Episodes

Guillermo del Toro returns to the dark fairy tale genre in this story about an unlikely relationship that develops between a mute janitor and a strange creature that is part man and part fish.

Taking a look at Pixar’s latest big film, Coco, which incorporates the Dia de los Muertos tradition into yet another heartwarming family tale.

This true story begins at the onset of World War II when, within days of becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill has to face one of his most critical of trials: contemplating a peace treaty with Nazi Germany, or standing firm to fight for the principles, independence, and free will of a nation. As the seemingly insurmountable Nazi forces trample through Western Europe and invasion appears imminent, and with a nervous public, a wavering King, and his own party conspiring again...

A podcast review of Denis Villenueve’s continuation of Ridley Scott’s 1982 science fiction masterpiece.

The riots and looting in Detroit, 1967, were sparked by the mostly white police force coming into a predominantly black neighborhood in order to infiltrate a nightclub operating without a license, which ended up with yet another incident of police aggression and harassment in the area that has seemingly gone on unchecked. Specifically, the film concentrates on the Algiers Motel incident, which which a group of black men, and two white women, end up having a terrifying night while being interroga...

The action in It takes place in the fictional small town of Derry, Maine, where we mostly follow a group of about seven adolescents on their break during the summer. The de-facto leader of the group, Bill Denbrough, has recently been plagued by thoughts of his younger brother Georgie’s disappearance, though we in the audience know that the tyke is but the latest victim of a sewer-dwelling, fear-feeding demon who mostly presents himself in the form of a clown named Pennywise. Georgie’s not the on...

Set in Berlin in 1989, shortly before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, we find an MI6 agent named Lorraine Broughton on a mission to try to get a much sought after highly classified list of spies working for Western agencies around the world, kept hidden within the case of a luxury watch, in order to prevent it from going to the KGB. Operating in flashbacks as the bruised and fatigued agent divulges the details of her botched mission to her immediate superior, as well as to a bigwig in the CIA, ...

Kumail Nanjiani stars and co-scripts this romantic comedy about himself (more or less), a Pakistani immigrant to America turned stand-up comedian living in Chicago who ends up going out and then falling into a romantic relationship with a white, non-Muslim psychology graduate student named Emily. Contrary to both of their desires to stay unattached, things are going remarkably well, though that is also part of the problem, as his very strict and traditional Pakistani family expect – no, require ...

In this outing, we find Peter Parker as an awkward teenager, who has a crush on schoolmate Liz, while also brushing up on his knowledge on a school team vying for a national academic competition. He also happens to have an internship with part-time father figure Tony Stark, who is using the opportunity to mentor the lad on the ways to use his technologically advanced costume that’s enhanced like a magic Swiss-army knife by an AI control device Peter dubs ‘Karen’ (all tech courtesy of Stark Indus...

Set in Atlanta, Ansel Elgort plays Baby, a baby-faced (naturally) but extremely talented driver who constantly plays music on several of his old iPods while he works to overcome his persistent tinnitus, the result of a childhood car accident that left him an orphan. The trouble is that Baby hates what he does and wants out as soon as his debt is paid off, which he does, only to find Doc knows he’s the best driver in the business and won’t let his golden goose go.

Brain Candy deals with a drug company, Roritor Pharmaceuticals, that is in need of a hit wonder drug, launching a new and mostly untested antidepressant they call Gleemonex, which promises to locks its patient into the sensation of reliving their happiest memory. The new drug quickly becomes the number one on the market (even more popular than penicillin), as we follow several people who use the product, as well as the drug’s inventor, and the CEO and board members of Roritor as they deal with t...

Tom Cruise plays a roguish armed forces associate who doubling as a tomb-raiding antiquities procurer, Nick Morton, who, along with smart-alecky partner-in-crypts, Chris Vail, earns his living digging up ancient artifacts, then selling for the highest price he can get on the black market. Soon the men join forces with noted Egypt expert and archaeologist (and Morton’s chance to hook up) Jenny Halsey while in Iraq, where a mammoth underground burial site lies under the sand, housing a mysterious ...

Wonder Woman starts with her origin on the shrouded and magically hidden island-paradise of Themyscira, where the Greek gods are real, and Diana is born and raised into the ways of the Amazons, who teach her honor and how to battle. All of their training is put to use when an American pilot and spy named Steve Trevor crashes in his plane off of the island’s coast, with a boat of well-armed German soldiers following suit, who battle with the Amazons to tragic results. Sickened by the violent ways...

Frantz is set in Quedlinburg, Germany, in 1919, just after the Great War (World War I) has concluded, though the aftermath is still quite fresh in the hearts and minds of the people. A local woman named Anna is but one of many who are mourning for the loss of young men in the war, grieving her beloved Frantz, killed in battle before he would return and marry her as planned. Living under the roof of Frantz’s parents, Dr. Hans Hoffmeister and his wife Magda, Anna regularly places flowers on Frantz...

Set in 1940, around the time of the London Blitz during World War II, Their Finest stars Gemma Arterton as Catrin Cole, a fledgling screenwriter from Wales who has been hired on by the British Ministry of Information, Film Division, looking to women to fill in jobs for some of the men lost to fight the war, to work in London on inspirational films geared toward women. Later, she is hired on to help with a full-length feature, meant to shore up the viewing public, particularly the female viewers,...

Amy Schumer stars as Emily Middleton, who cajoles her divorced doting mother Linda to accompany her on a non-refundable vacation to a posh resort in Ecuador she booked back when she had a job and a significant other to come with her. It’s fun for the ladies at first, with Emily meeting hunky suitor James and Linda enjoying the poolside with a good book. Sure enough, as warned not long after arrival, the two tourists end up getting “snatched” — kidnapped — and put up for ransom by a fierce Colomb...

Batman & Bill is a Hulu-original documentary that asserts that, contrary to popular belief, that Bob Kane was not only not the sole creator of the DC Comics’ superhero, The Batman, but wasn’t really the main ideas guy behind his most iconic aspects. As you could guess from the film’s title, there is another person, a reclusive but creative man named Bill Finger, who molded Batman from the get-go to how we experience him today, from the trademark cape-and-cowl look of Bruce Wayne’s costume, to hi...

This second volume finds Peter Quill and the gang getting their bacons saved by someone who is more than a man, named Ego, who claims to be Peter’s father. Despite skepticism due to Ego’s seeming abandonment, Peter is invited to join Ego on the latter’s own Eden-like planet, called, of course, Ego’s Planet, where he must periodically return to in order to keep it alive, residing there with only his assistant, an empath named Mantis. Meanwhile, there’s an powerful golden-skinned race called The S...

Kristen Stewart plays Maureen Cartwright, an American artist working in Paris as a personal shopper for an internationally famous model and celebrity named Kyra, who wants her to purchase the latest in designer clothes and jewelry before they are worn by anyone else. Maureen is unhappy in both her career and location, tempted somewhat by her long-distance boyfriend, who is currently living in the sultanate of Oman. What she’s lingering for is some sign from her recently deceased twin brother, wh...

In this entry, we open with Dominic Toretto on honeymoon with his beloved Letty in Havana, Cuba, where, of course, he gets into a bit of racing for pink slips on the never-too-crowded city streets. Dom finds his stay not entirely blissful when he is confronted and blackmailed by a strange woman called Cipher, who reveals herself to have something on him so powerful that would make him turn away from all he holds dear — his newfangled family of car jocks — in order to go rogue and perform a top s...

Scarlett Johansson stars as Major, a law-enforcement agent whose human brain, after a terrible accident that nearly killed her, has been put into a body that’s entirely synthetic — she’s essentially a robot with a human mind, and the first of her kind. She works for Section 9, a task force currently trying to take down a powerful hacker named Kuze (Pitt, Criminal) who has been using the technology that most humans have been modifying their own bodies and minds with, and controlling them to do hi...

This one puts the action on the International Space Station, whose six-person crew have just discovered a single-cell organism, the very first evidence of life outside of Earth, within one of the soil samples they’ve taken from Mars. Powers that be at home want them to do some testing on Calvin, as they’ve dubbed it, before giving the “all clear’ to bring down to a terrestrial lab. Study they do, as Calvin begins to flourish in his new environment, grown far beyond its single-cell existence. Ho...

The story involves a lovely and fiercely independent girl named Belle, who lives with her widower inventor father in a small provincial French village. She’d rather pursue her own path, which brings consternation to the local narcissistic he-man, Gaston, who intends to marry Belle because she’s the prettiest girl in town. After Maurice gets lost in the thick and ominous woods, Belle goes out to find him, discovering his whereabouts in a secluded castle run by The Beast, who has her father impris...

After his grandmother passes away, late-30s New York financier Peter reluctantly returns to his home town in Warwick, Rhode Island, for the first time in about two decades, to tidy up her estate. Unfortunately, he inadvertently loses his wallet en route, causing him to seek out his old high school friend Donald for a few bucks, though he hasn’t been in contact in about as long as he bailed on his past. While Peter has matured to the point where he virtually disowns the metal-head delinquent he o...