Review: Scream '22

By Glenn Dunks

Movies made predominantly out of a requirement for fan service can go one of a few ways. They can give audiences just what they wanted (as we’ve seen with some MCU movies), they can give audiences what they didn’t know they needed (as we’ve seen with some MCU movies), or they can be a complete and utter dog’s breakfast (as we’ve seen with some MCU movies).

The Scream franchise isn’t as long-running or as mythologized as iconic horror brands like Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre or A Nightmare on Elm Street. But what it does have that those series do not is a consistent core—both in characters (Sidney, Gale and Dewey) and tone (comically meta slasher)—that has remained unwavering across 25 years and five individual movies. Fan service here then is actually quite tricky...

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50th Anniversary: James Bond 007 in "Diamonds are Forever"

by Deborah Lipp

If you have clicked on this 50th anniversary commemoration of the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever, you are probably eager for a takedown. Diamonds Are Forever (1971) is a movie fans love to hate. But get your tomatoes ready to pelt me at me instead because I will be doing no such thing. I love this movie and I’m fully prepared to defend it...

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The shortest review you will read of "The Matrix Resurrections"

by Nathaniel R

Cons: I didnt understand a lick of The Matrix Resurrection (did you have to memorized the first three?), especially the last act "rescue" involving brain switching which played like a techno-babble illogic exposition in order to give us a botched Sense8 body-switching visual. On the other hand, writer/director Lana Wachowski claiming such ownership from behind the camera felt satisfying despite playing at times like meta snark. Definitely did not enjoy the suggestion that therapists are evil even though the cat with the bell was damn cute. 

Pros: Absolutely loved Jonathan Groff as the new "Mr Smith". Witnessing Keanu & Carrie-Anne fall back in love was a good time; they've always looked sensational together and age-appropriate, too, so that was a rare doublesexy 50something thrill. This has been my review. 

Yours?

Tweetweek: Dune 2 and other social media obsessions

Three tweets that made us giggle...

Less Dune Part Two talk, more 2 Barb 2 Star talk.

— Chris Feil (@chrisvfeil) October 27, 2021

If a movie has to be watched then it isn’t a good movie

— C. Mason Wells (@cmasonwells) October 26, 2021

Let's stop making movies until we've seen all the old ones.

— Dave Kehr (@dave_kehr) October 26, 2021

More after the jump including Derek Cianfrance, Paul Verhoeven, and lots of Dune and Dune Part Two jokes...

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"Dune Part Two" will open October 20th, 2023

by Nathaniel R

Dune Part One landed big at the box office this past weekend with a $41 million bow, a solid gross even in pre-pandemic times for a non-sequel (with the caveat that it's still a very familiar IP). That plus the overseas gross was apparently strong enough to get a greenlight on Dune Part Two quickly though it still feels insane that they poured money into the first half without a deal on the second. Good luck coordinating everyone's schedules; The cast is hardly B list and now they'll be even more in demand though we're betting they all had Part Two firmly in their contracts even without a start date so perhaps they'll be locked into whatever dates the production decides and other movies or tv shows will have to make do without them or wait until they're free of the desert again. Beginning in 2022 Warner Brothers films will no longer be immediately streaming on HBOMax as they have been all this year so, barring another pandemic, expect Dune Part Two to have a significantly bigger opening weekend in October of 2023.

Let the speculation begin: Will the Academy stump for Dune this season or wait until 2023 and, if it sticks the landing, shower it with statues a la Return of the King twenty years earlier.