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Party On, Meat Loaf Syfy Meat Loaf was afflicted with health problems for years, including back problems that required multiple surgeries. He fainted on stage at a show in Pittsburgh in 2011, and collapsed again at a show in Canada in 2016. Yet he kept working into his late 60s and even his early 70s. In 2006 he released “Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose,” closing out the album trilogy that began with 1977’s “Bat Out of Hell....

Miss America’s 100th Anniversary Broadcast Was A Historic Disaster Peacock By BJ Colangelo/Dec. 17, 2021 5:37 pm EST Miss America and the world of pageantry in general have been maligned for decades, and after last night’s historic 100th Anniversary showing, it feels like a sign from the universe that the pageant needs to pack up its tiaras and close up shop. The Miss America pageant, err, competition, was given a massive makeover in 2018 in an attempt to revamp the program (which continues to be one of the largest providers of scholarship assistance to young women in the country) for the modern era....

Movies Like The Town You Definitely Need To See Warner Bros. By Liam Gaughan/Jan. 12, 2022 4:20 pm EST Ben Affleck’s career was in a downward spiral in the mid-2000s. The actor had shown early promise in the mid-1990s thanks to his Academy Award-winning screenplay for “Good Will Hunting” and featured parts in ensemble comedies like “Mallrats” and “Dazed and Confused.” Yet, as his stardom increased, the quality of his roles declined....

‘Life has come full circle’ Disney+/Marvel Studios Both Tom Holland and Matt Lintz had been acting in films and TV for years by the time they auditioned to play Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Lintz got his start when he was only eight years old with a role in Rob Zombie’s decidedly un-kid-friendly 2009 sequel “Halloween II.” In fact, acting in horror projects was kinda his thing for a while....

Navalny Review: A Riveting Portrait Of Vladimir Putin’s Worst Nightmare [Sundance 2022] CNN Films By Ben Pearson/Jan. 28, 2022 8:42 am EST If you’ve paid attention to global politics over the past few years, you already know the name Alexei Navalny. But “Navalny,” the new documentary from filmmaker Daniel Roher coming to HBO Max later this year, paints a portrait that takes you beyond the headlines and showcases an impassioned, courageous, and principled man brave enough to stand up to Russia’s authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin — and who nearly died because of it....

Peacemaker Enters ‘A Whole New Whirled’ With Violence, Vulgarity And Heart Warner Bros. By Danielle Ryan/Jan. 13, 2022 8:30 am EST Writer and director James Gunn has an eclectic style of filmmaking that combines gross-out humor, vulgarity, and intense violence with heartfelt messages and deeper thematic meanings. His work is a mix of sweet and sardonic, earnest and extreme. After the R-rated romp of “The Suicide Squad,” Gunn decided to take the character of Peacemaker (John Cena) a step further....

Pedro Pascal’s Past Made Him A Perfect Fit For The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent Lionsgate By Jeremy Mathai/April 22, 2022 10:52 am EST Cast one of the most recognizable actors throughout the business in his most self-aware movie yet, surround him with a supporting cast of entertaining and immensely likable stars, sprinkle in a hefty dose of espionage antics and bait designed specifically to please cinephiles, and the final result will likely approximate the joys of “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent....

Snowpiercer Will Come To A Stop After Season 4 On TNT TNT By Joshua Meyer/June 17, 2022 7:27 pm EST It’s the end of the line for “Snowpiercer,” the TNT original series based on the Bong Joon-ho film and the graphic novel “Le Transperceneige” by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette. The upcoming fourth season of the show, starring Daveed Diggs, Jennifer Connelly, and Sean Bean, will be its last. It seems like only yesterday that “Snowpiercer” premiered on TNT after numerous delays and showrunner changes....

Real-life free-falls What makes this scene in “Point Break” so amazing is that on-set risk-taker Patrick Swayze did, indeed, jump out of a high-flying airplane during this scene. But let’s be clear: Swayze was no amateur by the time they filmed this pivotal scene in the film. According to Karen Thomas of USA Today, the acting adonis ended up making over 50 jumps for the film, effectively becoming enamored with the sensation of skydiving during filming....

Stephen King Movie Moments That Took Things Too Far Warner Bros. By Liam Gaughan/June 1, 2022 4:57 pm EST The modern film industry is dominated by franchises and previously established properties. It seems like the only projects that are green-lit are those connected to “Star Wars,” Marvel, DC, “Harry Potter,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Game of Thrones,” or “Star Trek.” However, the work of beloved novelist Stephen King is just as strong of a selling point....

Susan Sarandon, Richard Gere, William H. Macy, Diane Keaton, And More Join The Star-Studded Cast Of Rom-Com Maybe I Do Miramax Films By Joshua Meyer/May 6, 2022 11:27 am EST Do you like rom-coms? If you answered, “Hell, yes,” or even, “Maybe I do,” then you will surely be interested in the upcoming movie, “Maybe I Do,” which is indeed a romantic comedy and has assembled a starry cast including Susan Sarandon, Richard Gere, William H....

The 20 Best Robin Williams Movies Ranked Miramax By Scott Thomas/March 30, 2022 4:18 pm EST Every Robin Williams performance was a magic trick. No, the actor never made anything disappear. One could argue that he didn’t even disappear into his roles. The magnetic Juilliard-trained thespian was too large for any script or character description to contain. More often than not, it seemed like scripts and characters conformed to his talents....

The Book Of Boba Fett Delivers An Origin Story Before ‘The Gathering Storm’ Lucasfilm By Bryan Young/Jan. 19, 2022 9:58 am EST Directed by noted TV director Kevin Tancharoen, the fourth episode of “The Book of Boba Fett” goes back into the timeline to offer answers to things we already knew, but delivers them in a satisfying way. The vast majority of the episode plays in the past, with Boba Fett dedicated to retaking his ship from the clutches of Bib Fortuna in Jabba’s Palace....

The Classic Comedy That Heavily Influenced The Mighty Ducks Walt Disney Productions By BJ Colangelo/March 9, 2022 11:01 am EST The 1990s were the heyday for kid-led sports movies, with films like “The Big Green,” “The Sandlot,” “Little Giants,” “Ladybugs,” “Air Bud,” “Little Big League,” “Angels in the Outfield,” and “Rookie of the Year” becoming household favorites, but only one* became a certified cultural phenomenon. Disney’s “The Mighty Ducks” spawned a trilogy of films, an animated television series, a live-action sequel television series, and a real-life National Hockey League hockey team....

Why it’s essential viewing Searchlight Pictures At the time of its release, “The Tree of Life” drew lofty comparisons to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” perhaps in part because Malick brought in the same legendary special effects supervisor, Douglas Trumbull, who also worked on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Blade Runner,” among other films. Though Trumbull had been out of the movie business for many years, Malick was able to lure him back, just as he himself had come out of his own two-decade retirement in the 1990s to make “The Thin Red Line....

The Ladykillers Could Have Been The End For Alec Guinness The Rank Organisation By Debopriyaa Dutta/March 30, 2022 10:40 am EST We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Ealing’s classic 1955 film “The Ladykillers” is often considered one of the greatest comedies of all time. It’s also the last remnant of post-war London in a world that was moving on — rationing, steam trains, and carthorses firmly anchor the film to its post-war setting....

The Morning Watch: VFX Artists React To Hook, Fact-Checking Dinosaurs In Movies & More TriStar Pictures By Ethan Anderton/Feb. 21, 2022 8:00 am EST (The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fan-made productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.) In this edition, hear what visual effects artists think of the work done on Steven Spielberg’s “Hook” back in 1991, as well as some of the action sequences in “No Time to Die....

The Specific Reason Justin Benson And Aaron Moorhead Directed Moon Knight Episodes 2 And 4 Disney+/Marvel Studios By Sandy Schaefer/April 8, 2022 2:15 pm EST Say what you will about Kevin Feige (he’s probably heard it all), but he and the other head honchos at Marvel Studios have a knack for pairing directors with the right project. It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Taika Waititi making the vibrant, irreverent “Thor: Ragnarok” such a blast, just like it’s hard to envision someone other than Chloé Zhao daring to mess with the Marvel Cinematic Universe formula the way she did with “Eternals....

Vincent D’Onofrio Reveals Why His Kingpin Was So Different On Hawkeye Marvel Studios By Jeremy Mathai/Jan. 14, 2022 3:29 pm EST Despite the outside perception that the Marvel Cinematic Universe operates like a well-oiled machine (and, in fairness, it pretty much does), Marvel Studios has actually experienced quite a few bumps and detours along the way to gaining box office supremacy with their deeply interconnected franchise of movies and shows. The arrival of the Disney+ streaming service (combined with the restructuring of Marvel Studios and cutting out the middleman of Kevin Feige reporting to the “Creative Committee”) ushered the MCU into a whole new era of multimedia storytelling, even though Marvel technically produced prior shows for ABC (nobody misses “Inhumans,” but RIP “Agent Carter,” cancelled far too soon!...

Why Is Every New TV Show About Scammers? Aaron Epstein/Netflix By Valerie Ettenhofer/March 7, 2022 1:00 pm EST In January, Netflix dropped a docuseries called “The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman.” The series told the unbelievable true story of a man who posed as an MI5 agent for years in an attempt to make his romantic partners relinquish their money and power to him. Two weeks later, “The Tinder Swindler” debuted on the streamer, and debate about its testimonies by love-struck women conned out of hundreds of thousands of dollars briefly took over social media....