The Godfather: Part III was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Goodfellas, released that same year, only got six nominations. Neither won Best Picture. Before that The Godfather III had been one of the most anticipated films of all time; it wound up being one of the most maligned theatrical releases. The movie has become shorthand to describe cinematic disappointment. Nearly 20 years earlier, Coppola had delivered Paramount Pictures two major motion picture achievements, which the director had to fight to maintain his creative control on....

Granted the movie is certainly the product of liberal filmmakers turning election cycle politics into blood sport, but only in the most self-deprecating and self-satisfied way. The cinematic equivalent of Andy Borowitz’s standup routine at The New Yorker Festival, one can almost see the words crafted by Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse’s screenplay strain as they reach out of the screen to pat their own back. The only thing missing is an applause sign....

What seemed like a clear reference to the classic sci-fi horror movie Alien at first turns out to be a major blast from the past easter egg. This week’s episode of The Mandalorian, “The Passenger,” takes us deep into a deadly spider nest where Baby Yoda clearly bites off more than he can chew, all while reintroducing a piece of Star Wars history that goes all the way back to Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept art for the Original Trilogy!...

In one of the film’s quieter moments, the Soprano family is gathered around a TV set, watching the classic Key Largo (1948). The specific scene on the screen begins when Humphrey Bogart’s cynical combat veteran Frank McCloud defuses a tense situation with the gangster Johnny Rocco. Played by Edward G. Robinson, Rocco is very loosely based on Charles “Lucky” Luciano, the godfather of organized crime, who had been deported and barred from American soil....

The top rule was spelled out in Martin Scorsese’s gangster classic Goodfellas: Get paid. “Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning, huh? Fuck you, pay me,” explains Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta. The Hollywood legend will play “Hollywood” Dick in The Many Saints of Newark, and tells his son, Dickie (Allesandro Nivola), to make sure he keeps collecting those merit badges....

To a haunting, reverb-y song about a reluctant break-up, the trailer takes us through Neighbours past and present. It starts sweet in the early days, with Lou Carpenter larking about with a clapperboard, Harold and Madge’s post-amnesia reunion, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, and more weddings than a Moonie ceremony. And then it gets sexy, and then it gets dangerous. Explosions! Murder! Violence! Fires! Plane Crashes! Horse-riding accidents! Natural Disasters! Stefan Dennis!...

The Orville: New Horizons Season 3 Episode 1 After a nearly three year hiatus, The Orville enters its ‘new horizon’, as it begins a new era streaming on Hulu. Yet, in the first episode of season 3, both the break and the new streaming platform already appear to be very good things for the future of the show. In what seems like a lifetime ago, season 2 of Seth MacFarlane’s star trekking, adventure-comedy found its voice, a voice that certainly differed from the satirical and often silly tone of the premiere season....

The Orville: New Horizons Season 3 Episode 3 “To many humans, a mystery is irresistible. It must be solved.” Wise words from arguably the wisest of Captains in modern television history, Jean-Luc Picard. A quotation that encapsulates not only human behavior, but one of the Roddenberry mottos that often serves as a driving force for these fictional travelers to explore strange new worlds. The production team of The Orville: New Horizons embraced this motto long ago....

We expect a lot from our TV comedies nowadays. Maybe it’s because the mid-2010s saw an increasing number of talented comedians trying their hands at being auteurs. Or maybe it’s because the Emmy Awards categorized basically anything with half-hour episodes as a comedy, regardless of their Jokes Per Minute (JPM) status. But whatever the reason, many sitcoms are expected to ask us to examine the human experience while making us laugh at the same time....

“Punish me” said Mark to that hospital corridor statue of Christ – the challenge of a man who believed he had the untouchable power of a god. He’d already got away with one murder and looked to be getting away with two more. Curse lifted. Obstacles removed. Bring on the champagne and the dancing girls. He clearly hadn’t reckoned on being part of the Sarah Phelps-Agatha Christie universe, a place where scheming murderous toffs get the rope, or locked in a bunker, or condemned to a looping purgatory nightmare in which they’re stalked by a 1950s doo-wop hit and a giant turnip king....

The Sandman is arguably the most beloved comic book series of the 1990s, so you can imagine the expectations that come with adapting Neil Gaiman’s masterpiece for a new generation of fans in 2022. To be sure, the series, which is set across time and space, and through multiple realms of reality (including Hell), was once thought unfilmable as a movie. So Netflix and Gaimain wisely opted for a streaming series instead, with an anthology format that allowed them to more easily explore this universe’s sheer breadth of characters and worlds, while also weaving a cohesive narrative throughline that involves protagonist Dream’s many adventures with Death, Desire, and even Lucifer....

If you’re feeling brave, let’s take a quick nostalgia trip and revisit some of Britain’s most terrifying kids’ TV moments: The Demon Headmaster Even the theme tune to this BBC children’s TV classic was scary, with its ominous beat and whispering voices, but the reason The Demon Headmaster shook 90s kids to the core lies in Terrence Hardiman’s truly sinister performance as the headmaster himself. The deep menace to his voice was only intensified by his billowing black cloak and the creepy tinted glasses he wore, the taking off of which signified he was about to hypnotise the children for whatever that episode’s evil plan may be....

Many people, myself included, took the opportunity to revisit arguably the greatest series of the 21st century, The Sopranos. If I couldn’t hang with my friends at a bar, I guess I could watch Tony and the gang meet-up at The Bing. If I couldn’t leave the house, at least I could commiserate with Uncle Junior. If my therapy sessions were going to be digital, I might as well have them with Dr....

Secrets! Everybody’s got ‘em. Sordid little lies tucked away behind incognito tabs and fake online usernames. Maybe you diddled your expenses or your mortgage application or your son’s clarinet teacher. Let’s say you robbed Peter to pay Paul, then knocked Peter over the back of the head with a golf club and fed his remains to Paul’s pig. Whatever foul canker you’ve shoved so far up inside your folds nobody could ever find it, you’d better hope that you don’t get a visit from the Stranger....

The Walking Dead Season 10 Episode 21 Robert Frost wrote in his poem “The Road Not Taken” about two roads diverging in a yellow wood. while the wood Carol and Daryl are walking through in “Diverged” are green, not yellow, the principle is the same. Two long-time friends slowly growing apart, faced with a literal diverging path in the woods. Daryl heads one way; Carol goes another with Dog at her side....

Let’s say one thing first and foremost: if you’ve never read any of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, and you like quirky, funny SFF television, you’ll probably enjoy BBC America’s new show The Watch. It’s genuinely funny, well-acted, and well-made, even if it does have an obviously-television-sized CGI budget. Here’s the problem though: if you are a fan of Pratchett’s Discworld books, on which the show is (very loosely) based, you’ll spend most of your first watch-through scratching your head in confusion....

The Witcher viewers may recall that early in Geralt’s career, he unfairly earned the moniker “The Butcher of Blaviken,” referring to the blood the witcher was forced to shed during the feud between the mage Stregobor and the exiled princess Renfri, who lost her kingdom simply for being born during an eclipse. Geralt tried to persuade Renfri to set aside her revenge, but when her gang of mercenaries refused to yield, he defended himself and the innocent bystanders who later blamed him for the massacre....

In Thor: Love and Thunder Hemsworth reprises his iconic role, but as a God of Thunder who is now looking to finally find some peace after losing so much that was dear to him during the events of Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. Shipping off for some cosmic adventures with the Guardians of the Galaxy, things get complicated when galactic killer Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale) sets about his mission to make all gods extinct....

Well, at least some of them were. ThunderCats seems to be as beloved in the memories of those who grew up with it as it is disappointing to those same people upon actually rewatching it as teens or adults. On the whole, it’s not very good. The writing is all over the place, and the voice acting yo-yos back and forth from fantastic to horrendous. I will say this, though…...

Was the male audience’s attraction to this genre primarily the ability to witness torture and dismemberment, rape and femicide? Clover suggested otherwise, writing that horror films direct our identification to the “final girl,” thus aligning our affinities and sympathies not with the perpetrator, but the woman pursued. In the following list, we identify 12 “feminist” horror films where women are not solely sexualized objects or purely damsels in distress. Although some of these films are still problematic in terms of representation or advancing gender normative behavior, each still bends, twists, or turns the depiction of their female protagonist in an unexpected direction....