Director Panos Cosmatos is developing a reputation for films that are visual experiences that almost feel like acid trips. He’s helmed projects like “Beyond The Black Rainbow” and the equally bonkers Nicolas Cage-led revenge film “Mandy.” It was only a matter of time before Cosmatos would find a project that would catch the interest of A24 Films, a studio that is known for weird and quirky genre pictures.

Continue reading ‘Mandy’s Panos Cosmatos To Direct Sci-Fi Fantasy Film ‘Nekrokosm’ At A24 at The Playlist.

Maybe it’s time to let the old ways of this almost-finished decade die, yeah? But it wouldn’t be complete without our deep dive into the best soundtracks and scores of the 2010s. It’s admittedly somewhat weird and difficult to do. Scores and soundtracks are different beasts; one original musical written for a film that gives it its emotional shape—often the secret MVP of a movie—and the other more of a mixtape, but when well-curated and used next to picture, can be just as deadly and help craft what we know as the visual and aural transcendence that’s known as cinema when it’s at its best.

Continue reading The Best Soundtracks & Scores Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

The 2010s felt like a banner decade for the horror genre. It’s difficult to say that definitively as time is the only thing that can really make that distinction, but as the decade comes to a close, it feels like one that is going to be held up as a “golden era.”

READ MORE: The 25 Best Foreign Language Horror Movies Of All Time

It’s easy to understand why. After a decade filled with remakes, cheap, careless gunk from the likes of Dark Castle and Platinum Dunes, and the “torture porn” movement that metastasized from taking the extreme violence out of the “French New Extremity” (at least in mainstream horror), audiences were yearning for something more adventurous, and filmmakers were more than happy to oblige.

Continue reading The Best Horror Movies Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

Here, we are, living the last day of 2018, and for many, it’s good riddance to this year. 2018, which went on for approximately, 1,324 days, seemed to have a ton of ups, but perhaps even more downs, especially outside of the entertainment industry (let’s not go there, however). That said, we have spent a fair amount of time breaking down the very best the year had to offer, from a variety of different angles.

Continue reading Our 12 New Year’s Wishes & Resolutions For The Film/TV Industry In 2019 at The Playlist.

2018 left audiences with moments that will never be forgotten. Though this is the case most years, this one, in particular, left me with a swarming amount of images, sounds, and pieces of dialogue that have struck a chord within me unlike any other time before.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2018

From scenes that made my spine tingle and my skin crawl to those that made my heart float and my eyes swell with tears, there were so many striking moments to choose from, but not enough room to write.

Continue reading Kyle Kohner’s Top 10 Film Moments Of 2018 at The Playlist.

The season for top 10s is almost up—though you’ll forgive us if any of our best of 2018 picks bleed into 2019, because hell, we’ve been working non-stop—but there is no real clock, and the top 10s are still rolling in as people catch up with films.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2018

In a really, long extensive list, Indiewire has reached out to and garnered picks (though sometimes just thoughts, see Alfonso Cuaron), and amassed some top 10 personal lists from many filmmakers.

Continue reading Guillermo Del Toro & Edgar Wright’s 2018 Top 10 Films Includes ‘Roma,’ ‘Mandy,’ ‘First Reformed’ & More at The Playlist.

Over 20 years after winning an Oscar for Best Actor, 2018 brought what many believe to be Nicolas Cage’s best performance yet with “Mandy.” The horror-thriller became an instant classic among genre fans for its incredible visuals and utilizing Cage’s more eccentric sensibilities in a perfect way. Much of that is thanks to the direction from Panos Cosmatos. And according to a recent interview, the director hints that we might not have seen the last of him and Cage collaborating.

Continue reading Don’t Worry ‘Mandy’ Fans, Panos Cosmatos Would Love To Work With Nicolas Cage Again at The Playlist.

Welcome to the 2018 edition of bad takes! Some traditions are noble and entertaining, and some, like this annual feature where we poll individual writers and ask them about their subjective picks for the most overrated and underrated films of the year, are neither. This feature is the one that we call internally, the Give ‘Em Enough Rope piece and let me tell you that many make ample use of the cord and noose. Sometimes there are wildly wrong hot takes, but other times just a fundamentally misguided understanding of what constitutes an overrated or underrated film, no matter how much possible editorial guidance you can give.

Continue reading The Most Underrated & Overrated Films Of 2018 at The Playlist.

Making a Top 10 list at the end of the year is difficult. It’s also superfluous. So much time is spent cramming in last-minute films that you’ve missed throughout the year for the chance to put it on your list, when there are already many great films that you’ve spent at least half the year reflecting on and digesting. Tastes are fluid and ever-changing, and you may bump something off your list that you just watched, only to find that six months down the road that the shine on that film has worn off.

Continue reading Ryan Oliver’s Top 25 Films Of 2018 [Video] at The Playlist.

As the year races to a close, we’re all on the verge of killing each other, at least on Film Twitter. Everyone’s ornery as we sprint to make those deadlines, but before we declare war on one another, remember we still have inspiring and movie music to celebrate and soothe us. In crafting this piece over the years – Best Soundtracks and Scores – we’ve discovered it’s one of the most soothing, one of the best balms of the end of the year.

Continue reading The 20 Best Film Soundtracks & Scores Of 2018 at The Playlist.

Horror films were more than just merely alive in 2018; they were thriving. Given that every day is a nightmarish horror show that none of us can escape from regardless of how long and loud we scream for help, it may come as a surprise that the genre is flourishing. Then again, if you take even one side-eyed glance at the history of horror, you’ll find that it has been historically one of the most reliable film genres in times of crises.

Continue reading The 20 Best Horror Films Of 2018 at The Playlist.

2018 saw the passing of a cinematography legend in Robby Müller, a regular collaborator of Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch, who with his work on “Paris, Texas,” “Down By Law,” “Dead Man” and Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves” was responsible, perhaps more than anyone, for defining and expanding the aesthetics of the 1980s and 1990s arthouse. It is a sad note in a year that has been otherwise a banner year for the craft he perfected and elevated, and so as our small tribute, we dedicate our list of the Best Cinematography of 2018 to him.

Continue reading The Best Cinematography of 2018 at The Playlist.

“Green Book,” “The Other Side of the Wind,” “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” and “Mandy” make for odd bedfellows. You see, if you were asked to tell someone the one thing that each of those four films shared in common, you’d probably be stumped. Well, if you guessed “All films that have their respective scores deemed ineligible for Oscar consideration by the Academy,” then you’re right!

Continue reading Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Final Score & Several Others Won’t Be Eligible For Oscar Consideration at The Playlist.

Karma, they say, is a bitch. Yet it must be down to some cosmic law of balance that as terrible as things have been on a daily basis in other spheres of life, 2018 has been among the most remarkable years for cinema in recent memory. Maybe it’s that the instability and uncertainty of the zeitgeist has ignited channels of creative expression that might have remained dormant in more complacent times; maybe it’s that 2-hour breaks from the constant blithering nonsense that is being alive in 2018 are precious even if you’re watching the “Overboard” remake.

Continue reading The 25 Best Films Of 2018 at The Playlist.

Trailer watching online has become something of a celebrity gossip sport. Will the ‘Avengers 4’ trailer arrive on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? Oops, it’s changed, sorry, it’s not arriving til Monday. First the trailer usurped the movie itself, and now the date of the trailer has usurped the trailer itself, which is of course just a commercial trying to convince you to see a movie which in some case is a piece of art and other times is a commercial for a larger film, bigger universe or next installment of what the studio really wants you to see.

Continue reading The 20 Best Movie Trailers Of 2018 at The Playlist.

Movie marketing can be a weird thing to celebrate, no doubt. Posters, trailer and all kinds of promotional materials are selling tools explicitly designed to captivate (dupe?) the broadest, biggest audiences into attending your movie. These materials are created to attract the most mouth-breathing-friendly flies which usually means, big, dumb, loud and in the case of many posters, a healthy dose of criminal Photoshop abuse. Sometimes that means an overwrought collage-diarrhea on a superhero poster where it appears that one character is inevitably flatulating out an explosion, or the designer is just visually impaired, and sometimes it’s just the most egregious concept of all time.

Continue reading The 20 Best Movie Posters Of 2018 at The Playlist.

It’s the end of 2018, and you know what that means — IndieWire senior critic David Ehrlich has released the annual supercut/countdown of his favorite films of the year. And as in previous years, there are some surprises, mostly in the ranking’s order. However, also, as in recent years, Ehrlich has crafted a video that utilizes music in a way that heightens what could be seen as a boring countdown.

From the moment “Total Eclipse of the Heart” begins, you know that you’re in for a treat.

Continue reading 2018 Year-End Countdown Features Some Of Film’s Best Moments at The Playlist.

“Mandy” is one of those films that comes once every few years that sneaks up on film fans and hits them over the head like a baseball bat of awesomeness. Utilizing all manic unpredictability of Nicolas Cage to its fullest potential, “Mandy” is less a film as it is an overall experience, akin to the scariest haunted houses that you’re visiting on Halloween.

READ MORE: Nicolas Cage Gives The Performance Of A Lifetime In Bizarre & Bloody ‘Mandy’ [Sundance Review]

And in honor of this week’s home video release of the batshit crazy horror film, we’re happy to offer readers the chance to win a copy of the film on Blu-ray.

Continue reading Contest: Win A Copy Of Nic Cage’s Best Film In Years ‘Mandy’ On Blu-Ray at The Playlist.

You guys, Nicolas Cage knows about your memes. He knows about “Cage Rage.” And frankly, he’s a bit annoyed by it.

In a new interview with IndieWire, the Academy Award-winning actor discusses the memes that have gone out of control and how it affects his most recent film, “Mandy,” as well as explaining his artistic inspirations for his wild performances.

First, let’s talk about “Cage Rage.” The Internet is exploding at the seams with Nicolas Cage-inspired memes, where his often-manic-looking characters accompany some sort of silly out-of-context quote.

Continue reading Nicolas Cage Is Frustrated By Your Memes And Compares His Acting To James Cagney & Bruce Lee at The Playlist.

Filmmaker Panos Cosmatos‘ “Mandy” is batshit crazy — and that is meant as the high compliment possible. This 120-minute hallucination into dreamy hell is visually stunning, and unlike anything, you’ve ever seen before. Yes, there are midnight movie tropes in the film; a chainsaw battle, an atmospheric soundtrack, and Nicolas Cage going completely bonkers by chugging a bottle of whiskey and snorting “cult coke,” but this revenge story, concocted from the deepest parts of Comsatos’ subconscious, is a unique brand of trippy surrealism.

Continue reading ‘Mandy’: Director Panos Cosmatos Talks Nicolas Cage & His Batsh*t Crazy Psyche-Metal Revenge Movie at The Playlist.

We can’t stress it enough, you really should go see this movie. On this episode of Adjust Your Tracking, Joe and I do what we love doing most on the podcast, gush our little movie nerd hearts out over a new film. We devote this whole episode to “Mandy,” an insanely enjoyable witches brew of pure genre exorcise mixed with arthouse moods and pretensions. It’s equal parts revenge narrative, love story, psychedelic drug movie and brooding dark fantasy with movie touchstones like “Mad Max,” “Hellraiser” and 1981’s animated “Heavy Metal” (and damn if this isn’t just flat-out METAL in every sense of the word).

Continue reading Tripping Over ‘Mandy’: The Insane(ly) Awesome New Nicolas Cage Movie You Should Be Dying To See [AYT Podcast] at The Playlist.

Welcome to another edition of The Playlist Podcast, and boy, do we have a show for you guys. I’m joined by Editor-in-Chief Rodrigo Perez to delve into our Fall Movie Preview, as well as films on the Festival Circuit that we’re anticipating that may or may not get a Fall 2018 release.

READ MORE: 55 Must-See Films: The 2018 Fall Movie Preview 

As evident by our massive Fall Movie Preview, there are so many films to get excited about in the coming months.

Continue reading The Most Anticipated Films For What’s Left Of 2018 & The Fall Film Festival Preview [Podcast] at The Playlist.

I can’t lie and pretend to be the biggest film score nerd around, but I like to think I know a good score from a bad one. And while I might not know all the composers working today, I am very familiar with the work by the late, great Jóhann Jóhannsson. The composer, whose life was tragically cut short earlier this year, was the man behind the incredible scores of such films like “Prisoners,” “The Theory of Everything,” “Sicario,” “Arrival,” “Blade Runner 2049,” and the upcoming “Mandy.” Needless to say, the Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated musician created a legacy that is hard to top.

Continue reading Listen To An Exclusive Preview Of The ‘Mandy’ Soundtrack, Composer Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Final Work at The Playlist.

Montreal has no shortage of film festivals occupying its calendar, but the Fantasia International Film Festival occupies a privileged position in local festival-goers’ hearts. It’s also the city’s film event with the largest reach, boasting a number of World and International Premieres as well as Canadian debuts. 2014’s “Unfriended“—then called “Cybernatural“—is one such breakout, and its sequel, “Unfriended: Dark Web,” will be at this year’s edition alongside a masterclass by producer Timur Bekmambetov.

Continue reading Fantasia International Film Festival 2018: 5 Films To Watch at The Playlist.

Following the critical acclaim it received out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, RLJE Films has now released the first trailer for “Mandy,” the vehement Nicolas Cage-led thriller from Italian-born director Panos Cosmatos. Amidst his generally considered meme-status in Hollywood, Nicolas Cage is often underestimated; the immediate write-off is an unfortunate oversight, to say the least, as Cage every so often puts his most passionate foot forward in his projects (for better or for worse).

Continue reading ‘Mandy’ Trailer: Nicolas Cage Brings His Well-Known Energy To Perhaps His Best Performance Yet at The Playlist.