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Shooting on location in Bed-Stuy Universal Pictures The Brooklyn, New York neighborhood known as Bedford-Stuyvesant (or Bed-Stuy), used to have a bit of a reputation. Billy Joel sang about it as a dangerous place in the modern pop culture zeitgeist (“I walked through Bedford Stuy alone”). The 650-block neighborhood was once predominantly Black and known for its poverty and crime. “Things are getting worse, and the only people who stay are the ones who can’t afford to go nowhere else,” one resident described their immobility in the early 1980s....

Squid Game Fans Can Soon Play Squid Game For Real, Which Should Turn Out Fine Immersive Gamebox By BJ Colangelo/July 28, 2022 5:25 pm EST I don’t want to have to tap the sign again, but when are people going to learn that playing “Squid Game” in real life completely misses the point of the original series? The latest venture of “Playing ‘Squid Game’ in Real Life,” or as I like to call it, “Grown Adults Playing Red Light, Green Light for Sport,” comes from the interactive gaming and technology company Immersive Gamebox....

Stranger Things And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Team Up In New Action Figure Sets, And We Don’t Know Why Netflix By Jenna Busch/July 8, 2022 3:06 pm EST The gang from the “Stranger Things” season 4 finale could have used a little superpowered help beyond what Eleven was capable of. They’re getting it in a new toy team-up from Playmates. Like other mashups from the company, which paired “Stranger Things” figures with those from “Cobra Kai” and “Street Fighter,” we’re getting another bit of 1980s nostalgia with a Turtles/Stranger Things combo pack, according to ComicBook....

Tales From The Box Office: The MCU Allowed Thor To Become A Rare Fantasy Hit Marvel Studios By Ryan Scott/July 9, 2022 4:32 pm EST (Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.) It is, at moments, a little easy to take for granted just how automatic the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become over the years....

The 10 Best Moments In Band Of Brothers HBO/YouTube By Jeff Ames/Nov. 21, 2022 2:23 pm EST HBO’s “Band of Brothers” remains one of the great TV shows and a devastatingly powerful recreation of World War II. Conceived by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks shortly after their Academy Award-winning World War II epic “Saving Private Ryan,” “Band of Brothers,” based on the book by Stephen E. Ambrose, chronicles “Easy” Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division’s experiences in Europe....

The 14 Most Hilarious Cameos In Superhero Movies And Television Sony Pictures/YouTube By Scott Thomas/Oct. 21, 2022 7:00 pm EST The secret weapon of any superhero story is its characters. Audiences are more invested in Peter Parker than his powers, and are more excited to see a beloved character faithfully realized on screen than any action scene or plot twist. It’s little wonder, then, that superhero films and TV shows are flooded with cameos....

Best: Galadriel hunts Sauron Prime Video The first episode of “The Rings of Power” is almost a complete wash. It’s slow and frequently boring, bookended by that dreadful prologue and the long, poorly-written dialogue between Galadriel and Elrond (Robert Aramayo). Fortunately, the premiere includes one stand-out scene that makes the slog worthwhile. The one thing the prologue makes abundantly clear is that Galadriel has good reasons for wanting Sauron dead. The first real scene of the show involves an exciting sequence in which Galadriel and a band of elven warriors track the Dark Lord across a bitter, frozen wasteland....

The Daily Stream: Athena Is Romain Gavras’ Stunning Feature Length Manifesto For The Oppressed Netflix By Lex Briscuso/Oct. 5, 2022 4:00 pm 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: “Athena” Where You Can Stream It: Netflix The Pitch: In a French banlieue, a young Algerian boy named Idir has been murdered by police in an unexplained but racially motivated event....

The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Is At Its Best When It’s Not Juggling Too Many Storylines Prime Video By Jenna Busch/Oct. 1, 2022 7:00 pm EST Warning: Spoilers for “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” episode 6, “Udûn.” You’ve likely seen the social media reactions to this week’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” calling it the one episode to rule them all....

The Stephen King Easter Egg You May Have Missed In Wrong Turn Summit Entertainment By Eric Vespe/Aug. 3, 2022 9:17 pm EST Stephen King has such a broad reach that it’s easy to miss some of the subtler nods and easter eggs that pop up in genre storytelling. When watching “Stranger Things,” for instance, it’s easy to miss the nods to “Firestarter” — a story all about a secretive government program that studies and trains psychic kids as weapons....

Marvel Studios By Ryan Scott/Sept. 27, 2022 9:00 am EST The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been around for well over a decade now, dating back to “Iron Man” in 2008. That initial film feels so humble compared to where we are now, with epics like “Avengers: Endgame” and even ambitious shows like “WandaVision” in the rearview mirror, with so much more to come in the years ahead. But the wealth of source material available to draw from in the pages of Marvel Comics represents so much more than capes and ultra-strong heroes....

Why James Gunn And Peter Safran Making A DCU Production Bible Is A Big Deal Warner Bros. Pictures By Marcos Melendez/Nov. 11, 2022 2:33 pm EST It’s no surprise that the DC Universe as we know it is at a defining moment. Despite some very valiant efforts to keep it afloat — including “Shazam!,” “Aquaman,” and “Wonder Woman,” among others — a major turning point is in store for the cinematic universe....

You Can Thank Natalie Portman’s Kids For Her Return In Thor: Love And Thunder Marvel Studios By Joshua Meyer/July 8, 2022 9:17 am EST Wooing Natalie Portman back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe years after her seeming departure wasn’t so hard. All they had to do was give her character, Jane Foster, a little more to do — while appealing to Portman’s real-life kids in the process. “Thor: Love and Thunder” sees both Jane and her role in the MCU beefed up as she makes her muscular reentrance as the Mighty Thor....

10 J.J. Abrams Projects We Never Saw But Wish We Could’ve Lucasfilm By Brent Furdyk/Aug. 18, 2022 1:36 pm EST J.J. Abrams’ name has come to be associated with top-tier science fiction, yet that likely wasn’t something anyone would have predicted from his early projects as a Hollywood writer/producer, beginning with the big-screen Harrison Ford drama “Regarding Henry.” For his entry into television, Abrams created and produced “Felicity,” the beloved drama following a recent high-school grad (Keri Russell) through her college years....

Cinema’s Greatest Best Friend Mike Schank From American Movie Has Died Sony Pictures Classics By Jeremy Smith/Oct. 13, 2022 9:14 pm EST Mike Schank, a tremendously gifted guitarist who gained millions of admirers as the preternaturally unfazed friend of passionate low-budget filmmaker Mike Borchardt in Chris Smith’s documentary “American Movie,” has died at the age of 56. Smith’s film took art houses by storm in 1999, and its enthusiastic reception came freighted with more than a tinge of guilt....

Tengen The Teacher Crunchyroll, Inc. In this episode, we see Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu dress in terrible drag, complete with garish clown-like make-up, so that they can successfully infiltrate three separate brothels as potential sex workers in order to complete their latest mission. The mission is to gather intel on the status of Tengen’s three hot ninja wives, who were also working undercover in the brothels in order to find out about the demon (or demons) that have been lurking in Yoshiwara....

Every Main Character In Abbott Elementary, Ranked ABC By Rafiq Taylor/Nov. 9, 2022 10:50 am EST We’re cruising through Season 2 of Quinta Brunson’s “Abbott Elementary” — one of the funniest and most moving workplace sitcoms. My goodness! The Emmy-award-winning series has continued to be on a hot streak throughout this latest season with excellently calculated comedic chaos. In season 2, the underpaid and overworked teachers are back, and their plight to educate the children of this Philadelphia school district makes for some of the best television in 2022....

The U.S. Secretary of State Disney Richard Schiff is an excellent actor. He made Aaron Sorkin’s walk-and-talks look like waltzing throughout “The West Wing.” He’s made every movie he’s in a little bit better, from “Se7en” to “The Lost World” to “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” That’s why it’s painful to report that who Richard Schiff plays in “Wakanda Forever” is somewhat ambiguous in the film. IMDb lists his character as the U....

Every Main Character In Frasier Ranked Worst To Best NBCUniversal By Jack Hawkins/Nov. 7, 2022 1:32 pm EST There are no “bad” characters in “Frasier.” Formidable performances and strong writing made “Frasier” one of the best sitcoms from the ’90s — and inspired how future comedy series melding workplace and family drama would run. However, we all find our favorite characters after spending hours with them. Every main character in the show has a story to tell throughout the series’ eleven seasons....

House Of The Dragon’s Creators Tried To Ignore The Game Of Thrones Season 8 Backlash HBO By Sandy Schaefer/Aug. 1, 2022 1:54 pm EST In the years since HBO’s “Game of Thrones” ended in 2019, I’ve done my best to avoid “the discourse” around the show’s last season. Not because pop culture discourse is inherently bad (art should never be shielded from valid criticism, no matter how much you adore it), but because it’s gone the way of discussions about “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” where the larger debate keeps on going in circles as people rehash the exact same arguments, over and over again....