Howard, the ever-reliable cinematic craftsman and Oscar-winning director of A Beautiful Mind, stepped behind the camera for this movie adaptation of “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” a 2016 #1 New York Times Bestseller memoir by J.D. Vance, adapted as a screenplay by Vanessa Taylor (Game of Thrones, The Shape of Water). The drama is high and the prospective Oscar clips are rife in Netflix‘s Hillbilly Elegy trailer, which you can check out just below....

As we first learned during this year’s virtual San Diego Comic-Con, His Dark Materials was forced to cut an episode from its Season 2 order in order to keep the season release on schedule. Luckily, the planned 8-episode season consisted of seven “regular” episodes and one standalone, set to follow James McAvoy‘s character of Lord Asriel. Production had finished on the seven “regular” episodes and filming had just begun on the standalone (like, they were on set, ready to go) when the call came to immediately shut down and send everyone home....

His Dark Materials Episode 8 Before anything else, the feet have to be right. Whether you’re performing a dance move or throwing a jab, everything springs from the feet. In this finale, His Dark Materials was able to pull off balletic pirouettes and land every punch, all because, months ago, it put itself in a solid stance by casting the remarkable Dafne Keen. Keen is remarkable. She has been throughout, but she’s especially so in this finale....

A shadowman watching you from your bedroom window; a dead tree that grows over the Devil’s final resting place; a young girl who may or may not be possessed by a demon; a boy who inexplicably walks into the woods one night, never to be seen again. This is the ominous world that Bram Stoker Award-winning author Paul Tremblay, 45, has created for his characters. His protagonists float endlessly in a thick grey matter between the supernatural and the rational....

We’ve seen war turn brother against brother in the world of Westeros before, but House of the Dragon’s eighth episode introduced viewers to a new pair of siblings with a fan favorite story that ends in heartbreak. Arryk and Erryk Cargyll are identical twins from a small house in the crownlands outside of King’s Landing. In George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, the Cargyll boys are members of Viserys’ Kingsguard who take opposite sides in the Dance of the Dragons’ war between Princess Rhaenyra’s blacks and Queen Allicent’s greens....

It’s hard to overemphasize how revolutionary the sheer act of simply including female characters in a fantasy story like this felt when the first book in this series was published in 1990. It’s true, not every woman in The Wheel of Time is particularly well-drawn or what modern readers might consider fleshed out, but in a publishing world that rarely bothered to include the most basic of token female characters, Jordan’s work stood out as a breath of fresh air—and enraptured a generation of fans....

I don’t remember exactly when I first dreamed of an online Grand Theft Auto game, but I’m certain it wasn’t too long after I played GTA 3 in 2001. Around that time, my friends and I started asking the simple question, “What if we could play that with each other?” That question grew more complicated as the GTA games did the same. Vice City‘s real estate mechanic inspired dreams of online wars for the control of the city, while San Andreas’ greatly expanded the scope of GTA’s sandbox from a size and activity standpoint....

The Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Barton (Jeremy Renner) has taken his share of licks over the years — that’s what happens when you battle armies of invading Chitauri or legions of Ultron robots — and as a result of being around massive explosions and catastrophic battles, we discover in the new series Hawkeye that he now wears a hearing aid. Asked at a press conference promoting the show what it means for his character to go through hearing loss and how it affects him, Renner responded, “I grew up with it…my cousin’s deaf, and a lot of that’s in my life — the idea of being differently abled....

While HBO’s initial Game of Thrones prequel attempt never bore an official title, reports revealed it to be a story of ancient proportions, set thousands of years earlier, which—based on the elaborate history in creator George R.R. Martin’s literary lore—earned it de facto names such as “The Long Night” and “Bloodmoon.” Yet, its rejection remains a shocking development, notably because the pilot was headlined by Oscar-winning actress Naomi Watts. However, an insider interview in James Andrew Miller’s book, Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers (via Insider), reveals that the network was alarmed by the project’s tonal contrast from the original series, and, more practically, the obscene price tag for just the pilot....

It’s shocking, then, how quickly the film’s dreamy nature changes once Howie and the audience discover what this is all about. In one of the most genuinely terrifying shots in film history, our dear detective finally meets the Wicker Man: an enormous colossus of weaving and ancient pagan superstitions that’s been erected for one purpose. On this pyre, our well-meaning copper will be burned alive. Before the shot finally revealing the Wicker Man, Summerisle has explained in the abstract that these smiling villagers intend to sacrifice Howie to their Celtic gods, but not until the Wicker Man is onscreen does the full impact of the concept strike us like a lightning bolt....

Masters of the Universe: Revelation is a true love letter to He-Man fans. Crafted in part by filmmaker Kevin Smith, a longtime fan of all things geeky, the first part of the Netflix series was filled to the brim with references, deep cuts, and a reverent treatment of its source material, the original 1980s He-Man and the Masters of the Universe animated series. It 100% succeeded in what it set out to do but it wasn’t afraid to take risks....

The Beginning of Rise of Bangtan The Rise of Bangtan creator Aneesa first had the idea to create a video project encapsulating what makes BTS special back in 2017, when the Korean band was first starting to garner mainstream attention in the U.S. “I was so angry at the constant media manipulation that was going on around them,” Aneesa recounted to Den of Geek, via Zoom earlier this year. “There were a lot of reporters trying to find a way to undermine them in the States, to try to not pay attention to them, and I was like, ‘No, you should be paying attention to them....

“I think the biggest challenge this season is that we had split book six, A Breath of Snow and Ashes over two seasons,” Davis said. “Since we cut this season short, we’re actually going to continue some of that material in Season 7. So when it first seemed daunting, actually, it completely worked out in the end.” “In Diana’s [Gabaldon’s] books, so many things happen and they’re so spread out,” Davis explained for Outlander fans who haven’t read the book series source material....

According to game director Ljubomir Peklar, the game’s visual style is meant to challenge what we generally consider to be beautiful. “Human beings are conditioned to like the external beauty of their bodies and see the internal organs, bones, and tissue as something repulsive. It’s a reflex,” Peklar said of the game’s art direction in an interview with Rock.Paper.Shotgun in 2016. “Our existence as a living organism is at the core of the game and human anatomy is the primary subject....

Within horror films, curses are caused by the bite of a werewolf or a boy who willfully passes along a demonic STD, or a shamed elderly woman who utters an incantation over the button she’s torn from someone. Perhaps it is not a leap then that the production behind a movie about Satan’s offspring would likewise attract bad juju and itself become an entry of paranormal pop culture. These are the ideas behind Cursed Films, Shudder’s original five-part documentary series helmed by filmmaker Jay Cheel, which premieres today on the streaming service....

But what will that foundation look like? Which alien races and planets will be a part of it? We got a glimpse of an answer to those questions in the trailer for Season 4, which shows the Federation leadership around a table. In the group, we see some familiar characters, including Ni’Var President T’Rin. We also meet some new characters, including the already much-discussed Federation president, whom we know from promotional interviews has a mix of Cardassian, Bajoran, and human ancestry—the main races involved in the struggle at the heart of Deep Space Nine story....

Look, we know Eddie Munson, the Stranger Things character played wonderfully by actor Joseph Quinn, already sports the magnificent hair of an ‘80s guitar player, so his bat-distracting guitar solo in the season 4 finale is completely believable on its own. However, it turns out that hints about his shredding ability were only able to be dropped into earlier episodes because of production delays relating to COVID-19 according to co-showrunner Matt Duffer, making Eddie’s Metallica homage that much more epic....

The Flash Season 8 Episode 20 The Flash season 8 came to an explosive conclusion with “Negative, Part Two,” an hour that saw hero Barry Allen face off against the newly assembled Negative Forces alongside his children from the future, reunite with Iris, and survive what may well be his last battle with Eobard Thawne’s Reverse Flash—by choosing not to fight at all. “This final graphic novel was all about closure,” The Flash showrunner Eric Wallace tells Den of Geek....

Superman & Lois Season 2 Episode 15 The Superman & Lois season finale is so jam-packed that it has multiple post-scripts for nearly every major character on the show, just to wrap up everyone’s emotional journeys. But in the case of John Henry Irons, his story takes a new turn, one that will have major implications for Superman & Lois season 3. We see Irons meet up with a surprise guest star: David Ramsey’s triumphant return to Smallville as John Diggle....

The first ever female Doctor, Jodie was also voted the fans’ second favourite Doctor of all time in a 2020 Radio Times poll, but her reign hasn’t been without controversy. From debates on whether there should even be a female Doctor (spoiler alert: there should) to series 13 having three episodes cut due to the Covid-19 pandemic, plus the show’s producers defending lower-than-usual ratings, it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster for the Thirteenth Doctor....