As we close out another year of film and TV watching at The Playlist, it’s time to talk about the area of viewing that is often neglected by Best Of lists. These are the films and TV series that we love watching, but not only are they never going to be featured in a Top 10 list, but they’re also likely too embarrassing to even admit to anyone else, for fear of the Film Twitter mob picking on you.

Continue reading The Playlist’s Guilty Pleasures Of 2022 at The Playlist.

It’s been a while since Ana Lily Amirpour‘s one-two punch of “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” and “The Bad Batch” made her a woman filmmaker to watch. But five years passed between “The Bad Batch” and the world premiere of Amirpour’s latest at Venice last year. Has everyone forgotten about her? It’s time to find out, as “Mona Lisa And The Blood Moon” finally hits theaters and Digital On-Demand at the end of the month.

Continue reading New ‘Mona Lisa And The Blood Moon’ Clip: Ana Lily Amirpour’s Latest Finally Hits Theaters On September 30 at The Playlist.

“I knew something freaky was going to happen tonight,” Kate Hudson says in the new trailer for “Mona Lisa And The Blood Moon.” “With a full moon, I feel it in my ovaries, I swear to god.” The film is the latest hallucinogenic nightmare from Ana Lily Amirpour, known for the celebrated indies “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” and “The Bad Batch.” 

Starring Kate Hudson, Jun Jong Seo, Ed Skrein, Evan Whitten, and Craig Robinson, ‘Blood Moon’ has been described as a “mind-bending adventure set in the humid, neon-lit streets of New Orleans.

Continue reading ‘Mona Lisa And The Blood Moon’ Trailer: Kate Hudson & Jun Jong Seo Star In Ana Lily Amirpour’s Crazy New Trip at The Playlist.

The new year has come, which means awards season speculation and Best-Of lists run rampant before the cycle begins all over again, albeit a little belatedly this year (we needed a break!) Sundance starts next week, the Festival moving online/virtual again this year with the surge in post-holiday Omicron cases. In some ways, the Oscar game often kicks off in Park City, unofficially, critically acclaimed titles like “Coda,” often first making their mark on a potential awards run.

Continue reading The 20 Best Films Of 2022 We’ve Already Seen at The Playlist.

Like finding a grubby, balled-up bill in your spangly g-string and uncrumpling it to discover doughy old Ben Franklin staring benignly back at you, Ana Lily Amirpour‘s third feature is a sweet, scuzzy surprise made all the sweeter/scuzzier because you don’t know quite what you did to deserve it. Certainly, at the Venice Film Festival –where “Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon” snuck into competition – giggling into one’s mask at its garish but gladhearted genre excesses felt like getting away with something naughty.

Continue reading Ana Lily Amirpour’s ‘Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon’ is a Sweet, Scuzzy Blast of Pure Escapism [Venice Review] at The Playlist.

It’s late August, and while the leaves aren’t falling just quite yet, the Fall Film Festival season is upon us. As usual, the Venice Film Festival always starts with the Telluride Film Festival following on its heels just a day or two later. Venice’s line-up has been stellar the last few years—in part due to Netflix’s ongoing battle with Cannes and their French theatrical rules—and this year is mostly no different.

Continue reading Venice Film Festival 2021 Preview: 12 Must-See Films To Watch at The Playlist.

Every year is a good year to stan female directors, but 2021 has cooked us up a real feast. Acting veterans like Rebecca Hall, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robin Wright, and Halle Berry are finally claiming their director’s chairs on feature films, while arthouse icon Jane Campion is returning to hers after 12 years. Foreign language directors like Lucile Hadžihalilović and Ildikó Enyedi are making their English-language debuts, and French juggernaut Mélanie Laurent is working on two releases back to back.

Continue reading 52 Films Directed By Women To Watch In 2021 at The Playlist.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Aside from the election result, Trashfire 2020™ was a shitty year. And a weird and disorienting year thanks to COVID-19 and having to shelter-in-place, quarantine, and social distance from one another blah, blah, blah coronavirus f*cked us hard. Movies certainly took it in the teeth this year, and especially the theatrical industrial complex, which feels like it’s on its last legs. But regardless of what happens next for theaters, people are going to continue making and releasing movies.

Continue reading The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2021 at The Playlist.