Director William Friedkin on Rising and Falling and Rising in the Film Industry

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  15 minutes  |  3075 words  |  Elina Uphoff

William Friedkin. This interview was original published in 2013. We are recirculating it again in light of Friedkin’s recent passing. In 1971 and 1973, William Friedkin found himself on top of the film world with the one-two punch of The French Connection and The Exorcist. Then things got interesting: Friedkin’s next film, 1977’s impossibly ambitious Sorcerer, flopped, and subsequent films, such as 1980’s controversial Al Pacino S&M thriller Cruising, didn’t fare much better. [Read More]

Disappointed With the Sexless Into the Woods? Watch The Company of Wolves Instead

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  5 minutes  |  1007 words  |  Aldo Pusey

When Disney started adapting Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods for film, few issues were more pressing than what to do about “Hello, Little Girl,” a sexually charged duet between Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf filled with all sorts of double entendres. Sondheim himself admitted that the studio had “objections” to the number, and these concerns were magnified when director Rob Marshall cast an actual tween as Red. [Read More]

Do Nielsen Ratings Really Reflect What People Want From Streamers?

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  12 minutes  |  2375 words  |  Janel Helmers

This story first ran in Buffering, Vulture’s newsletter about the streaming industry. Head to vulture.com/buffering and subscribe today! This story first ran in Buffering, Vulture’s newsletter about the streaming industry. Head to vulture.com/buffering and subscribe today! Are as many people streaming Suits and Young Sheldon as Nielsen would like us to believe? Last week, politics website The Hill republished a story from one of its sister companies with a simple (but very clickable) headline: “The top streamed shows are almost all old. [Read More]

Doctor Who Christmas-Special Recap: Sunday Best

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  8 minutes  |  1667 words  |  Sherie Connelly

Doctor Who The Church on Ruby Road Season 14 Episode 0 Editor’s Rating 5 stars ***** «Previous Next» « PreviousEpisode NextEpisode » Doctor Who The Church on Ruby Road Season 14 Episode 0 Editor’s Rating 5 stars ***** «Previous Next» « PreviousEpisode NextEpisode » This episode could be summed up with a single quote from The Incredibles: “Coincidence? [Read More]

Does Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Match Up to Its Predecessor?

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  6 minutes  |  1177 words  |  Janel Helmers

Lupita Nyong’o in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Reviews for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever are here, and critics can agree on one thing alone: The loss of Chadwick Boseman weighs heavily on the film. After the man who carried the original film on his shoulders unexpectedly died from cancer in 2020, director Ryan Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole had no choice but to craft a world without the charm and grace of Boseman’s T’Challa, who gets a proper send-off in the beginning of the film. [Read More]

Dont You Get It? The Talking Mongoose Represents God

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  246 words  |  Zora Stowers

The big dueling movies this summer are, obviously, Barbie and Oppenheimer. But in September, a quirkier and more British double-header comes to theaters. Or should we say, theatres? On September 15, Kenneth Branagh brings his quirked-up white-boy detective back to screens in A Haunting in Venice. It’s a story of skepticism versus faith, set in the city of Venice, with a mustachioed, ridiculously accented investigator at its center. [Read More]

Drake and 21 Savages Fake Her Loss Press Tour Is Their Loss

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  2 minutes  |  391 words  |  Elina Uphoff

No, Drake and 21 Savage weren’t on the cover of Vogue. No, they’re not doing a Tiny Desk concert (yet). And no, Drake didn’t go on Howard Stern to talk about porn. The rappers have spent the past few days engaging in a bizarre, labor-intensive press cycle of fake opportunities around their new album Her Loss, out tomorrow. And all it makes us want to do is actually see them do these things. [Read More]

Dream Scenarios Kristoffer Borgli Has a Few Things to Say About Viral Fame

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  14 minutes  |  2831 words  |  Aldo Pusey

With Dream Scenario and Sick of Myself, director Kristoffer Borgli has made two films that might leave you wanting to log off forever. No filmmaker has probed viral fame and the ways internet culture is invading our collective condition quite as effectively as Kristoffer Borgli. After making the 2017 marketing-industry satire Drib, Borgli’s major breakthrough came earlier this year with Sick of Myself, a caustic comedy about a millennial (Kristine Kujath Thorp) who gives herself a ghastly skin rash for attention. [Read More]

Eat Pray Love Authors New Book Getting Turned Into Movie Youll Inevitably Watch on a Plane

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  1 minutes  |  115 words  |  Elina Uphoff

Elizabeth Gilbert You’ve eaten. You’ve prayed. You’ve loved. Now you can see City of Girls as a movie. The novel by author Elizabeth Gilbert has been optioned by producer Sue Kroll, and Emmy winner Michelle Ashford will adapt the script. The plot is a classic woman-becomes-herself setup, but make it old-timey in New York. “Set in 1940’s NYC, in the sparkling world of dazzling artistes, glamorous showgirls, and oversized theater personalities, City of Girls is an exploration of a young woman’s journey to discovering herself. [Read More]

Eight Ways Lifetimes Steel Magnolias Didnt Live Up to the Original

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  6 minutes  |  1132 words  |  Sherie Connelly

Lifetime’s TV-movie remake of the beloved 1989 film Steel Magnolias had the same unnecessary-bordering-on-sacrilegious quality as ABC’s 1998 remake of Rear Window starring Christopher Reeve. Did I enjoy it? Yes, sometimes I did. That said, I watch Smash. I can quote things that Honey Boo Boo’s mother has said. Five years ago, I voluntarily attended an abysmal elementary school production of Pippin – having no connection to anybody in its cast — and laughed more than I winced. [Read More]