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Once upon a time, in the year 1984, Freddy had been one of the most terrifying new faces in horror. He was edgy, distinct, and from the edge of reality itself. Millions of people were entranced with a mass scale personification of the boogeyman they caught glimpses of out of the corner of their eyes during the hardest parts of their formative years. And so a public obsession was born, one that was just as much about the underlying darkness of the 1980s that was desperately trying to be day-glo-ed away as it was about Halloween decorations....

Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife is very much a film of two minds: it is a love letter to the past and his father’s work, and it’s also an attempt to strike out and be its own thing. The movie both basks in the nostalgia we associate with “legacy sequels” while also attempting to create a new generation of heroes who look decidedly nothing like Stantz, Venkman, or Zeddemore—although Spengler’s spirit is pretty well captured by the pint-sized Mckenna Grace....

After watching Ghostbusters: Afterlife, I wonder if Jason Reitman had a similar experience. To be sure, the filmmaker’s relationship to that 1984 classic is much closer than my own. He grew up beside his father Ivan Reitman’s movie, visited the set at the age of five, and lived with its sizable legacy as a perfect comedy. Yet the moments that really sing in Jason’s legacy sequel aren’t the jokes, which are present, or the blatant fan service for admirers of the original, which are a little too ubiquitous....

After three movies of build-up, the battle lines are drawn. The mighty Godzilla goes toe-to-toe with the titan gorilla King Kong over who is the alpha of the MonsterVerse. While the movie doesn’t have the epic, apocalyptic feel which came with its predecessor Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla vs. Kong does deliver on the crazy fight scenes and makes good on a rivalry that has long had its foot in pop culture—if only because of an incredibly silly film from 1962....

While you can swap characters throughout your Gotham Knights playthrough, it’s not a bad idea to focus on one or two of them at a time. That not only makes it that much easier to unlock all of their abilities but their additional costumes and gear as well. There’s also something to be said for taking the time to really get to know a particular character and the unique aspects of their play style....

The broad strokes of the series aren’t all that bizarre, as it tells a pretty basic story overall. In a world where magic was discovered, three scientists accidentally unleashed a new type of species that led to a lengthy war between these creatures (Gears) and humanity. One scientist became a genocidal monster, one a grizzled anti-hero, and another a mysterious wildcard watching over everything. Eventually, the war ended and peace reigned, but the possibility of the war reigniting is a constant threat....

That’s because despite being one of three central pillars that make The Dark Knight still the most gripping of superhero epics, Dent’s descent is often overshadowed when juxtaposed with Christian Bale’s tortured and guttural Batman and Heath Ledger’s rockstar Joker. Even so, it is Harvey Dent’s tragedy and the sympathetic fury of Eckhart’s performance which drive The Dark Knight toward the compelling masterpiece it became. Ledger’s Joker is an unforgettable personification of evil, but how various characters react to staring into his abyss is what makes the movie a classic—particularly the one who withered before that gaze....

Have you heard the good news? Broadway is back! This is the case in the real world, where The Great White Way has finally returned to theatrical action following a shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s also the case for Marvel. The viability of Broadway musicals amid the sudden disappearance of 50% of the universe’s population was never addressed in the MCU after Avengers: Infinity War. One would have to assume, however, that a nigh-apocalyptic event was enough to shut down production for a long time....

Yoo Ah-in as Jeong Jin-soo Hellbound character: Yoo Ah-in plays New Truth cult leader Jeong Jin-soo with disturbing charisma, constantly keeping the characters and viewers on edge as to what his true motives might be. For me, Yoo was the standout performer in a stellar cast. (Note: Park Sang-hoon plays the younger version of Jeong Jin-soo, seen in the Episode 3 flashbacks.) If you’re looking for something else on Netflix, Yoo also appears in #Alive, a 2020 zombie film in which Yoo stars as a video game live streamer struggling to survive as he is forced in his Seoul apartment during a zombie apocalypse....

The announcement was made after the second season had aired its last episode in the UK, but ahead of the US broadcast (which is a week later than on the BBC), meaning American fans will be able to rest easier watching the finale in the knowledge that Lyra and co. are definitely returning. [Season two finale spoilers ahead] Season three will be based on The Amber Spyglass, which sees Lyra held captive by her mother Mrs Coulter, who’s attempting to stop her daughter from fulfilling the Witches’ prophecy and changing the fates of the parallel realms forever....

Homeland Season 6 Episode 12 Carrie stands there, alone on an already very bleak and chilly winter day. Across the National Mall stands Capitol Hill, a building constructed to evoke both Classical and Enlightenment era ideals of democracy, fairness, and open governance. Perhaps it’s the grayness of the dawn, or the fact that it feels like those principles have become meaningless bumper sticker platitudes in an infinitely more complex national situation, but either way the sensation conveyed is one of abject loss....

Homeland Season 7 Episode 11 Since the last episode of Homeland, we received new intelligence from the cast and producers of the Showtime series. Claire Danes reconfirmed what many of us already had heard through the grapevine: next year’s Homeland season 8 will be the show’s last. Additionally, executive producer Alex Gansa further elaborated that it will be a new and standalone story set in Europe and away from, ahem, the homeland....

Writer Oseman, director Euros Lyn (Doctor Who, Happy Valley, Cucumber, His Dark Materials) and the production team have created such a loyal version of the source material that if viewers just watch the Netflix show, they’re not missing out on any vast backstory or details. If however, some viewers are inspired to go back into Oseman’s original books and comics, here’s how the fictional world fits together. How Many Heartstopper Books Are There?...

Japanese-Australian director Natalie Erika James says she was a total scaredy cat as a child but her experience of watching a horror movie on the big screen with friends – which she describes as “The closest that you can get to death without dying” – gave her a thrill that she’s carried into her debut feature. It’s an incredibly personal piece with terrific performances from its triptych of women – Robyn Nevin as Edna, Emily Mortimer as her daughter Kay and Bella Heathcote as her granddaughter Sam....

When Marvel Studios released The Avengers in 2012, they probably didn’t know that they were about to change the Hollywood film industry forever. The movie would go on to gross over $1.5 billion at the global box office, and it set the template for Marvel’s blockbuster MCU movie strategy over the next decade. Other studios tried and failed to replicate the movie’s superhero team-up success, but their output never quite earned the right to take a place at its side....

The star, who has been shooting Obi-Wan Kenobi since its pandemic-delayed production launched this past April, took some time to participate in a mostly Star Wars-centric “Actors-on-Actors” Variety interview with fellow franchise star Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian). While the two wax ecstatic about their respective shows, McGregor—more so than Pascal—is clearly walking a tightrope regarding what he can discuss, seeing as Disney’s veil of secrecy still prominently obfuscates even the slightest of plot points for his series....

Though Better Call Saul has created a name for itself as one of the best TV spinoffs ever (and maybe just one of the best TV dramas ever outright), the influence of its flagship series still cannot be ignored. The prospect of Walt and Jesse’s involvement in Saul’s final act is so enticing that Better Call Saul producers have decided to go ahead and just confirm it ahead of time!...

“It wasn’t easy!” book author and series executive producer Leigh Bardugo said in a Netflix interview released in December. “Eric took two fantasy series — with powers and creatures and horrors and heists — and molded them into this cohesive, incredible thing. I don’t think I could’ve been more lucky in the person that we found to hand the keys over to. It wasn’t just the keys to a book or one series, it was a whole world I had been working on for the better part of my career....

Siegel stars as a Jenn, a capable but unemployed computer programmer who’s estranged from her ex-fiancé after suffering a miscarriage. Stuck in a rut, her friend suggests an appointment with the handsome therapist Dr. Collin Meade (Jason O’Mara), who primarily uses hypnosis to help his patients deal with their issues. After her first hypnosis session, Jenn experiences a black out during a date with her ex Brian (Jaime M. Callica) that has near deadly consequences for Brian....

Right at the start, Bev told us she was celebrating a birthday. The significance of that indefinite article passed us by until she protested in the final minutes, “I never said it were my birthday.” Bev was celebrating on behalf of Ryan, the baby she’d snatched from his pram two decades ago as a disturbed 10-year-old, and killed, concealing his skeleton inside a child’s doll. ‘Hurry Up and Wait’ is an uncomfortable half-hour with a macabre conclusion, as befits the creators and director of Psychoville (which in Dawn French’s Joy, also featured a grown woman with a sinister attachment to a baby doll, that one following the death of her own son – the dead baby being the sine qua non of subversive comedy....