The best horror films are the ones that draw on humanity’s shared fears. Scary stories of the undead, giant insects, and murderous clowns. The location of a scary movie is as important to the story as the monster lurking in the shadows. The Overlook Hotel in The Shining, the cabin from Evil Dead; they can draw the viewer in to the world and are often the origin of some larger evil....
2016 will be a year of superheroes. So far, there are eight superhero blockbusters scheduled for release throughout the next year. At least four of those films will feature entire groups of well-known super-powered heroes and villains battling each other. With the Marvel Cinematic Universe entering its eight year and the DC Extended Universe gaining momentum, the over-saturation of superhero stories has become a growing concern. Is there enough demand from worldwide audiences to satisfy the huge investments made in these tentpole pictures?...
[SPOILERS for those not caught up on Agents of SH.I.E.L.D. ahead.] - The fourth season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for many has been another improvement in quality and has continued to deliver on the promise that Ghost Rider would be a big part of the series. The Robbie Reyes (Gabriel Luna) version of the character has been a prominent member of this season’s story, which has now become closely connected to the goals of S....
Director Christopher McQuarrie confirms that Alec Baldwin will be returning in Mission: Impossible 6 with a new photo from the film’s set. After Brad Bird reinvigorated the Mission franchise in 2011 with the critically-acclaimed Ghost Protocol, McQuarrie managed to continue the franchise’s success streak with 2015’s Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. And for the first time in the film franchise’s history, the upcoming sixth Mission: Impossible film will feature McQuarrie reprising his role as the film’s writer and director, as he takes the franchise into a supposedly darker and more emotional territory than the previous two installments have....
The Disney Parks absolutely embody the term immersive in almost every context. From physical designs to color composition to the environmental atmosphere, the Disney Imagineers know how to take you away from the burdens of reality and into their magical realm. It’s all incredible but sometimes can result in sensory overload that causes guests to miss the smaller details. Disney goes to great lengths pulling guests into the magical world they’ve created, but there are a lot of subtle and secret odds and ends that guests often overlook....
MySmartPrice today published alleged schematics of the new iPad. Most notably, the design includes a raised camera module. The base model iPad may not be Apple’s fanciest, but it is its best-seller thanks to starting at just $329 while providing value-for-money in terms of feature set. From the CAD renders, we can see the overall shape of the new generation model will remain the same. The iPad will continue to feature sizable forehead and chin bezels, along with a Touch ID home button....
From Angelina Jolie’s reinvention of the wicked Maleficent to Kristen Stewart’s heroic Snow White to Emma Watson’s much anticipated turn as Belle in Beauty and the Beast, adding a star to a beloved Disney story is a well-known formula for movie magic. Fairy tales like Cinderella tend to be remade over and over again, but there are a few Disney classics that haven’t found their way to a live-action transformation quite yet....
Blockbusters don’t have to be all flash and no substance. It’s certainly possible to tell an entertaining story that also makes us think about serious issues and conflicting arguments. At least within the context of the movie itself. Some of our favorite nerdy/geeky movies include big ideological conflicts that pit the characters of the story against each other. In this list we’re looking at movies where there are disagreements about serious issues the characters face; where their differing views drive the story as much as any material interest or personal agenda....
One of the most popular ways to measure how well-balanced a film is in terms of gender representation is the Bechdel Test. Named after Alison Bechdel, the comic artist who created it, it features three simple classifications that surprisingly few movies meet: the movie has to have (1) at least two women in it, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something besides a man. It’s not a perfect measure, but does work as a good metric to see how cinema in general is treating female characters; in 2016, over half of the year’s highest grossing films passed the test....
Long before fan culture took over the mainstream, there were Trekkies. As the die-hard progenitors of the world’s first major “fandom,” Trekkies have made their beloved sci-fi franchise a trivia goldmine for decades. Star Trekis home to a dense, devoted fandom that knows every detail of the Star Trek universe. Everything from the computer layouts and physical specs of each Starfleet ship to the minute details of every Alien species have all been mapped out by meticulous fans and creators alike....
Breaching the Batcave is a big deal. In addition to assaulting the physical security of Batman’s home, villains that successfully break into the Batcave also wage emotional war on his sanity. After all, it’s the last line of defense for the Dark Knight’s war against Gotham’s worst criminals. While engendering his best detective work and his most effective missions, the Batcave is also a place of healing. It’s where Alfred gets out the first-aid kit and where Bruce gazes at the costumes of sidekicks gone by....
To put it mildly, the Star Trek reboot films are very divisive for fans of the franchise. On one hand, the reboots accomplished exactly what they set out to do: they made Star Trek, a series that stereotypically focuses on basic ideas like exploration and peace, seem like an action series instead. Accordingly, this helped bring in a lot of casual viewers that would never previously have called themselves fans of Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew....
Thanks to the likes of IT and Get Out, 2017 is officially horror’s biggest year. One of cinema’s oldest genres, horror has evolved an awful lot in the past century or so, blending seamlessly with other types - monsters, sci-fi, slashers, supernatural and gore are all major subgenres that have come in and out of popularity - to never truly go away. That said, it feels like we’re in the middle of a real horror renaissance at the moment....
An AAPL shareholder resolution calls for Apple to “cease its anti-repair policies” to avoid damage to the company’s reputation. In particular, the resolution says that Apple making DIY and third-party repairs difficult contradicts the iPhone maker’s stance on the environment. iFixit notes the resolution: Green Century says that Apple’s stance is disingenuous. Apple and John Deere, primary antagonists of the Right to Repair movement, may soon have to explain their domineering repair programs to one of their most demanding audiences: their shareholders....
The supernatural is set to be unleashed upon the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a big way in less than two months with the release of Doctor Strange. The Sorcerer Supreme introduces magic into the MCU for the first time, with some potential for big changes as a result. Before that happens, however, the small-screen Marvel Universe will see its own introduction of the supernatural with the introduction of Ghost Rider to the ABC show Agents of S....
Things are certainly beginning to heat up in the MCU, giving fans of all things Marvel good reason to be excited. The highly anticipated Luke Cage series is now streaming on Netflix, Doctor Strange is set to bring the Sorcerer Supreme to theaters next month, and recent reports indicate that the Punisher solo series has begun filming. But the first entry of the MCU on television, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., has been delivering the excitement as well....
While it’s undoubtedly very cool to be an actor who does their own stunts, it’s also extremely dangerous, which is why Hollywood has created an entire niche community of people who’s main responsibility when making films is to do all the stuff that could get precious film actors killed. This includes things such as superhuman feats of driving like a maniac, falling from ridiculous heights, and doing wirework that could either drop the actor from somewhere just a little too high or cause lacerations if performed incorrectly....
The films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are famous for their Easter eggs and post-credits stingers. A lot of the time, these teases seem to set up future movies in the franchise, but since the studio releases three movies a year and all three usually have more than one sequel setup in them, it’s not logistical to pay off every single one. Now that a lot of the story has been paid off in Avengers: Endgame, a movie with no post-credits stinger (apart from the sound of a hammer calling back to Iron Man), the MCU has a chance to catch up with itself....
A role in a show produced by Shonda Rhimes can be a ticket to stardom. Rhimes has been responsible for huge hits like Scandal, Station 19, How to Get Away With Murder (HTGAWM), and the long-running Grey’s Anatomy. The actors who appear on these shows instantly become the source of internet speculation and tabloid gossip, and they quickly become contenders for the A-list. A few seasons on a hit show can be enough to propel an aspiring thespian to big-budget studio fare and large paychecks, so it’s not surprising that many Shondaland stars try to parlay their stints into bigger and better things....
When Syfy announced it was adapting Terry Gilliam’s 1995 sci-fi thriller Twelve Monkeys (itself an adaptation of the 1962 short film La Jetée), it was a safe to say more than a few people were somewhat skeptical. After all, like many Gilliam movies, Twelve Monkeys found an enthusiastic fan base devoted to the film’s twisty notions of time, destiny, and madness, and a television adaptation may have seemed an unlikely source to continue (or retell) the story presented in the film....
