Every year, hundreds of Best of 2019 lists get published (many of them on this very website) with hot takes galore and debates to follow. But each year, there’s one list that I can’t wait to read. And it’s not a ranking at all. For my money, the best list each and every year is the Seen, Read list put together by Steven Soderbergh. And in 2019, he did not disappoint.

READ MORE: Steven Soderbergh Plots Crime Thriller ‘Kill Switch’ With Don Cheadle, Josh Brolin & Sebastian Stan

For those unaware, Soderbergh’s annual Seen, Read list is a collection of every film, TV series, book, and play he viewed or read over the course of the year.

Continue reading Steven Soderbergh Had An Interesting Thanksgiving Triple Feature (& Other Observations From His Annual “Seen, Read” List) at The Playlist.

As we noted and suggested in our Best TV & Mini-Series of The Decade feature, it was a pretty nutty decade for television. The advent of streaming, peak TV, prestige TV, and now, in late 2019, the new 2nd age of the Streaming Wars— thanks to the arrival of Disney+, Apple TV+, and soon, HBO Max—is going to make the content deluge even more difficult to navigate for audiences and TV critics, trying to discern what’s what and keeping up.

Continue reading The Best TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2019 at The Playlist.

The now-ubiquitous phrase “Peak TV”—coined by FX networks chief John Landgraf— only first appeared in 2015, but it certainly defined the entire decade of television in the 2010s. The streaming wars are upon us now, really taking off in November 2019 for anyone wanting to keep track— with the arrival of Disney+ and Apple TV+, and the debuts of HBO Max, Peacock, and others in the near future.

Continue reading The Best TV Shows & Mini-Series’ Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

The karma of our great nation has come full circle. Concentration camps have been reborn, immigration as has been weaponized by the side of hate, and Hollywood is about to knock one of its most beloved record stores down (yes, one of these issues is not as dire as the others). Yet sure as a phoenix rising from the ashes, Nicolas Winding Refn remains a singular filmmaker who firmly believes in the power of rebirth and resurrection; a storytelling seer who feels “creativity is truly the only thing that makes the world move forward.”

READ MORE: ‘Too Old To Die Young’: Nicolas Winding Refn Crafts An Audacious, Hypnodrone Porno Nightmare of Post-Trump Polarity [Full Series Review]

Even with America run by a racist pumpkin-head dotard, the Danish director still sees hope on the horizon.

Continue reading ‘Too Old To Die Young’: Nicolas Winding Refn On His “Heroin-Induced, Obsessive, Fetish Ride About America” [Interview] at The Playlist.

On this episode of Adjust Your Tracking, Joe and I realize just why it’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday. That’s right, dear listeners. This. Is. The. End. AYT is closing up shop after more than 200 episodes (all of our pre-Playlist back issue shows are archived for free here).

We start things off by explaining our absence on the podcast since March, and why we’re moving on. It’s mostly just time to try something new, and, in fact, Joe will be launching a brand new show soon (that I will help produce and edit).

Continue reading AYT Says Goodbye, Comes Full Circle With A Chat On Nicolas Winding Refn’s ‘Too Old To Die Young’ [Adjust Your Tracking Podcast] at The Playlist.

God would forgive anyone who can’t stomach Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn‘s deeply flawed, sometimes repugnant, but utterly fascinating, “Too Old To Die Young.” A 10-episode, 13-hour TV streaming experience for Amazon Prime—hypnotic and sometimes mind-numbing in equal measure— ‘TOTDY’ is a bold and blistering political treatise on American rot and the morally polluted septic tank our failing empire has become. It’s also a post “Twin Peaks: The Return,” Jodorowsky-esque, Jean-Pierre Melville-ian existential crime drama that seethes with anger and contempt.

Continue reading ‘Too Old To Die Young’: Nicolas Winding Refn Crafts An Audacious, Hypnodrone Porno Nightmare of Post-Trump Polarity [Full Series Review] at The Playlist.

If there was an actual sports-like competition between the collective streaming companies and traditional media, filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn would be streaming’s #1 fan, complete with the oversized foam finger and face paint. In the lead up to the release of his new Amazon series “Too Old to Die Young,” the filmmaker has been the biggest cheerleader for streaming than anyone before him. Refn does, of course, promote the content of his series, but really, he wants everyone to know that streaming is the future and you better be willing to change.

Continue reading Nicolas Winding Refn Shares New Clip From ‘Too Old To Die Young’ & Says Traditional TV Is “Dead As A Doornail” at The Playlist.

We’ll make this short and sweet. First, we know most of you are anxiously awaiting “Too Old to Die Young,” the new series from writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn. From the looks of the trailer and marketing materials, it would appear that Refn is firing on all cylinders with his latest crime thriller, and his first foray into the world of TV. But there’s also a healthy amount of people that really just psyched for more music from superstar composer Cliff Martinez.

Continue reading Listen To 2 Tracks From ‘Too Old To Die Young’ Soundtrack From Composer Cliff Martinez at The Playlist.

While June looks to be relatively tame in the film department, it’s bringing back some of television’s better binges in just one month. Meryl Streep will remind everyone why she’s so beloved in season two of “Big Little Lies,” “Pose” will encourage people to enjoy television communally as a show best experienced with others and there’s even room for the oddities such as “Baskets.”

READ MORE: The Best TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2018 

The time of Peak TV means that there’s no strict timeline of when shows premiere and/or return, making for a wider, more interesting television template, offering up something for everyone at all times of the year.

Continue reading 10 Shows to Watch in June: ‘Big Little Lies,’ ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ & More at The Playlist.

On the surface, you may be hard-pressed to see how a 10-episode Amazon streaming series about a crooked cop and the seedy criminal underbelly might be related to Donald Trump and his rise to the presidency. However, for writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn, the controversial 2016 election helped shape his upcoming series “Too Old to Die Young.”

Speaking at Cannes (via Variety), where the filmmaker showed two episodes of his TV series, Refn talked about the future of the industry (as he’s wont to do), as well as how “Too Old to Die Young” is a direct reflection of the current political times.

Continue reading ‘Too Old To Die Young’: Nicolas Winding Refn Explains How Trump’s Election Shaped His “13-Hour Movie” at The Playlist.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s choice to screen the fourth and fifth episodes of his new TV series “Too Old To Die Young” for audiences at the Cannes Film Festival, packaged under the title “North of Hollywood, West of Hell” may strike some as strange. Excerpting a section of a work’s middle makes analysis or appreciation near-prohibitively difficult. Characters pass through the plot, their bearing on it impossible to discern.

Continue reading ‘Too Old To Die Young’: Nicolas Winding Refn Revisits His Greatest Hits With Amazon Series [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

Is horror making its way to the Cannes Film Festival this year? Granted, for many of these films they exist only as a logline and one official image, but prestige horror is seemingly destined to make its mark on the usually sunny usually Croisette. Then again, rain is in the forecast.

READ MORE: the 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2019 

There are a number of interesting trends this year at the French event, including a trio of new American filmmakers in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, semi-old school Hollywood star power (Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sylvester Stallone), a slight increase in female directors in competition (a big ol’ four of them), and, as always, filmmakers the festival simply can’t say no too (Pedro Almodóvar, Xavier Dolan, Ken Loach, the Dardennes, etc.).

Continue reading 2019 Cannes Film Festival: The 21 Most Anticipated Movies at The Playlist.

There is a multitude of reasons why Nicolas Winding Refn will never be compared to someone like Aaron Sorkin or Quentin Tarantino. Honestly, you probably couldn’t find three more disparate filmmakers. And perhaps the most striking difference between Refn and those other writer-directors is in the dialogue. In the first clip from Refn’s upcoming Amazon series “Too Old to Die Young,” that has never been more clear.

Continue reading ‘Too Old To Die Young’: Miles Teller Won’t Kill A Guy Over $8,000 In First Clip From Nicolas Winding Refn’s Amazon Series at The Playlist.

Amazon and Netflix aren’t anticipated to have any feature films at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, but that isn’t preventing at least one of them from having a presence. Deadline is reporting that Amazon is ready to send Nicolas Winding Refn over to France with his upcoming TV series “Too Old to Die Young” as a special screening at the festival.

The report says that Refn’s upcoming crime thriller, starring Miles Teller, is likely to become the third TV series to ever have a special screening at the prestigious event.

Continue reading Nicolas Winding Refn’s Amazon Series ‘Too Old To Die Young’ To Get Special Slot At Cannes at The Playlist.

It feels like it’s been forever since we had an update on Nicolas Winding Refn’s upcoming Amazon limited series “Too Old to Die Young.” But much like the filmmaker’s own work, we get blindsided by not just a trailer for the series, but also a release date that is only just over two months away.

READ MORE: The 50 Most Anticipated TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2019 

The trailer for the series gives you all you really need to know about “Too Old to Die Young.” First, it is most definitely a project from the mind of the man who brought film fans “Drive” and “The Neon Demon.” Refn’s undeniable style that turned heads and created fans is very much on display in the footage seen here.

Continue reading ‘Too Old To Die Young’ Trailer: Nicolas Winding Refn Teams With Miles Teller For New Amazon Series Debuting In June at The Playlist.

It’s been about two years since we’ve known that Miles Teller was going to team up with filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn for a new Amazon series “Too Old to Die Young.” And it’s been almost a full year since we got our first teaser for the series, which follows Teller’s character, a grieving police officer who finds himself caught up in a criminal underground that features Yakuza, Russian mafia, the Mexican cartels, and various other nefarious types.

Continue reading Composer Cliff Martinez Says Nicolas Winding Refn’s Series ‘Too Old To Die Young’ Will Be Ten 90-Minute Episodes at The Playlist.

This week IFFR is holding a wide programme of Masterclasses at Le Jardin Hilton in central Rotterdam. We’ll be bringing coverage of cinematic luminaries including Claire Denis, Jia Zhang-ke and Cliff Martinez, as they recount the defining moments in their careers to date.

From minimalism to maximalism, from scarcity to intensity, Cliff Martinez is a composer of propulsion. His music always has a sense of moving forward.

Continue reading Cliff Martinez Talks Working With Steven Soderbergh, Nicolas Winding Refn & More In Career-Spanning Talk [Masterclass Rotterdam] at The Playlist.

Just when you thought Peak TV couldn’t get Peakier (a record 495 scripted shows aired in 2018 – read about our favorites of the year here), things are going to get even crazier in 2019. Netflix will continue to pump out multiple shows a week, Amazon is entering a new phase with the remit “bring us the next ‘Game Of Thrones,’” some old favorites are returning after a year — or several years — off, every major network has at least one potential titan debuting, and tech behemoth Apple is finally getting into the scripted game after years of planning and teasing.

Continue reading The 50 Most Anticipated TV Shows Of 2019 at The Playlist.

Filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn isn’t one to hold back in an interview. And when it comes to the current state of feature filmmaking, the director has no shortage of things to say. Refn is currently promoting his new website, byNWR.com, and took some time to speak to IndieWire about his upcoming Amazon series and why he might take a little break from feature films.

For those that aren’t following his current projects, Refn just launched a new movie streaming website that features classic films hand-picked by the filmmaker.

Continue reading Nicolas Winding Refn Says Current State Of Theatrical Filmmaking Is “Very, Very Destructive” at The Playlist.

Honestly, we don’t know much about Nicolas Winding Refn’s upcoming Amazon series “Too Old to Die Young.” We know that the series is about a grieving police officer who finds himself caught up in a criminal underground that features Yakuza, Russian mafia, the Mexican cartels, and various other nefarious types. And the series is set to star Miles Teller and Jenna Malone.

Continue reading ‘Too Old To Die Young’ Trailer: This Amazon Series Is Pure, Unadulterated Nicolas Winding Refn at The Playlist.

Nicolas Winding Refn isn’t working in television for the first time (he directed a couple of entries in the “Agatha Christie’s Marple” series, and also wrote some episodes of the Scandinavian show “The Chosen 7“), but “Too Old To Die Young” does mark the first occasion he’s working on something that’s completely his own vision for the small screen. The irony, however, is that even as Refn rolls up his sleeves for the Amazon show, he’s pretty blunt about the state of the medium he’s working in.

Continue reading First Look: Nicolas Winding Refn’s ‘Too Old To Die Young’ With Miles Teller & More at The Playlist.

Now it’s time for TV. Back at the start of December, we ran down the 100 films that we’re most looking forward to across 2018, and we picked out some festival favorites that we’ve already seen and know are worth checking out too. But even with 250 hours worth or so of promising art and entertainment, that barely scratches the surface of what people will be talking about in terms of moving images, because, well, we don’t know if you heard, but TV’s gotten really good.

Continue reading The Most Anticipated TV Shows Of 2018 at The Playlist.

Nothing causes audiences to butt heads quite like a new Nicolas Winding Refn film. From “Pusher” to “The Neon Demon,” Refn’s work has been described as brilliant, terrible, pretentious, gorgeous, and pretty much every other adjective in the dictionary, inspiring half the cinephiles out there to declare him one of the best talents working today – and the other half to treat him with derision.

Continue reading Nicolas Winding Refn Releases A Teaser For ‘Too Old To Die Young’ at The Playlist.

Working class hit men, Yakuza soldiers, Mexican cartel assassins, Russian mafia captains and gangs of teen killers — yep, sounds like the ingredients of a project by Nicolas Winding Refn. The auteur is bringing all of that and more to his new Amazon series, “Too Old To Die Young.”

Miles Teller has been tapped to lead the show, where he’ll play a grieving police officer, mourning the death of his partner, who buddies up with the man who killed his friend, and dives into the L.A.

Continue reading Miles Teller To Lead Nicolas Winding Refn’s Amazon Series ‘Too Old To Die Young’ at The Playlist.

While “The Neon Demon” might’ve died in theaters, only Amazon knows how it did on their service, but this much is clear: they want to stay in the Nicolas Winding Refn business. The streaming service which is nipping at the heels of the dominant Netflix, is eager to add high profile filmmakers to their roster, and giving them the budgets and freedom they need seems to have attracted top talent including Woody Allen, Whit Stillman, Jill Soloway, Todd Haynes, Jim Jarmusch, Park Chan-Wook….you get the idea.

Continue reading Nicolas Winding Refn Is ‘Too Old To Die Young’ At Amazon at The Playlist.