If you want to understand why Hollywood is usually reluctant to greenlight R-rated, mainstream films, all you have to do is look at last year’s “Deadpool,” “The Nice Guys,” and “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.” The first film, of course, was a massive smash, and soon there were calls for the industry to take more risks with R-rated films. So, the same summer, two original, and very good R-rated comedies arrived, and both underperformed.

Continue reading Andy Samberg Talks ‘Popstar’ Flop, Says Film Is Finding Fans Through “Word Of Mouth” at The Playlist.

Welcome back to Part Two of our Over/Under Movies year-end extravaganza. Last week, we took our overrated films of 2016 down a peg or two, but this week we return to positivity as we each suggest five different films that might have flown under your radar in 2016.

READ MORE: Podcast: Over/Under Movies Discuss The Most Overrated Movies Of 2016

I’m joined by my co-host Oktay Ege Kozak (Erik McClanahan is out again this week) as we discuss family films, foreign-language films, dark comedies, and more that we feel didn’t get as much love as they should have this year.

Continue reading Podcast: Over/Under Movies Discuss The Most Underrated Movies Of 2016 at The Playlist.

Howard Hawks once defined a good movie as one with “three good scenes and no bad ones.” Whether or not you think he’s right — and he’s not massively wrong — it’s often the moments that make the movies for us, and there’s no better way to make a moment memorable than with some music.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2016

From the chorus lines of Busby Berkeley and “The Sound Of Silence” in “The Graduate” to Chuck Berry in “Pulp Fiction” and “Where Is My Mind” in “Fight Club,” movies and cinema are intrinsically linked together, with songs made indelible by scenes in films, and scenes made by indelible songs.

Continue reading The 25 Best Movie Music Moments Of 2016 at The Playlist.

It’s been something of a mixed year for movies in some ways — a fairly sparse first half of the year, including the worst blockbuster season in living memory, followed by an absolutely rammed fall season that, even more than most, has seen a wealth of pleasures in movie theaters. But one thing for sure is that it’s been a really great year for music and the movies (and yes, .)

READ MORE: 11-Minute Video Essay Listens To The Power Of A Film’s Score

Perhaps appropriately for a year where a musical looks to be the Oscar front-runner, we’ve had all kinds of wonderful scores and soundtracks, from a young composer turning the biopic on its head to an instantly iconic Netflix synthpop score, from a blast of original hip-hop from a little-seen indie to some unusually convincing comedy songs from some ex-SNLers.

Continue reading The 30 Best Film Scores & Soundtracks Of 2016 at The Playlist.

September is here, and the fall film festivals have started —check out our Venice coverage so far, and our Telluride coverage starts tomorrow and TIFF next week. Nevertheless, the days are getting shorter and the temperature a little cooler, so it’s time to look back on 2016’s moviegoing summer.

In most respects, it was a bad one. Most tentpoles disappointed, and unusually, it seemed that most underperformed at the box office (though it’s interesting to note that total box office is up about 3% from last year, thanks to a few monster hits).

Continue reading The Winners & Losers Of The 2016 Summer Movie Season at The Playlist.

For years, Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer — collectively known as pop song pranksters The Lonely Island — have perfected their craft at writing over-sexed, yet perfectly produced, and remarkably accomplished jams that are too well made to be called novelty, and too layered to be simply labeled as parodies. They’ve roped in artists as wide-ranging as Akon, Michael Bolton, and Julian Casablancas to give their efforts further cred (and laughs), and have poked fun at nearly every corner of popular music.

Continue reading ‘Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping’ Is A Chart Topping Confection From The Lonely Island [Review] at The Playlist.

As folks dust off their air conditioners for another hot summer, The Playlist and moviegoers alike are preparing for another kind of scorching hot intensity, the Hollywood hype machine. While we’re busy critiquing the films and analyzing the box office, we hope you good folks are able to enjoy some good nights out at the movies. But as ever, there’s an unwieldy minefield of choices that reach into and well beyond your local multiplex. Take a wrong step, and you may just end up hitting a bomb.

Continue reading 14 Films To See In June at The Playlist.

Call it a match made in comedy heaven. There is probably no better trio than Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone — aka The Lonely Island — to skewer the world of pop music. And they take that idea and run with it in the upcoming “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping,” which pokes fun superficial pop stars whose egos are as big as the arenas they fill.

Continue reading Watch: New Trailer For The Lonely Island’s ‘Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping’ Hits The Stage at The Playlist.

Obviously the biggest event of the summer is The Playlist moving to the shiny new digs in which you’re now seeing us. But seriously, the summer movie months are packed with films both big and small guaranteed to thrill, delight and provoke you, and keep you out of the sunshine, and inside basking in air-conditioned comfort.

The time when big movies were released only in summer has long gone — this year has seen “Deadpool,” “Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice,” and “The Jungle Book” among those that were smashing box office records while the temperatures were still low and the days still short.

Continue reading The 40 Most Anticipated Movies Of Summer 2016 at The Playlist.