‘Zodiac’ and Setting the Scene for a Serial Killer

Not many opening scenes master suspense quite like David Fincher’s Zodiac. From the very opening shot, the film promises to tell the chilling story of a serial killer on the prowl. And the pre-title moments that follow lay out the framework perfectly for one of the greatest murder mysteries of the century. Zodiac opens on the landscape of San Francisco...

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When is it Fair Use to Show a Trademark in a Film or TV Show?

Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video on the ins and outs of how narrative films and television reproduce known trademarks. The law—like a snowstorm in spring or Bohemian Rhapsody winning an Oscar for best film editing —can be difficult to understand....

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All the Horror You Need to Stream in December 2020

Welcome to Horrorscope, a monthly column keeping horror nerds and initiates up to date on all the genre content coming to and leaving from your favorite streaming services. Here’s a guide to all the essential horror streaming this December: Well, boils and ghouls, we made it. It’s the end of 2020. And as the days grow shorter and the...

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23 Things We Learned from the ’22 Jump Street’ Commentary

Welcome to Commentary Commentary, where we sit and listen to filmmakers talk about their work, then share the most interesting parts. In this edition, Rob Hunter hungers for a big, hilarious studio comedy and finds one in a rewatch — with commentary — of 22 Jump Street. Even if 2020 hadn’t been the year it’s been so far, it would stand out for its...

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What’s New to Stream on Netflix for December 2020

Crossing the Streams is our monthly look at all the offerings hitting the big streaming services each month, and this time we’re checking out the new Netflix arrivals for December 2020. This month’s titles include new films directed by David Fincher and George Clooney, loads of new holiday originals, and more! Keep reading to see what’s new to Netflix...

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‘They Made Me a Criminal’ and the Persecution of an Innocent Star

Beyond the Classics is a bi-weekly column in which Emily Kubincanek highlights lesser-known old movies and examines what makes them memorable. In this installment, she investigates the origins of film noir with John Garfield in Busby Berkeley’s They Made Me a Criminal. Film noir has never been an easy genre to pin down. A film’s dark and gloomy cinematography...

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The Best Home Video Releases of the Year

The word on the street continues to be that streaming is the future and physical media is on death’s door, but don’t tell that to the numerous home video labels and millions of consumers. Studios are still releasing their films to Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K UltraHD, and people are still buying them. 2020 has been something of a rough year in many — well,...

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The Identity Crisis of Internet Horror

Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video on how two very different films, Pulse and FeardotCom, epitomize the early days of the internet horror subgenre. From atomic behemoth B-movies to satanic panic pictures, horror has always had a finger on the...

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The Tradition of McCarthy/Falcone Misfires Continues in ‘Superintelligence’

If nothing else, it takes real guts to unironically name your fairly stupid comedy Superintelligence. You’re asking for trouble with a title like that, but while there are moments that work in the latest feature from director Ben Falcone and star Melissa McCarthy, the end result is yet another reminder that the success of their personal love story really...

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Kathy Bates is the Face of Toxic Fandom in ‘Misery’

Acting is an art form, and behind every iconic character is an artist expressing themselves. Welcome to The Great Performances, a bi-weekly column exploring the art behind some of cinema’s best roles. In this entry, we explore Kathy Bates’ terrifying superfan in Misery. Two months after the 1990 debut of Misery, the New York Times interviewed...

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