Music! It is the beating soul beneath a film’s imagery, visuals, and performance. And one of the things we love most about writing about the Best Scores & Soundtracks of the year, in this case, 2022, is how it just makes us understand a film all over again on a deeper, more intuitive-level, especially when you’re just listening to a score or soundtrack on its own, without the context of a movie, and it’s just communicating so much to you.

Continue reading The Best Scores & Soundtracks Of 2022 at The Playlist.

We all love actors, directors, music, and all of it, but cinema is obviously a visual medium first and foremost, and boy, do we love a handsome, nice-to-look-at picture. Cinematography usually gets turned into “pretty pictures,” what is the most colorful, the most sun-dappled, etc. And sure, some of that is represented here (“Aftersun”), but what represents “Best Cinematography,” to us, should be as layered, complex, and meaningful as cinema itself.

Continue reading The Best Cinematography Of 2022 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 twice-monthly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching.

This week’s new release slate is a feast for 4K buyers, featuring recent favorites, all-time classics, and one of the great monster movies of the ’80s.

Continue reading The Best Movies To Buy Or Stream This Week: ‘Kimi,’ ‘Spencer,’ ‘Looper,’ & More at The Playlist.

When you call out for KIMI, both the sound and the substance of the voice are comforting. It’s a soft, female sound, providing an affirmation: “I’m here.” KIMI is a virtual assistant, like Siri and Alexa, but with the key difference of “people,” according to the CEO of the company that makes it. “We have actual people analyzing KIMI requests so we can continually update our understanding of how you communicate. Who you are. What you want.” Of course, they’re not actually making their customers’ lives easier – they’re just creating an illusion of ease, and the ubiquity of illusion is underscored when we see that CEO (Derek DelGaudio) finish his Zoom interview about the product, stand up to reveal the pajama pants under his suit top and leave the corner of his garage that he’s carefully arranged to look like a home office. 

Continue reading ‘KIMI’ Review: Steven Soderbergh’s Latest Is A Ruthlessly Efficient Pandemic-Era Thriller at The Playlist.

Just recently, we did a deep dive into the year-end list from Steven Soderbergh, where he breaks down all the films, TV shows, books, and other media he consumed over 2021. And in that list, we saw his production schedule for his new film “KIMI,” which wrapped up before the summer. Well, it appears that the film is now headed to HBO Max sooner than we anticipated. 

Continue reading ‘KIMI’ Trailer: Zoe Kravitz Stars In Steven Soderbergh’s New Film Arriving On HBO Max In February at The Playlist.

Steven Soderbergh fans, you know what time it is. Another new year brings us another new comprehensive “Seen, Read” list of films, TV series, books, plays, and other media consumed by the acclaimed filmmaker. And for the astute among us, it allows for speculation galore as we get a peek into the viewing habits of one of the best filmmakers working today. So, with that out of the way, what the hell did Steven Soderbergh watch in 2021. 

Continue reading Steven Soderbergh’s Still Loves ‘Panic Room,’ ‘Jaws’ & ‘Below Deck,’ According To His Annual ‘Seen, Read’ List at The Playlist.

2021 is almost coming to a close, 2022 is right around the corner, so it’s time for streamers and cable channels like HBO and HBO Max to start hawking their wares for next year. You’ve probably already seen our annual Most Anticipated TV Shows and Mini-Series of 2022 feature, and if some of that stuff seemed a little abstract, having no visual context, well, a lot of that has now arrived to help you orient yourself to what’s coming.

Continue reading HBO Max’s 2022 Teaser: First Looks At Taika Waititi’s ‘Our Flag Means Death,’ Elisabeth Olsen In ‘Love & Death’ & More at The Playlist.

Putting together the 100 Most Anticipated Films list is a beast in any year. Still, in the new accelerated age of streaming with HBO Max, Apple TV+, Amazon, Netflix, and all the new players popping up every single day, it seems, the task becomes more and more daunting and nearly impossible (we could have easily gone to 200 this year).

So we’re post-COVID, but oops, not-yet post-COVID, but somehow movies have survived, even if the theatrical market becomes a more challenging and riskier gambit.

Continue reading The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2022 at The Playlist.

When Steven Soderbergh first announced his next film, “Kimi,” with Zoe Kravitz for HBO Max — the one that’ll arrive after “No Sudden Move,” which is being released today, not much about it was known. It was dubbed a mystery thriller, written by veteran screenwriter David Koepp, and about an “agoraphobic tech worker that stumbles on some evidence of a violent crime over the course of a routine work project.” Intriguing but still slightly vague.

Continue reading Steven Soderbergh Says ‘Kimi’ Is A Cross Between ‘The Conversation,’ ‘Rear Window’ & ‘Panic Room’ at The Playlist.

Earlier today, we reported about Steven Soderbergh updating the progress of “The Knick” Season 3. This work is on top of putting the finishing touches on his upcoming crime film, “No Sudden Moves.” But we all know Soderbergh isn’t the type of filmmaker to let a moment go by without something else in the works. With that in mind, Deadline has reported that Soderbergh has already lined up his next collaboration with HBO Max, a new thriller titled “KIMI.”

READ MORE: Steven Soderbergh Updates ‘The Knick’ Season 3 Progress & Details Original Six-Season Time-Jumping Plan

According to the report, Steven Soderbergh’s next film, after the aforementioned “No Sudden Moves,” is set to be “KIMI,” a new mystery thriller starring none other than Zoe Kravitz.

Continue reading Steven Soderbergh Working With Zoe Kravitz On A New HBO Max Film, ‘KIMI’ at The Playlist.