Matt Singer is the editor and critic of the website ScreenCrush.com. For five years, he was the on-air host of IFC News on the Independent Film Channel, hosting coverage of film festivals and red carpets around the world. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, he’s been a frequent contributor to the television shows CBS This Morning Saturday and Ebert Presents At the Movies, and his writing has also appeared in print and online at The Village Voice, The Dissolve, and Indiewire. His first book, Marvel’s Spider-Man: From Amazing to Spectacular, is on sale now.
Matt Singer
Sony Plans Second New Ghostbusters Franchise, This One ‘Guy-Themed’
Here’s something strange in the neighborhood: Deadline reports that Sony isn’t waiting for Paul Feig’s all-female Ghostbusters reboot (with its cast of comedy all-stars Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon) to debut before planning additional Ghostbuster sequels or spinoffs. They’re already getting to work on what the trade describes as a “guy-themed” offshoot with an all-male cast.
HBO Now Standalone Service Launches in April Exclusively on Apple Devices
After years of complaining from people who didn’t have or couldn’t afford cable (or whose parents refused to give them their HBO Go password), HBO is finally delivering a standalone streaming service, HBO Now. Today, the company announced some of its availability details, including pricing and when and where it will be available.
The Next ‘Wolverine’ Movie Will Start Shooting in Early 2016
Starting tomorrow, audiences around the country will be able to see Hugh Jackman in Chappie, playing a former military man turned robotics engineer trying to produce a new human-piloted police drone. He sports a hideous mullet, spends most of the film sitting at a dreary cubicle, and generally behaves like a dope. So if you’re a Jackman fan looking for the guy you love in the X-Men and Wolverine movies, I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait a while longer.
Bestflix: The Best New Netflix Instant Titles to Watch in March 2015
ScreenCrush is proud to present Bestflix, our new monthly web series and a companion to our regular column of Netflix recommendations.
‘Chappie’ Review: Highly Artificial, Limited Intelligence
The technology in Neil Blomkamp’s movies is so fully realized and intricately detailed that it feels like another one of his characters. Now Blomkamp’s made Chappie, a film where that’s literally true in the form of a police robot given the gift of human consciousness. The result is one giant metaphor for itself; a story of the world’s first true artificial intelligence and how it is almost corrupted by violence, presented in a movie where any semblance of serious consideration of what it means to be alive is drowned out by gunfire, explosions, and macho posing.
Dylan O’Brien Says He’s Not the Next Spider-Man
According to some reports (but not others), Sony has found the filmmaker to restart the Spider-Man franchise one more time, with The Sinister Six writer/director Drew Goddard swinging off of that project and onto a new Spider-Man franchise. But that still leaves the issue of who will play the new Peter Parker. Latino Review’s report on the Goddard rumor claimed they wanted a “new actor, probably an unknown” who’d start off in high school and grow with the part “a la Harry Potter.”
Marvel and Sony Have Reportedly Found Their New ‘Spider-Man’ Director
Last year, back when it still seemed possible that Sony may try to continue their Amazing Spider-Man reboot and before they teamed with Marvel to relaunch Spidey in a new film series that will connect with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ScreenCrush Editor-in-Chief Mike Sampson and I put together a list of ten directors we thought could save the Spider-Man franchise. One name we both immediately thought belonged on the list was Drew Goddard, the man who directed The Cabin in the Woods and was then slated to direct the Amazing 2 spinoff The Sinister Six.
Robert Downey Jr. Announces Charity Contest for Trip to ‘Avengers 2’ Premiere
If you’ve always wanted to go indoor sky diving, have breakfast at Randy’s Donuts, and take a helicopter tour around L.A. with Robert Downey Jr. then you have pretty eclectic taste in activities. Nonetheless that is exactly what you could do with RDJr. if you win his new charity contest through Omaze. As detailed in the video above, the grand-prize winner gets a trip to Hollywood to attend the premiere of Avengers: Age of Ultron and walk the red carpet with Downey (and, y’know, the rest of the Avengers cast). Plus Downey will put you up in a fancy hotel and do all those other swanky activities.
Watch the Short Film That Inspired the Oscar-Winning ‘Whiplash’
Before he made the Oscar-winning film Whiplash, writer/director Damien Chazelle made a short film called “Whiplash,” an excerpt from the feature script with the same characters, one of the same lead actors, and much the same story. J.K. Simmons, who won an Academy Award last week for his performance as the brutally abusive music teacher Mr. Fletcher, first played the role here. Miles Teller, who played ambitious drummer Andrew Neiman is MIA though; his part is played by Johnny Simmons from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, 21 Jump Street, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Leonard Nimoy, Beloved Mr. Spock From ‘Star Trek,’ Passes Away at 83
We have very sad news to report from The New York Times: Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek’s Mr. Spock for almost 50 years, has died. Nimoy’s wife, Susan Bay Nimoy, told the Times the cause of death was “end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.” The beloved actor and director was 83 years old.
‘The Lazarus Effect’ Review: This Resurrection Horror Thriller Should Have Stayed Dead
How many times in your life have you snuck up on someone and scared them? Three, maybe four times? The Lazarus Effect is the kind of horror movie where people do that constantly. It’s basically their standard greeting; instead of “Hello!” they jump on people from behind, sometimes while wearing pig masks. It doesn’t make much sense, but they’re not doing it because it’s logical — they’re doing it because this is a bargain basement horror film and you take the scares wherever you can get them.
Get ‘Frozen Fever’ With the Trailer for the New Disney Short
If the prospect of a new live-action version of Cinderella wasn’t enticing enough, the new Disney film is opening with a special added attraction: “Frozen Fever,” a short sequel to Frozen, the most popular movie (and most dastardly earworm) of 2013. And here I thought “Frozen fever” was a mental illness that made kids sing “Let It Go” over and over again until their parents begged for the sweet release of death. My mistake.
‘Focus’ Review: Welcome Back, Movie Star Will Smith
It’s been a decade since Will Smith was “Will Smith” onscreen. Sure, he’s made movies in the last ten years; science-fiction pictures, dramas, comedies. He even played Satan, once. But none of them riffed on that classic Will Smith persona that everyone loves; the infectious charm, the seductive smile, the cocky but casual swagger. (What’s that? Men in Black 3? No, they never made a third Men in Black. You must be confused.)
The Worst Oscars Ever! (At Least in Terms of Hot Takes)
One of the few unquestioned highlights of this year’s Academy Awards was the live performance of Best Original Song nominee “Everything is Awesome” from The LEGO Movie. Tegan and Sara and the Lonely Island performed, Oprah got her very own LEGO Oscar, and Will Arnett moaned about darkness and no parents while wearing Val Kilmer’s Batsuit from Batman Forever. It was a great moment, but one that was totally out of touch with the spirit of the evening. According to almost every pundit and critic, everything was decidedly not awesome about the 87th Oscars.
Journey Through Oscar History With This Gallery of All 88 Best Picture Winners
This Sunday’s Oscars will be the 87th annual Academy Awards. In nearly a century of honoring Hollywood’s best, the Academy has sometimes has made some bold choices, and some dumb choices. This gallery has them all; the complete history of nine decades of Best Picture winners in pictures. Some are classics, still watched to this day. A few are almost totally forgotten to history. (Cavalcade, anyone?) But they all won. Even Crash, somehow.
What to Watch on Netflix This Valentine’s Day
For most people, Valentine’s Day means flowers, chocolate, and romantic dinners. For cinephiles (or people too cheap or lazy to leave the house), Valentine’s Day means snuggling on the couch and watching a romantic movie. If you’re planning a Netflix night this weekend, picking the right film is key. There’s nothing worse than inviting that special someone over for a private screening, lighting a few candles, pouring a glass of wine, and then killing the mood by putting on In the Ream of the Senses.
‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Review: A Vanilla Movie About Kinky Sex
Christian Grey is an unusual guy. He’s the world’s most eligible billionaire bachelor and an enormously powerful businessman. He’s an avid jogger, an exceptional piano player, and a licensed helicopter pilot. He also really like the color gray. He wears gray suits and ties, drives a gray car to his gray office building (which is called Grey House) under gray Seattle skies, where his assistant dresses in—you guessed it—gray. (For the record, his office chairs are white but the couches are gray too.) And, oh yeah, he’s into kinky sex, including bondage, spanking, and domination.
Watch the ‘Cinderella’ Trailer Before it Turns Back Into a Pumpkin
Disney’s big kick right now is revisionist versions of classic fairy tales. ‘Sleeping Beauty’ became ‘Maleficent,’ a sympathetic look at the supposedly “evil” witch. Last Christmas’ ‘Into the Woods’ followed numerous fairy tales to find the unhappy endings after their “happily ever after.” Even ‘Frozen’ reconfigured numerous classic fairy tale tropes (the handsome price was secretly [SPOILER ALERT] the bad guy, and the film’s true love story was actually between a pair of sisters). What’s most surprising about Disney’s new live-action ‘Cinderella’ is how unsurprising it looks; it seems totally unlike those films in its old-school vibe.
Witness the Overwhelming Sexiness of ‘Fifty Shades of Buscemi’
The first reviews of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ are out and most are pretty mixed on the film and whether or not it delivers on the white-hot sexuality of the original novel. But here is one film that absolutely brings the raw animal magnetism: ‘Fifty Shades of Buscemi,’ a mashup that inserts the great star of ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ ‘Fargo,’ and so many more into new film opposite star Dakota Johnson.
Despite Marvel’s Spider-Man Reboot, Sony Still Developing a ‘Sinister Six’ Spinoff
After the news that Marvel and Sony had come to an agreement to co-produce a new series of ‘Spider-Man’ movies, while also introducing the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one of the items we immediately turned our attention to was Sony's planned ‘Sinister Six’ spinoff, which was deep into development and was teased all through last summer’s ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2.’ Director Drew Goddard (‘The Cabin in the Woods’) had been working on the film since last year (he even left Netflix’s ‘Daredevil’ series to focus on it) with a November 2016 release date planned. The future of that film seemed very tenuous this morning following the big announcement, but now comes news that the film is still in development at Sony.