Matt Singer is the editor and critic of the website ScreenCrush.com. For five years, he was the on-air host of IFC News on the Independent Film Channel, hosting coverage of film festivals and red carpets around the world. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, he’s been a frequent contributor to the television shows CBS This Morning Saturday and Ebert Presents At the Movies, and his writing has also appeared in print and online at The Village Voice, The Dissolve, and Indiewire. His first book, Marvel’s Spider-Man: From Amazing to Spectacular, is on sale now.
Matt Singer
Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford Will Reunite for ‘Indiana Jones 5’!
“There is only going to be one actor playing Indiana Jones and that’s Harrison Ford.”
George Kennedy, Oscar Winner and Character Actor Supreme, Dies at 91
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! is the funniest movie of all time. This is not opinion; this is fact, backed up by math and science. And a big reason why is George Kennedy, who, according to TMZ, died yesterday at the age of 91.
‘Zoolander 2’ Review: This Comedy Sequel Will Leave You Feeling Blue (Steel)
Is there a documented record for the most celebrity cameos in a single film? If there was, Zoolander 2 just broke it. The film opens with the murder of Justin Bieber and closes with ... well, without spoiling it, let’s say it closes with a whole slew of more cameos, and there’s at least 20 more in between. These are some of the biggest names from the world of fashion, music, TV, film, journalism, and pop culture. If Zoolander 2 was a party, the guest list alone would make it the greatest ever thrown. But Zoolander 2 is not a party. It is a movie. A bad movie. Never have so many cool people appeared in something so patently lame — or, as idiot male model Derek Zoolander mispronounces it, “luh-may.”
‘Nine Lives’ Trailer: Kevin Spacey Turns Into a Cat, and No This Is Not a Joke
Wow. This is actually happening. Kevin Spacey is starring in a movie (called Nine Lives) where a wealthy businessman is turned into a cat (called “Mr. Fuzzypants”) because according to Christopher Walken (playing “Christopher Walken”), he hasn’t been there for his family and he’s going to be “stuck inside this cat” until he makes things right...
Scooby-Doo Is Dumb
The big pop cultural announcement this morning (via Entertainment Weekly) is that DC Comics is turning a bunch of classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons into a new line of comics. DC’s concept is to update these properties for 2016; not to simply continue their adventures as if no time has passed since their 1970s heyday, but to “revitalize the characters in a new day and age.”
Ian McKellen Says Gay People Are ‘Disregarded’ By Hollywood and the Oscars
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts may have announced sweeping changes to their membership and governing board that will take effect next year, but that hasn’t changed much about the state of this year’s Oscar race, or the conversation around its lack of diversity. Ian McKellen is the latest actor to weigh in on the controversy surrounding 2016’s nominees and their total and all-consuming whiteness. He had some very powerful things to say.
Will Smith Won’t Attend This Year’s Oscars Amidst Mounting Controversy Over Nominees
The Oscars were already overwhelmingly white; now they’ve gotten even whiter.
New HBO NOW Releases: February 2016
So February is almost upon us, and that means it’s time to make Valentine’s Day plans. Because I’ve got a newborn baby at home (and because I’ve always been cheap and lazy), this year I’ll probably sit at home and watch movies with my wife. If you’d like to go that route too, HBO NOW has plenty of appropriate options to choose from, including the single most romantic movie of 2015, Magic Mike XXL. What could possibly be more romantic than Joe Manganiello grinding a gas station soda machine? (I’m drawing a blank, but that might be because I keep getting distracted by Manganiello’s abs.)
‘Now You See Me 2’ Trailer: Get Ready For a Reappearing Act
And now, for their next trick: a sequel!
‘Creed’ Review: An Old Franchise Flies High Again
“The way I imagine it, after the fight, he’s riding home in a cab, with the roar of the people chanting ‘Rocky!’ still in his ears. And he just drops over dead. In other words, he has achieved everything possible and he dies when he’s on top. I don’t think people want to see Rocky when he’s 80.”
‘Black Mass’ Review: Johnny Depp as a Wicked Boston Gangster
Jawny Depp can be a great actuh. But at a certain point in the recent past, Jawny seemed to stop looking faw great material and stahted looking faw anything that would affawd him the awppawtunity to put on a crazy wig and speak in a weeuhd accent. In the past few yeeuhs he’s played a vampiyuh with crazy hair and a weeuhd accent, a Native American with a bird on his head and a weeuhd accent, a Canadian detective with a fake nose and a weeuhd accent, a singing wolf with crazy hair and a weeuhd accent, a British art thief with a crazy mustache and a weeuhd accent, and now, in Black Mass, he’s James “Whitey” Bulgah, with thinning hair and a thick Bahston accent. Do you think Jawny even remembuhs what he really sounds like at this point?
Review: ‘Sicario’ Is One of the Most Intense Movies of the Year
‘Sicario’ is an exercise in prolonged tension like few others. Every moment from the first scene to the last is suspenseful. The opening, a deadly raid on a drug kingpin’s safe house establishes a terrifying precedent: In this film, violence can erupt at any time without any warning, and no one and nothing can be trusted. Having thoroughly unsettled the audience, director Denis Villeneuve keeps viewers on edge with shifty characters, sudden bursts of gunfire, and the careful use of a persistent, pounding score. Remember the scene in Boogie Nights where Alfred Molina is randomly tossing firecrackers at Mark Wahlberg and John C. Reilly? Sicario is like that scene for two straight hours with no “Sister Christian.” It is intense.