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“Thank you, darling! I dressed up for you! I got the flowers in the kitchen!” Parker Posey says, accepting a compliment on how fabulous she looks popping up on our Zoom interview from the Chateau Marmont, wearing her now signature pink glasses and a chic scarf. Although the certified Legend earned her first Emmy nomination last year for guesting on Prime Video's Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Posey considers this her first real awards season, and she's doing it right.

If you watched Season 3 of HBO's The White Lotus, you already know that Posey could do no wrong as Victoria Ratliff, the North Carolina matriarch whom show creator Mike White described to the actress as a younger version of Grey Gardens’ eccentric Big Edie. Having grown up in Louisiana and Mississippi, Posey couldn't wait to choose her (much-imitated) Southern accent. "I love how funny it sounds. I love how there seems...

The great Angela Lansbury, winner of five Tony Awards and an honorary Oscar, and nominee for three Oscars and 18 Primetime Emmys besides -- passed away in 2022 at the age of 96, leaving a legacy so large, it cannot be measured by other mortals in the acting sphere. Lansbury was one of the more versatile actresses of her generation, playing innocent girls, scheming villainesses and murderers, heroes, crones, and loving matrons all with equal aplomb. 

Lansbury was already a sizable celebrity by 1984 when she took the role of Jessica Fletcher on the long-running detective series "Murder, She Wrote." Fletcher was a retired English-teacher-turned-mystery-author who became embroiled in a series of murders in her small town of Cabot Cove, Maine. It was a cozy and intelligent series, buoyed by Lansbury's personable performance. The series ran for 247 episodes over 12 seasons. Frustratingly, Lansbury won none of 12 Emmys for which she was nominated for "Murder, She Wrote.

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M. Night Shyamalan doesn't always make great movies, but let it never be said that he makes boring movies. From the stone-cold classic that is "The Sixth Sense" to the wackadoo nature of "The Happening," the man certainly knows how to keep things interesting. Of all Shyamalan's output in recent years, "Old" stands out as perhaps his biggest swing. It's also, at least in part, inspired by the works of Agatha Christie.

While Christie and Shyamalan don't seem like a natural pairing, the director was inspired by her while making "Old." For those who may need a refresher, the film centers on a family taking a tropical holiday. They discover a secluded beach where they decide to relax in peace for a few hours. However, they soon discover the beach is making them age rapidly, distilling their entire lives into a single day.

“The White Lotus” Season 3 boasts an emblematic performance from Parker Posey as Victoria Ratliff, a lorazepam-dependent housewife from North Carolina who is convinced dying would be a better fate than living a less-than-luxurious life — a mentality the actress notes is rooted in pain.

“There are different ideas about Victoria and where she comes from [and] how much money she has — I think she comes from the wealth in the family and was quite spoiled, had everything at her fingertips,” Parker told TheWrap, adding that she carries some trauma after her father’s death. “But there’s a lot of pain under there, there’s a lot of eccentricities and neediness — she’s like a woman-child.”

That neediness is, of course, what worries Victoria’s husband, Timothy (Jason Isaacs), as he spirals over a white collar crime that is in the process of being uncovered during their vacation. While Posey notes Timothy...

The fun thing about being a time traveler is that you can often procrastinate on important tasks for as long as you'd like. This was part of the appeal for Amy (Karen Gillan) at the start of "Doctor Who" season 5; she was having second thoughts about marrying Rory the next day, so the Doctor's promise that she could travel through space and time for as long as she wants beforehand seemed like a great deal.

The rest of the season eventually dealt with Amy's doubts about Rory, but it once again ended with the characters procrastinating. This time, it was the Doctor who took his sweet time getting around to an important task: in the finale, he receives a phone call (seemingly from the future queen or king of England) regarding an emergency situation. In the future there's apparently a train that runs in space called the Orient Express, and...

There is nothing like a captivating, well-made mystery movie. For many decades, the genre has been mesmerizing its audiences with its clever stories, interesting characters, and surprising twists. As a viewer, it is incredibly easy to get invested in a well-executed mystery, keeping them on the edge of their seats as they try to figure out who did the crime, even movies based on mysteries that were never solved. In recent years, the genre has experienced a new explosion in popularity thanks to the widespread appeal of comedic murder mystery movies like the Knives Out franchise or the revival of the Agatha Christie murder mystery movie.

Of course, not every great mystery movie has received quite as much recognition. In fact, many thrilling mysteries have flown under the radar for many years, failing to attract major audiences despite presenting captivating stories. With countless viewers anxiously waiting for the next blockbuster mystery to be released,...

“She always looks so extreme,” a fellow teacher observes of Maggie Smith’s trademark rigidity in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969), putting her finger on the straight-backed, nose-high hauteur audiences enjoyed for more than half a century.

A shrill and tragically short-sighted instructor at a school full of impressionable-aged girls, Jean Brodie proved to be the defining credit of the English stage legend’s screen career, to the extent that her strict-but-caring Harry Potter character, deputy headmistress Minerva McGonagall, could be the selfsame martinet, curdled by several more decades of disappointment. (Kids who grew up on the J.K. Rowling adaptations will surely appreciate “Prime” once they’re older.)

That’s not to say she was never better. In fact, Smith, who died Friday, never gave a bad performance, and just as fine wines improve with age, that also goes for the legendary actor’s biting brand of vinegar, which...

For most people born in the past three decades, Maggie Smith became a familiar figure as Minerva McGonagall, the transfiguration professor and deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter movies. That strict but kind sorceress dispensed both imperious commands and compassionate counsel in a clipped Scottish brogue from beneath her pointed black hat.

Others might have met her as Violet Crawley, the tart-tongued Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, whose advanced age and creeping infirmity did nothing to diminish her Old World authority — “I wouldn’t know, I’m not familiar with the sensation,” she once remarked, on the foreign concept of being wrong — or her precision at landing a cutting put-down.

Smith died today in London, aged 89, and those who know her only from those two signature roles would do well to sample the many jewels elsewhere in her seven-decade filmography.

For...

Maggie Smith, the Oscar-winning British actress who starred in Downton Abbey and the Harry Potter series, has died at the age of 89.

Smith’s sons announced her death Friday morning in a statement. No cause of death was revealed, but the actress was at a British hospital at the time of her death.

“It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith,” her sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin said in the statement to Rolling Stone. “She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning,...

Rian Johnson, the writer and director behind Knives Out and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, loves whodunits, particularly due to “how malleable the genre is,” he shared on X last month. Johnson, who considers Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (1978) and Evil Under the Sun (1982) touchstone films, announced the latest sequel in May, titled Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Southern-drawl supersleuth Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig, is back for the third installment with an all-star cast and brain-teasing case.

As Johnson reflected on the...

Kenneth Branagh's Poirot film series could reach its end due to disappointing box office performance, leaving few options for future Agatha Christie film adaptations. The reinvigorated approach in the latest film, A Haunting in Venice, with a sidekick and supernatural elements, failed to appeal to audiences despite positive reviews. The dwindling popularity of Branagh's Poirot trilogy suggests that major Agatha Christie film adaptations may be on hiatus, and future adaptations will likely be limited to television unless there is an effort to attract younger audiences.

If Agatha Christie had lived to see Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot film trilogy, specifically Branagh’s determined performance as Christie’s inimitable fictional Belgian detective Poirot, it’s hard to imagine that Miss Christie, who died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five, wouldn’t have, at the very least, given Branagh high marks for sheer effort and style.

However, given the disappointing box...

As Kenneth Branagh brings his third Hercule Poirot film to theaters with “A Haunting in Venice,” fans of the Agatha Christie character might debate: Who is the best actor to ever play the mustachioed Belgian detective? And which versions simply didn’t work?

We’ve compiled a list of the most notable actors to portray the famously fussy sleuth —from Tony Randall to PBS favorite David Suchet — and ranked them with both how true they are to Christie’s vision and how enjoyable their portrayal is to audience.

MGM

7. Tony Randall (1965)

The “Odd Couple” actor’s one outing as the detective in the Frank Tashlin-directed film “The Alphabet Murders” leans very hard into comedy. The result: Despite the mustache and bald cap and an occasionally passable accent, we get very little of “the little grey cells” character we expect and far more sight gigs and slapstick.

Prime Video

6. John Malkovich...

So we’re really committing to this cinematic Poirotverse, huh? Ok.

The Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is arguably Agatha Christie’s finest creation, next to her own persona of Agatha Christie, Queen of the Whodunit. He’s been played by everybody from Tony Randall to John Malkovich; Peter Ustinov portrayed the deductive sleuth six times, and David Suchet has made a career out of gifting TV viewers with the definitive take on Christie’s murder-mystery icon. He’s graced 33 novels and 51 short stories, which means that Kenneth Branagh — the actor-filmmaker...

There’s no shortage of brilliant detectives in novels, film and television, but one of the greatest — or at least the one with the fanciest facial hair — is Hercule Poirot. The Belgian investigator, created by Agatha Christie, has appeared 33 novels, more than 50 short stories, and has been played by a variety of iconic actors.

But for whatever reason, Poirot has only sporadically appeared on the big screen, with many of his earliest movie appearances being lost to time, while some of his other noteworthy adventures were rewritten as vehicles for Christie’s other beloved creation, Miss Marple.

Here we take a look at the various theatrically-released adventures of Hercule Poirot, from the 1930s to today, and see which of his mysteries were truly worth solving.

Photo credit: Columbia

Honorable Mention: “Murder By Death” (1976)

Neil Simon’s wacky spoof of the supersleuth genre, directed by Robert Moore, features an all-star cast...

A Haunting in Venice, the third installment in Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot film series, marks a turning point for the film series, as while the first installment, Branagh’s 2017 remake of Murder on the Orient Express, was a box office success, the previous entry, Death on the Nile, was one of the biggest box office flops of 2022.

Unlike Branagh’s remakes of Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express, A Haunting in Venice is based on Agatha Christie’s previously un-filmed 1969 Poirot novel Hallowe’en Party, and the supernatural-themed A Haunting in Venice clearly represents an attempt, after the failure of Death on the Nile, to appeal to a broader and younger audience, including horror fans.

Indeed, with A Haunting in Venice, Branagh has made a gothic horror film in which Branagh’s legendary Belgian detective Poirot visits a supposedly haunted mansion, where Poirot witnesses a Halloween-night séance,...

Marlene Dietrich in Witness For The Prosecution, Albert Finney in Murder On The Orient Express, Maggie Smith in Evil Under The Sun, Kenneth Branagh in Murder On The Orient Express Graphic: United Arists/Emi Films/20th Century Fox It makes sense that filmmakers have been turning to Agatha Christie for...

Marlene Dietrich in Witness For The Prosecution, Albert Finney in Murder On The Orient Express, Maggie Smith in Evil Under The Sun, Kenneth Branagh in Murder On The Orient ExpressGraphic: United Arists/Emi Films/20th Century Fox

It makes sense that filmmakers have been turning to Agatha Christie for source...

If you thought you'd seen the last of Hercule Poirot, think again. Agatha Christie's famous Belgian detective, who has appeared in countless of her mystery novels, returns in "A Haunting in Venice," which is set to premiere on Sept. 15. The movie is based on Christie's 1969 novel "Hallowe'en Party," which revolves around Poirot embroiled in another murder mystery. The original story takes place at a Halloween party, while the upcoming adaptation sees the detective at a séance.

"A Haunting in Venice" coproducer and director Kenneth Branagh is set to reprise his role as Poirot for the third time in the upcoming film. He first made his debut as Poirot in the star-studded 2017 film "Murder on the Orient Express." Five years later, he returned as Poirot in the 2022 movie "Death on the Nile," which also had a stacked cast. The third film in the Branagh trilogy will also feature huge stars...

Adapted from the immensely popular novel Hallowe'en Party by prodigious writer Agatha Christie, A Haunting in Venice takes place in post-World War II Venice where Poirot, now retired and living in his own exile, reluctantly attends a séance. Yet, when one of the guests is apparently assassinated, Poirot must involve himself in false spiritualism and the occult to delve into the truth.

As Agatha Christie's investigations and inquests with featured retired detective turned advisor Poirot continued in "Evil Under the Sun" and "Appointment with Death." Both novels ended up as failed early '80s attempts, but there's little guarantee those already-filmed screenplay properties would even be available to 20th Century Studios for remakes. This dubious status on the Poirot intellectual properties leads enthusiasts to wonder if this is the last outing of their favorite mustachioed sleuth.

Why More Poirot Is Needed

With additional members such as Michelle Yeoh and Tina Fey joining the cast,...

Jane Birkin graced the front pages of most French newspapers on Monday as France mourned the death of the late British actress and singer who enjoyed icon status in the country that she had called home since the late 1960s.

“Our tears can’t change anything,” proclaimed Le Parisien newspaper, which first broke the news of Birkin’s death at the age of 76 on Sunday.

Libération ran with the simple headline “Without Jane”, while regional newspaper Le Maine Libre referred to the late actress as “The Eternal English Bride of France”.

International obituaries have highlighted Birkin’s notorious performance with partner and late bad boy of French pop music Serge Gainsbourg on the 1968 pop song, ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’, or the fact she inspired the Hermès Birkin bag.

For the French, she was much more.

In a six-page tribute, Libération mused over the reasons for Birkin’s never-ending...

Birkin’s death has shocked her adopted France over the long Bastille Day weekend.

Anglo-French actress, director and singer Jane Birkin has died at the age of 76.

Born and brought up in the UK, Birkin rose to fame in France in the 1960s with a parallel acting and singing career and became a global fashion icon and a woman’s rights activist. France claimed the naturalised citizen as their own.

Birkin starred in around 70 films including Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow Up, 1969’s The Swimming Pool opposite Alain Delon and Romy Schneider, Roger Vadim’s Don Juan, Or if Don...

Jane Birkin, the iconic British-born actress, singer and model who became a chart-topping artist in France with her collaborations with then-partner Serge Gainsbourg, has died at the age of 76.

Birkin’s death was announced Sunday by the French culture ministry, which said Birkin was found dead at her Paris home. No cause of death was provided. Birkin recently canceled concerts due to unspecified health reasons; in recent years, she also suffered a stroke and battled leukemia.

French president Emmanuel Macron tweeted Sunday, “Because she embodied freedom, because she sang the...

Jane Birkin, the singer and actress who rose to fame in the late 1960s as the lover of French bad boy Serge Gainsbourg and became a beloved figure in her adopted France, has died. She was 76.

The French culture minister announced the news on Sunday following reports in Le Parisien newspaper and Bfm television that said Birkin had been found dead at her home in Paris. She had suffered a mild stroke in 2021.

Although born in London, Birkin would find fame singing in French. Her duet with Gainsbourg on the sexually explicit song “Je t’aime…moi non plus” (which was banned in several countries and condemned by the Vatican) made her a household name around the world.

The song was recorded in 1968, just months after the pair — Birkin, then 22 years old, and Gainsbourg 40 — had first met on the set of the film Slogan, forging a turbulent relationship that would...

Jane Birkin, the English-French star who collaborated with Serge Gainsbourg on the risqué hit “Je T’aime… Moi Non Plus,” died July 16, French media reported. She was 76.

She and Gainsbourg were married from 1968-80 and worked together on “Je T’aime… Moi Non Plus,” released in 1969 – and recorded the year before, six months after they met on the set of the film Slogan. The song topped the UK chart and was Top 5 in several other European countries and Mexico but was not a hit Stateside.

The song, originally written by Gainsbourg for Brigitte Bardot, caused a scandal on its release for its sexual content. It was banned by radio stations across the UK, Italy and Spain, but became an enormous and instantly recognisable hit across the world.

Although born in London and a leading light of “the London scene” of the 1960s, Birkin found fame singing in French — and she...

The first “Murder Mystery” from 2019, written by James Vanderbilt (“Zodiac”), was a fun star-studded throwback to the 1980s Agatha Christie films like 1982’s “Evil Under the Sun,” with salt of the earth Brooklynites Nick and Audrey Spitz (Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston) thrown into the mix. The script was a smart, genre-savvy affair coupled with Sandler-style lowbrow comedy, a combination that almost worked, but was undone by the lackluster direction by Kyle Newacheck.

Continue reading “Murder Mystery 2” Review: Sandler and Aniston Feed The Rich In This Unnecessary Sequel at The Playlist.

Major spoilers for Glass Onion, Knives Out, and several Agatha Christie novels.

With Netflix’s Glass Onion, Rian Johnson has produced another highly enjoyable detective story. Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc has the perfect Poirot-inspired blend of likeability, slight ridiculousness, and believably extreme intelligence to anchor this type of tale. The mystery itself is intriguing with well-drawn characters and the same lightness of touch combined with subtle social commentary, and it has one of movie history’s more fun red herring characters just wandering around in the background throughout.

However, if we approach Glass Onion as first and foremost a whodunnit, we cannot deny that its mid-film twist breaks the “rules” of a “Fair Play” whodunnit and tricks the audience in a way that most of the best loved examples of the genre do not.

The rules for a “Fair Play” whodunnit were codified by mystery writer Ronald Knox...

A good mystery often begins with a clue that’s right out in the open, even if no one recognizes it at first. In a similar way, the extravagant Greek villa that serves as the principal setting for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery impressed production designer Rick Heinrichs when he first visited it early in his location search, but it wasn’t immediately selected for the movie’s game of murder that turns deadly. “It was a place that had a modernist take on classical architecture and had a hierarchy of stairs that led up to it, and I could see us placing a dome on top of it,” Heinrichs tells THR. “But our experience always tells us that the first place is never the one you end up with.” Instead, he conducted “a worldwide search and looked at everything, and it was only then that we fully appreciated the villa we had found.

Glass Onion director Rian Johnson's next whodunit has been revealed in the new trailer for Poker Face. The series, which is a Peacock original, was created by Johnson, who also directed the first two of the season's 10 episodes. The series stars Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cade, a woman on the run who finds herself at the center of a string of murder mysteries featuring a cavalcade of celebrity guests including Adrien Brody, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chloë Sevigny, Tim Meadows, Benjamin Bratt, Hong Chau, Ron Perlman, Stephanie Hsu, and Luis Guzmán.

Today, Peacock shared the new official trailer for the series ahead of Poker Face's official release on January 26, when its first four episodes will drop. The trailer explores the reason Charlie needs to hit the road when her job as a casino worker lands her in hot water, and she is targeted by a crime boss. She seems to...

When Oscar-winning production designer Rick Heinrichs (“Sleepy Hollow”) was first tasked with designing the titular structure for Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” he treated it like a literal onion, taking the model apart and cutting into it to study the layers. “There was something so cool and architectural about it, that it became part of the design,” he told IndieWire. “You really see the layers of depth in the dome. The metaphor of the Glass Onion works so well and I tried not to invent stuff that wasn’t there.”

For Johnson — whose latest whodunit takes inspiration from such iconic films as “Sleuth,” “The Last of Sheila,” and “Evil Under the Sun” — the metaphor of The Glass Onion was wrapped around the narcissistic, bad-boy mind of tech billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton). Bron hosts a murder mystery weekend getaway on his private Greek island with his...

Did you miss him? Of course you did! Everyone's favorite private detective with an unparalleled nose for the truth is back and ready for another round of "CSI: KFC" action. After writer/director Rian Johnson promptly reinvigorated the murder-mystery genre with the Oscar-nominated "Knives Out" in 2019, audiences, in no small part due to Daniel Craig's gloriously campy portrayal of Benoit Blanc, immediately looked ahead to the next time we could see the detective doing what he does best — snooping around in everyone else's business, casually making suspects uncomfortable, and using his vast insights to solve all the most complicated crimes.

"Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" is the next buzzworthy installment of Johnson's hit original franchise and now we're getting a fresh look at what the sequel has to offer. If you recall, Netflix scooped up the rights to the second film (and a third!) in a frenzied bidding...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film Forum

To mark the great Alain Resnias’ centennial, a massive retrospective starts with Marienbad, Muriel, Hiroshima, and Je t’aime, je t’aime; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg screen.

Bam

“Intimate Epics” begins with a print of Yi Yi, Happy Hour, and Ottinger’s Joan of Arc of Mongolia.

Museum of the Moving Image

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Licorice Pizza play back-to-back on 70mm this weekend, while one of cinema’s most unsung heroes—women in Australian cinema—get their due in a new retrospective.

Japan Society

Kore-eda’s After Life is screening on Friday.

Film at Lincoln Center

Three Colors: Blue, Three Colors: White, and a massive retrospective of King Vidor all continue.

Roxy Cinema

The series “Woman as Witch” offers plenty scintillating—prints of Alien 3, Lady Sings the Blues,...

Jane Birkin became an icon thanks to a few factors. There was her undeniable beauty, of course, plus the movies and the recording career, most notably with her second husband, the beloved French singer-songwriter and provocateur Serge Gainsbourg. Together, they recorded the much-loved duet “Je T’aime… Moi Non Plus” and had daughter Charlotte, the second of Birkin’s three daughters. And of course, Birkin’s spilled purse on a flight inspired the iconic Birkin bag.

These are all relevant facts to bring up now, because new French-language documentary “Jane by Charlotte,” a portrait of the mother by the daughter, doesn’t discuss them. Perhaps operating under the assumption that no one unfamiliar with Birkin would watch a documentary about her, Gainsbourg instead veers too far to the other extreme, offering almost no context for their unstructured conversations, reminiscences, and chats.

Late in the film, Birkin speaks movingly about the...

Agatha Christie was born in 1890, and the heyday of movie adaptations of her novels goes quite a ways back. The whole structure and flavor of this sort of delectably engineered whodunit, with its cast of suspects drawn in deliberate broad strokes and its know-it-all detective whose powers of deduction descend directly from Sherlock Holmes, is rooted in the cozy symmetry of the studio-system era. The last big-screen Christie adaptation that could be considered an all-out success, critically and commercially, was probably Sidney Lumet’s 1974 “Murder on the Orient Express,” a lavishly corny and irresistible amusement in which Albert Finney played the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot as a fussbudget egomaniac with pursed lips and hair that resembled an oil slick (he was like Inspector Clouseau with a brain transplant).

“Murder on the Orient Express” was actually an event movie. But the Christie adaptations that followed — “Death on the Nile” (1978), “The Mirror Crack’d...

Not only is the 25th James Bond film “No Time to Die” the last 007 adventure thriller starring Daniel Craig, it’s also the first one directed by an American: Cary Joji Fukunaga. The 44-year-old filmmaker won the Sundance dramatic directing award in 2009 for “Sin Nombre,” was the first Asian-American director to win an Emmy for directing in 2014 for “True Detective” and earned a Peabody in 2015 for “Beasts of No Nation.”

He joins other cutting-edge filmmakers to direct Craig as Bond including Oscar-winning English director Sam Mendes (“American Beauty”) who helmed 2012’s “Skyfall” and 2015’s “Spectre” and indie German filmmaker Marc Forster (2008’s “Quantum of Solace”), who had directed Halle Berry to an Oscar for 2001’s “Monster’s Ball” and Johnny Depp to a nomination for 2004’s “Finding Neverland.”

These three are a far cry from the early Bond directors who were British and had worked their way up the ranks...

Hello, everyone! We have a brand new assortment of horror and sci-fi headed home this week, and there are plenty of offerings that should undoubtedly make for great additions to your Halloween season viewing plans. Universal is showing some love to a trio of classics, as it is set to release John Carpenter’s The Thing as well as Rear Window and Vertigo from Alfred Hitchcock all on 4K Ultra HD today. Kino Lorber has put together new Blu-ray presentations for both The Tomb of Ligeia and Theatre of Blood, and if you’re looking to catch up with some newer horror, both Great White and Slaxx arrive today courtesy of Rlje Films.

Other Blu-ray and DVD releases for September 7th include Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe’s War, Hellbox, Witches of Blackwood, Skinwalker, and War of the God Monsters.

Great White

A blissful tourist trip turns into a nightmare for five...

This article spoilers for Old.

M. Night Shyalaman’s latest, Old, sees a group of families at a luxury resort taken to a special beach which makes them age incredibly rapidly, to the point that their lives play out in entirety over hardly more than a day. It’s a fascinating and bleak premise inspired by the graphic novel Sandcastle by Frederik Peeters and Pierre Oscar Lévy, which doesn’t exactly sound like it’s in the mold of the queen of detective fiction, Agatha Christie.

But watching the movie, the similarities start to show through. Chatting with Den of Geek just ahead of the film’s cinema release, Shyamalan explains that his new priorities when it comes to moviemaking are to focus on contained stories.

“I’ve been making movies this way since The Visit : very contained movies that I fund,” the writer-director explains. “You would think that...

Anthony Powell, a three-time Oscar winner whose costume designs helped bring Indiana Jones to rugged life and Broadway’s Norma Desmond to extravagant excess, died Sunday. He was 85.

The Costume Designers Guild 892 confirmed the news on Monday night, on their official Facebook page. “Legendary English costume designer Anthony Powell passed away last weekend. He will be celebrated in a small, private gathering due to Covid restrictions and is survived by two nieces,” they said. “Anthony Powell’s passion for his work and for his friends was boundless. The Costume Designers Guild sends our condolences to everyone who enjoyed the pleasure of his company and his unforgettable designs.”

Powell, who won a Tony Award for the costumes of 1963’s School for Scandal, received Oscars in 1978 for Death on the Nile and in 1979 for Tess. He had received his first Academy Award for designing the costumes for Maggie Smith’s eccentric Augusta...

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By Tim McGlynn

“If you were a man, I’d divorce you!”

Myra Gardener (Sylvia Miles) insults her stage producer husband, Odell (James Mason), with this line in the 1982 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun during a spat while vacationing on a fictional Italian island in the Adriatic Sea. They are attempting to entice Broadway legend Arlena Stuart Marshall (Diana Rigg) to appear in their next musical, despite her reputation as a spoiled diva. Evil Under the Sun has recently been released on Blu-ray by the good people at Kino Lorber, who have also seen fit to issue new editions of The Mirror Crack’d and Death on the Nile.

The screenplay, by Anthony Shaffer, is loaded with witty and sometimes randy putdowns that help breathe a bit of life into this rather formulaic whodunit from director Guy Hamilton. When Arlena...

Award-winning actress was best known for roles in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ , ‘The Avengers’ and ‘Game Of Thrones’.

UK actress Diana Rigg, whose prolific career included memorable roles in the James Bond franchise and Game Of Thrones, died today aged 82. She had been diagnosed with cancer in March.

Rigg remained active in recent years and her final performances include Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho, set for release in April 2021, and miniseries Black Narcissus, co-produced by the BBC and FX.

Born near Doncaster, England in 1938, Rigg began her career on stage before securing her breakout role in 1965 as...

Dame Diana Rigg, the veteran actress famous for playing Olenna Tyrell in the HBO series Game of Thrones among dozens of other movie and television roles, has sadly passed away. A specific cause of death hasn't been revealed, though a statement from Rigg's agent reveals the actress passed on Thursday morning while surrounded by family. "She died peacefully early this morning. She was at home with her family who have asked for privacy at this difficult time," the statement reads. She was 82 years old.

A Doncaster native, Diana Rigg was born Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg on the 20th of July in 1938. As a teenager, she attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to train for her career in acting. She debuted on stage in 1957 with a Rada production of The Caucasion Chalk Circle, later portraying roles in other shows for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Though she'd move into working in movies and television,...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Dame Diana Rigg, one of Britain's most esteemed actresses, has died from cancer at age 82. In the course of her career, Rigg conquered the mediums of stage, screen and television. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and received praise for her work in classic theater. Perhaps improbably, she became a pop culture icon when she replaced Honor Blackman on the iconic British TV series "The Avengers" in the 1960s. When Blackman left the show to star as Pussy Galore in the 1964 James Bond film "Goldfinger", Rigg introduced the character of Emma Peel, playing opposite Patrick Macnee's John Steed. She became the most notable early female action star on television, practicing martial arts and often attired in provocative leather outfits. In 1969, Rigg followed in Honor Blackman's footsteps by appearing as the female lead in a James Bond film, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service...

Diana Rigg — the celebrated British actress with roles in Game of Thrones, The Avengers and the James Bond flick On Her Majesty’s Secret — died Thursday, September 10th, the BBC reports. She was 82.

Rigg’s daughter said she died of cancer after being diagnosed in March. “She spent her last months joyfully reflecting on her extraordinary life, full of love, laughter and a deep pride in her profession,” Rigg’s daughter said.

Rigg had a lengthy and multi-faceted career that included famous turns on television, film and the stage. She...

Diana Rigg as Mrs Peel in The Avengers

Diana Rigg has died at the age of 82, it has been announced. The actress, who made an indelible impact on British television with her starring role as Mrs Peel in The Avengers and recently won a new generation of fans playing Lady Olenna Tyrell in Game Of Thrones, enjoyed a career that spanned six decades. Her film work included playing the woman who won James Bond's heart in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, taking on Miss Piggy in The Great Muppet Caper, and working with Peter Ustnov and Maggie Smith in Evil Under The Sun.

On the small screen, Rigg won an Emmy for her work as Mrs Danvers in Rebecca, starred in a memorable production of Bleak House, and also made an appearance in Doctor Who. She was highly praised for her stage career, and turned in several memorable performances in...

Diana Rigg, the Tony and Emmy winner who splashed into the world of television with her commanding turn as intelligence agent Emma Peel on “The Avengers” in the 1960s and played Lady Olenna Tyrell on “Game of Thrones” decades later, died Thursday at her home in England. She was 82.

Rigg was a venerable figure in Britain’s entertainment industry who worked incessantly on stage, TV and film. She famously thumbed her nose at convention in her private life and in later years seemed to enjoy her status as a grande dame.

“She was a beautiful kind and generous human being that enhanced the lives of all that knew her as well as a great actress. She leaves a great void in my heart,” said Lionel Larner, Rigg’s longtime friend and talent agent.

Having a key role in the biggest TV series of the past decade was a fitting career capper for Rigg.

Habits die hard. It’s Sunday, which is usually the time to list and analyze the weekend’s grosses. However, since almost all theaters are closed, I decided to take a look back to this weekend in 1982 — the year when box-office statistics became part of entertainment reporting.

Almost 40 years ago, coverage wasn’t instantaneous. People had to wait until midweek for reports, which inched closer to real time as the years went on. Here, we have the benefit of hindsight — and the title’s performance might offer us some perspective on how these films informed what Hollywood, and box office, would become.

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Since tickets cost three times more now than they did in 1982, I’ve included both the original grosses and...

You start with a corpse. A murder has been committed — maybe it’s at a country estate, or on a train, or during a cruise headed to some exotic locale. If the victim is powerful, rich, and possibly hated for a variety of reasons, all the better. You need suspects, each with a motive for wanting said person six feet under. Lastly, and this is important: You’ve gotta have a sleuth. Preferably someone eccentric, with a quirk or a tic; bonus points if you can make the brainiac seem innocent or easily underestimated.

Lionsgate has debuted a new trailer and final poster for Rian Johnson’s ‘Knives Out’ has landed online featuring an all-star cast all under suspicion.

Related: Knives Out Review – Tiff 2019

Directed by Johnson the cast includes Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Katherine Langford, Lakeith Stanfield, Jaeden Martell, and Christopher Plummer.

Johnson has previously stated that the Christie-based films that serve as his big influences are the “Death on the Nile,” “Evil Under the Sun,” “The Mirror Crack’d,” “Deathtrap” and comedic classics like “Clue” and “Murder by Death”.

Also in trailers – Patrick Wilson stars in trailer for ‘In The Tall Grass’

The film is released November 27. Here’s the trailer.

Knives Out Synopsis

Acclaimed writer and director Rian Johnson pays tribute to mystery mastermind Agatha Christie in Knives Out, a fun, modern-day murder mystery where everyone is a suspect.

The new mystery feature "Knives Out" is written and directed by Rian Johnson ("Star Wars: The Last Jedi") starring Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell and Christopher Plummer, opening November 27, 2019:

".... a modern take on the whodunit murder mystery, the film follows a family gathering gone horribly awry...

"...as renowned crime novelist 'Harlan Thrombey' (Plummer) is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday. 

"The inquisitive and debonair 'Det. Benoit Blanc' (Craig) is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. 

"From Harlan's dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web...

"...of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan's untimely death..."

Cast also includes Riki Lindhome, Edi Patterson, Raúl Castillo, Noah Segan, Frank Oz and M. Emmet Walsh.

Johnson cited several classic mystery thrillers as influences on the film,...

Sneak Peek new footage, plus images from the upcoming mystery feature "Knives Out", written and directed by Rian Johnson ("Star Wars: The Last Jedi") starring Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell and Christopher Plummer, opening November 27, 2019:

".... a modern take on the whodunit murder mystery, the film follows a family gathering gone horribly awry, as renowned crime novelist 'Harlan Thrombey' (Plummer) is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday. The inquisitive and debonair 'Det. Benoit Blanc' (Craig) is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan's dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan's untimely death..."

Cast also includes Riki Lindhome, Edi Patterson, Raúl Castillo, Noah Segan, Frank Oz and M. Emmet Walsh.

Johnson cited several classic mystery...

Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Looper writer-director Rian Johnson's Knives Out will be hitting a theater near you this November and the movie sports one killer cast including Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Michael Shannon, Lakeith Stanfield, Jamie Lee Curtis, and more. And today we have the movie's trailer for you to check out.

For those of you out there that might not know, this new Rian Johnsonmovie is being described as a modern take on the classic whodunit murder mystery. More specifically, the flick centers on a family gathering gone horribly awry when the family's patriarch (played by The Sound of Music star Christopher Plummer) dies, and two detectives (Craig and Stanfield) are sent to investigate the scene.

I don't know about you, but just the movie's premise has got me thinking of a modern day version of Jonathan Lynn and Debra Hill's 1985 adaptation of the boardgame Clue.