Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance’s merger agreement is now official. On Friday, the two companies announced plans to merge into a massive media company that will fold WBD’s studio, linear channels, streaming service, and gaming segment into Paramount. Though WBD initially signed onto an $83 billion agreement to merge part of Warner Bros. with […]
Just months after Netflix struck a deal to acquire the Warner Bros. studio, HBO, HBO Max, and Warner Games, the streaming giant has backed out of the arrangement, declining to raise its offer beyond Paramount’s “best and final” bid. It’s just the latest twist in the acquisition saga, which started with a bidding war that […]
When Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson began uploading a series of short clips created with Seedance 2.0 – TikTok developer ByteDance’s newest video generation model – it was hard to deny that the footage was much more impressive than what we’ve seen from other gen AI outfits. The clips’ star (a digital duplicate of Tom Cruise) […]
A three-hour-long period drama about kabuki, a centuries-old form of Japanese theater, doesn’t exactly sound like box office gold. But that’s exactly what happened with Kokuho. Director Lee Sang-il’s adaptation of the Shuichi Yoshida novel of the same name was a surprise hit last year, becoming Japan’s top-grossing live-action film domestically. But star Ken Watanabe […]
Let me just say that I highly recommend you go into Possession blind. Don’t watch a trailer. Don’t even finish reading this. Go watch it now over on Shudder, Criterion, or Metrograph. It’s also available through Kanopy or Hoopla if your library provides access. Then come back so we can talk about it in the […]
We are all guilty of pulling out our phones and doomscrolling through stressful headlines or mindnumbing videos when we should be doing anything else. We know it’s bad, but we still do it because it’s hard to resist when much of our time is spent living and working on our devices. And even though we […]
As a movie, Iron Lung is occasionally thrilling but mostly forgettable. It’s a small-budget horror flick that has some cool ideas and pulls them off in an extremely efficient way, creating a sense of tension that unfortunately never turns into outright scares. But the most important thing about it is what it represents. At a […]
For much of its existence, Apple’s streaming service has seemed intent to focus on quality over quantity, offering some great shows but often feeling barren in comparison to competitors like Netflix and Disney. But as Apple TV looks to expand its reach to hit a larger audience, it appears the “quantity” part of that equation […]
The makers of Amazon’s Melania documentary have defended its exorbitant cost following accusations of bribery to appease the Trump empire. Amazon paid $40 million to Melania Trump’s production company for the film rights and another $35 million for marketing – making it one of the most expensive documentaries ever produced. “I think it’s silly because […]
Anna and Magnus built a life together. They had a home with three kids and a dog. Then they separated. This is where The Love That Remains begins, but as time passes and the reality of their divorce sets in, they’re left to move through a future strained by their unraveling. Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason’s […]