How far would you be willing to go to look younger and more beautiful? That is the question that Carolie Fargeat’s The Substance horrifically asks and answers. In what some are calling a career best performance, Demi Moore plays an iconiclfilm and television actress who discovers an alluring new drug called The Substance just as the men in control of her career want to show her the door. It seems many viewers are interested to see what happens next, as the film marks MUBI’s most successful...

The Palm d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is a big deal. And it has become an even bigger Oscar bellwether in recent years, as the Academy has expanded, diversified, and, as a result, become more international. The winners have certainly been international, as American films have won only 13 times during the award’s 80+ year history. In fact, an American film has not won since 2011 when Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life took the prize (and, later, three Oscar nominations)....

With an especially close Presidential Election only three days away, it’s nearly impossible to watch Edward Berger’s papal thriller Concalve without drawing a parallel to the American political process. The pope has died, and a conclave has assembled to elect another. But with so many scandals and secrets, can they find a suitable candidate? Which candidates will cling to their ideals? How many must inevitably compromise theirs? And will ambition or a pursuit of the truth win the day? Oscar...

Yes, this is the movie with the carousel horse. After enjoying/enduring viral Internet fame long before its release, John Crowley’s We Live in Time is now in theaters and we can finally see the derpy carousel horse in context. Meme lovers may be disappointed, though, as the non-linear love story is unambiguously sincere in its meditation on life, death, and love. Luckily, Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh are here with an onscreen chemistry that overshadows any meme humor. Garfield plays...

We did a thing! P.T., Antonio, and I were fortunate enough to attend three screenings as a part of the Newport Beach Film Festival: Steve McQueen’s Blitz, Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, and Malcolm Washington’s adaptation of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. Meanwhile, Antonio and P.T. got to see an early screening of Edward Berger’s Conclave, hosted by USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in collaboration with Outside the Box [Office] and Focus Features. Great times were had by all; seeing so many...

Next year, 2025, will mark the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live (SNL), and NBC is planning a big live special in February to celebrate. In the meantime, though, Director Jason Reitman, whose own father, Ivan, had a close connection to the sketch comedy series, has made Saturday Night, out in theaters now. The film careens in “real” time towards the moment the first episode of SNL aired in 1975, and stars Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans) as Lorne Michaels, along with a vast ensemble of...

At a time when so much of public discourse surrounding A.I. swirls in fear and doom, it is rare to find a movie about a robot that does not tap into that sentiment. From Minority Report (2002) to Ex Machina (2014), Hollywood often adopts the position of a canary in the coal mine, trying to warn everyone about our robot overlords. And considering corporate interest in using artificial intelligence to replace human creators, I don’t necessarily blame them for wanting to do that, especially now....

What if The Scarlet Witch from the MCU, Nora Durst from The Leftovers, and Charlie Cale from Poker Face were trapped in a tiny New York City apartment for several days? I jest, in part; Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon, and Natasha Lyonne play characters who are distinct from their more well-known roles, but they do get to flex their acting muscles in His Three Daughters, a dramatic chamber piece now streaming on Netflix. The film’s story follows three semi-estranged women who reunite to guide...

When legendary artists have really made it, they should be able to do anything, right? Their creativity unfettered and untethered from pleasing others or financial concerns. By this margin, Francis Ford Coppola is living the dream. He became an icon for classics such as The Godfather (1972) and Apocalypse Now (1979). And for forty years he has been working on his magnum opus called Megalopolis. He funded the entire film — $120 million — by taking a line of credit out on his own winery No one...

For movie nerds and, more fervently, awards season nerds like me, fall is a wonderful time of year because it is nothing but possibility and potential. Like Schrodinger’s cat, movies are both good and bad until you actually see them for yourself. As I impatiently wait to do that, though, there are some indicators: reactions from critics and journalists attending film festivals, awards given by festivals, and whether films without a home score a deal with a big distributor. In this episode...

Box office, box office, box office! Tim Burton’s long-awaited sequel to his 1988 hit has conjured a successful opening weekend at $111 million domestic. This may indicate that audiences show no sign of fatigue for nostalgia-laden sequels (which is good news for Gladiator 2, perhaps?). But how does Beetlejuice Beetlejuice fare as a 36 years later follow-up to one of Burton’s best? Does it contain clunky fan service moments like Alien: Romulus? Or is it more of a fun,...

The Alien franchise, suffice it to say, has legs. Xenomorphs and facehuggers are among the most iconic sci-fi creatures in movie history. And multiple directors, including legends Ridley Scott and James Cameron, have made nine Alien films in 45 years. And it would seem that the latest installment, Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus, shows that interest in watching people fight gooey space parasites has not waned. The worldwide box office currently sits at $289.5 million, and it had the second...

Director Sean Wang has arrived. His documentary short film, “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó,” landed an Oscar nomination and, a few months later, his first narrative feature film, Didi, won the Audience Award for the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. While “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó” has been available to watch on Disney+ for some time, Didi just released in theaters at the end of July. It offers a window into the life of Chris, a Taiwanese-American teenager, the summer before he...

When I think of the genre of prison drama, what do I think of? As a child of the 90s, Shawshank Redemption (1994) and The Green Mile (1999) come to mind first; the former in particular defined the genre forever thereafter. I think of the struggle to survive, full of violence and terror. I think of the bleakness of never getting out and the desperate scheming to escape or undermine the system. I think of crime and corruption perpetuated within the carceral system itself. Greg Kwedar’s Sing...

As summer blockbuster season winds down and awards season just starts to warm up with a flurry of fall film festivals, P.T., Greg, and I thought it would be a great time to nerd out about Star Wars. First, we react to some recent news coming out of the D23 Expo (including a movie! finally!), and then we review the entire season of The Acolyte that concluded on Disney+ a few weeks ago. That naturally brings us to a ranking exercise. We debate, negotiate, and conciliate to put all the Disney+...

LFG!!! Deadpool & Wolverine has slashed its way through multiple box office records. Its opening weekend has made more money than any other R-rated movie, and it’s currently in sixth place for the highest-grossing weekend of all time. Will it have the summer movie legs to join last summer’s winner, Barbie, in the billion dollar club? And what does this success signify? Does it portend anything for the future of the MCU? Or is it more a testament to Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman’s...

Look. We know that Deadpool & Wolverine is about to take over theaters and probably dominate the summer box office narrative. We, too, are excited to see the merc with a mouth team up with everyone’s favorite clawed hero. But, what we fear may get lost in the MCU shuffle is another fun summer blockbuster already out in theaters: Lee Isaac Chung’s Twisters. This sequel to the 90s hit that put disaster movies on the map stars Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos, and a slew of...

We are less than five days away from Deadpool & Wolverine! Though, based on how much marketing has been coming at us, if you didn’t know that already, you may be living under a rock. As we so often say with the MCU these days, a lot is riding on this movie. The expectations for the box office, despite it being a Rated R film, have gone sky high. With Marvel/Disney scaling back and slowing down its offerings on the big and small screen, critics are left wondering if this film will impact...

In this episode’s Oscar Fairy Flashback, we go back to the 88th Academy Awards, held on February 28, 2016 and honoring the films of 2015. Some of the big contenders that year included Mad Max: Fury Road, Spotlight, The Revenant, The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Steve Jobs, and The Martian. Which snubs will we correct? Which films will divide or unite us? How many more Oscars will we try to give to Mad Max: Fury Road? And why was Jen the only one who saw The Revenant when it came out in 2015?...

Hot off the success of four-time Oscar winning film Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos is already back with Kinds of Kindness, playing in theaters now. This anthology film, with three distinct stories in one, is very different fare, with a darker, more brutal humor and more obtuse storytelling. Most critics agree that this is a return to the Yorgos of yore, when he previously collaborated with Efthimis Filippou on films such as The Lobster (2015) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), as opposed...

Have you recently found yourself endlessly scrolling through Netflix, not knowing when to press play? Are you looking for a something to watch while you wait for the next big summer blockbusters (and our reviews of them)? Whether you’re impatiently awaiting Greg’s hype draft pick, Twisters, on July 19 or, more realistically (sorry, Greg), Deadpool & Wolverine on July 26, we’ve got recommendations for smaller films from this year that we think are worth seeing. Many are available to watch...

When Inside Out came out in 2015, critics and fans showered it with praise for its innovative storytelling, as it translated a series of basic human emotions — joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust — into lovable characters who work in an elaborate visualization of the human mind. It was a commercial hit and an award-winning film. It seemed then like Pixar could do no wrong; little did critics know that from that point forward Pixar would steadily decline, losing its apex position in the...

Glen Powell’s having a great year. He arguably entered the movie star chat with 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick (in which he played Hangman), but this year alone he has had/will have three big releases. Despite middling reviews, Anyone But You, Powell’s rom com with Sydney Sweeney did exceedingly well at the box office this past winter. Looking ahead, Powell will star in a sequel to the 1996 disaster film Twister. (And yes, it’s called Twisters.) The trailers and press for that film indicate that if...

Godzilla Minus One is finally back! On June 1st, without much warning, the acclaimed film finally became available to watch at home on Netflix. Obviously we had to scramble to squeeze in a review as soon as we could. Back in December of 2023, Godzilla Minus One, produced by Toho, the Japanese studio from which the character originated, quietly came out in theaters in U.S., yet blew up in cinephile and pop culture circles very quickly. Passion for the film grew and grew, yet Oscar pundits...