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Picard is in for Khan-like mind games Paramount+ The presence of a Khan-like figure in the third season of “Star Trek: Picard” shouldn’t come as a total surprise, as last season’s finale included a moment in which Dr. Adam Soong (Brent Spiner) pulls out a paper file titled “Project Khan” with stardates from the 1990s on it. At the time, some “Trek” fans felt the series was set to jump the shark by bringing Khan Noonien Singh, the iconic villain played by Ricardo Montalban in “Star Trek: The Original Series” and “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan,” into the mix....

The Bruce Willis Movie That Was Completely Changed During Production Columbia Pictures By Jeremy Smith/Oct. 7, 2022 5:08 pm EST Bruce Willis was unquestionably one of the biggest movie stars of the 1990s, but it’s difficult to think of another actor of his stature who racked up, and survived, more box-office bombs during their commercial heyday. Between 1990 and 1995, he appeared in more flops than hits. Any one of “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” “Hudson Hawk,” “Billy Bathgate,” “North,” “Color of Night” and “Four Rooms” could’ve killed his career....

The Daily Stream: Hitchcock’s Blackmail Is A Bold Transition To The Talkie Era Sono Art-World Wide Pictures By Valerie Ettenhofer/Nov. 6, 2022 11:00 am EST (Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching, why it’s worth checking out, and where you can stream it.) The Movie: “Blackmail” Where You Can Stream It: Kanopy, Watch TCM The Pitch: In Alfred Hitchcock’s brisk and groundbreaking 1929 thriller, a young woman named Alice (Anny Ondra) deals with the convoluted, torturous aftermath of an attempted sexual assault....

The Difference Between Hobbit Feet And Harfoot Feet In The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power [Exclusive] Prime Video By Jenna Busch AND Hannah Shaw-Williams/Sept. 17, 2022 1:42 pm EST If you’ve been watching the Prime Video series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” you’ll know that there are hobbit-like creatures called harfoots wandering the land. The harfoots are the precursors to the hobbits, as this series takes place in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” trilogies (which are set in the Third Age)....

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 Review: A Tale Surviving On Borrowed Time Hulu By Fatemeh Mirjalili/Sept. 8, 2022 7:10 pm EST All actions have consequences. And every action results from a choice. These are two ideas that “The Handmaid’s Tale” season 5 carefully wrestles with, often falling heavily on either side, sometimes slowly, and sometimes far too quickly. It has been a long time since the series liberated itself from Margaret Atwood’s source material....

Sculpted by pain, emboldened by revenge Marvel Comics Although there is no dearth of villains and anti-heroes with tragic backstories in the MCU — take Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) in “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, for instance — Gorr is an extremely compelling character right up till the end. Gorr’s comics origins are far more steeped in pain and loss when compared to “Love and Thunder,” as he experiences one personal loss after another, including the untimely death of his parents and two of his children....

Why David Lynch Chose To Shoot Inland Empire Digitally 518 Media/Absurda By Witney Seibold/Nov. 13, 2022 6:00 pm EST In the early 2010s, the bulk of America’s theaters switched to digital projection, and many film purists lamented the change. In 2012, documentarian Chris Keneally released “Side by Side,” a film in which famous filmmakers and photographers are interviewed about the pros and cons of digital film vs. celluloid. Some of them argue that digital photography will never match the visual heft and classical tambours of good old-fashioned 35mm film strips....

Vanity comes for us all Columbia Pictures Have you ever recorded your own voice and actually heard what you sound like? It’s horrifying. I edited a podcast that I hosted for years, which meant every week I spent time listening to my own voice. It was torture. How we sound in our heads is wildly different than what comes out of our mouths. Imagine experiencing that phenomenon while your face is blown up on a screen 40 feet wide....

Challenging shoots Lucasfilm According to Time Magazine’s contemporaneous reporting, Tatooine was originally conceived as a jungle planet, and Lucas considered shooting in the Philippines. However, Lucas decided against shooting in the jungle and changed the setting to a desert and the shooting location to Tunisia. The desert wasn’t free of problems; the heat caused equipment malfunctions, and a rain storm set the production behind schedule. Despite how different Norway was from Tunisia, history repeated itself during the “Empire Strikes Back” shoot....

‘Scream 5’ Directors Reveal Their Approach To The New Franchise Entry By Eric Vespe/Aug. 4, 2021 7:10 pm EST Scream is in a precarious yet fascinating place as a horror franchise. The upcoming fifth film will be the first that isn’t creatively driven by Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson. The mantle has been passed to fans of the franchise. Enormously talented fans, granted, but not the original creators and the directors seem to be aware of this knife’s edge they’re walking on....

5 Reasons Better Call Saul Is Better Than Breaking Bad AMC By Erin Brady/July 8, 2022 5:00 pm EST So, you’ve probably read the title of this feature and are already thinking of rebuttals. Maybe you’re about to quote-retweet this piece with some variation of backlash. Whether you are or aren’t doesn’t matter that much to me, as I’m just happy you decided to click the article and give it a read....

Did Anyone Have A Better Movie Year Than Colin Farrell In 2022? Searchlight Pictures By Lyvie Scott/Dec. 27, 2022 9:00 am EST Colin Farrell is not the type of actor you can easily fit in a box. That may sound like a compliment now, a testament to his range, but there was a time when that might have worked against him, or at the very least: his status as a leading man....

Everything You Need To Know About The Star Wars World Yavin As Andor Heads There For Season 2 Lucasfilm By Sandy Schaefer/Nov. 7, 2022 5:22 pm EST There are plenty of reasons why “Andor” is being heralded by many people (this author among them) as the best live-action “Star Wars” series to date, not least of which is the show’s disinterest in Easter eggs. Not that there’s anything wrong with some fan service here and there in small doses....

Here’s Why Netflix’s The Sandman Looks So Stretched Out Netflix By Lex Briscuso/Aug. 10, 2022 9:57 am EST “The Sandman” recently premiered on Netflix — and it has totally taken the streamer by storm. That said, all the commentary hasn’t necessarily been glowing. In fact, some fans have questions, particularly about the distorted aspect ratio used in the series. Will Baldy, Sam Heasman, and George Steel serve as the show’s cinematographers, and they have brought a surrealist and heavily dream-like feel to much of the new series....

Himesh Patel’s Station Eleven Performance Goes Beyond The Emmys HBO Max By Valerie Ettenhofer/Sept. 12, 2022 9:23 pm EST “Station Eleven” was never going to be the kind of show that sweeps the Emmys. I knew this when I heard that Emily St. John Mandel’s much-loved book about a post-apocalyptic theater troupe was getting an adaptation. I knew it when I watched the show and felt my heart shatter, rebuild, and expand in real time....

House Of The Dragon Has Put Rhaenyra And Alicent In Impossible Positions HBO By Shania Russell/Oct. 25, 2022 5:00 pm EST This post contains spoilers for season 1 of “House of the Dragon.” The “House of the Dragon” finale arrived with fire and blood on the brain; after 10 episodes of build-up and just barely avoiding the inevitability of a civil war, the dam finally broke and the uneasy peace of Westeros is officially no more....

How The Lord Of The Rings VFX Team Realized Andy Serkis Was Their Most Valuable Resource [Exclusive] New Line Cinema By Cameron Roy Hall/Dec. 21, 2022 12:22 pm EST Believe it or not, James Cameron’s wallet has yet to create real aliens. He kitbashed his own fleet of mechanical sea beasts, but that’s not quite the same thing. No, tragically, “Avatar: The Way of Water” is just a bunch of human beings in silly suits pretending to be giant blue space people....

Inside Out Needed Amy Poehler For A Lot More Than Her Voice Disney/Pixar By BJ Colangelo/July 16, 2022 7:00 pm EST I have a confession to make: I was not in a super great headspace in 2015. I was undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer, my doctors had all but given me a death sentence, and I was utterly miserable. I couldn’t really work given my condition, so I spent just about every waking hour at my local three-screen movie theater....

A wild night in Sin City ESPN Films/Netflix Jonathan Majors’ chaotic energy as He Who Remains in the Disney+ series “Loki” makes him seem like the perfect fit to play Rodman. He’ll reprise a version of that character — Kang the Conqueror — in the upcoming Marvel film “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantimania.” Majors will be seen next in the Korean War drama “Devotion” opposite Glen Powell (“Top Gun: Maverick”), which premieres Thanksgiving weekend....

Dominion keeps the Jurassic tradition of making its newest creature part practical effect Universal The most surprising — and controversial — element of “Dominion” is its introduction of a new menace to a world already run rampant with dinosaurs: giant locusts. The genetically modified creatures are the product of the appropriately named Biosyn corporation, their swarms initially intended to insidiously manipulate the world’s food supply before it’s discovered they present a threat to all life on the planet....