The first episode of Netflix’s “Wednesday,” based on the classic Charles Addams character, is one of the best things Tim Burton has directed in years. Fans who grew up with Burton’s work in the ’80s and ’90s have lamented his output for years, as the visually inventive director seems to have lost the creative passion that used to fuel his work. Where’s the edgy Burton who made “Edward Scissorhands” and “Ed Wood” in something like “Alice in Wonderland” or “Dumbo”?

Continue reading ‘Wednesday’ Review: Tim Burton’s Recaptures Some, But Not All Of His Dark Magic Powers In New Addam’s Family Netflix Series at The Playlist.

Directed by Ben Stiller and from his RedHour productions, the Apple TV+ series surreal office works thriller “Severance” became a massive hit in the winter of 2022. Trying to capitalize on the buzz, Apple TV is moving fast on season two and has added a bevy of new actors as production has begun.

The new casting additions include Gwendoline Christie (“Game of Thrones,” “Sandman“), Alia Shawkat (“Search Party,” “Old Man“), Bob Balaban (“Seinfeld,” “The French Dispatch“), Merrit Wever (“Unbelievable,” “Godless”), Robby Benson (“Beauty & The Beast,” “One To One”), Stefano Carannante (“Mirabilia”), John Noble (“Fringe,” “Elementary,” “The Lord of The Rings” films) and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (“The Tourist”).

Continue reading ‘Severance’ Season 2 Adds Gwendoline Christie, Alia Shawkat, Bob Balaban & More at The Playlist.

Finally, right? It took forever for Neil Gaiman’s beloved and bestselling comic book “The Sandman” to get adapted. For years, it looked like there would be a feature film based on the DC Comics smash hit. Way back in 2013, it was announced that David S. Goyer would adapt the series into a feature film to star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who would also produce. That project fell apart over the years, but Goyer remained attached, aligning with Gaiman and Allan Heinberg (“Wonder Woman”) on what is now a Netflix original series, premiering its 10-episode first season today, August 5.

Continue reading ‘The Sandman’ Review: Highly Anticipated Netflix Adaptation of Neil Gaiman Classic Lacks Depth at The Playlist.

“Flux Gourmet,” the new smorgasbord of sensation from Britain’s preeminent oddball Peter Strickland, is all about personal expression (read our review). And not just in the artistic sense, though the film does take place at the prestigious Sonic Catering Institute, where experimental music groups receive funding and support for their work generating blizzards of feedback by plugging modular synthesizers into food. The characters are expressed in the same way a dog’s glands might be, stretched to their limits so that the pent-up stuff festering inside them can get out.

Continue reading ‘Flux Gourmet’: Peter Strickland On Taboos, Kink & Finding The Dignity In Flatulence & Gastronomical Problems [Interview] at The Playlist.

Author Neil Gaiman is no stranger to film and television, and several of his works have made it to screens both big and small over the years. Among them are 2009’s “Coraline,” Starz‘s 2015 series of “American Gods,” and Matthew Vaughn‘s 2007 take on “Stardust.” Yet none of those carry the same popularity as Gaiman’s most beloved work, “The Sandman,” the DC Comics series from 1989-1996.  

READ MORE: ‘The Sandman’ First Look Video Teaser: Neil Gaimon’s Iconic Comic Book Series Finally Comes Alive 

And now, after decades of clamor for an adaptation of the beloved comic, fans finally get their wish.

Continue reading ‘The Sandman’ Trailer: Neil Gaiman’s Classic Comic Book Comes To Netflix On August 5 at The Playlist.

“I wanted to write something devoted to the disruptions of the stomach.” Peter Strickland may be the only director who could say something like that and really mean it. After all, he is the master of minutia filmmaking, creating certified head-spinners and sensual dreamscapes from cursed red dresses (“In Fabric”), creepy audible quivers (“Berberian Sound Studio”), and lepidopterologically-charged S&M (“The Duke of Burgundy”).

Continue reading ‘Flux Gourmet’ Trailer: Peter Strickland Creates New Gastronomical & Soundscape Horrors at The Playlist.

Just as the Tiktok-ers and Instagrammites of the world had completed the mainstreaming of ASMR, master of the tactile Peter Strickland has returned to restore the unsettling, alien quality to sensation. In “Flux Gourmet,” his latest and most bizarre film — a hotly contested title he earns with this feverish stew of murdered turtles, torrid orgies, and heartrending fart-tending — texture is everything. The experimental performance group of Billy Rubin (Asa Butterfield), Elle di Elle (Fatma Mohamed, mesmerizing), and Lamina Propria (Ariane Labed) obsess over every little growl and crunch of feedback in the avant-garde music pieces they generate by plugging modular synthesizers into assorted foodstuffs.

Continue reading ‘Flux Gourmet’ Review: Peter Strickland Delivers Sensory Overload In His Most Bizarre, Possibly Best, Film [Berlin Film Festival] at The Playlist.

Outré horror maestro Peter Strickland is back. The filmmaker behind such Eurotica, vintage, throwback classics such as “Berberian Sound Studio” (2012), “The Duke of Burgundy” (2014), and “In Fabric” (2018), returns to the Berlin Film Festival this week (today, in fact), with his latest deliciously bizarro offering, “Flux Gourmet.” The premise? Something like beef within the culinary/sonic art collective world and a whole set of egos and intestinal issues.

Continue reading ‘Flux Gourmet’ Exclusive Poster: Peter Strickland’s Wild New Film Gets Some Beautiful Art To Accompany Its Berlin Debut at The Playlist.

British outré filmmaker Peter Strickland is stuck in the past in the very best sense of the phrase. Whether he’s making eerie, giallo throwback pictures (“Berberian Sound Studio”), psychedelic softcore fetish control movies (“The Duke Of Burgundy”), or strange, bizarre horrors that are a mix of English kitchen-sink realism and ghoulish creepiness (“In Fabric”), Strickland is continuously creating some kind of vintage, throwback picture with heavy nods to the ’60s and ’70s of erotic, kink, strange, and left-of-center cinema.

Continue reading ‘Flux Gourmet’ Teaser Trailer: Peter Strickland Returns With A New Gastronomical Horror at The Playlist.

As comic books and fantasy have become more central to the culture, author Neil Gaiman has become one of its most popular and prolific figures. His novels “Stardust,” “Coraline,” “American Gods,” and “Good Omens” have all been adapted into successful film and TV projects. But the comic book series that many fans consider his most famous work has remained conspicuously absent from the screen.

Continue reading ‘The Sandman’ First Look Video Teaser: Neil Gaiman’s Iconic Comic Book Series Finally Comes Alive at The Playlist.

Neil Gaiman’s popular comic book series, “The Sandman,” has been in development as a film or TV series for years now. Lots of different actors have come and go and studios have flirted with ways to bring the characters to life. But now, it appears that Netflix is definitely going to be the place where “The Sandman” comes to life, as the streaming service announced the primary cast for Gaiman’s TV adaptation.

Continue reading ‘Sandman’: Netflix Unveils New Cast Including Tom Sturridge, Gwendoline Christie, Boyd Holbrook, Charles Dance & More at The Playlist.

Director Armando Iannucci—known for his biting political satires— approaches his newest film “The Personal History of David Copperfield” by employing colorblind casting in an earnest yet meandering reworking of Charles Dickens’ novel. The titular character opens the film on stage in a tiny theater, performing a live reading of his autobiography. His novel, told through voiceover, becomes the meta framing device in Copperfield’s retelling of his life—from childhood memories to his teenage years in a bid to make peace with his humble origins in a classist 1840’s London.

Continue reading ‘The Personal History Of David Copperfield’: Dev Patel Leads Armando Iannucci’s Disappointing Dickens Adaptation [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

It’s always good practice to be your own biggest cheerleader. Whether it’s in your job or just life, in general, you should always be proud of your accomplishments and not be afraid to put yourself out there for recognition. Apparently, that’s sometimes exactly what you have to do to get an Emmy nomination, as well. At least for some of the cast of “Game of Thrones,” that is.

According to THR, three castmembers of the massive HBO series “Game of Thrones” self-submitted for Emmy consideration after HBO didn’t submit.

Continue reading Gwendoline Christie Among 3 ‘Game Of Thrones’ Actors That Landed Emmy Noms From Self-Submission After HBO Didn’t Enter Them at The Playlist.

The first domino of the fall festival season has dropped with the announcement that Armando Iannucci’s “The Personal History of David Copperfield” is set to open the 63rd BFI London Film Festival on Oct. 2. What’s noteworthy about “David Copperfield’s” premiere is that it is strictly a “European” one meaning its world premiere should occur at either the Telluride or Toronto International Film Festivals in September. Considering Iannucci’s last film, “The Death of Stalin,” debuted at TIFF in 2017, we’re betting on the later.

Continue reading ‘Personal History Of David Copperfield’ Will Open 2019 London Film Festival at The Playlist.

Over the course of only three feature-length films, writer and director Peter Strickland has established himself as a master of suspense, sound, atmosphere, and pacing. Influenced by Italian giallo, softcore erotic, ’60s psychedelia, and groovy, mondo exotic outre cinema, Strickland’s really one of a compared to any of his contemporaries.

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2019

His self-financed revenge film “Katalin Varga” featured a heightened soundscape that ranged from ominous wind, to crickets, to lonesome goat bells.

Continue reading ‘In Fabric’ Trailer: Peter Strickland Crafts A Kooky Psychedelic Horror About A Killer Dress at The Playlist.

When you play the game of thrones, you win, or you die. Or…you guess the correct ending to the game and live to lovingly pen the story of your knight, slain in shining armor. We can neither confirm nor deny if Gwendoline Christie has the prophetic power of the three-eyed raven, but either way, it turns out that her premonitions about the series’ finale came true.

READ MORE: The 50 Most Anticipated TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2019 

“I thought it would be Bran because I thought it would be the least likely person,” Christie told Indiewire this week of her predictions made months earlier.

Continue reading Gwendoline Christie Predicted The ‘Game of Thrones’ Ending at The Playlist.

Watching Jane Campion stumble through the second season of her SundanceTV series, “Top of the Lake: China Girl,” means watching an imminently talented and self-assured storyteller misplace her self-assurance. In keeping with its first season, “Top of the Lake’s” craftsmanship remains stellar in its second; Campion’s eye for impeccable visuals hasn’t faded. Also in keeping with the first season is her high standard for performance. No single actor in her ensemble cast slacks, or slouches, or otherwise impedes the production.

Continue reading Jane Campion’s ‘Top of the Lake: China Girl’ Can’t Match The First Season [Review] at The Playlist.

Let’s go through the checklist. 1: Jane Campion is one of my favorite working filmmakers; 2: The only other time she collaborated with megastar Nicole Kidman, she made “The Portrait Of A Lady,” which I’ll defend to all comers as the underrated masterpiece in both women’s catalogues; 3: I’ve extolled the virtues of Elisabeth Moss as an actress so much recently (especially in relation to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and most recently for her small, terrific role in Ruben Östlund‘s “The Square“) that I’m a little sick of hearing my own fawning praise; and 4: “Top Of The Lake” season 1 was one of the best TV shows I’ve watched in the last few years — knotty, atmospheric, noirish and novelistic.

Continue reading Jane Campion’s ‘Top Of The Lake: China Girl’ With Elisabeth Moss & Nicole Kidman Gets Off To An Uneven Start [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

The return of “Top of the Lake” has been a long time coming. The first season aired in the U.S. in March of 2013 and centered around Sydney-based detective Robin Griffith (Elisabeth Moss) who returned home to a remote part of New Zealand to uncover a large crime ring, as well as her own secret past. The series, created by Jane Campion and Gerard Lee, was a beautiful examination of the disturbing underbelly of an atmospheric small town, and thankfully, we have more to look forward to.

Continue reading Elisabeth Moss Searches For The Truth In First Trailer For ‘Top Of The Lake: China Girl’ at The Playlist.

Even in this era of never dying franchises it’s somewhat remarkable just how long the “Absolutely Fabulous” train has lasted.  The UK TV series began in 1992 and within two years became a cult hit in he U.S. (largely with gay audiences) on a little cable upstart network at the time, Comedy Central. In the years that followed “AbFab,” as it was referred to, became one of the BBC’s biggest exports spawning Pet Shop Boys club hits and two failed attempts at an American television incarnation. 

Continue reading ‘Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie’ Is Frustratingly More Like Abso-Sort-Of Fabulous [Review] at The Playlist.

'Game Of Thrones' Star Gwendoline Christie And More Join 'Top Of The Lake' Season 2 With Elisabeth Moss

Continue reading ‘Game Of Thrones’ Star Gwendoline Christie And More Join ‘Top Of The Lake’ Season 2 With Elisabeth Moss at The Playlist.

'Game Of Thrones' Creators & Cast Discuss The Shocking Season 4 Finale

Continue reading ‘Game Of Thrones’ Creators & Cast Discuss The Shocking Season 4 Finale at The Playlist.

Keanu Reeves Joins Eli Roth's 'Knock Knock,' Benicio Del Toro Joins Denis Villeneuve's 'Sicario' & More

Continue reading Keanu Reeves Joins Eli Roth’s ‘Knock Knock,’ Benicio Del Toro Joins Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Sicario’ & More at The Playlist.