There are few performers on a film set who deserve more respect and recognition then that of the stunt person. By extension and also super deserving —and the people often behind some terrific action sequences or your favorite action movies—are stunt/action directors/stuntmen like Scott Waugh, Nash Edgerton, and David Leitch who have made major leaps from stunt coordinators to feature-length filmmakers, proving the wide range of skill stunt-people possess. One of the most prolific and astounding of stunt coordinators is Sam Hargrave, who is responsible for coordinating the stunts and fights of the recent “Avengers” and “Captain America” films, “Thor: Ragnorak,” “Deadpool 2,” and the wildly-impressive “Atomic Blonde.” Remember when everyone was astounded by the fact that television directors like The Russo Brothers could stage such elaborate and visceral fights in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”?

Continue reading ‘Extraction’ Trailer: Chris Hemsworth Plays A Mercenary For The Russo Brothers at The Playlist.

The acclaimed network so revered for starting the television revolution we currently experience, HBO is mostly known for its large-scale productions, above-and-beyond the normal limits that cable television allows. People seem to be drawn to the shows like “Westworld” and “Game of Thrones” for the scope of the shows expanded the scope of average television overall. However, equal praise must be given to the smaller shows that somehow slip by the majority of viewers.

Continue reading ‘Mrs. Fletcher’ Trailer: Kathryn Hahn Is An Empty Nester Trying To Figure Out Life In New HBO Drama at The Playlist.

No matter what your critical or fanatical consensus maybe on “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” one who admires potentially-good cinema must have a sliver of excitement for whatever Rian Johnson has next. It seems “Star Wars” was so divisive for Johnson that his next film is now viewed as either continuing his success or redeeming himself. Plus, Twitter is not the best place for a filmmaker to express themselves.

Continue reading ‘Knives Out’ Trailer: Rian Johnson Crafts A Lacerating New Murder Mystery at The Playlist.

For a director relatively new to the Hollywood scene, Taika Waititi is on one great hot streak. His films have a consistent personality and a signature biting sense of humor, yet each one since “Eagle vs Shark” progresses and heightens the story up a couple of notches. Considering his most recent effort is a Marvel film, his career is somewhat akin to an indie musician skyrocketing to arena status through records that evolve from one to next.

Continue reading ‘Jojo Rabbit’ Trailer: Taika Waititi Takes On Hitler With His New WWII Satire at The Playlist.

No matter how nightmare-inducing and traumatizing the realm of horror can be, children are inextricably drawn to the genre’s enticing, dark narratives. After all, traditional horror stories at their best are simply fairy-tales, only elevated, matured, and much more cruel. A seminal work that continues to disturb children to this day is Alvin Schwartz’s “Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark,” an anthology of urban folklore and surreal, affecting imagery.

Continue reading ‘Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark’ Trailer: Guillermo Del Toro Presents A Chilling New Nightmare at The Playlist.

Despite its long struggle to find narrative footing, the “Terminator” franchise continues to be a lasting, bankable appeal as a blockbuster for modern moviegoers. The iconography of the first two installments is so powerful and everlasting today that they provide hope that there is still uncovered potential to be explored in this series. After a string of installments failing to match the quality of James Cameron’s thrill-rides, the franchise is now joining the trend of others in the industry, whether it be “Alien” or “Star Wars,” by going back to the basics of its origin and fueling a nostalgic intensity.

Continue reading ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ Trailer: Linda Hamilton & Tim Miller Try & Bring Back Glory To James Cameron’s Sci-Fi Franchise at The Playlist.

It was a shocking deception and one of the most significant literary hoaxes of the century. The short version of the true-life story: A troubled author (Laura Albert) masqueraded as a fictional teenage boy from a broken home and got the sister of her boyfriend, to appear as said novelist in public appearances. In some circles, the name JT LeRoy was ubiquitous, especially when the true identity was revealed and the media controversy exploded.

The shocking narrative of infamous literary figure JT LeRoy is one at least the savvy, culturally-aware public is intimately familiar with not only through the author’s works and their subsequent revelations, but the various cinematic treatments.

Continue reading ‘Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy’ Trailer: Kristen Stewart Takes On A Famous Hoax at The Playlist.

Fewer things in the most recent years have captured the social-media, meme-based, cultural zeitgeist as “Stranger Things,” which is a strange thing, indeed, because the show has absolutely nothing to do with us right now. These aren’t pre-teens on smartphones, Snapchatting their adventures through the Upside Down or taking selfies with the Mind Flayer in the background. They exist in the 1980s, which has been the nostalgic allure of the series since the beginning.

Continue reading ‘Stranger Things’ Season 3 Trailer: One Summer Can Change Everything In 1985 at The Playlist.

From the makers of “Superbad,” Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, and former writers of “The Office,” Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, comes an R-rated teen comedy that wants to raise the stakes by lowering the age. If you thought high schoolers were only susceptible to aggressive, pre-mature exposures of drugs, sex, and violence, “Good Boys” now brings you a trio of sixth graders who are about to undergo their own raunchy coming-of-age.

Continue reading ‘Good Boys’ Trailer: Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen Create A New ‘Superbad’ But With 6th Graders at The Playlist.

Every studio is trying to create a new universe these days, blatantly following in the footsteps of Disney/Marvel’s unprecedented, box-office reign. These have been the modern trials and tribulations of the major studios, whether it be Warner Bros.’ dissolution of the DC Universe or Universal’s botched attempt wielding its lineup of classic monsters. Despite the mixed results, admiration could be given to these studios for the process of Universe Building, while derivative, is quite ambitious.

Continue reading ‘Pokémon: Detective Pikachu’ Trailer: Partner Up With The Legend That Is Ryan Reynolds at The Playlist.

The anthology film has never been a dominant genre. Yet, it has maintained a consistent presence in the film industry due to its dependency. By nature, most of these films are hit-or-miss, for audiences are naturally inclined to prefer certain segments to others. Not since the similarly structured “Pulp Fiction” has an anthology film re-invigorated the interest or reached that level of prestigious success. The Coen Brothers’ “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” came close, but even its distribution on Netflix represented a financial crutch and indicated that these films do not attract theatergoers like they used to.

Continue reading ‘Field Guild To Evil’ Trailer: Veronika Franz, Peter Strickland, Agnieszka Smoczynska & More Contribute To A New Horror Folklore Anthology Film at The Playlist.

The timeless, true-story tale of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow is one Hollywood is all-too-familiar with. Of course, Arthur Penn’s landmark 1967 game-changer, “Bonnie and Clyde,” announced a new era for cinema, one free from the restraints of censoring and pushing the boundaries of violence, profanity and sex on the screen. While the depicted story has never been cinematically matched, the young-lovers-on-a-killing-spree spurred derivatives ranging from Terrence Malick’s “Badlands” to Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers.” Like any salacious true-crime news story, this saga is consistently consumed by the general public, but the perspective has mostly been limited to the criminals themselves, and not the crime fighters who brought them down.

Continue reading ‘The Highwaymen’ Trailer: Kevin Costner Is A Texas Ranger Hunting For Bonnie & Clyde at The Playlist.

As an event picture surrounded by controversy and expectations, “Bohemian Rhapsody” garnered a wealth of attention, box office and surprisingly–to much of the film world’s dismay–Golden Globe awards. However, as a musical biopic, like “Walk the Line” and “Straight Outta Compton” before it, the film stayed safely within its lane. Much is known about Sacha Baron Cohen’s early iteration that promised to be no-holds-barred and truthfully revealing with Queen’s biography.

Continue reading ‘The Dirt’ Trailer: Netflix’s Mötley Crüe Biopic Will Kick Start Your Heart at The Playlist.

Director J.C. Chandor has been on somewhat of a subtle meteoric rise since his debut in 2011 with the financial crisis-based “Margin Call.” Seamlessly, he has elevated his cinematic style, using Robert Redford as a one-man show in “All Is Lost” and tackling the criminal landscape in “A Most Violent Year.” While all these films are quite excellent, they have remained below the surface of the zeitgeist, just short of an extraordinary status to place Chandor on a prestigious level, such as his similar contemporaries like Damien Chazelle or Ryan Coogler.

Continue reading ‘Triple Frontier’ Trailer: J.C. Chandor’s Action Vehicle Stars Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac and Charlie Hunnam at The Playlist.

It’s always refreshing in the modern age of film and television to see traditional tropes transcend and progress with ease. Few shows have done this better than BBC America’s “Killing Eve,” taking the often male-dominated genre of the police thriller and putting a vibrantly feminist spin on it. The cat-and-mouse dynamic between M15 agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) and deadly assassin, Villanelle (Jodie Comer), dominates the fore of the series, while the men are relegated to roles women used to assume in this milieu.

Continue reading ‘Killing Eve’ Season 2 Trailer: Sandra Oh, Now A Golden Globe Winner, Returns To Her Crime Thriller Show at The Playlist.

When adapting a legendary piece of literature to the big screen, a constant problem is meeting the quality and expectations of its origin. These works are often deemed “unfilmable”, and the examples range from “Watchmen” to “Fahrenheit 451.” Among the unfilmable is “Catch-22″ which was attempted in 1970 by director Mike Nichols with an all-star ensemble, but was met with a mixed response. The book itself, Joseph Heller’s seminal World War II satire, is a complex cornerstone of popular culture.

Continue reading ‘Catch 22’ Trailer: George Clooney Stars In The WWII Satire Series For Hulu at The Playlist.

Earlier last year, the gimmick of the Spin-Off was dealt a death-card in the form of “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” where the troubled production couldn’t escape the looming shadow of Harrison Ford or impress an audience that the franchise, at this point, seemed to guarantee. But these sort of failures are not always the case: “Creed” proved itself a poignant modernization of the “Rocky” franchise; the most recent major spin-off, “Bumblebee,” gave fresh breath to an exhausted series.

Continue reading ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ Trailer: ‘Fast & Furious’ Presents A Kick-Ass New Adventure With A Super-Powered Idris Elba at The Playlist.

It seems like yesterday when Disney released the box-office behemoth that was “Alice in Wonderland” in 2010. The astounding return— $10.25 billion— secured the future of the company’s cinema, as we currently witness the everlasting impact of that seminal picture. To be fair and honest, the film wasn’t all that remarkable to begin with, despite the direction of Tim Burton and the stellar cast. Yet is scale and modernized connection with a newer audience established a firm formula to be followed in the years to come.

Continue reading ‘Dumbo’: Tim Burton Reimagines A Magical Live-Action Flying Elephant Fairytale at The Playlist.