The third film in the ultra-violent horror franchise brings back David Howard Thornton as Art the Clown for more good ol’ fashion murdering, this time during Christmas (“Is Terrifier 3 a Christmas movie?” asks hopefully no one). Why that merry holiday in particular? “I’ve always wanted to do my spin on the maniac Santa Claus,” writer and director Damien Leone told Bloody Disgusting. “That’s just such a classic archetypal horror trope. To see Art now mixed with the maniac Santa Claus is really exciting, really exciting.”
Will people who are afraid of puking in public have to wait until Christmas for Terrifier 3 to be available to watch at home? There’s no announced streaming date yet, but it probably won’t be that long. The smartest move would be to keep the film in theaters until Halloween, then put it on streaming. But again, at the moment, there’s no official word on a streaming debut.
Here’s more on Terrifier 3:
Art the Clown is set to unleash chaos on the unsuspecting residents of Miles County as they peacefully drift off to sleep on Christmas Eve
It only took five weeks for the first NFL coach firing of the season, as the New York Jets kicked Robert Saleh to the curb after a 23-17 loss in London to the still undefeated Minnesota Vikings. It was not the kind of loss that typically precedes a midseason firing, but it was clearly the last straw in a string of disappointments in New York since Saleh took over, some his fault but many beyond his control. That he lost in London, where owner Woody Johnson was once the ambassador to the UK, probably didn’t help his cause, and now the Jets (2-3) are hoping to find their form as the contenders as they expected to be prior to the season starting.
As we shift our focus to Week 6 in the NFL, the Jets are certainly one of the teams we have our eyes on to see what, if anything, changes without Saleh. There are still 12 games to go this season, but even so, time feels like it’s getting short for some teams to get going, including the Jets.
Primetime Game of the Week: Bills at Jets (Monday 10/14, 8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN)
Niners vs. Seahawks on Thursday Night Football is the better game, but come on, it has to be Bills-Jets. On one side, you have Buffalo, which has had a flat-out awful couple of weeks between a beatdown at the hands of the Ravens and a Josh Allen disasterclass in a winnable game against the Texans. They have a bunch of important players banged up, and they really should kick the tires on a high-profile wide receiver in a trade (Davante Adams? Amari Cooper?), but Buffalo has gone from “they can win the Super Bowl” to “eew, not great” in two games. Which is fine, plenty of time left, but still, not great.
But come on, the game with the Jets on it is the Primetime Game of the Week this week. Aaron Rodgers has denied his involvement in the team firing Robert Saleh, with a rumor that Saleh was either going to fire or strip play-calling duties from Nathaniel Hackett, the team’s offensive coordinator who is Rodgers’ longtime buddy. New York’s offense has been a mess this year, while their defense has been unsurprisingly great. New interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich (formerly the team’s defensive coordinator) went ahead and changed play-callers anyway on Thursday, taking the playsheet out of Hackett’s hands and giving it to Todd Downing. There is a ton of pressure on Rodgers and co. to perform now that Saleh is gone, and if they look dramatically better on offense without their head coach and Hackett no longer calling plays, it will make for fantastic sports talk fodder. The fact that their first test is against the division rival they’re trying very hard to unseat only makes it more intriguing and, well, you really can’t write this stuff.
Sunday Funday Game of the Week: Commanders at Ravens (Sunday 10/6, 1:00 p.m. ET, CBS)
Being ultra-reductive can be pretty annoying, but it works here: One team has Jayden Daniels, the other team has Lamar Jackson, and both of them are capable of lighting opposing teams on fire at their best. The Commanders offense has been unbelievable of late with Daniels seemingly running away with Rookie of the Year, while the Ravens seem to be hitting their stride on that side of the ball as well. Neither defense has been great this year, so fireworks figure to be in play.
Under the Radar Banger: Cardinals at Packers (Sunday 10/6, 1:00 p.m. ET, FOX)
Both of these teams have been pretty erratic this season, and that could make for a very fun game where I don’t think either fan base will feel particularly safe with any lead until the clock hits triple zeroes. The Cardinals won a wild one against the Niners last week to avoid a 1-4 start to the season, while the Packers had to fend off a late Rams charge to stay at 3-2 and in the mix in the highly competitive NFC North. Green Bay is favored in this spot for a reason, but the Cardinals have a gear they can reach that can compete with any team in the league, it’s just a matter of whether they can find that and sustain it.
Who Won The MVP Last Week: Kirk Cousins
The Atlanta Falcons have good vibes. No, seriously, I can’t believe it either, and I really can’t believe that the reason they have good vibes is the addition of Cousins, who is starting to look more and more like himself as he makes his way back from an achilles tear last year. He was out of his mind on Thursday Night Football against the Bucs last week, going for 509 yards and four touchdowns while leading a thrilling drive as regulation expired for a game-tying field goal.
Best Bet (2-3): Cowboys (+3) vs. Lions (4:25 p.m. ET, FOX)
Against all odds, the Raiders and the Broncos gave us a loss in this space by combining to score 52 points. This week, we’re heading to Dallas to take the ‘Boys against Detroit. I fully understand why this line is where it is, but I also think the Cowboys have stabilized things a bit since halftime of that Ravens game. I think this game should be closer to a pick ’em, and so getting a full three points at home has me buying low on a Dallas team that I think is starting to figure a few things out.
We’re a few New Music Fridays away from Halsey’s latest album, The Great Impersonator, which is set to drop on October 25. She further teased the project today with a new song “I Never Loved You.”
Aside from the single, Halsey has also been rolling out the album by sharing re-creations of photos of music stars who inspired songs from the project. Halsey has so far done Dolly Parton, PJ Harvey, Kate Bush, and Cher.
“I really thought this album would be the last one I ever made. When you get sick like that, you start thinking about ways it could have all been different. What if this isn’t how it all went down? 18-year-old Ashley becomes Halsey in 2014. What if I debuted in the early 2000s? The ’90s? The ’80s? The ’70s? Am I still Halsey every time, in every timeline? Do I still get sick? Do I become a mom? Am I happy? Lonely? Have I done enough? Have I told the truth? I spent half my life being someone else. I never stopped to ask myself: If it all ended right now, is this the person you’d be proud to leave behind? Is it even you?”
Listen to “I Never Loved You” above.
The Great Impersonator is out 10/25 via Columbia Records. Find more information here.
The NIL space in college sports is a growing industry, but one that features very little in the way of regulation.
Now that college athletes are allowed to make money off of endorsement deals, we’ve seen the stars of the sport cash in with big contracts that allow them to financially benefit from their star power before they make it to the pros. It’s great to see the likes of Juju Watkins and Cooper Flagg be able to make some money at the collegiate level. Even for players who aren’t stars on a national scale, it provides an opportunity to get paid by local businesses and school NIL collectives, getting something a bit more than just their scholarship for their athletic abilities.
All of that is a fantastic thing, but one of the unfortunate side effects of a new, largely unregulated world where money is changing hands is that it’s also an opportunity for some to take advantage of kids that don’t fully understand the financial world — with many coming from situations where they do not have much money.
A new NIL company, Nilly, that was founded by Kendrick Perkins and Chris Ricciardi, formerly of Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street investment firms, operates in that gray area of the NIL world. Perkins and Ricciardi tout their service as a way for athletes to get money up front and guarantee themselves some financial security, avoiding the uncertainty of exactly what they’ll get offered on the NIL market — NIL “valuations” are famously wonky, and not always emblematic of the actual money out there on the market. However, some financial advisors and consumer protection experts believe the company’s practices are predatory, similar to high-interest loans, as ESPN’s Dan Murphy investigated.
The way Nilly works is they offer an up front payment to high school athletes about to head off to college (from $25,000 to six figures) in exchange for a percentage of a player’s future NIL earnings for the next seven years. The example Murphy provided was a player who got $50,000 in exchange for 25 percent of his future endorsement earnings for the next seven years, or until Nilly got paid back $125,000, whichever came first. The percentage Nilly takes can vary from 10-50 percent.
Perkins claims the goal of the company is to take some of the financial stress off young athletes, particularly those that come from situations where they don’t have much money.
“You have so many athletes and their parents who are struggling day-to-day,” Perkins said. “Because we’re actually taking a bit of a gamble on what the student-athlete is going to make in the NIL space, the benefit is the kid — the student-athlete — is able to get financial security so they don’t have to rush.”
However, others pointed out to Murphy that it feels “predatory,” taking advantage of kids that come from poor families and taking a significant chunk of what they would earn by flashing up front money.
“To me it feels like you are preying on people who need the capital now and using that to cloud their focus on the future,” said Michael Haddix Jr., whose company Scout provides financial education seminars to college athletic departments. “It feels predatory, and it’s capitalizing on young people who need money and haven’t thought through the long-term implications.”
Nilly pushed back on the categorization of their enterprise as a loan operation, noting the players are not required to pay back any money if they don’t get any NIL deals. However, Murphy’s piece lays out how the legal system could decide these are closer to a loan than a licensing deal, if it were to get challenged in court. The entire piece is a fascinating look at why the lack of regulation or real oversight in the NIL world can create these sorts of gray areas and questionable practices.
Perkins pushes back on the idea that this is predatory, claiming the risk is entirely on Nilly and the investors, but any time former Wall Street guys are diving into something new and willing to put up big money for early investments in a lightly regulated field, it’s hard not to see red flags regarding who is really at risk. They are clearly seeing opportunity to cash in and the rate of return has the potential to be massive — and for the athlete, brings the chance to significantly dampen how much money they can make on the NIL market, losing out on much more than what a traditional agent’s cut would be.
The legality of it all is an extremely complex issue that I am far from qualified to declare anything about, but I can say that pretty much everyone’s initial read on this is that it all feels a bit shady and gross. As for Perkins, at best he truly believes this can help athletes and he also may be getting used as the face of this company as a former athlete by people who are looking to seize an opportunity. At worst, he knows how desperate the athletes are to get some fast cash and recognizes his own opportunity to profit off of that.
Whereas 2019’s Joker made over a billion dollars and was nominated for 11 Oscars, including wins for Best Actor and Best Original Score, the 2024 sequel will, uh, not be doing any of that. Joker: Folie à Deux brought in a “tragic” $37.8 million in its first weekend of release at the domestic box office, the same amount of money the original made on its first Friday alone. Critics savaged the film (33 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes), which also earned a dismal “D” CinemaScore. That’s the lowest grade from the survey-taking research firm for a comic book movie ever. Yes, even lower than Madame Web.
Where do stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga go from here?
For Phoenix, it’s not the next Todd Haynes movie, that’s for sure, so let’s go right to Lady Gaga. The singer and actress is reportedly “shocked” at the negative reaction to Joker: Folie à Deux. “She put so much heart into the movie,” a source told The Daily Mail. “Her team is quietly looking at other projects they can roll out as they want to move on… as quickly as possible.”
That won’t be difficult. For one thing, Gaga isn’t the issue with Joker: Folie à Deux. In fact, she’s one of the best things about it (“Gaga is a compelling live-wire presence, splitting the difference between affinity and obsession,” The Hollywood Reporter raved), so her magnetic-if-underused performance as Harley “Lee” Quinn won’t stain her filmography. Besides, even before Joker: Folie à Deux came out, Gaga was already hard at work on her next era.
In September, Gaga shared an image on her social media channels of her itinerary, or, because it was in Italian for the Venice Film Festival, her “itinerario.” There were two “date importanti” listed: “04 October: Joker: Folie à Deux in theaters” and “XX October: LG7 first single.”
At some point this month, Gaga will release her the first track from her seventh studio album, and first since 2020’s pandemic-impacted Chromatica (Harlequin doesn’t really count). Little is known about the album, other than Vogue describing one of its songs as an “old-school Gaga banger.” The inspiration to make a full-blown pop album came from Gaga’s fiance, Michael Polansky. “He was like, ‘Babe. I love you. You need to make pop music,’” she explained. Polansky added, “Like anyone would do for the person they love, I encouraged her to lean into the joy of it. On the Chromatica tour, I saw a fire in her; I wanted to help her keep that alive all the time and just start making music that made her happy.”
It was fitting (and perhaps wisely calculated) for Gaga to list Joker: Folie à Deux and LG7 back to back on her “itinerario.” If the movie was a hit, great. If it underperformed compared to Joker, she was ready to return to her music career anyway. But now that we know Joker: Folie à Deux is a flop, something few saw coming, it’s an even more shrewd bit of planning. The low box office, the bad reviews, the behind-the-scenes drama (none of which is Gaga’s fault), all will be forgotten as soon as we get the first taste of LG7.
Lady Gaga is remarkably resilient. She went from playing for a few dozen people in the middle of the afternoon to having the no. 1 single in the country in less than two years, and her career has never waned since then. She’s won Grammys and an Oscar; she’s influenced too many artists to name them all (but here’s one: Chappell Roan); and she’s the rare singer-turned-movie star to receive near-universal acclaim for her acting. Even now, Gaga has the biggest streaming song in the world for the sixth straight week. Not bad for someone nearly 20 years into their career.
The poor reception to Joker: Folie à Deux is a minor footnote in the larger story of Lady Gaga. No matter what her former classmates think, she will be famous.
At around 11 minutes into the interview, host Sean Evans made note of Pharrell’s apparent ability to make accurate predictions about the future. So, on that note, he asked Pharrell for his take on some future predictions. He began by asking if Pharrell thinks there will be a human colony on Mars “in our lifetime.” Pharrell responded, “Yes, because I think that it’s possible to terraform that planet. I think the conditions aren’t too far off for them to do the work that they would need to do to make it happen.”
Evans also asked if there’s anything that excites or scares Pharrell about the future of music and he responded, “You know, creativity bifurcates, and if you were to ask somebody 15 years ago about what music is right now, what is OK to say now, they’d be surprised. What it’s not OK to say right now, they’d be surprised. That’s just an effect of, like, the evolution in humanity.”
Pharrell also discussed his relationship with luxury, saying, “I’m not a materials person in terms of wanting those things as much. I mean, I’m grateful for what I have and I’m cool. I’m not looking for too much more than just experience and the ability to design and do partnerships. I’m enjoying that, I’m enjoying just designing and artistically iterating.”
At 13 years old, I would start downloading a 3-minute MP3 file on the family computer, and I would actually have to wait multiple minutes for it to be finished (and my parents would have a fresh virus to deal with). If you told me then what a phone (not even a computer, a phone) from 2024 could do, I would have dropped my Nintendo DS in amazement.
Phones now are essentially all-in-one pocket computers, and the “all” includes a camera. The cameras have gotten fantastic, too: You may have heard that the upcoming movie 28 Years Later was filmed on an iPhone 15.
Consequently, we use our phone cameras a lot, to capture fun and important moments in our lives. At the last concert you went to, you definitely saw dozens of phones being held in the air. Strangely, it’s possible that you also saw at least one DS.
For some reason, over the past few years, it hasn’t been a foreign thing to see somebody taking concert photos or videos with a DS. As IGN notes, the trend appears to have started in 2021, when somebody was spotted filming with a 3DS at a Bring Me The Horizon concert.
(If some of my word choices so far have made the gamers reading this angry: These days, “DS” is often thrown around as a general term to refer to all the different models in the Nintendo DS, and even 3DS, line. The original Nintendo DS and the DS Lite, though, do not have cameras. The DSi, DSi XL, and all 3DS systems, meanwhile, do. So, please know that I know that, but for simplicity’s sake, I’m just going to call everything a DS or 3DS when the specific model isn’t known.)
In a technical sense, the low-resolution photos and videos produced by the DS/3DS are the worst. Here’s a 3DS video from an Anamanaguchi concert in 2021. The video has little detail, and the audio sounds like a menacing alien spaceship landing. At the same time, the low quality can have a nostalgic 2000s appeal. Or, if you’re into doing silly and fun things, shooting with a DS in 2024 is a silly and fun thing. In that sense, the photos and videos are the best.
For those reasons, we have ourselves a trend. Here’s somebody filming with a DS at a Rina Sawayama concert in 2022. Here’s somebody doing the same thing at a Tyler The Creator show that year. Here’s a DS at a 2022 Charli XCX gig.
The trend is holding strong in 2024, too. It got some notable exposure recently, when Chappell Roan noticed an audience member with a DS and said with a smile, “B*tch, is that a DS? You keep taking photos on your DS.”
If you’ve graduated from a HBCU or visited a campus during its annual homecoming celebrations, it’s apparent that music is a significant part of HBCU culture, specifically the football game’s halftime marching band performance. A seemingly endless catalog of genres — including hip-hop, gospel, R&B, pop, and soul — is transformed into a melodic mashup that captivates the crowd almost more than the game itself.
The camaraderie among other dedicated fans in the audience is the best part of the game, from listening to the commentator’s playful remarks, to watching the majorettes perform their thoroughly practiced choreography, to enjoying the band’s funky routine that complements their euphoric sound. It’s an unmatched tradition that you can’t experience anywhere but at an HBCU football stadium.
For the marching band members, these pivotal moments inspire them to mingle music into their lives after graduation.
Raised in a family of musicians, Morgan State University graduate Malik Freeman already had the influence and willful determination to pursue the marching band at Morgan State. While Freeman and I discussed Drumline, the 2002 coming-of-age dramedy starring Nick Cannon, he mentioned that this film was a pivotal inspiration for joining a collegiate marching band.
According to Freeman, the culture of an all-Black school and competitive nature between the rival bands were accurately portrayed in the movie and led him to “wanting to be a part of that,” and it happened throughout his journey as a tenor drummer.
“It wasn’t really that dramatized, but it was like the closest thing you can get when it comes to HBCUs –- the [fraternity] organizations, the band, and the music organizations that they represented in that movie,” he said.
After graduating in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in music education, Freeman’s connection with an old friend led to an opportunity to advance his talent in a different setting.
“[Marching band] is embedded into my DNA and my life at this point, because this year, I’m running my elementary school’s bucket drumming club,” he said. “I got this plan to put on performances and really work with these kids. I’m gonna create some cool stuff.”
In addition to teaching, Freeman is also DJing, consuming more music history, and playing in a heavy alternative band.
The former-marching-band-member-to-teacher pipeline is more common than you’d think. For example, Spelman College graduate Dianna Sanders cherishes her time as a trombone player with the members of Morehouse College’s House Of Funk, and it influences her today as a teaching assistant at Florida Atlantic University.
Sanders frequently “refers back to [her] roots from marching band at Morehouse College,” so she acknowledges that there are some clear differences between the musical style at HBCUs in comparison to her current work environment.
“[Florida Atlantic University] plays similar music because we’re a South Florida school, they’re very cultured down there,” she said. “We do play HBCU-style music in the stands, but there’s just some things I simply cannot teach them. I’m always making comparisons in my head, like there’s just something each band does better than each other, but that’s the beauty of music overall.”
During my junior year at Florida A&M University –- one of the state’s two historically Black colleges -– I enrolled in a jazz history course taught by Professor Lindsey Sarjeant. The syllabus for the semester-long class detailed the development of jazz music throughout the 19th century, and it indirectly revealed the thorough preservation of Black music that occurs at HBCUs.
Beyond this course, Sarjeant’s notability in Tallahassee arises from his work as the chief band arranger for the incomparable Marching 100, FAMU’s collegiate marching band that has accrued global praise for performances like the 2007 Super Bowl Halftime Show and the Louis Vuitton Men’s Fashion Show in Paris.
The incomparable high-energy sound that separates HBCUs and predominantly white institutions is a result of the late Dr. William P. Foster. In 1946, he was hired as the director of bands at Florida A&M University and founded the Marching 100, and his innovative contributions revolutionized all marching bands. Any viral performance that includes a modern hip-hop or R&B song is more than likely a result of Foster’s advocacy.
Interacting with a professor like Sarjeant or Foster is a testament to investing in blossoming students and historically Black music programs. Whether it’s their intention or not, a syllabus with a history of jazz, ranging from the Harlem Renaissance to the evolution of modern music, is a key factor in preserving Black history.
Like Sanders and Freeman, Alabama State University alum Ayana Cummings pursued a career in music education after marching band. Even though her mother and high school band director piqued her interest in attending Alabama State University, her musical influences derived from a drum set that her six-year-old self received for Christmas, as well as middle school and high school band.
In college, her degree focused on percussion and music composition, and her hard work in the band led to an achievement as her alma mater’s first female percussion section leader.
“All the knowledge that I have about music came through my degree in performance, as well as actually performing, and I’m able to use that to navigate through the education world,” she said. “I was percussion section leader [in college] — you’re doing a lot of teaching and a lot of explaining, and you’re responsible for a lot of people and your peers, so all of that really helped me to be comfortable in the education world.”
But what happens after graduation, when a background in marching band isn’t paired with an interest in teaching? As Freeman mentioned, it’s a disservice to not fully immerse yourself in music history, at least one post-graduate visit to homecoming, and a casual jam session with fellow musicians. My own involvement in college radio led to my interest in DJing, and the graduates I spoke to shared their future plans for film scoring, music supervision, and production.
For Edwin Mompremier, a fellow graduate from Florida A&M University, his participation in the university’s jazz band and symphonic band opened up different opportunities to perform live music in Tallahassee.
“While I was marching, I was still doing other gigs,” he said. “It ranged from being at church to playing at shows, but my first real break came when I started playing with Tallahassee Nights Live [a local jazz ensemble], and that’s when I got more exposure, met some more people, and got involved in the music scene a little bit more.”
These are just a few of the stories that demonstrate how the longstanding marching band tradition at HBCUs doesn’t just set Black college bands apart: It also keeps history alive and prepares students for greater opportunities when they graduate.
If Sabrina Carpenter wears your favorite sports team’s jersey, you should ask her to please please please take it off. Okay, not for that reason, you creep, but because there’s a Drake-like Sabrina Carpenter curse brewing, and it’s already come for the Toronto Maple Leafs and Philadelphia Phillies.
What Is The “Sabrina Carpenter Curse”?
Last month, Carpenter wore a bedazzled Maple Leafs jersey during the Toronto stop of her Short N’ Sweet Tour. The 2024-2025 NHL season hadn’t quite kicked off yet, but the Maple Leafs had their opener on Wednesday and lost to the Montreal Canadians. You know what other team lost yesterday? The Phillies, to the NLCS-advancing, Grimace-loving New York Mets.
This defeat was personal for Carpenter. She was born in Pennsylvania and showed off her Phils fandom with another custom jersey (with the number “69” on the back, naturally) while performing at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday. You can see the look here.
To recap, the last two times Carpenter wore a jersey for a specific team, that team lost their next game. Or as X user @shawn_depaz joked, “Phillies: DEAD. Leafs: lost season opener to Montreal. Will be monitoring the Sabrina Carpenter curse going forward.” There’s only one way to know for sure: get her in a Yankees jersey, and see if they blow the next two games to the Royals.
Each week our staff of film and television experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.
You might know Brian Jordan Alvarez from his videos on TikTok and Instagram as TJ Mack, the singer of earworm “Sitting.” He’s also the star and creator of English Teacher, about a teacher who “often finds himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. Evan wants to be a principled person but often runs into trouble because of it.” His first lesson to his students: sitting is the opposite of standing.
There’s a few things you should know about Slow Horses:
1. As we previously wrote: “Each season is six episodes long and focuses on a distinct mystery or conspiracy and is full of little twists and turns and double-crosses. Sometimes there are stolen diamonds. Sometimes the slow horses will reveal themselves to be drug addicts or gambling addicts and it’ll muck everything up for a little. Sometimes you’ll be watching someone do something and assume they’re taking a brave and bold stance for righteousness and then realize they’ve been manipulated into accidentally doing the bidding of someone smarter and more conniving than they are.”
2. There is so much farting. Like, even more than you think.
Colin Farrell’s scene-stealing performance in The Batman resulted in him being turned into a meme and, probably more impressively, getting a spin-off on Max. The Penguin explores Oswald Cobblepot’s (or as he’s called in the show, Oz Cobb’s) rise in the seedy Gotham underworld. The series, which also stars Cristin Milioti, Clancy Brown, and Theo Rossi, is getting comparisons to another crime drama in the HBO / Max family: The Sopranos. Not too shabby.
There’s a good chance you’ve already seen Inside Out 2. It is the highest-grossing movie of 2024 after all. But now you can watch it again and again (especially if you have kids) on Disney Plus. The Pixar film brings back Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger from the original, and adds new emotions, including Maya Hawke as Anxiety and Ayo Edebiri as Envy. For more on the making of Inside Out 2, read our interview with director Kelsey Mann.
After former SNL head writer Harper Steele came out as a trans woman, she and Will Ferrell went on a two-week road trip across America. Will & Harper follows their journey. “What if we went on a road trip together, giving her a chance to go into a cowboy bar or whatever places she misses, and I can be by her side and lend support as a friend?” Ferrell said about the origin of the documentary. “At the same time, it would give us a chance to reconnect and figure out what this transition means to our relationship.” If only all SNL cast members from the ‘90s were so open minded…
The acclaimed anime Dan Da Dan is about Momo, a high school girl from a family of spirit mediums, and her classmate / occult fanatic Okarun, who begin talking after she saves him from getting bullied. However, an argument ensues between them: Momo believes in ghosts but denies aliens, and Okarun believes in aliens but denies ghosts. It’s a real Mulder and Scully dynamic, if they were both Mulder (and there was a Turbo Granny). Dan Da Dan, which is getting a weekly release, comes from animation studio Science Saru, who also made last year’s shockingly good Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
One of the most talked-about shows at the moment is Nobody Wants This. It turns out, everybody wants to see Kristen Bell and Adam Brody in a romantic comedy, which is something I could have told Netflix without having to be paid an executive’s exorbitant salary. Nobody Wants This follows the unlikely relationship between a sex podcaster (Bell) and a hot rabbit (Brody). It’s very cute, and hopefully a sign that we’ll get more good rom-coms soon.
Quarantine hit The Platform is an allegorical horror film about class struggle, where inmates in a “Vertical Self-Management Center” are fed using a platform that’s initially filled with food but as it descends, there’s fewer and fewer options for the lower levels. Those at the bottom are lucky to get anything at all. Following a prisoner rebellion (and some delicious panna cotta) in the original, The Platform 2 has a new leader imposing their rule in the Platform, while “a new resident becomes embroiled in the battle against this controversial method to fight the brutal feeding system,” according to the logline from Netflix. “But when eating from the wrong plate becomes a death sentence, how far would you be willing to go to save your life?”
The Franchise is a long-overdue satire of superhero movies from creator Jon Brown and producers Armando Iannucci and Sam Mendes. It’s like The Boys, but less violent — although both shows do star Aya Cash. She’s joined by Himesh Patel, Jessica Hynes, Billy Magnussen, Lolly Adefope, Darren Goldstein, Isaac Powell, Daniel Brühl, and Richard E. Grant. The series makes fun of the chaotic world of superhero moviemaking and asks an important question: “How exactly does the cinematic sausage get made?” (With lots of greenscreen, that’s how.)
Earlier this year, Stephen King had this to say about Salem’s Lot: “Between you and me, Twitter, I’ve seen the new SALEM’S LOT and it’s quite good. Old-school horror filmmaking: slow build, big payoff.” King doesn’t always have the best taste in adaptations of his own work, but he makes a strong case here. 2024’s Salem’s Lot (the first feature-film adaptation of the author’s personal favorite novel, following two miniseries) stars Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Bill Camp, Pilou Asbæk, Alfre Woodard, and William Sadler, and was written and directed by Annabelle and It writer Gary Dauberman.
5. Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft (Netflix)
The first Tomb Raider game came out on the Sega Saturn nearly 30 years, but the love for Lara Croft remains strong. There’s been three movies, so many games (including a remaster of the first three mainline titles released earlier this year), and now, an anime. Hayley Atwell voices the titular explorer in Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft from animation studio Powerhouse Animation Studios, which also made the impressive Castlevania: Nocturne series. They have a stranglehold on Netflix anime.
The official synopsis for Teacup reads, “Teacup follows a disparate group of people in rural Georgia who must come together in the face of a mysterious threat in order to survive.” But that leaves out the intriguing involvement of producer James Wan, or that the subject matter is so “horrifying,” it made star Yvonne Strahovski “feel sick.” Just in time for Halloween!
Caddo Lake, which is on the border of Texas and Louisiana, covers nearly 27,000 acres. It’s easy to go missing in there, which is what happens to an eight-year-old girl in the new horror movie from writer and director duo Celine Held and Logan George. The film (produced by M. Night Shyamalan) also stars Dylan O’Brien and Eliza Scanlen, who begin to link together a series of past deaths and disappearances.
La Máquina reunites Y tu mamá también stars Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal in a boxing drama-thriller. After a brutal loss, boxer Esteban “La Máquina” Osuna (played by Garcia Bernal) faces a low point in his career. But his manager and best friend, Andy Lujan (Luna), believes he still has promise to mount a comeback for one last fight… possibly for selfish reasons. Esteban is also facing issues in his personal life, including his journalist ex-wife Irasema (Eiza González), who is investigating corruption in the boxing world.
Alfonso Cuarón, the Oscar-winning director of Children Men, Y tu mamá también (big week for the YTMT freaks out there!), and the best Harry Potter movie, is back with his first new project in six years. Disclaimer stars Cate Blanchett as a journalist who receives a mysterious book in the mail that threatens to reveal her darkest secrets. The ensemble cast of the psychological thriller, which is told over seven chapters, also includes Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, HoYeon Jung, Louis Partridge, Lesley Manville, and Leila George. It’s nice to have a new anything from Cuarón.
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