Back in March, news broke that Vanessa Kirby would reunite with her “The Crown” director Benjamin Caron for the new Netflix pic “Night Always Comes.”  Now we know who’ll join the actress onscreen, and it’s quite the ensemble.  

READ MORE: ‘The Night Always Comes’: Vanessa Kirby & Director Benjamin Caron Reunite For Portland-Set Noir Drama At Netflix

Jennifer Jason Leigh, Zack Gottsagen, Stephan James, Julia Fox, Eli Roth, Randall Park, and Michael Kelly will join Kirby in the upcoming film a thriller centered on America’s current housing crisis.

Continue reading ‘Night Always Comes’: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephan James, Julia Fox, Randall Park & More Join Vanessa Kirby In Upcoming Netflix Thriller at The Playlist.

Take three parts “Chinatown,” two parts “The Big Lebowski,” one part “Under The Silver Lake,” and an extra dash of zaniness, and what do you get? Something like “Poolman,” Chris Pine‘s directorial debut that makes its theatrical debut in May, fresh off its world premiere at TIFF last Fall.

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2024

And how did “Poolman” fare with critics at Toronto?

Continue reading ‘Poolman’ Trailer: Chris Pine’s Directorial Debut Hits Theaters On May 10 at The Playlist.

After an ambitious fourth season in 2020 that arguably drifted into something different from what Noah Hawley had produced before in his Coen Brothers-inspired “Fargo,” the fifth chapter of this twisted anthology series returns to the roots of the film that gives it a title. It’s as if Hawley and his team put some of the basic elements of the 1996 Oscar winner on a whiteboard—kidnapped housewife, pair of bumbling criminals (one foreign), car salesman husband, kindly Minnesotan police officer, etc.—and then figured out how to warp them through their funhouse mirror approach to Coen-esque black comedy.

Continue reading ‘Fargo’ Review: Noah Hawley’s Critical Darling Returns To Its Roots With Timely, Funny Fifth Season at The Playlist.

FX has a stacked release calendar this Fall, but no title may be more anticipated than “Fargo” Year 5. The limited series features a new cast every season, as well as a new set of droll crimes escapades set in the Minnesota and North Dakota region.

READ MORE: Fall 2023 TV Preview: Over 35+ Anticipated Shows To Watch

And “Fargo” Season 5 is no different.

Continue reading ‘Fargo’ Season 5 Trailer: The Fifth Installment Of FX’s Crime Limited Series With Jon Hamm & Juno Temple Premieres On November 21 at The Playlist.

Nearly three years have passed since David Weil’s bombastic Holocaust revenge series, “Hunters,” debuted on Prime Video to decidedly mixed reviews. The Auschwitz Memorial didn’t hold back when they leveled criticism at the project, calling its depiction of a game of human chess “dangerous foolishness & caricature.” Primarily set in the 1970s, Weil’s story showcases a group of vigilantes on the hunt for Nazis who escaped justice at the end of WWII.

Continue reading ‘Hunters’ Season 2 Review: Jennifer Jason Leigh Is A Welcome Addition To A More Measured Revenge Plan at The Playlist.

Actor/writer/director Lena Dunham’s career goes something like this: dazzle everyone with her DIY, lo-fi indie debut “Tiny Furniture,” impress Judd Apatow with that film and get HBO to greenlight “Girls.” That honest coming-of-age series becomes the talk of television for at least five of its six seasons; then, she becomes something of a pariah on social media in the early days of Twitter for TMI over-sharing.

Continue reading ‘Sharp Stick’ Trailer: Lena Dunham Provocatively Prods In A Coming Of Sexual Age Drama Arriving July 29 at The Playlist.

Just when you’re convinced that there is no way FX is going to do another “Fargo” season, the network turns around and gives Noah Hawley the greenlight for a new batch of episodes. And now, as Season 5 of “Fargo,” which was announced back in February, gears up for production, we’re starting to get an idea of which actors will be leading the new ensemble. 

READ MORE: FX Bringing Back ‘Fargo’ For A Fifth Season

According to THR, “Fargo” Season 5 will be led by actors Juno Temple, Jon Hamm, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Continue reading ‘Fargo’ Season 5 Adds Juno Temple, Jon Hamm & Jennifer Jason Leigh To Its Cast at The Playlist.

Playing in the Premieres section of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, “Sharp Stick,” produced during lockdown, was conceived by Lena Dunham and the film’s director of photography, Ashley Connor, starting from the base elements that were already available to them — namely a set of actors and locations. But while many quarantine-made films have appeared to embrace a “will this do?” aesthetic, implicitly relying on the audience’s sympathy and compassionate understanding to fill gaps and forgive compromises in production value, Dunham has instead created a work of art that comfortably fits within and plays with the limitations imposed by the pandemic.

Continue reading ‘Sharp Stick’ Review: Lena Dunham’s Provocative Tale of Sexual Awakening Tackles Thorny Material with Compassion [Sundance] at The Playlist.

While there are always a lot of news that comes up regarding Quentin Tarantino films, particularly when it comes to his dialogue and use of gore and violence, after the debut of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” there was a bit of a surprising controversy surrounding the filmmaker’s depiction of Bruce Lee. In a film that seems to celebrate filmmaking and actors of decades gone by, many people noticed Tarantino didn’t necessarily showcase Bruce Lee in the best light, as he came off as an arrogant asshole (Lee’s widow, Linda Lee, criticized the film and Tarantino, at the time).

Continue reading Quentin Tarantino On The Bruce Lee Controversy In ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’: Other Than The Family, People Can “Suck A D*ck” at The Playlist.

Since the show debuted back in 2017, Netflix’s “Atypical” has grown into a bit of a critical darling for the streaming platform. Centered around eighteen-year-old Sam and his family as he navigates coming of age with Autism, audiences initially met the show with criticism for its lack of more cast and crew with ASD. Critics and audiences alike have taken to how “Atypical” has evolved over the past four years, though.

Continue reading ‘Atyptical: Season 4’ Trailer: The Final Season Of Fan-Favorite Netflix Show Comes July 9th at The Playlist.

“Lisey’s Story” is unmistakably a writer’s miniseries, so much that it romances a rough draft. It has immense range, touching upon every shade of darkness within the human spirit. But it has little tact in how it expresses its themes, other than including them all into the same story and letting them fight for space. Rampant metaphors, reflecting pools, extensive flashbacks, non-chronological storylines, scavenger hunts, and self-references are all thrown in; everything has a grandiose significance, whether it’s effective or not.

Continue reading ‘Lisey’s Story’: Pablo Larrain, Julianne Moore & Clive Owen Try To Sift Through The Fog Of Stephen King’s Surreal Nightmare [Review] at The Playlist.

“Solos” is one of those projects that historians will look at years from now and instantly recognize as a COVID-19 production. One or two actors performing in one closed set and a short story that finds them mostly speaking to themselves or, in some cases, other versions of themselves. And, despite the participation of Helen Mirren, Anthony Mackie, Constance Wu, Anne Hathaway, Morgan Freeman, and Uzo Aduba, among others, it suffers the worst sin; it’s simply a bore.

Continue reading David Weil Launches ‘Solos’ & Talks Jennifer Jason Leigh Joining ‘Hunters’ Season 2 [Interview] at The Playlist.

While Quentin Tarantino is still yet to announce his plans for his 10th and possibly final feature film, the filmmaker does have plans. Currently, he’s set to release a novelization of “Once Upon A Time In…Hollywood” this summer, expanding upon the Oscar-winning film. Quentin has talked up about the idea of retiring from film once he’s made his 10th pic to focus on writing books and working on television.

Continue reading Jennifer Jason Leigh To Narrate Audiobook Version Of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ Novelization at The Playlist.

Plus ‘Crestone,’ ‘F.T.A.,’ ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,’ ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High,’ ‘Merrily We Go to Hell,’ ‘Trances,’ ‘Masculin Feminin,’ ‘Smile,’ ‘The Hot Spot,’ ‘Tank,’ ‘Sweet Liberty,’ ‘All-American Murder,’ ‘The Cellar,’ ‘Winterbeast,’ ‘Horizons West,’ and ‘The Wages of Sin.’

Continue reading The Best Movies To Buy Or Stream This Week: ‘The Good, The Bad & The Ugly,’ ‘The Mitchells Vs. The Machines’ & More at The Playlist.

Movies about disasters have evolved quite a bit since their heyday twenty-five years ago. Since 1997’s volcanic one-two punch of “Dante’s Peak” and “Volcano” and 1998’s similar two-fister of “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon,” the genre has both expanded its scale and deepened its scope. “The Day After Tomorrow” and “2012” show the entire planet devastated by cataclysm.

Continue reading ‘Awake’ Trailer: Sleep Is Survival & It’s Gina Rodriguez Vs. The Apocalypse On Netflix In June at The Playlist.

Remember a few weeks ago, when we reported that Lena Dunham was returning to the director’s chair of a feature film for the first time in 11 years for the upcoming project, “Catherine, Called Birdy?” Yeah, apparently, that’s not the truth. Yes, the film is still happening, but it’s not Dunham’s first film since “Tiny Furniture.” You see, she went ahead and filmed a secret feature over the past several months, titled “Sharp Stick.”

According to Variety, Dunham has finished production on her new film, “Sharp Stick,” and is bringing the film to the European Film Market to find distribution.

Continue reading ‘Sharp Stick’: Lena Dunham Secretly Directed Her First Film In A Decade at The Playlist.

Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on-demand, vintage and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, catalog titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This weekly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching. 

This week, we’ve got two late-2019 releases that didn’t get their due in the year-end mudslide, plus a sharp bio-documentary, one of the previous decade’s best action flicks, and an undervalued late-period entry from one cinema’s true masters.

Continue reading The 5 Best Movies To Buy Or Stream This Week: ‘Dark Waters,’ ‘Queen & Slim’ & More at The Playlist.

One of the most cringe-worthy things you can see in film or TV is when an actor attempts to play someone with mental illness or physical disabilities. Most of the time, the actor tries so hard to replicate the mannerisms and symptoms that they overdo it and it almost ventures into the realm of parody. Thankfully, “Atypical” is a series that treats its lead character, who is on the autism spectrum, in a respectful way, while maintaining the humor and heart that has made it one of Netflix’s best series.

Continue reading ‘Atypical’ Season 3 Trailer: Netflix’s Breakout Family Comedy Returns In November at The Playlist.

TELLURIDE – What happened to Richard Wershe Jr. isn’t great. As a 14-year-old he somehow found himself working as an informant for the FBI. Within three years he was making significant money as a low-level drug dealer in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. And after that? Well, feel free to Google it to find out or you can catch a version of Rick’s life in Yann Demange’s “White Boy Rick” which debuted at the 2018 Telluride Film Festival this past weekend.

Continue reading ‘White Boy Rick’ Can’t Quite Connect The Dots [Telluride Review] at The Playlist.

Screenwriter turned writer/director Alex Garland (“Ex Machina“) pulls off a phenomenal, biochemical magic trick in the luminescent “Annihilation.” In his lab, the ingenious filmmaker trickles eyedropper notions of the molecular, the psychological, the metaphysical and the celestial into a dish, swirls his finger into this ribonucleic soup and produces a dazzling and disorienting mindbender of the highest order. Garland’s latest — a measured, but mesmerizing dramatic sci-fi thriller about self-imposed devastation — cements his status as a modern auteur and a virtuoso of forming vivid, visceral and out-of-body experiences.

Continue reading ‘Annihilation’: Alex Garland Creates A Spellbinding Sci-Fi Masterpiece [Review] at The Playlist.

Last week, we got a brief introduction to “Patrick Melrose,” and now we get a full handshake and business card from the upcoming limited series. Benedict Cumberbatch takes the titular lead role, which looks like the kind of showcase part — lots of big moments and big emotions — that most actors would kill for.

The five episode series will track the life of Patrick Melrose, a messed up adult, with various addictions, who tries to go clean and face his troubled past.

Continue reading ‘Patrick Melrose’ Trailer: Benedict Cumberbatch Tries To Sober Up at The Playlist.

Alcoholics can be very colorful characters to play, and Benedict Cumberbatch leans hard into the portrayal of a charming asshole in “Patrick Melrose.” He’s even got an eye-patch! But this limited series does promise a bit of depth as it explores the titular character as he descent into addiction and his path to recovery.

Co-starring Hugo Weaving, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anna Madeley, Allison Williams and Blythe Danner (hey, pretty good cast!), the five-part series explores Patrick’s life, from this troubled childhood to his… well, troubled adulthood, and eventually his attempts to become a better person.

Continue reading ‘Patrick Melrose’ Trailer: Benedict Cumberbatch Is A Narcissistic, Schizoid, Suicidal Alcoholic at The Playlist.

Whenever a movie comes out that is based on a book, it invites (or necessitates) comparison to its source material. That is, did the transfer in medium result in some falling off? In some ways, the person best-equipped to answer that very question is the author of the book, itself. And so, it’s probably pretty damn significant that Jeff VanderMeer, the author of the 2014 novel “Annihilation,” says this about the upcoming movie of the same name: “I can tell you it’s mind-blowing, surreal, extremely beautiful, extremely horrific, and it was so tense that our bodies felt sore and beat-up afterwards.” That sounds like high praise to me.

Continue reading ‘Annihilation’ Trailer: The Laws Of Nature Are Turned Upside Down at The Playlist.

Over the course of 2014, like a creeping virus, the three novels of Jeff VanderMeer’s “Southern Reach” Trilogy, beginning with “Annihilation,” invaded bookstores one after the other. These profoundly unsettling and thought-provoking books portrayed a part of the United States permanently altered by a possibly extraterrestrial organic intelligence and subsequently sealed off by the Army. Eschewing the more familiar tropes of modern sci-fi, the books reach back to the weird fiction of Lovecraft and others to create a monster terrifying in how utterly unlike humanity it is, whose inconceivable difference threatens to distort everything around and inside of the protagonist.

Continue reading Natalie Portman Enters the Unknown In Amazing Trailer For ‘Annihilation’ [Watch] at The Playlist.

**Turn back now if your log is afraid of spoilers. I would also like to add that I haven’t recapped  “Twin Peaks” since episode six of The Return and therefore, yes, while I’ve watched it, you’re going to have to bear with me as I don’t know the super details as much as the next person**

It seems like every episode of “Twin Peaks” is either its most surreal, its most nightmarish or its most absurd.

Continue reading ‘Twin Peaks’: Electrical Currents Deliver Awakenings & Goodbyes at The Playlist.