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The legend of the banshee Searchlight Pictures We know that death is going to play a huge role in “The Banshees of Inisherin” right from the very beginning, thanks to the film’s title. A banshee is a key figure in Irish mythology, a female creature whose wailing presence is a dark omen. Where she appears, death is sure to follow. In some interpretations of the legend, she is associated with a particular family (each old Irish family might have their own banshee), but she is always tied to the land, linked to an ancestral community, like the one that we see (sort of) in “The Banshees of Inisherin....

Meet The Addams Family (again) Netflix/Vanity Fair While the show embraces the original style of the characters, it also comes with a fair share of big changes. Most notably is the fact that “Wednesday” catches up with its eponymous character when she’s aged beyond being a morose little girl. She’s a teenager now, with more independence and plenty of reasons to brood. One of which is her complicated relationship with her mother....

Himesh Patel Had Concerns About His Character After Reading Station Eleven HBO Max By Michael Boyle/Sept. 30, 2022 5:00 am EST One of the best miniseries of the past year was “Station Eleven,” which tells the stories of a handful of people before and after an apocalyptic pandemic, whose storylines cross in constant unexpected ways. It’s the sort of low-key, deeply emotional show that fans of “The Leftovers” would probably love, which makes sense considering there’s so much overlap between the two shows’ writers’ rooms....

House Of The Dragon Just Suddenly And Tragically Dodged A Happy Ending HBO By Sandy Schaefer/Oct. 10, 2022 6:00 pm EST This post contains spoilers for “House of the Dragon” episode 8. If fantasy stories involving characters foretelling the future have taught us anything, it’s that prophecies are usually bad news. At their best, they inspire tyrants like Lord Voldemort to bring about their own downfall. But most of the time, they spur would-be decent people like Macbeth and Anakin Skywalker to embrace their worst impulses, transforming them into the very kind of oppressors they once put their life on the line to defeat....

House Of The Dragon’s Showrunner Has Heard Your Complaints About Scenes Being Too Dark HBO By Michael Boyle/Oct. 24, 2022 3:35 pm EST For the most part, the first season of “House of the Dragon” was pretty good. It seemed fully aware of the fact that audiences were weary after that questionable “Game of Thrones” ending, and was making a clear effort to make amends. It was a return to the feel of the original show’s early seasons, with its complicated political intrigue and its morally ambiguous characters....

How Mahershala Ali Talked His Way Into True Detective’s Leading Role HBO By Joshua Meyer/July 31, 2022 5:00 pm EST When “True Detective” season 3 hit HBO in early 2019, it was five years removed from its first season and didn’t enjoy the same rapturous buzz around the water cooler, but critics still hailed it as a return to form. The series itself started out as a comeback vessel for Matthew McConaughey, whose philosophical character, Rust Cohle, taught us all that time is a flat circle....

Beautiful Simpsons 20th Television The character of Turanga Leela, played by Katey Sagal, was constructed as the badass of “Futurama.” She was a capable fighter and pilot, and could perhaps be seen as the Captain of the show. She was certainly the adult in the room, especially when paired with the dim bulb Fry (Billy West), or the self-absorbed alcoholic robot Bender (John DiMaggio). Groening, whose under/overground comic strip “Life in Hell” debuted back in 1977, has long ago honed in on a style, notably that his characters tend to be drawn with an overbite (top lips often form sizeable shelves over the bottom lips), and chins are rarely a feature at all....

Michael Shannon Was Supposed To Be Deadpool 2’s Cable – Here’s Why He Dropped Out Warner Bros. Pictures By Ernesto Valenzuela/Aug. 8, 2022 5:34 pm EST Director David Leitch had a big bionic arm to fill when casting the role of Cable in “Deadpool 2.” Anticipation was high following the massive success of the original “Deadpool, especially considering that the post-credits scene of the 2016 film teased the popular X-Men character’s appearance....

Netflix’s First Original Series, Lilyhammer, Leaves The Service In November Netflix By Shania Russell/Oct. 26, 2022 1:05 pm EST The end of an era is upon us. The first Netflix Original series, which paved the way for the streamer’s continued success, is saying farewell. Thinking back to the earlier days of this streaming service, it’s probably zeitgeisty titles like “House of Cards” and “Orange Is the New Black” that come to mind, and while both debuted nearly a decade ago, quickly garnered popularity and won lots of new subscribers for the fledgling streamer, neither holds the title of first Netflix Original....

Rick And Morty Season 6 Finally Brings Back The Multiverse, And It’s Hilarious Adult Swim By Rafael Motamayor/Dec. 12, 2022 7:00 pm EST It’s not uncharacteristic for a sitcom to introduce things that upset the status quo every season or so, like a new baby, a marital dispute, some relative or friend staying over for a while, or a kid going to college. More often than not, these things solve themselves and the formula is reset after a little while — the relative moves away, the kid comes back from school, the parents reunite, or the baby gets quietly relegated to a background character....

She-Hulk Didn’t Have A Major Impact On The MCU – And That’s Why We Loved It Marvel Studios By Shania Russell/Oct. 13, 2022 5:00 pm EST This post contains spoilers for the entire first season of “She-Hulk: Attorney At Law.” After nine episodes of watching Tatiana Maslany smash villains, fourth walls, and the occasional love interest, “She-Hulk” finale day has finally arrived. Based on everything we’ve endured in the Marvel Cinematic Universe thus far, that can only mean one thing: it’s time to unmask the mysterious Big Bad who will inevitably transform into a Hulk copycat and spend at least half an episode involved in a dramatic CGI battle that destroys lots of property....

She’s every woman Marvel Studios Jessica Gao, head writer for “She-Hulk,” confessed that the team “talked a lot about Fleabag” when developing the series. It was important that “She-Hulk” focused less on the run-of-the-mill, end-of-the-world threats so typical throughout the MCU and more on the day-to-day issues that one individual faced … on top of being green and super strong, of course: “The greater Marvel Cinematic Universe has already done a fantastic job of huge action, enormous stakes … It’s always the fate of the universe, the fate of the free world....

Superman: The Animated Series Had A Problem That Introducing Darkseid Was Meant To Solve Warner Bros. By Devin Meenan/Dec. 18, 2022 3:40 pm EST A hero is only as good as his villains, which helps explain why Batman has eclipsed Superman as DC Comics’ trademark character. There are at least two dozen memorable villains in the Gotham City rogues gallery, while Metropolis has less than half that. Bruce Timm, an architect of both “Batman: The Animated Series” and “Superman: The Animated Series,” is aware of this....

TÁR Review: A Star Is Torn As Cate Blanchett’s Conductor Falls Tragically From Grace [Venice] Focus Features By Marshall Shaffer/Sept. 1, 2022 11:16 am EST “Perhaps the chief requirement of [the conductor] is that he be humble before the composer; that he never interpose himself between the music and the audience,” said famed conductor Leonard Bernstein. “All his efforts, however strenuous or glamorous, be made in the service of the composer’s meaning — the music itself, which, after all, is the whole reason for the conductor’s existence....

Complications from a Halloween heist NBC As Sergeant Jeffords, Terry Crews portrayed a character that was caring, protective of his squad, and had a wacky habit of referring to himself in the third person. How much of that is true for Crews is unknown, but at least we know that the actor was willing to go to extreme lengths for Sergeant Jeffords to shine. In the “Cinco de Mayo” episode from the show’s sixth season, the squad preponed their annual Halloween heist to help distract their Sergeant from his stress-inducing Lieutenant’s exam....

The 10 Wildest Moments In George Miller’s Three Thousand Years Of Longing, Ranked MGM By Ben Begley/Aug. 30, 2022 1:08 pm EST Warning: This article contains major spoilers for the movie “Three Thousand Years of Longing.” George Miller is a visionary director with a filmography that can’t be confined to one genre. Although known best for “Mad Max: Fury Road,” he’s also directed the horror comedy “The Witches of Eastwick” and various children’s movies, including “Babe: Pig in the City” and both “Happy Feet” films....

Do the Right Thing Universal Spike Lee’s searing, unflinching story about gentrification and race relations on a New York City block is a perfect example of vibrant, vision-driven storytelling that can move the cultural needle and leave a lasting impact on an entire generation. I only finally caught up with it last year, but this is must-see American filmmaking, folks. It hits Netflix on September 1, 2021, where it will join several of Lee’s other movies....

Watcher IFC Films When you cast a thriller with names like Maika Monroe and Burn Gorman and a central mystery at its heart, it might feel relatively easy to guess how it all might unfold. The former, who has rapidly made a name for herself between “It Follows” and especially “The Guest” (though let’s not look past her exceptional work in this year’s “Significant Other,” as well!), has breathed new life into the idea of the final girl....

The Daily Stream: Hot Fuzz Is The Best Of Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy. Change My Mind. Universal Pictures By Eric Vespe/July 17, 2022 4:30 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: “Hot Fuzz” (2007) Where You Can Stream It: Hulu The Pitch: Sophomore efforts from promising young filmmakers often result in disappointment, but thankfully, that was not the case for Edgar Wright....

A stranger-than-fiction story Apple TV+ “Black Bird” is based on James Keene’s book “In With the Devil: A Fallen Hero, A Serial Killer, and A Dangerous Bargain for Redemption,” so it’s important to note that it tells the story pretty much entirely from Keene’s perspective. But as far as that perspective goes, the series is pretty dang accurate. According to the memoir and Newsweek, the real-life Jimmy Keene was an Illinois high school football star before he got into the drug dealing business, ultimately earning a 10-year sentence after being subject to a DEA bust in 1996....