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.

It’s too bad that who dismissively write off 2016 as “a bad movie year” couldn’t find more than a few films to treasure across the last twelve months. Sure, blockbuster movies were pretty terrible all around, but even a glimpse of indie cinema and foreign films this year (South Korea alone yielded the excellent likes of “The Handmaiden,” “The Wailing” and “Age Of Shadows“) reveals some tremendous work.

Continue reading Celebrating The Films Of 2016 at The Playlist.

While “Swiss Army Man” left the Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered earlier this year, known as “that farting corpse movie,” that’s not quite accurate. The film is about the universal human experience of defecation, and examines the cultural norms that cow people into hiding pieces of their identity out of shame. That’s still not an easy sell, but if you skipped the film based on its premise, you missed out.

Continue reading ‘Swiss Army Man’ Directors The Daniels Talk Finding Beauty In The Scatalogical, Next Projects, And More at The Playlist.

Over the summer months, the narrative that “cinema is dead” once again began to be bandied about, with Ty Burr among those floating the idea in a thinkpiece. It’s understandable: as we’ve written about before, the summer was one of the worst in recent memory in terms of major releases (and not all that great in terms of minor ones either). It wasn’t just cinephiles getting up in arms either: Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate and basis for the character Oogie Boogie in “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” told a rally at the start of this month “they don’t make movies like they used to,” causing even members of the political commentariat who otherwise vehemently disagree with him to concur.

Continue reading What If 2016 Is Actually The Year That Saves Cinema? at The Playlist.

Have you been bored with most movies this summer? Does it feel like things in the film world are changing, but not necessarily towards better movies? Well, Adjust Your Tracking is back, and we share your anxieties. We don’t really have a traditional review in this installment: While we fit in some thoughts on “Swiss Army Man,” the Sundance conversation starter in which Paul Dano‘s character encounters a new friend, namely Daniel Radcliffe‘s rotting, farting (and so much more) corpse, this show is primarily concerned with a state of the industry discussion.

Continue reading Podcast: Adjust Your Tracking Talks ‘Swiss Army Man’ & The (Dismal) State Of This Year’s Summer Movies at The Playlist.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Sundance drama/adventure thing “Swiss Army Man” proved to be something of an overperformer this weekend. With wildly divided reviews out of Sundance, and the premise of being a buddy movie with Paul Dano as a suicidal stalker and Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse with a boner-compass, it seemed like it would be a bit of a box office washout.

But A24 appear to have worked something of a miracle, with the film outperforming other arthouse releases significantly and ending up with one of the best theater averages of 2016 to date.

Continue reading ‘Swiss Army Man’ Directors Say They Want To Remake ‘White Chicks’ As An Oscar-Bait Drama at The Playlist.

Keeping the movie out of reach of most critics, 20th Century Fox could already see the writing on the wall about “Independence Day: Resurgence,” but the final numbers have confirmed what happens when you make a sequel to a movie starring Will Smith without Will Smith.

READ MORE: The Uninspired ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ Is Recycled, Disjointed Mush [Review]

‘Resurgence’ brought mega-destruction to cinemas to the tune of $41 million, falling behind the $50 million opening weekend haul of the original “Independence Day.” This may be a signal that director Roland Emmerich‘s particular brand of blockbuster moviemaking is now somewhat passé.

Continue reading ‘Finding Dory’ Keeps Swimming, Stays Ahead Of ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ [Box Office] at The Playlist.

Daniel Radcliffe is a dead body that gives life in the infinitely strange and terminally unsatisfying “Swiss Army Man.” The feature directorial debut from inventive and successful music video directors the Daniels (real names: Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) teams Radcliffe with Paul Dano. It edges into the non-sequitur weirdness of Quentin Dupieux (“Rubber,” “Wrong“) and the fantastical romantic yearning of Michel Gondry (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind“) but doesn’t persuasively mint a uniquely “Daniels” brand of oddity.

Continue reading Daniel Radcliffe & Paul Dano Have A Surreal Fight For Survival In ‘Swiss Army Man’ [Review] at The Playlist.

One of the most talked about movies of the Sundance Film Festival is about to become one of the most talked about movies of the summer. “Swiss Army Man” earned immediate buzz after it screened in Park City in January, with its oddball survival tale (of sorts) involving a young man stranded in the wild and a corpse. And adding to the quirky spirit of the film is the score by Manchester Orchestra members Andy Hull and Robert McDowell, and today we have an exclusive listen of their work on the movie.

Continue reading Exclusive: Preview Andy Hull & Robert McDowell’s Score For ‘Swiss Army Man’ Featuring Paul Dano & Daniel Radcliffe 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.

There will be a lot of movies coming to cinemas this summer, but few will be as straight up weird as “Swiss Army Man.” Featuring boners, farts, and a corpse as a main character, directing duo Daniels have certainly conjured something distinct, but as the reaction at the Sundance Film Festival where it premiered revealed, it’s also quite divisive.

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Paul Dano, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the movie follows a man on a deserted island who is ready to end his life, only to find his joie de vivre reinvigorated when he stumbles across a dead body.

Continue reading Watch: Boners, Farts And More In Red Band Trailer For ‘Swiss Army Man’ With Daniel Radcliffe & Paul Dano 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.

Continue reading Daniel Radcliffe Is Dead And Farting In First Trailer For ‘Swiss Army Man’ Co-Starring Paul Dano at The Playlist.