The actor: Karen Gillan might not have known for sure which roles we’d be asking her about for this Random Roles feature, but she could have made an educated guess about two of them. And, of course, she’d be right. When you’re part of two of the biggest franchises in popular culture, those characters are bound to come up in a career-spanning interview. But if Gillan is tired of talking about either Doctor Who’s Amy Pond or Guardians Of The Galaxy’s Nebula, she doesn’t show it. And if she has any say in it, we haven’t seen the last of them. Read More
There are artists who work on such a large scale that seeing their art in person for the first time can completely change your impression of a piece, no matter how many times you’ve seen it before in reproduction. Some filmmakers are like that too. Take Denis Villeneuve, for instance, who is currently wowing theatrical audiences with the massive scope of Dune: Part Two. He’s just one of a handful of directors, including Stanley Kubrick, James Cameron, and Christopher Nolan, with big ideas and even bigger executions of them. If you’ve only seen their films on a TV screen, you’re missing out on a unique sensation. They may not have a say in how their films are viewed once they’re out in the wild, but their artistic intent is clear—they were meant to be seen on the largest screen possible in a theater with ideal viewing conditions (minimal stray light, a proper projection system, and state-of-the-art sound, for starters). Read More
Say what you will about Zack Snyder, the man loves to craft multiple movies out of a single idea, whether 300 or Army Of The Dead. The latest victim is Netflix’s Rebel Moon, his critically panned 2023 space saga that somehow snagged a continuation—even if the director’s math of millions of people watching part one isn’t necessarily accurate. Think of it as his own little SnyderVerse because Rebel Moon—Part Two: Scargiver is almost here. Read More
It’s been 24 years since Christopher Nolan made a name for himself with his second feature Memento, so enough time has probably passed that heavily borrowing from it won’t be seen as a major crime. Sleeping Dogs doesn’t unfold in backward chronology, but covers similar territory plotwise: Russell Crowe’s amnesiac ex-cop Roy Freeman doesn’t go so far as to tattoo reminders of important details on his body, but he has labeled everything throughout his house with simple instructions for use, and makes sure to end the day putting his TV remote, or anything else he needs as badly, in places where he knows he’ll need to look for the basics. Read More