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John Billingsley’s Dream Star Trek Episode Sounds Absolutely Wild Paramount By Witney Seibold/March 21, 2022 1:57 pm EST The best character on “Star Trek: Enterprise” was easily Dr. Phlox, played by John Billingsley. Phlox, the first Denobulan to have appeared on “Star Trek,” was genial, approachable, peculiar, and intelligent beyond measure. He seemed excited to be serving on a ship full of humans, a species he found to be unusually optimistic and amusingly prudish (Denobulans marry into large, complicated polycules, for instance, shocking the more traditionally heteronormative Trip Tucker who refuses to sleep with one of Phlox’s wives)....

A seemingly bulletproof franchise Universal Pictures It’s tough to know when the gas will run out and, in some ways, this film is being billed as a conclusion of sorts for the “Jurassic” series. That said, despite “Fallen Kingdom” and “Dominion” earning very poor reviews, the franchise keeps chugging right along and making more money than just about any other movie series out there this side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe....

Intrepid Uproarious Games / Tabletopia Part of the appeal of board games is their ability to give us experiences we would never want to encounter in our everyday lives. So, while few people are clamoring to experience the events of “Apollo 13” or “Stowaway” first-hand, the puzzle-heavy prospect of surviving an international space disaster might make Jeff Beck and Jeff Krause’s “Intrepid” the right title for your board game group. The duo’s latest project was successfully Kickstarted in July 2020 and found its way into homes earlier this year....

The Academy Formally Responds To The Will Smith Situation Warner Bros. By Danielle Ryan/March 28, 2022 3:56 pm EST Live television always has the potential for something surprising to happen, but the altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock at the 94th Annual Academy Awards was a truly shocking moment that cast a pall over the rest of the evening. While presenting the award for Best Documentary Feature, Rock made a joke at the expense of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Smith walked up onto the stage and slapped Rock before yelling at him....

The Batman Bombed At The Box Office In China, But Anime Saved The Day In The US Warner Bros. By Ryan Scott/March 21, 2022 12:13 pm EST Another week of March 2022 in the books, another week where “The Batman” topped the box office. Warner Bros.’ reboot of DC’s most popular superhero has proved to be a winner as it has now bested the competition for three weeks in a row and is about to cross the $600 million mark worldwide....

The Characters Of Archive 81, Ranked Netflix By Scott Thomas/Feb. 2, 2022 12:09 pm EST Halfway through the very scary 4th episode of Netflix’s surprise smash “Archive 81,” an artist named Cassandra (Kristin Griffith) glibly observes, “[all humans] are performers — in one way or another.” I concur, Cassandra! Humans learn to walk, talk, and do almost everything through imitation. All the world’s a stage. What Rebecca Sonnenshine’s show terrifyingly posits is that the act of performance opens anyone up to spirits that might move through them — creative or otherwise....

The Daily Stream: Before Podcasts, There Was Pump Up The Volume New Line Cinema By Danielle Ryan/Feb. 10, 2022 5:00 pm EST (Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching, why it’s worth checking out, and where you can stream it.) The Movie: “Pump Up the Volume” Where You Can Stream It: HBO Max The Pitch: It’s the late 1980s/early 1990s....

Going analog Warner Bros. Pictures “One of the problems right now,” explained “Dune” production designer Patrice Vermette, “is that if you go on the internet, it’s actually a very shallow pool of images.” Vermette told The Hollywood Reporter that those images often serve as inspiration for many unrelated projects. “That’s why you see a lot of similarity in design all over the world today.” It was important to Villeneuve that those images — or any images that could be easily found online — weren’t used in the design process for “Dune....

The Offer Star Dan Fogler On Preparing To Play Francis Ford Coppola [Interview] Paramount+ By Jack Giroux/April 29, 2022 2:00 pm EST Francis Ford Coppola can’t be an easy role to play. He’s not only one of the greatest directors ever to live, but any movie fan likely has an idea of how the famed director expresses himself and his general presence. It’s a daunting role for a variety of reasons in the new miniseries “The Offer,” which is about the making of “The Godfather....

The Scene That Cemented Paul Newman’s Role As Butch Cassidy By Steven Ward/Feb. 18, 2022 3:11 pm EST Newman gave the most aesthetic kick of his career All it took to convince the sister of one of America’s most iconic outlaws that Newman was the right man to play her brother Cassidy, whose real name was Robert LeRoy Parker, was one scene. The particular moment that convinced Lula Parker Betenson comes early in the film after Cassidy and Sundance return to Hole in the Wall to find the gang under new proposed leadership....

The Staircase: Michael Peterson Pens Furious Response To HBO Series That ‘Trashed Me’ HBO By Valerie Ettenhofer/June 11, 2022 1:28 pm EST HBO’s true crime adaptation “The Staircase” continues to draw ire from those involved in the real-life story, as subject Michael Peterson has now shared any angry response via a series of emails to Variety. Peterson’s defense attorney David Rudolf and three members of the real-life documentary team that’s portrayed in the series — director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, producer Allyson Luchak, and editor Scott Stevenson — all recently spoke publicly about their problems with the Colin Firth-led dramatization....

Tigertail’s Production Was Skirting Disaster From Its Very First Scene Netflix By Witney Seibold/May 19, 2022 11:25 am EST Actor Tzi Ma is a person you’ve likely seen before. For decades, Ma carved out a career as a supporting player, often playing professors and doctors on TV and in film. He’s appeared on nearly every high-ranked series that aired between 1988 and 2015 and recent movie fans may recognize Ma as General Shang in Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival” or the dad in Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell....

Titans Star Joseph Morgan Says Season 4 Will Be Brother Blood’s Origin Story The CW By Valerie Ettenhofer/March 13, 2022 7:30 pm EST Does anyone else feel like superhero stories are entering their horror phase? Between the vampire-led “Morbius,” the serial killer-centric “The Batman,” and horror-tinged upcoming projects like Marvel’s Halloween special, it seems like it’s spooky season for the caped crusaders — and I for one couldn’t be happier about it....

Wanda’s Darkest Moments In Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, Ranked Marvel Studios By Scott Thomas/May 9, 2022 12:36 pm EST In the first issue of Jonathan Hickman’s now-classic “Powers of X” miniseries, the Fantastic Four captures Toad, Mystique, and Sabertooth — Cyclops intercedes. Though the trio has just stolen a swathe of secret files, he offers his former enemies amnesty. Confused, Sue Richards asks “Cyclops. This amnesty thing … What are you thinking?...

‘I wanted to make a movie about filmmaking’ A24 I’m trying to dodge spoilers here, but the movie does a really fine job of burying the lead. When you gave the script out and people read it and realized what this movie’s actually about, were there a lot of raised eyebrows? The funny thing is, I’m sure a lot of that didn’t get to me because people just wouldn’t talk to me....

32% Think This Batman Villain Deserves To Be In A Live-Action Movie – Do We Agree? DC Comics By Jamie Gerber/April 6, 2022 4:25 pm EST (Welcome to Survey Says, a feature where we conduct a movie-related survey for a random group of people and explain why they’re completely right, completely wrong, or somewhere in-between.) They say a hero is only as good as his villain and the Dark Knight has some of the very best....

Craig’s Impulsive Offer Paid Off MGM This sounds like a situation that could have snowballed out of control, given Craig’s own admission that there is probably “somebody I have to talk to about that before I go offering directors jobs.” But Mendes said yes on the spot, and Craig’s drunken proposal turned into one of the franchise’s best entries in recent history. Without Craig’s intervention, who knows if MGM execs would have consider the filmmaker, who at that point was known for helming decidedly different films like “American Beauty” and “Revolutionary Road....

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Could’ve Starred Mick Jagger And David Bowie Orion Pictures By Travis Yates/March 23, 2022 2:17 pm EST The 1964 comedy “Bedtime Story” starring Marlon Brando, David Niven, and Shirley Jones is about two conmen with clashing styles that find themselves competing to scam the same wealthy heiress. In 1988 Orion Pictures remade the film as “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” with Steve Martin and Michael Caine. The movie would be made again in 2019 as “The Hustle” starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson, with the gender roles flipped....

Doctor Strange 2 Producer Says The Team-Up With Scarlet Witch Has Some Unexpected Turns Marvel Studios By Ben F. Silverio/Feb. 23, 2022 9:26 am EST Team-ups have become pretty common place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After the heavy hitters starred in their own movies, heroes like Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor came together in the Avengers movies and continued to pop in and out of their movies and shows as needed....

Fred Ward dead at 79 Universal Pictures Born in San Diego in 1942, Fred Ward lived a rich and multifaceted life before ever even arriving in Hollywood. First serving in the United States Air Force, THR also notes that he made ends meet working as a boxer, a lumberjack in Alaska, a cook, and a construction worker in San Francisco before making the leap to dubbing films in Rome, acting as a mime, and acting in various projects by Roberto Rossellini....