How Necessary is "American Horror Story: Cult"?

By Spencer Coile 

A Ryan Murphy production is anything but subtle. They rely on over-the-top scares, extravagant set pieces, and his usual band of actors (notably Sarah Paulson). American Horror Story: Cult is no exception. It begins with the bleakest opening imaginable, a night that will live in infamy: 2016 election night. As characters rejoice, cry, vent their frustrations, it felt as though Murphy was attempting to hone in on the social panic that swept the country in the wake of the election results. It was a bold opening, one that hit close to home. 

And then the rest of the episode happened.

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TIFF: Elle Fanning is "Mary Shelley"

Our ongoing adventures at TIFF

In the summer of 1816 legendary Romantic literary figures Mary Shelley (and stepsister Claire Clairmont), Percy Shelley, Lord Byron and Dr John Polidori were holed up in a Swiss estate and challenged each other to write scary ghost stories. From that fateful contest two famous works of horror emerged ("Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus" in 1818 and "The Vampyre" in 1819 -- neither of them actual ghost stories!). Ken Russell attacked this collision of authors with his trademark sexual abandon and visual insanity in Gothic (1986) and his wasn't the first or last film to stare with fascination at that morbid contest 201 years ago. We return to that summer for a good chunk of Haifaa al-Mansour's Mary Shelley but with far different intent.

Haifaa al-Mansour, the first Saudi female film director (she previously directed Wadjda) is more interested in the trailblazing of Mary Shelley (née Godwin) as a female author -- and the unique challenges that came with her gender in the literary world of 1818 -- than in the creation of Frankenstein...

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Fine Old Souls

Jason from MNPP here - I don't think it's necessary to give the full "Yes No Maybe So" treatment here for the just-released full trailer for Our Souls At Night because this movie stars real life legends Jane Fonda and Robert Redford together for the first time since The Electric Horseman in 1979 - not to mention marking exactly fifty years since they made Barefoot in the Park together...

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Soundtracking: "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut"

Chris Feil's soundtrack series doesn't "Blame Canada" this week while he is at TIFF...

When Book of Mormon opened on Broadway, it was met with a fairly shocked response that Trey Parker and Matt Stone were able to create such an old-fashioned musical within their own foul-mouthed lexicon. It was as if people had quickly forgotten that they had already created a catchy and sweet musical on screen with South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. And this was a few years before musicals would be cool at the movies again and a bit of a “gotcha” joke on their fanbase expecting simple crudeness, so maybe it’s easy to forget just how gutsy the South Park movie was.

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"I'm Your #1 Fan..."

IT defied already optimistic expectations last weekend, opening to mostly postive reviews and a staggering box office of $123m. Hot takes are afoot as to why IT is such a mega hit, compared to the flopzilla of The Dark Tower. And amongst the good reviews was the adulation of one particular enfant terrible...

IT is my favorite film this century. pic.twitter.com/86KqVKZFV3

— Xavier Dolan (@XDolan) September 10, 2017

 Did you succumb to the scares or were you not amused by the clown? Discuss.

Related: Our "It" Review