We have a great job. We know that. But along with all the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometimes, and while we spend weeks in late November and December in deliberations about the best of the year in film, we also always take time — just one day, one feature — to consider the worst. By this stage, “2016” has become an adjective meaning “unexpectedly horrible and depressing,” but that’s not necessarily borne out in the world of film, where, certainly now that the prestige releases are happening thick and fast, the outlook is generally pretty upbeat, at least for those of us who haven’t seen “Collateral Beauty” yet.

Continue reading The 20 Worst Films Of 2016 at The Playlist.

Oscar’s big nomination day is still over a month away, but music got its moment in the spotlight as The Recording Academy revealed the nominees for the 59th Grammy Awards this morning and, as expected, Queen Bee ruled the roost.

Beyonce took nine nominations including Record of the Year (“Formation”), Album of the Year (“Lemonade”) and Song of the Year (“Formation”). Drake, Rihanna and Chance the Rapper all earned seven while Adele took five (Xavier Dolan‘s video for “Hello” was snubbed).

Continue reading Beyonce Dominates 59th Grammy Nominations As ‘Suicide Squad’ Gets 3 Nods at The Playlist.

While the awards season is geared specifically to honor the more artistic achievements of the medium across the last year, for those who like their entertainment with a little more spectacle, there’s always the VFX categories. And this year, the Oscar race is not short on blockbusters to choose from.

READ MORE: The 20 Best Movie Trailers Of 2016

The Academy released their shortlist of the 20 films that have made it to the next round of consideration for Oscar VFX nominations, and there are some heavyweights in here.

Continue reading 20 Contenders In VFX Oscar Race Include ‘Batman v Superman,’ ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ ‘Rogue One,’ More at The Playlist.

It was, as you’ll have noticed from everybody talking about it constantly, and from all the lousy movies you saw, a bad summer creatively and commercially for Hollywood. Aside from “Captain America: Civil War” and “Finding Dory,” everything either sucked, or underperformed financially, or both. But in a summer of flops, what flopped hardest?

READ MORE: ‘Ben-Hur’ With Jack Huston Is Uneven, But Makes Case For Its Own Existence [Review]

Well, according to a Hollywood Reporter piece, it was “Ben Hur,” MGM’s remake of the Biblical-era classic.

Continue reading ‘Ben Hur’ Is Officially The Summer’s Biggest Flop, Losing $120 Million at The Playlist.

September is here, and the fall film festivals have started —check out our Venice coverage so far, and our Telluride coverage starts tomorrow and TIFF next week. Nevertheless, the days are getting shorter and the temperature a little cooler, so it’s time to look back on 2016’s moviegoing summer.

In most respects, it was a bad one. Most tentpoles disappointed, and unusually, it seemed that most underperformed at the box office (though it’s interesting to note that total box office is up about 3% from last year, thanks to a few monster hits).

Continue reading The Winners & Losers Of The 2016 Summer Movie Season at The Playlist.

WORST. SUMMER. EVER. By now you’ve  heard that refrain applied to the 2016 blockbuster season. Normally, we’re highly skeptical of any claims that suggest that the times we’re living in right this second are somehow unprecedented. The idea that Nothing Like This Has Ever Happened Before almost always proves false in the longer term, because the wheel turns, old wounds heal and new much more painful ones are opened up. And it’s a phrase that has been, within our collective memory of just the last decade or so, widely applied to 2013, to 2010, 2009 and 2007.

Continue reading Worst Movie Summer Ever: An Investigation at The Playlist.

You know us —it’s all sunshine and buttercups round here. Almost every other day of the year, we can be found frolicking in the bee-loud glades of cinephilia, delighting in the wonders on display with the unjaded eyes of gurgling infants. But very rarely, we stray to the Dark Side, and today is such a day, one given over to calling out the most ignominious and faith-destroying films of the year so far.

If “best” is subjective, “worst” is just as much so, but with added vitriol. 

Continue reading The 15 Worst Films Of 2016 So Far at The Playlist.

Hollywood is obviously focused on franchises, sequels and leveraging any kind of brand-based intellectual property: ‘Lego,’ ‘Angry Birds,’ Pez, Emojis — you name it. But as we posited earlier in the week, brands and franchises aren’t always a sure bet, and summer 2016 could prove that with painful and expensive definitiveness. This weekend, we have more proof of this disturbing trend for Hollywood. Paramount’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” opened, and while it was number one at the box-office with $35.2 million, this is a significant drop — a 46% plummet — from the original film released in 2014 that opened to $65.5 million.

Continue reading ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2’ Underperforms, ‘Popstar’ Flops: Box Office at The Playlist.

It’s been true for a long time, but it seems that 2016 offers more proof than ever that major studios are reluctant to make a film that’s not based on existing intellectual property. Everybody in Hollywood envies Disney, which doesn’t just have the animated films that are its traditional bread and butter, but also Marvel, Pixar, “Pirates Of The Caribbean” and “Star Wars,” as well as an ever-expanding series of live-action remakes of its classic properties.

Continue reading How Summer 2016 Could Rock Hollywood’s Confidence In Franchises & Sequels at The Playlist.

With summer arriving in a beautiful blaze on Memorial Day weekend, moviegoers opted to stay outdoors rather than dive into Hollywood’s offering of two major blockbuster sequels. The result was a pair of franchise movies that failed to connect both critically and, more importantly for the studios, commercially.

Heading into the holiday battling terrible reviews coupled with a PR disaster following charges of spousal abuse levelled at Johnny Depp, Disney‘s “Alice Through The Looking Glass” is definitely not going to be the billion dollar hit of its predecessor “Alice In Wonderland.” Not even close.

Continue reading ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ & ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Underwhelm On Memorial Day Weekend: Box Office at The Playlist.

When it comes to sequels in Hollywood, in general you reap what you sow. But sometimes it’s a bitter harvest indeed, as this week’s “Alice Through The Looking Glass” proves (our review here). The sequel to the Tim Burton -directed 2010 “Alice in Wonderland,” itself a garish 3D CGI-fest presumably hate-watched across the $1bn marker at the worldwide box office, the fact that ‘Looking Glass’ will be poking eyes out in theaters from Friday is as unsurprising as it is depressing.

Continue reading 10 Sequels No One Asked For at The Playlist.

The Hatter (Johnny Depp) is less mad than sad in “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” and that’s also true of the film itself, a pitiful sequel that decisively sullies any goodwill one might have felt for these Disney-fied versions of Lewis Carroll’s famed characters. Director James Bobin (“The Muppets”) wholeheartedly mimics the computerized style of Tim Burton’s predecessor, meaning this second modern go-round in Wonderland resembles a frenzied fantasia of rainbow-hued colors, baroque architecture, overly ornate sets, and a general visual detachment between live-action foreground and digitally constructed background imagery.

Continue reading Review: Pitiful, Unpleasant Sequel ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ Starring Johnny Depp & Mia Wasikowska at The Playlist.

Well, here’s an odd one. Tim Burton, who definitely did not direct the sequel to “Alice In Wonderland,” is here introducing the extended trailer for “Alice Through The Looking Glass.” Maybe James Bobin was busy? Anyway, his name has some brand value currency, and he’s still an executive producer, and really, he’s the perfect person to introduce the continuation of the batshit world he conjured in the first movie.

Continue reading Watch: More Adventure Revealed In New Extended-Look Trailer For ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ at The Playlist.

So far this year, Disney has been dominating the box office. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” played in cinemas for months, “Zootopia” became a massive animated hit, “The Jungle Book” exceeded expectations, and “Captain America: Civil War” is off to a fantastic start. And next up will be “Alice Through The Looking Glass.” And while everyone has said that no one is asking for a sequel to “Alice In Wonderland,” a similar sentiment was applied to the live action/CGI “The Jungle Book,” only for Disney to prove that there was a very big audience for it.

Continue reading Watch: Mia Wasikowska Races Against Time In New Trailer & 2 Clips For ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ at The Playlist.

Obviously the biggest event of the summer is The Playlist moving to the shiny new digs in which you’re now seeing us. But seriously, the summer movie months are packed with films both big and small guaranteed to thrill, delight and provoke you, and keep you out of the sunshine, and inside basking in air-conditioned comfort.

The time when big movies were released only in summer has long gone — this year has seen “Deadpool,” “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice,” and “The Jungle Book” among those that were smashing box office records while the temperatures were still low and the days still short.

Continue reading The 40 Most Anticipated Movies Of Summer 2016 at The Playlist.

Watch: Take A Trip To The Other Side In New Trailer For 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'

Continue reading Watch: Take A Trip To The Other Side In New Trailer For ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ at The Playlist.

Watch: Fantastical New Trailer For 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' Starring Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska & More

Continue reading Watch: Fantastical New Trailer For ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ Starring Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska & More at The Playlist.

New Images From 'Alice Through The Looking Glass,' 'The Light Between Oceans,' And 'Queen Of Katwe'

Continue reading New Images From ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass,’ ‘The Light Between Oceans,’ And ‘Queen Of Katwe’ at The Playlist.

Watch: It’s Time For More Madness With The First Trailer For 'Alice Through The Looking Glass’ With Johnny Depp & More

Continue reading Watch: It’s Time For More Madness With The First Trailer For ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ With Johnny Depp & More at The Playlist.

"Time Is Not On Your Side": Watch 4 Teaser Trailer Clips For 'Alice Through The Looking Glass'

Continue reading “Time Is Not On Your Side”: Watch 4 Teaser Trailer Clips For ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ at The Playlist.

Disney Launches First Posters For 'Alice Through The Looking Glass'

Continue reading Disney Launches First Posters For ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’ at The Playlist.

Discuss: Will Summer 2016 Outshine & Outpace The Once Mythical Summer 2015?

Continue reading Discuss: Will Summer 2016 Outshine & Outpace The Once Mythical Summer 2015? at The Playlist.

Continue reading Will Smith Drops ‘Brilliance,’ Rhys Ifans Is Johnny Depp’s Dad In ‘Alice 2’ & More at The Playlist.

Brie Larson Joins 'Room,' Carrie Brownstein Lands Role In Todd Haynes' 'Carol' & More

Continue reading Brie Larson Joins ‘Room,’ Carrie Brownstein Lands Role In Todd Haynes’ ‘Carol’ & More at The Playlist.

Continue reading Nicholas Hoult Builds ‘Sand Castle,’ Plus Maggie Grace & Helena Bonham Carter Book Sequels at The Playlist.