Review: 'Faces of Death' is a gory, clever satire for horror audiences who've seen everything The original was a trashy videocassette phenomenon, but director Daniel Goldhaber and screenwriter Isa Mazzei have hatched a remake for a new era of viral violence.

This superior update to the old schlockumentary FACES OF DEATH is a fun combo of scary, implausible and too plausible. The most terrifying element is the desensitized, anonymous messages in the chat box devouring the carnage. As one types, “So awful. Nice find!”

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Review: Imagination beats budget in 'The Blue Trail,' a scrappy sci-fi dystopia about an elder on the run A stubborn grandmother flees a fascist retirement camp in Gabriel Mascaro's stunner, a master class in making inspired high-concept science fiction on the cheap.

Anyone with a high-concept idea and a low budget should study how THE BLUE TRAIL creates the sense of massive, fascistic machinery with a few pennies’ worth of props: uniform vests, spray paint and a loudspeaker promising the nation is doing everything out of love.

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Review: You may now shame the bride in 'The Drama,' a cooly unromantic thought experiment Working with stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, director Kristoffer Borgli is less interested in matters of compatibility than the fickle calculus of cancellation.

THE DRAMA is the movie equivalent of a half-glass of Champagne -- its ideas are either half-empty or half-full. I’ll raise my cup to full, but only because of how pleasurably it bubbles.

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Eff yeah

Review: The gore is great in 'Ready or Not 2: Here I Come' but this sequel is slow to seek new ideas Samara Weaving returns for more vicious game-playing in a horror-comedy that combines class warfare with satanism, greed and killer goth couture.

Scream queen Samara Weaving has an extraordinary yell: shrill, feral and ferocious, like a mongoose before it goes on the attack.

It's the highlight of this otherwise echo-y sequel.

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One last big salute to our fave awards contender of the year -- may it inspire more original movies with this much ambition.

Excellent SXSW winners this year! And congrats to our top screenplay, PLANTMAN & BLONDIE.

Review: In 'Project Hail Mary,' saving the galaxy requires a hopeful, nerdy Ryan Gosling After going "Across the Spider-Verse," the filmmaking team Lord and Miller blasts Ryan Gosling off on a funny, inspiring space adventure about the best of humanity.

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY inspired the iPad.

PROJECT: HAIL MARY inspires a better version of us.

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On Loving the Oscars For What They Are

Agreed great piece! Wrote about something similar.

open.substack.com/pub/kmeggles...

Wow, THIS is a great piece. Well done!

CAKE!!

'Sinners' and Ryan Coogler won something deeper In a ceremony swirling with politics and the specter of Warner Bros.' uncertain future, Ryan Coogler and his collaborators lifted each other up.

Technically, SINNERS lost more Oscars than any nominee in history.

But Ryan Coogler put on a master class in how to triumph in defeat.

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Also! This Maybelline in Acai Glaze:

www.maybelline.com/lip-makeup/l...

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@glitterburrito.bsky.social @hollyanderson.bsky.social Lady Danger rules and I need y'all to know about Cover Girl's Black Honey dupe:

www.ulta.com/p/clean-fres...

Really! That's one of my all-time scariest -- how are you on Paranormal Activity?

Review: The sound design is the star in ‘undertone,’ a podcast thriller with too much dead air A24's latest claustrophobic trauma chiller gives us a tease of 'Paranormal Activity's' future director, Ian Tuason, but a dearth of pacing.

I’d love to understand why horror films that I find excruciatingly dull give others the heebie-jeebies.

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Review: Prison behind her, an ex-con gets a romantic reboot in 'Reminders of Him' Maika Monroe and Tyriq Withers play novelist Colleen Hoover's latest pair of star-crossed lovers in a simplistic weepie with good but brief detours.

You can’t help rooting for Colleen Hoover heroines, bless their bruised hearts.

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What should win on Oscar night? And what should have been nominated? Our critic has thoughts Never mind the pundits: Amy Nicholson has strong opinions about which contenders should be golden come Oscar night, and which were left out.

Here's what should win on Sunday.

And here's what should have been nominated gosh dang it.

Justice for EDDINGTON, ANN LEE, HEDDA, LURKER, SPIDER WOMAN, PHOENICIAN SCHEME -- and even Ariana Grande in WICKED: FOR GOOD who is the best part of the whole dang thing.

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This week on Unspooled: My favorite art EVER?

2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival Jury Announced Helping creatives achieve their goals.

Yee-haw! Stoked to be on this year's SXSW narrative feature jury with @mcastimovies.bsky.social @gregoryellwood.bsky.social

sxsw.com/news/2026/sx...

Review: Decadent and disorderly, 'The Bride!' is a spectacular beast rampaging out of control As the monster and her Frankenstein, Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale serve up a messy, electrified take on 'Bonnie and Clyde' in a extravaganza stitched from classic movie references.

THE BRIDE! is a maniacal assemblage of ’30s musicals, ’40s noirs, 19th century literature and 21st century ideology. Every wacky second, you’re well aware how perilously close it is to falling apart at the seams.

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Review: An ego-tripping dad hogs the spotlight at a Korean idol competition in ‘K-Pops!’ Grammy-laden musician Anderson .Paak makes his directing debut in an East-meets-West movie about a K-pop competition show on which his son is a contestant.

Anderson .Paak could be the right star to earnestly explore what it means that the Top 40 is shifting eastward. But this adventure in Seoul is simply an ego trip.

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Review: In convoluted 'Scream 7,' Neve Campbell is back, but the fun isn't Original "Scream" screenwriter Kevin Williamson takes the directing chair in a capricious and crowded sequel that resurrects old faces and introduces new ones.

Maybe in the boldest meta twist of all, the inventor of “Scream” wants to kill it off himself.

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Paul is a genius

Lelaina and Troy are my Catherine and Heathcliff

Ditto and ditto! Also the book's best parts are about boring, dehumanizing bureaucracy -- great to read, hard to film

Review: Swagger, sweat and flirtation swirl in 'EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert,' a tribute to a performer and little else Constructed from excerpts of his Las Vegas concerts during the early 1970s, the documentary captures a glitzy, reborn Presley working the crowd and thrilling fans.

The first hour of EPiC: ELVIS PRESLEY IN CONCERT convinces you that the King is the greatest entertainer who ever lived. By the end credits, he’s a god.

I think Baz Luhrmann prays aliens will discover this footage and build a religion around it.

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Also great!

Review: In 'How to Make a Killing,' a family inheritance inspires Glen Powell to do dirty deeds Director John Patton Ford’s spin on the 1949 British thriller “Kind Hearts and Coronets" doesn't have his star in eight roles, but it does have a spirit of dark fun.

Still waiting on Glen Powell's perfect A-list role, but this is close

(Set It Up remains my fave)

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Emerald Fennell’s Quote-Unquote Wuthering Heights Is Total Fanfic Is Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” enough of a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors?

Tormented romances with @thehighsign.bsky.social @jamellebouie.net on this week's Slate Culture Gabfest:

Heathcliff and Cathy
JFK Jr. and Carolyn
And the Kermit/Miss Piggy/Sabrina Carpenter love triange

slate.com/podcasts/cul...