Not only has the medium churned out some excellent sci-fi programs but it’s delivered some prescient ones as well. Black Mirror creator Charlier Brooker has all but thrown his hands up and admitted that there’s no point in continuing to make his show if reality is gonna look like … well, all this. As the world and its technology grew increasingly futuristic over the past decade and a half, we don’t know where we would have been without good, serialized sci-fi storytelling to accompany the changes....

Not that we’re complaining. For a macabre minute or two, every Hollywood name appeared eager to play either the detective or the killer—the hunter or the obsessed, which often proved interchangeable for both characters. Granted that means there can be something formulaic about many of these movies. Yet they can also be bleak, hard-edged, and ambiguous. From our modern gaze, where the dominant studio conventions prefer reassuring morality tales and sunny lighting, these movies’ preference for shadows and discomfort in the mainstream is kind of startling....

There are cons and then there are long cons. Ever since Jimmy McGill a.k.a. Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) resolved to frame their rival Howard Hamlin (Patrick Fabian) for “something unforgivable” in the Better Call Saul season 5 finale, fans have eagerly awaited the arrival of that plan. As it turns out, however, revenge is a dish best served slowly and deliberately. Throughout the first six episodes of the show’s sixth and final season, Jimmy and Kim have laid the groundwork for something major to happen to Howard....

Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, and Angela Bassett will all be back in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, with Dominique Thorne making her debut as Riri Williams aka Ironheart and I May Destroy You creator and star Michaela Coel also onboard in an unknown role. Sadly, the movie goes on without its original star Chadwick Boseman, who died from colon cancer last year. Marvel have stressed that there’s no intention of recasting the role of T’Challa, which Boseman played in Captain America: Civil War, the first Black Panther solo movie, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame....

When we finally catch up with Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) in the Russian prison where he’s been idling for years, he’s reliving his glory days in the midst of dealing with a string of arm wrestling contenders. Marvel’s Black Widow has already shown us just how strong Alexei is during its long, Ohio-set opening, so we know that the man who was once Russia’s answer to Captain America is going to win every single one of these bouts....

Marvel has restarted its blockbuster machine on television already, of course. WandaVision, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and now Loki have all been creative and commercial hits for Disney+. But will the studio be able to recapture that blockbuster energy on the big screen with Black Widow? Well, according to the first social media reactions, the answer to that is a resounding “yes.” A handful of critics and Marvel fans have already seen the latest film starring Scarlett Johansson as the titular Black Widow....

The Captain Marvel ending is more than just a satisfying conclusion to Carol’s origin story; it is a direct lead-in into Avengers: Endgame, and how Carol Danvers will play into that story. We break down all of the elements that you may or may not have understood in your first Captain Marvel viewing, and put them into the larger MCU context… THE PAGER We finally learn the origins of the mysterious pager that Fury activated at the end of Avengers: Infinity War....

That was when Taylor Simone Ledward, the widow of late actor Chadwick Boseman, accepted a posthumous award on her husband’s behalf when he won Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for his work in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Boseman was widely favored to win even with formidable competition from Anthony Hopkins (The Father), Gary Oldman (Mank), Tahar Rahim (The Mauritanian), and Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal). Boseman’s fiery turn as the angry, tormented young trumpeter Levee Green in the Netflix adaptation of August Wilson’s play was his final screen appearance....

In the end, however, the behind-the-scenes story of the making of Chaos Walking is probably far more interesting than what was produced. Based on a novel called The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (the first in a trilogy), Chaos Walking is a bland, inert, and deadly dull affair that fails to translate its central concept to the screen. Instead it lays out a bunch of moral and narrative questions that go nowhere and assembles its contrived plot only to set up sequels that will almost certainly never see the light of day....

When we last see Sabrina Spellman, she is walking through the Academy of Unseen Arts with new BFFs the Wyrd Sisters by her side. Her face, completely devoid of the light and humanity that has defined it this entire season, gives Nick and uncharacteristic wink in a moment that feels like it was purloined from Mean Girls. Is the Sabrina we love gone forever? Well, obviously no. But man, it sure feels that way right now....

But big studios have begun to use references and Easter eggs as a crutch. An easy way to boost viewers’ serotonin, no matter what’s actually happening on screen or in the story. Just give people the thing they know and they will clap (and hopefully share it on social media). Think of Space Jam: A New Legacy, which shoved in as many references to WB properties as it could no matter if it made sense or not....

When Tory Nichols (Peyton List) first appeared in Cobra Kai, she was the best red herring ever. She introduced herself in season 2 episode 4 “The Moment of Truth” as “Tory… with a ‘Y’” and every fan of the original film went ballistic. In The Karate Kid, Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue) introduced herself to Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) as “Ali… with an ‘I’” so we all wondered if Tory might be Ali’s daughter....

If SDCC 2022 had a winner in this tense atmosphere, it was unsurprisingly Marvel Studios. One of the few production houses that can make as much news in the years they choose not to go to San Diego as in the years they do, Marvel once again had the prime Saturday evening spot in Comic-Con’s cavernous Hall H. There (and unlike any of the previous day’s Hall H panels), Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige spoke to a completely packed room of 7,000 attendees—and he made the audience misty when Marvel revealed the genuinely poignant Black Panther: Wakanda Forever trailer; and then he made them giddy by confirming there will be not one but TWO Avengers movies coming out in 2025....

“It totally destroyed the audience,” Harvey recalls. “They just howled. We lost the next scene because they were laughing so hard and I thought: ‘Okay, this is probably going to work.’” It had already taken a lot of work for Critters to get this far. Bringing Critters to Life Released on April 11, 1986, the horror comedy about a small town and farm-dwelling family under attack from little furry space aliens with a taste for human flesh was unfairly dismissed by some as a Gremlins knock-off....

Dead to Me is a dark comedy that’s worked as well as it has because of the effortless chemistry between its two leads, Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, as Jen Harding and Judy Hale. These two frazzled friends have accrued a growing list of felonies in each other’s name and the show’s third and final season practically drowns in all of the secrets and lies that are in motion. However, Dead to Me’s final year is also very much a season about forgiveness and the importance of closure....

Yes, after fans spent weeks asking why Death Stranding: Director’s Cut is called a director’s cut when the director of the game clearly had nearly total creative control over the “retail” version of the title, Kojima himself has stepped in to suggest that the name was not his decision and that he feels it is not entirely accurate. We naturally assume that Death Stranding publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment must have chosen that name if Kojima didn’t, but it’s not clear at this time why Kojima was seemingly unaware of the decision to go with that name or otherwise unable to change anyone’s mind....

Streaming is getting expensive. What started as the cheap alternative to let you watch all of your favorite content and cut the cord on your cable subscription has ballooned into an arms race where one must shell out cash to several different providers just to watch their favorite movies or shows. Thankfully, Plex TV is here to entertain you and provide some relief to your wallet. Plex is a globally available one-stop-shop streaming media service offering thousands of free movies and TV shows and hundreds of free-to-stream live TV channels, from the biggest names in entertainment, including Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros....

Doctor Sleep is the continuation of the haunted house nightmare first put on the page by Stephen King and brought to life on the big screen by Stanley Kubrick. As we wrote in our review, director Mike Flanagan has made an adaptation worthy of King’s novel while also paying tribute to the Kubrick movie. From Dan coping with the ghosts of his past to taking us back to the terrifying Overlook Hotel, Doctor Sleep is largely a triumph that celebrates every version of The Shining story....

Haven’t watched this trailer yet? Well, what are you waiting for? Now, here’s some of the big stuff we found… Patrick Stewart as Professor X The biggest developments in the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness trailer might relate to characters and concepts that haven’t even been hinted at in the Marvel Cinematic Universe just yet. No, your ears do not deceive you, this trailer absolutely features a voice cameo from Patrick Stewart as Professor X....

At the Q&A after the press screening for her final episode, ‘The Power of the Doctor’, held at the Curzon Bloomsbury in London on Tuesday 11th October, Whittaker was answering questions alongside co-stars Mandip Gill, Sacha Dhawan, and departing showrunner Chris Chibnall. When asked by Q&A moderator Charlie Girling what her biggest piece of advice is for the next Doctor, Jodie Whittaker’s light-hearted reply was: ‘There’s no advice you can give....