV. The Swans were unlike either but were instead a group of high society women who befriended author Truman Capote, who in turn became their confidante before sharing their secrets with the world in excerpts from his book Answered Prayers, published in Esquire Magazine. FX's upcoming Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, the long-awaited second installment of Ryan Murphy's anthology series, dramatizes the buildup and eventual hell and damnation born upon Capote, played by Tom Hollander, by the Swans following his betrayal. It's a story of privilege, pettiness, self-destruction, gossip, and public animosities — and it's utterly fascinating.

Pablo Berger’s “Robot Dreams,” which gets a theatrical release from Neon at an as-yet-unannounced time this year, was one of the animated delights of 2023. The Spanish/French hand-drawn dramedy (adapted from Sarah Varon’s wordless graphic novel) concerns the bittersweet friendship between lonely Dog and Robot, which he buys for company, in a version of ’80s Manhattan populated with animals. It’s garnered awards buzz in a longshot quest for an Oscar nomination this season.

After premiering at Cannes, “Robot Dreams” earned the Annecy Contrecham Award along with The Animation Is Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize. It was also selected as the runner-up for Best Animated Film by both the Los Angeles and Boston Film Critics groups.

Although the Spanish director was enamored with the graphic novel when he read it in 2010, he didn’t consider turning it into an animated feature until after making two live-action films,...

Psycho revolutionized the horror genre in ways that continue to influence modern horror. Before Psycho, the Golden Age of Horror focused on science fiction and monsters. Psycho's success paved the way for more daring exploration of previously forbidden topics in horror films.

Despite his reputation as a master of scares, Alfred Hitchcock rarely descended into outright horror. He worked in the more respectable genre of "thrillers," rising to the top of Hollywood's A-list with polished films like To Catch a Thief and North by Northwest. But in 1960, he released a film that changed horror forever. Psycho, based on a novel by Robert Bloch and loosely inspired by the real-life Ed Gein serial killer, was something of a passion project for the director.

It became his masterpiece, and more importantly, it left an imprint on horror that no movie before or since has matched. One can legitimately divide the genre into...

One of the highlights of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" is Kate Capshaw's energetic and flashy opening musical number. It's a rousing rendition of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" sung in Mandarin against an ever-increasing backdrop of complicated musical numbers harkening back to the heyday of famous choreographer and director Busby Berkeley. The song is a classic, and even appeared during the recent musical episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds." In "Temple of Doom," it's a stunningly photographed sequence by Steven Spielberg's cinematographer, the late, great Douglas Slocombe with head-spinning camera moves and eye-popping color. 

If you watch that sequence, everything seems to be designed to draw your eye to Willie Scott, just as if you were in the club watching her. While there are many reasons for this the main reason you can't take your eyes off of her is very simple: she's got on a super shiny dress.

For director Anthony Stacchi (“The Box Trolls”), re-energizing the 16th-century Chinese novel “Journey to the West” for Netflix’s animated feature “The Monkey King” meant turning the titular character into something very modern: an antihero. This was supported by executive producer Stephen Chow (“Kung Fu Hustle”), who previously directed a live-action version of “Journey to the West.”

“Stephen Chow has made a career of making heroes out of really unlikeable jerks,” Stacchi told IndieWire. “And you stick with ’em on their journey ’cause you know why they are the way they are, and you’re hoping for them to redeem themselves. So we did that here. He is a selfish, arrogant jerk from the beginning, and that way through the end. But you understand why he’s fighting for acceptance, you know where his anti-authoritarian attitude comes from.”

They also emphasized a goofy tone throughout the journey, in which Monkey King...

It’s not unusual to see a musical based on a movie or TV show or even a comic. But “Rogers: The Musical” might be the first one created from a throwaway joke in a TV show spun-off from a film series based on comic books. Audiences can now check out the mini-musical, which runs about a tight half hour, at Disney California Adventure’s Hyperion Theater, through Aug. 31. I was lucky enough to witness the opening performance last week, followed by a panel discussion with some of the key creatives.

“Rogers” first came to life in the Disney+ show “Hawkeye,” in which Jeremy Renner’s titular Avenger finds himself taking in a Broadway show with his kids. The show hits a little too close to home, as it turns out to be an adaptation of the life of his friend Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America. The show...

Eight minutes into Temple Of Doom, Indiana Jones kills someone by hurling a flaming kebab into his chest. As far as I’m aware, we hadn’t seen such a thing on screen before. Or in real life. It’s outrageous really, an insane thing to do, and to see. But all of Temple Of Doom is loopy. With Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas had made a genuinely classic film, got heaps of acclaim, and now here they were with a follow-up for which they, well, went mad. To which I say: Thank you.

Temple Of Doom is pulpier, funnier, sillier, scarier than Raiders. Each Indy outing is tonally different from the last; this one actually becomes a whole other film halfway through, switching unapologetically from knockabout farce to traumatic nightmare. And for all its faults – which, for all the film’s greatness, are admittedly plentiful – it is,...

The Little Mermaid reviews reveal if it's a worthy successor to the beloved animated film. The Little Mermaid is Disney's latest attempt at revisiting one if its classics for live-action. Directed by Rob Marshall and starring Halle Bailey, the movie is one of 2023's most anticipated releases.

Now, reviews have arrived for the live-action The Little Mermaid. While reviews sing the praises of Bailey's Ariel, it appears the other aspects of the film aren't as memorable. Check out what some critics are saying below:

Rachel Labonte, Screen Rant

In terms of faithfulness, The Little Mermaid is similar to the remakes of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, in that the exact same story is told, albeit with some extra padding and a few new songs. Led by a pitch-perfect Halle Bailey, The Little Mermaid is bolstered by deeper characterization and a grand scope, even as it grapples with awkward...

Warner Bros. has already celebrated its centennial with a segment during the Academy Awards, the publication of a studio-supported book (Warner Bros.: 100 Years of Storytelling) and, most recently, a barrage of festivities emanating from Turner Classic Movies. TCM’s programming for all of April is being devoted to Warners films, and at the 14th annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, running April 13-16, many studio masterpieces, some recently restored and remastered, will be shown on big screens around town. Here are 10 that this THR Hollywood history buff highly recommends.

Footlight Parade (1933)

Ninety years ago, during the depths of the Great Depression, Americans sought escape from their troubles with light movies like this backstage musical. Directed by Lloyd Bacon, starring James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler and highlighted by some of choreographer Busby Berkeley’s most kaleidoscopic dance numbers, it was a giant hit at the box office.

Michael Keaton in Batman Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures In a special series, The A.V. Club looks at the legacy of Warner Bros. 100 years after the studio was founded.Los Angeles had already established itself as the movie-making capital of the world by 1923. Construction had just finished on the Hollywood sign,...

Fess up: You had no idea John Wick would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Not an inkling. Not a hint. Not even a teeny, tiny clue.

No one could have predicted that a movie burdened with a title taken from the name of its lead character — who is John Wick? Why should we even care? — and that starred an actor who’d been off the public’s radar for a bit, would synthesize a decade’s worth of genre cinema and revolutionize American action movies. Keanu Reeves still looked fit,...

Bring up Golden Age Hollywood filmmaker Busby Berkeley, and most people conjure his staging of elaborate, kaleidoscopic dance numbers in such films as “Dames” and “Footlight Parade,” Ginger Rogers singing “We’re in the Money” at the height of the Depression in “Gold Diggers of 1933,” or his sinuous camera weaving through dancer’s legs in such hits as Oscar-nominated “42nd Street” (1933).

A three-time Oscar nominee (for Best Dance Direction), Berkeley’s musicals were credited with saving Warner Bros. from financial collapse before he became a key player in Arthur Freed’s unit at MGM, where he propelled the careers of numerous stars, including Rogers, Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, and Gene Kelly. Behind the scenes, Berkeley’s life was darker and often tragic — beset by scandal and numerous brushes with the law.

Arguably, Berkeley’s Hollywood artist’s journey is the untold story that “Babylon” wasn’t — and it coincides...

When "The Big Lebowski" hit cinemas 25 years ago, most people had no idea what to make of it. Sure, it made immediate fans of some, but the movie was met with a heavy dose of bewilderment. In the critical community, this confusion came from the fact that Joel and Ethan Coen were coming off of their Oscar-winning film "Fargo," released just two years earlier. Though they had made plenty of celebrated films prior, "Fargo" was this unimpeachable, darkly funny thriller that could satiate your average audience member and already established Coen fan alike. They crystallized something in that film that made it seem like the brothers would just be building off of its foundation afterward.

But that's not what happened. The Coens took a sharp left turn and made an offbeat stoner comedy that riffed on the classic tropes of film noir. They had become "serious" filmmakers with hardware to show for it,...

The man. The myth. The chin. Bruce Campbell is one of the most beloved cult TV and film stars in existence, and he's going to be bringing his special brand of bravado to 22 different U.S. cities starting Wednesday, April 5, 2023. The guy behind Ash Williams of "Evil Dead," Elvis of "Bubba Ho-Tep," and Brisco County, Jr. himself, Campbell will be touring with Bruce-o-rama, a two-part evening that's sure to be a bigger blast than a boomstick to the butt. The shows will start with an interactive game of "Last Fan Standing," a game show where everyone in the audience gets to play and test their knowledge of all things fantasy, horror, sci-fi, superheroes, and gaming. After that, they'll show a cult film of Campbell's and do a pre-screening Q&a. 

Tickets are available on the Bruce-o-rama website, with special fan packages available that include a chainsaw autographed by Campbell himself.

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "Sex Appeal"

Where You Can Stream It: Hulu

The Pitch: High school senior Avery Hansen-White (Mika Abdalla) excels in every area of academics. With a laundry list of extracurricular activities, philanthropy efforts, and a 5.00 Gpa, she's ready to take MIT by storm next year. But first, rather than focusing on the time-honored tradition of the senior prom, she chooses to conquer her "nerd prom" instead: a scientific competition that offers the winner a fellowship that sets them up for life.

Thanks to this year's STEMcon prompt, Avery must create an app that solves a problem in her personal life, which is something that she hasn't cultivated since she's preoccupied with academic milestones instead of "superfluous" ones. After finding...

A spiritual kissing cousin of such compellingly campy ’90s Aussie-produced extravaganzas as “Strictly Ballroom” and “Muriel’s Wedding,” director Gracie Otto’s “Seriously Red” disarms and delights as a sensationally spirited concoction that neatly balances unfettered outrageousness and unabashed sentimentality. The beating heart of the entire enterprise is Krew Boylan. As screenwriter, she has created a terrific role for herself. As star, she proves absolutely fearless while illuminating every aspect of a sometimes exhilarating, sometimes exasperating, always endearing protagonist. She works a singularly impressive type of movie magic while simultaneously driving the movie over the top and anchoring the borderline-fantastical narrative in something resembling reality.

Boylan stars as Raylene Delaney, better known as Red, a socially awkward small-town New South Wales realtor with, as she herself admits, “an impulse control problem.” To put it mildly. A fanatically passionate fan of Dolly Parton, she decks herself out as her idol for a company gathering,...

After 40 years, the hopes and dreams of a generation have finally come true: “History of the World Pt. 2” is almost here. Hulu announced on Thursday that TV series — the long-awaited sequel to the classic 1982 Mel Brooks movie — will premiere March 6. And along with that announcement comes the official trailer. Watch that above now.

The 8-episode series launches with the first two episodes on March 6, with two episodes released nightly through March 9.

Like “History of the World Part 1,” the show features a series of irreverent sketches inspired by different historical eras and, if it’s anything like the original film, also parodying the historical epics of Hollywood’s golden age. And like its predecessor, “History of the World Part 2” takes aims at numerous literal and figurative sacred cows.

There’s a sketch about how the Pope (Joe Lo Truglio) and other Church officials conspire in what amounts to a medieval marketing...

As a member of the legendary writing staff of NBC's "Your Show of Shows" in the 1950s, Mel Brooks played a key role in pushing the formal boundaries of television comedy, so it stands to reason that he would be equally adventurous behind the lens of a film camera. Taking his cues from such pioneering entertainments as Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" and H.C. Potter's "Hellzapoppin'," Brooks played broadly to viewers, occasionally breaking the fourth wall to get them involved in the front. He does this multiple times in "Blazing Saddles:" in one instance, he has Harvey Korman's Hedley Lamarr pause his direct-to-camera scheming to ponder to the audience, "Why am I asking you?" There's also the moment where the film's climactic melee crashes into the set of a Busby Berkeley musical, prompting Slim Pickens to blurt out "P*** on you, I'm working for Mel Brooks" before...

Amy Adams as Gisele in Adam Shankman’s Disenchanted Photo: Disney There’s a legitimately good premise buried deep in the core of director Adam Shankman’s Disenchanted. This follow-up to 2007’s Enchanted, the uproariously funny, subversive, and smart goof on Disney animated fairy tales once again dispels the myth of “happily ever after,...