Days before tickets go on sale for the limited theatrical run of Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon, Netflix decided to close out its Geeked Week 2023 festivities by dropping the first full trailer for the controversial director’s latest spectacle-filled project. It’s an epic and explosive first look at Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire, a space adventure in which a young woman from the outskirts of the galaxy leads a band of rebels in a fight against a tyrant.

To anyone hung up on the plot’s resemblance to a little franchise by the name of Star Wars, my response is: The overlords at LucasFilm would actually do well to check this one out. With the exception of Andor on Disney+, it’s been years since I’ve cared about anything or anyone from the galaxy far, far away, a result of Star Wars falling into the same trap as Marvel. Hidebound, increasingly averse to creative risk-taking, paint-by-numbers plots, and visuals that stopped impressing me a long time ago. Say what you will about Snyder, but his movies tend to be wild, escapist, and unapologetically fun.

Sofia Boutella as Kora in Rebel Moon. Image source: Clay Enos/Netflix

Netflix is giving Rebel Moon a one-week run in select theaters starting Dec. 15, ahead of its Dec. 22 debut on the streamer, and I don’t blame them. Snyder is clearly going for a supersized movie experience here — in more ways than one, actually. His script, for example, was long enough that it required splitting Rebel Moon into two parts, with the second (Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver) coming in April 2024. And as if that wasn’t enough, both parts of the movie will also come with longer director’s cuts.

“When a peaceful settlement on a moon in the furthest reaches of the universe finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius,” the official Netflix summary explains, “Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious stranger living among the villagers, becomes their best hope for survival. Tasked with finding trained fighters who will unite with her in making an impossible stand against the Motherworld, Kora assembles a small band of warriors — outsiders, insurgents, peasants, and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge.

“As the shadow of an entire Realm bears down on the unlikeliest of moons, a new army of heroes is formed.”

Checked the new Rebel Moon trailer below:

The post Zack Snyder’s first full Rebel Moon trailer teases an epic, action-packed revenge saga appeared first on BGR.

Confession time: I’ve read the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, at this point, too many times to count. I also thought director Edgar Wright’s 2010 live-action adaptation of the story was an absolute blast (obviously!). So you can only imagine how excited I am to return to Toronto to get re-acquainted with Scott, Wallace Wells, Ramona Flowers, Sex Bob-Omb, and the league of evil ex-boyfriends when a new eight-episode anime adaptation of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels joins all the other brand new Netflix releases next week.

And it’s not just because I’m such a fan of the story. It really does feel like it’s been forever since we’ve had something this unapologetically fun to binge on the streaming giant. Based on the screener episodes that I’ve already started watching, I can confirm this anime treatment is an absolute delight for fans of the books — while, at the same time, there are also plenty of surprises packed into the story.

That’s because this isn’t a straightforward adaptation of the books; the story goes to some unexpected places, including a shock death of [SPOILER] at the end of the first episode that I didn’t see coming.

Image source: Netflix

Image source: Netflix

Of course, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off isn’t the only new title coming to the streamer over the next several days. In addition to Netflix’s animated romp about the bass-playing, lovelorn slacker who fights Ramona’s ex-boyfriends in video game-style fights, next week’s Netflix releases also include new episodes of The Crown, a documentary about gangsters, a new live Netflix sports event, and much more.

Once I finish watching the final showdown between Scott Pilgrim and Gideon Graves — the most evil of Ramona’s evil ex-boyfriends — I’ll be streaming the Netflix releases that you can read more about below (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, by the way, debuts on Nov. 17).

The Crown: Season 6, Part 1 (Nov. 16)

This coming week, among other things, marks the beginning of the end of one of Netflix’s biggest original releases of all time. The Crown, from creator Peter Morgan, did so much to supercharge the streamer’s ambitions around original prestige — and its peeling back the curtain around the British Royal Family brought in viewers by the tens of millions.

Given that it wants to squeeze every last bit of viewership it can out of the sixth and final season of the show as possible, Netflix has chopped up the final season into two parts. With 10 episodes in total, the first four episodes drop on Nov. 16, with the final six coming on Dec. 14.

Plot-wise, the new season deals (among other things) with Princess Diana’s and Dodi Fayed’s fateful car journey, during which they were relentlessly pursued by the paparazzi. Continues Netflix about the new season: “Prince William tries to integrate back into life at Eton in the wake of his mother’s death as the monarchy has to ride the wave of public opinion. As she reaches her Golden Jubilee, the Queen reflects on the future of the monarchy with the marriage of Charles and Camilla and the beginnings of a new Royal fairytale in William and Kate.”

Suburræterna (Nov. 14)

By way of setting up this next title of the coming week’s Netflix releases, one easy point of comparison is HBO’s Gomorrah. Which is to say: If, like me, you loved that one, this continuation of the Suburra saga should appeal to you, as well.

Mind you, I’m not saying Suburræterna is as good as Gomorrah — but, then again, nothing is. Also, this new series is not too far below it in terms of quality, so that’s saying something.

Netflix’s three-season crime drama Suburra: Blood on Rome was a bloody-yet-addictive saga set in Italy’s capital that shows how the Church, state, organized crime, and real estate developers collude and collide in a never-ending quest for power. Suburræterna is an eight-episode continuation of that story. New players, for example, are upsetting the power dynamic in Rome, and revolution is spreading from City Hall to the shores of Ostia.

Continues Netflix: “Spadino (Giacomo Ferrara) must return home to avoid his own family being eradicated along with it and will have to make new allies, even among people he would’ve never thought could join forces … But war is war, and the control of Rome is once again at stake.”

Two more can’t-miss Netflix releases

In addition to those Netflix releases, meanwhile, here’s a brief snapshot of what else is coming to the steamer over the next few days — including a first-of-its-kind Netflix live event.

• How to Become a Mob Boss: In this 6-episode docuseries, coming on Nov. 14, Peter Dinklage’s narration guides viewers through a “darkly satirical how-to guide that explores the rise and fall of history’s most notorious mob bosses — from Al Capone to Pablo Escobar — and their tactics for success.”
• The Netflix Cup: Swing to Survive: Netflix has experimented in fits and starts so far with live events (examples: Its Chris Rock special, and baby animal cam). On Nov. 14, Netflix will stream its first-ever live sporting event — The Netflix Cup, featuring athletes from its series Formula 1: Drive to Survive and Full Swing. “The drivers and golfers will pair up to compete in a match play tournament at Wynn Golf Club at Wynn Las Vegas, the only 18-hole, championship golf course on the Las Vegas Strip, to kick off the week of the inaugural Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix.”

The post Netflix new releases: Five of the biggest titles coming next week appeared first on BGR.

The concept of longevity, of physical things that are built to endure, can sometimes feel like an anachronism in a consumer culture with far more coders per capita than old-school artisans. The men and women who hunch over workbenches and who make or repair non-digital objects with their hands — like the craftsmen of the Los Angeles Unified School District, depicted as unsung heroes in the poignant new documentary short The Last Repair Shop — can even feel a little like displaced refugees of a bygone era.

But the work that keeps the dwindling tribe of technicians busy in that Los Angeles repair shop, patching up the musical instruments of public schoolchildren, nevertheless feels surprisingly urgent and consequential in this documentary from directors Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers. One by one, The Last Repair Shop introduces us to students who explain, with beatific smiles on their faces, how instruments like the violin, the saxophone, and the piano have made a profound impression on their lives. Maybe even saved them.

“I love the violin,” one proud young girl declares, holding her instrument triumphantly. “If I didn’t have my violin from school, I’d probably … I don’t even know what I’d do. Don’t even jinx me with that!”

Another young girl shows off her saxophone, polished to a perfect shine. “My school gave me a saxophone, a case, everything I need.

“Whenever I’m feeling tense or angry,” she continues, before playing a short, hauntingly beautiful melody, “the saxophone calms me down. But the G-sharp key always gets stuck.”

The documentary, which is streaming for free on The Los Angeles Times’ YouTube channel as well as at latimes.com, then draws a straight line from those instruments and the children who play them back to the school district’s repair shop — to the men and women who polish the brass, fix the keys, re-string the bows, and search for the cracks in broken instruments. Some of them have spent years mending cracks in their own broken lives, like the repair shop supervisor who still chokes up over the murder of his father and the young immigrant mother who got this job when she was penniless.

“When wood breaks, it breaks in unique ways,” muses one repair shop technician, who as he talks weaves in the story of his coming out as a young man.

“It’s really hard being a kid. Some of them come from a place of love and support, and others come from huge dysfunction. The emotional broken things, and the mental broken things, are more difficult. You can’t glue that back together.”

I’ve already watched this documentary short twice and can’t wait to dive back into it a third time. It’s a beautiful tour de force of storytelling. I was particularly drawn to the repairman with a gravelly voice and a twinkle in his eye named Duane; he fell in love with music as a young man, begged his mother to front him $20 to buy a violin he found at a swap meet, and would not only go on to master the instrument but perform all over the world. It’s also the reason he met his wife, who was in the audience one day listening to him play.

So when he explains to the camera that fixing this one instrument could change a child’s entire life, you believe him. “You could feel like you’re fixing the instrument of a future Grammy winner, if you wanna kinda dream a little bit,” he adds, with a broad smile.

Los Angeles, we learn through the documentary, is the last US city to provide freely repaired music instruments to schoolchildren. It continues to do so, a closing voiceover narration tells us, because the repair shop does a job that’s about more than just fixing things. There’s something much more important and long-lasting going on here. “I think a lot of people see a broken thing, and they just think it’s broken,” one of the craftspeople muses.

“It could be anything. Maybe it’s public schools. Or maybe it’s the United States. Maybe it’s just a $20 fiddle found at a swap meet. But when we see a broken thing, we think, oh — with a little something here, and a little something there, we can fix the part that’s broken and make things whole again.”

The post The Last Repair Shop gets my vote as the best documentary of 2023 appeared first on BGR.

It feels like, all of a sudden, Hollywood can’t stop talking about Apple TV+. Some of the biggest and buzziest movies of the year, backed by the iPhone maker’s now four-year-old streaming service, include Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Ridley Scott’s Napoleon — the latter of which arrives in theaters later this month ahead of its release on Apple TV+. As a superfan of the service, it’s certainly exciting to see everyone coming around to its potential, notwithstanding the cynical take that Apple is just throwing gobs of money at the biggest names it can find and hoping something sticks.

One of the many things I like that Apple does more of, compared to its bigger streaming rivals, is its offering of generally shorter TV seasons. They quite often run to no more than, say, 8 episodes or so. Netflix also does that, to a degree, but it seems to be more of the norm at Apple TV+. The thing is, though, I have less and less time to invest in new TV series these days and find myself increasingly drawn to the movie side of the Apple TV+ content library.

And, thankfully, the hit-to-miss ratio there remains satisfyingly high — at least for this Apple TV+ subscriber.

Eight can’t-miss Apple TV+ movies available right now

For anyone out there who’s a new subscriber to the service — or, maybe you’ve paid for it but haven’t dipped into the app all that much — here are some suggestions for what to watch. Specifically, these are eight of the best movies available on Apple TV+ that, for a variety of reasons, I’d classify as “can’t-miss.”

Flora and Son

Eve Hewson in “Flora and Son” on Apple TV+. Image source: Apple

We’ll start with one of the newest Apple TV+ movie releases. In this music-filled delight from writer-director John Carney, Eve Hewson plays a single mom who’s struggling with how to handle her rebellious teenage son. The police encourage him to pick up a hobby, so Flora takes that ball and runs with it — bestowing upon him a beat-up acoustic guitar. Mother and son, over time, eventually learn to bond over the power of music.

The Pigeon Tunnel

British best-selling author John le Carre, photographed during an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur at a hotel in Hamburg, Germany, 16 October 2017. Image source: Christian Charisius/dpa (Photo by Christian Charisius/picture alliance via Getty Images

Another of the most recent Apple TV+ movie releases is this documentary from director Errol Morris, featuring the last-ever interview with the father of the modern spy novel himself — John le Carre, aka David Cornwell. I’m going to quote myself here, from my review of Morris’ The Pigeon Tunnel: “In the documentary, le Carre comes across as an avatar of the Cold War-era spy caught in a cycle of delusion and futility, an impression that stands in contrast to the Hollywood glamor of 007.

“Betrayal is a recurring theme in his novels, as is reinvention — and le Carre, the alter ego of a son whose mother abandoned him at five and whose charlatan father was a ‘confidence trickster’ he never respected, spent a lifetime in the thrall of both ideals. A first-rate fabulist who equates history with chaos, his cat-and-mouse stories about spy games probe deeper truths about a profession that le Carre believed to be devoid of answers in ‘the inmost room.'”

CODA

Emilia Jones in the Apple TV+ movie “Coda.” Image source: Apple

Apple’s 2021 movie CODA, starring Emilia Jones as the only member of an all-deaf family who also has a talent for singing, was the first film from a major streamer to win a Best Picture Oscar (much to the chagrin of Netflix, which has been trying to win the award for years). So, I kind of have to include CODA on this list of must-watch Apple TV+ movies, right?

This one is a no-brainer if you’re looking for feel-good and family-friendly content. The title, by the way, has multiple levels of meaning, being both a reference to the “coda” section of a piece of music as well as an acronym that stands for Child of Deaf Adults. Jones plays 17-year-old Ruby, — who, instead of continuing to help her father work on his fishing boat, dreams of going to a prestigious music school and honing her talent for singing. This movie will have you laughing, crying, and cheering by the time it’s all over.

Tetris

Taron Egerton and Nikita Efremov in “Tetris” on Apple TV+. Image source: Apple

Somehow, the Tetris movie Apple released earlier this year functioned as much as a drama filled with Cold War intrigue as it did the story of how the video game Tetris was created.

Taron Egerton stars here as Henk Rogers, the entrepreneur who negotiated a dispute over the rights for the game (which was created by a Soviet software engineer). Nintendo eventually licensed the game in order to package it with the Game Boy handset, but the rights to it were so complex that at one time about a dozen different companies believed they owned them. No wonder there was a movie’s worth of drama to be found in the story of this simple game.

Causeway

Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry in “Causeway.” Image source: Apple

Director Lila Neugebauer’s Causeway, which stars Jennifer Lawrence in the kind of atmospheric drama she used to make before she got really big, offers a narrative about two lonely people who come to take solace in each other.

Lawrence plays a soldier back home in New Orleans who’s grappling with PTSD after an IED explosion in Afghanistan. “It’s a painful and slow recovery,” Apple says about the film, “as (Lynsey) relearns to walk and retrains her memory, aided by a chatty but tender caretaker (Jayne Houdyshell). But when she returns home to New Orleans she has to face memories even more aching and formative than those she had in service — a reckoning with her childhood.”

Lawrence’s character stays with her mother (Linda Emond), with whom she has a tense relationship. Meanwhile, she’s desperate to get back to work as an engineer. Her doctor (Stephen McKinley Henderson) isn’t sure she’s ready, so she takes a job cleaning pools. “When her truck breaks down,” Apple continues, “she meets James Aucoin (Brian Tyree Henry), who works at the auto repair shop and offers her a ride home. Slowly, they start to rely on each other for company and solace. James, it turns out, is also suppressing his own past trauma.”

Cha Cha Real Smooth

Vanessa Burghardt and Dakota Johnson in the Apple TV+ movie “Cha Cha Real Smooth.” Image source: Apple

Where do I even begin with this Sundance favorite from director (and star) Cooper Raiff?

For starters, this Apple TV+ gem boasts one of those soundtracks that will send you hunting down more than one song to add to your playlists. As “Domino,” Dakota Johnson gives one of the most effervescent performances of her career. And then there’s Raiff, the earnest, love-struck star of this breezy, charming film.

“Fresh out of college and without a clear life path going forward,” Apple’s summary explains, “22-year-old Andrew is stuck back at home with his family in New Jersey. But if there’s one thing that belongs on his nonexistent résumé, it’s how to get a party started, which lands him the perfect job of motivational dancing at the bar and bat mitzvahs for his younger brother’s classmates. When Andrew befriends a local mom, Domino, and her daughter, Lola, he finally discovers a future he wants — even if it might not be his own.”

Finch

Image source: Apple

These final two Apple TV+ movies both star Tom Hanks, in vastly different roles. In 2021’s Finch, for example, he plays a robotics engineer who’s slowly dying. It’s at a time when a solar flare has caused global devastation — and, because his character doesn’t have a lot of time left, he builds a robot to take care of his beloved dog named Goodyear after he’s gone. Make sure you have a box of Kleenex handy for this one.

Greyhound

Image source: Apple

Finally, this next Apple TV+ movie finds Hanks portraying a World War II-era naval officer assigned to protect a merchant ship convoy from Nazi submarines. There’s a claustrophobic intensity that pervades the entire film, thanks to the fact that the viewer essentially stays at Hanks’ side for almost the entirety of the movie, on the ship he commands. Overall, the movie features the perfect mix of action and drama, and I highly enjoyed it.

Speaking of WWII, by the way, Hanks also reteamed up with Steven Spielberg on Masters of the Air, the follow-up to HBO’s WWII miniseries The Pacific and Band of Brothers — both of which, in my opinion, are among the best things HBO has ever produced.

The post Apple TV+ movies: My picks for the best films on the iPhone maker’s streamer appeared first on BGR.

Nia DaCosta rediscovered her love of Korean dramas during the Covid pandemic, picking back up with a TV genre that she’d especially been a fan of during her teenage years. Friends told the future director of The Marvels that she needed to check out Itaewon Class — a 2020 Netflix series with a David vs. Goliath story about an ex-con and his friends who try to get a diner off the ground and make it a success in Seoul’s trendy Itaewon district. The lead actor, Park Seo-joon, ended up wowing DaCosta so much that she remembered him when her opportunity to direct The Marvels arrived.

“Seo-joon’s acting in [Itaewon Class] really impressed me,” DaCosta told South Korean film magazine Cine21. “When I was offered to direct The Marvels, I thought hard on who to choose for the role of Prince Yan. Then, suddenly, Park Seo-joon came to my mind.”

For those of us who are constantly devouring the latest K-dramas on streamers like Netflix, that’s a feeling we have no trouble understanding. Ask any fan of the genre to list their favorite actors, and I guarantee you that PSJ, as he’s sometimes affectionately referred to, will be somewhere on that list — and most likely near the very top. He’s been in everything from Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 film Parasite to the drama series Record of Youth, as well as Zen-inducing reality shows like Jinny’s Kitchen and In the Soop: Friendcation.

His most recent roles include this year’s Netflix movie Dream, in which he stars alongside Korean pop star IU as a soccer coach.

In The Marvels, his character Prince Yan has been a bit shrouded in mystery. “We very purposefully didn’t give much information [about Prince Yan],” the director said, speaking with Korea JoongAng Daily. “He is the sovereign ruler of a foreign planet, and he and [Captain Marvel] have a deep history. They both care a lot about the people that they are protecting, and that’s where they connect.”

It’s certainly easy to see why she chose him for the role.

PSJ has a combination of movie star good looks, charisma, and a boyish smile, all of which have allowed him to play everything from romantic leads to heartthrobs, friends, and much more. After watching him in The Marvels this weekend, fans can also check him out in new episodes of Jinny’s Kitchen, which are coming to Prime Video on Nov. 12. For that show, he joined a group of Korean celebrities (including Tae-hyung of BTS) in opening a Korean street food restaurant in a beautiful town in Mexico. That formula, at least for me, turned the show into one of the most feel-good and relaxing of the year.

The post The Marvels cast includes beloved K-drama star Park Seo-joon, making his Hollywood debut appeared first on BGR.

Paramount+ is only a little more than two years old at this point, making it one of the newest kids on the streaming block, but it’s kind of easy to forget that fact based on the way it keeps pumping out new shows and movies that find their way to the top of my must-watch pile. For the Taylor Sheridan fans, for example, there’s everything from Yellowstone prequel 1883 to Tulsa King, Mayor of Kingstown, and the new-ish Special Ops: Lioness. I’m also particularly enamored with Paramount+’s heist series The Gold, as well as the new comedy Colin From Accounts.

The latter, an Australian import, is a particularly welcome addition to Paramount+ and has already proven quite a hit with critics and overseas fans ahead of its US debut. The show, which currently has a percent 100% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, basically revolves around a wacky meet-cute between two polar-opposite singles — newly heartbroken medical student Ashley (Harriet Dyer) and brewery owner Gordon (Patrick Brammall), brought together by the following sequence of events: A nipple flash, which leads to a car crash involving a dog.

To unpack that just a little bit more, Ashley basically flashes Gordon — who, mesmerized by the sight, unwittingly hits the unsuspecting pup. Making this all the more hilarious, at least to me, is that Dyer and Brammall (the creators and writers of this series) are also married to each other in real life. These two sloppy, lonely, likeable characters bond over the need to take care of the cute canine — and, at some point between that car crash and the end of the season, you will absolutely be rooting for them, a la Jim and Pam.

Patrick Brammall as Gordon and Harriet Dyer as Ashley in “Colin From Accounts.” Image source: Paramount+

“The series,” the streamer explains about Colin from Accounts, “is about flawed, funny people choosing each other and being brave enough to show their true selves, scars and all, as they navigate life together.”

I have to be honest, I’m constantly on the lookout for shows like this — and it’s because, at the end of the day, I don’t always want to unwind to people hacking each other to death in Westeros or to some long, slow slog of a prestige drama on Netflix that I have to spend 15 episodes getting the backstory of. Sitcoms are my TV equivalent of comfort food, and Paramount+’s newest offers that in spades. “Tonally elastic and blessed with Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer’s sparky chemistry,” raves the Rotten Tomatoes critics’ consensus, “Colin from Accounts makes the alchemy of a satisfying rom-com feel effortless.”

The first two episodes of the eight-episode first season will be available on Nov. 9, with two new episodes dropping weekly every Thursday through Nov. 30.

“Colin From Accounts has already stolen the hearts of international audiences with its irresistible blend of lovable characters, endearing storylines, and the perfect balance of modern-day romance and comedy,” said Paramount EVP Jeff Grossman. “We are beyond thrilled to call Paramount+ the streaming home of the series here in the U.S. as it joins our growing slate of originals.”

The post Colin From Accounts, with a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, is my newest Paramount+ obsession appeared first on BGR.

A series adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize-winning World War II novel, a true-crime docuseries, and a time-bending murder mystery. What do they all have in common? They’re among the biggest Netflix shows in the world right now, based on the latest data from the streamer’s regularly updated global Top 10 chart — which is dominated this week by the drama All the Light We Cannot See as well as Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom, a docuseries about the murder of a young woman’s parents that’s a Top 10 show in dozens of countries at the moment.

As for the rest of the hottest Netflix shows in the world this week, the newest list is rounded out by other new Netflix releases as well as fan-favorite hits like Selling Sunset and The Fall of the House of Usher (the latter still holding strong in its fourth week as a Netflix Top 10 series worldwide). And as we do each week, we’ll take a closer look at all of it below.

Netflix Top 10 (October 30-Nov. 5)

The ranking below includes the top 10 (English-language) Netflix series in the world right now. Five of these Netflix shows, by the way, made their debut on the Top 10 list this week: All the Light We Cannot See, Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom, Unicorn Academy: Chapter 1, Selling Sunset: Season 7, and Mysteries of the Faith.

1. All the Light We Cannot See — 9.8 million views
2. Till Murder Do Us Part: Soering vs. Haysom — 4.7 million views
3. Bodies — 4.3 million views
4. Life on Our Planet — 4.3 million views
5. Unicorn Academy: Chapter 1 — 3.3 million views
6. Get Gotti — 3.2 million views
7. The Fall of the House of Usher — 2.8 million views
8. Selling Sunset: Season 7 — 2.8 million views
9. Beckham — 2.7 million views
10. Mysteries of the Faith — 2.3 million views

Next, let’s zero in on the biggest Netflix series in the world this week, by far — the streamer’s adaptation of

The Netflix logo is seen at the Netflix Tudum Theater in Los Angeles, California, on September 14, 2022. Image source: PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

All the Light We Cannot See — #1 on Netflix

As for the biggest Netflix show in the world right now, it was pretty much a given that director Shawn Levy’s limited series was going to dominate everything else this week. And that’s in spite of the fact that it’s got a pretty disappointing Rotten Tomatoes audience score and a seriously embarrassing critics’ score on the review site, making this four-episode series feel like perhaps the biggest Netflix disappointment of the year.

For those of you who loved the book that the show is based on (Anthony Doerr’s 2014 novel of the same name) and have been eagerly awaiting this Netflix release? I must strongly caution you against checking out the reviews first.

Ed Skrein as Herr Seidler in episode 102 of “All the Light We Cannot See.” Image source: Katalin Vermes/Netflix

Nell Sutton as young Marie-Laure and Mark Ruffalo as Daniel LeBlanc in “All The Light We Cannot See.” Image source: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix

A sampling:

• Decider: “Its cowardice in exploring the knottier parts of World War II render it toothless, if not tonally incoherent.”
• From The Guardian: “The long-anticipated adaptation of Anthony Doerr’s bestselling and Pulitzer prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See is finally here. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely not.”
• RogerEbert.com: “Nothing about this final product suggests that Levy or Knight were the right choice to bring this story to the screen. Their vision for Doerr’s novel is shallow, messy, and, most unfortunately, instantly forgettable.”
• USA Today: “Some books should stay on the page.”

Plot-wise, All the Light We Cannot See is about a blind French girl and her father who flee German-occupied Paris with a legendary diamond to keep it from falling into the hands of the Nazis. My advice, just skip this Netflix series altogether and go straight to the source. The book is a monumental achievement and a deeply engrossing read that I cannot recommend highly enough.

The post Netflix Top 10: The most-watched shows in the world right now appeared first on BGR.

In covering the streaming space, as well as movies and TV shows more generally, I spend a lot of my time writing about new releases that are worth seeking out and that have excited both critics and fans alike. There is, of course, also a flip side to all that: TV shows and movies that no one should ever seek out. The movies I’m talking about are actually so bad that they rank among the worst ever made.

What you’ll find below is a quick rundown of 10 films that comprise one ranking of the worst movies of all time. This list is courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s compiled by simply identifying the worst-ever Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer scores — which is not hard to do in this case, since all of the movies below have a big, embarrassing 0% for that score.

1: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)

Synopsis: In this action flick, Antonio Banderas plays a reclusive former spy still haunted by the death of his wife. He’s being blackmailed to come back into service to track down an ex-DIA operative played by Lucy Liu, who’s kidnapped the young son of some super-duper secret international security agency. Just whacky writing all around, and overall quite forgettable.

2: One Missed Call (2008)

Synopsis: Shannyn Sossamon plays a woman whose best friends both heard their final moments on their cell phones before they died. The story may be about “missed” calls, but you really need to just miss this brain-dead movie.

3: Left Behind (2014)

Synopsis: Based on a series of religious books about the end of the world, the fact that the cast here includes Nicholas Cage should tell you all you need to know. Unless you want to see unmanned vehicles crash and empty planes falling from the sky as part of a Rapture-like event that plunges the world into chaos … come on, you know what I’m going to say. Leave this one behind.

4: A Thousand Words (2012)

Synopsis: Here, Jack McCall (Eddie Murphy) is a fast-talking literary agent who can close any deal. Some New Age guru warns him that he needs to change his ways. That’s basically the whole thing. A thousand words? All I need is just one word to sum this one up: Avoid.

5: Gotti (2018)

Synopsis: A dramatization of the life story of real-life Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, this is just a silly, B-movie version of what someone in Hollywood imagined a gangster’s life is like. And they stuck John Travolta, of all people, in the title role. Do yourself a favor: Avoid this one, and check out Netflix’s docuseries Get Gotti instead (I wrote more about it here).

6: Pinocchio (2002)

Synopsis: Come on, everyone knows the story. All I’ll say: It takes a special kind of stinker to turn one of the most beloved childhood stories into cinematic garbage. Absolutely no one needs to go near this dumpster fire of a creepy Pinocchio adaptation, starring Roberto Benigni.

7: Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004)

Synopsis: Here’s all you need to know about this bomb of a movie, courtesy of the Rotten Tomatoes critics’ consensus summary. “A startling lack of taste pervades Superbabies, a sequel offering further proof that bad jokes still aren’t funny when coming from the mouths of babes.”

8: Gold Diggers (2003)

Synopsis: Two broke losers get arrested for trying to rob a pair of rich old ladies. The women drop the charges and invite the losers to live with them. The two guys figure they’ll wait until the ladies die and then just live off the money they leave behind. The ladies, meanwhile, are concealing financial troubles of their own. Verdict: There is absolutely no cinematic gold to be found among these gold diggers, folks.

9: The Last Days of American Crime (2020)

Synopsis: Two men and a woman plan one last heist before a government broadcast signal somehow wipes out crime forever. Of course, the real crime was simply that this illogical, idiotic Netflix movie exists at all.

10: Jaws The Revenge (1987)

Synopsis: The final title on this list of the worst movies of all time — again, per the Rotten Tomatoes critics’ scores — returns us to the Jaws franchise. Somebody clearly was more interested in squeezing a little more cash out of the franchise, rather than coming up with a logical story and paying for special effects that didn’t look like a high school audio-visual club from the 1960s put them together. Michael Caine was even somehow tricked into appearing in this one.

From the Rotten Tomatoes summary: “The family of widow Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gary) has long been plagued by shark attacks, and this unfortunate association continues when her son is the victim of a massive great white. In mourning, Ellen goes to visit her other son, Michael (Lance Guest), in the Bahamas, where she meets the charming Hoagie Newcombe (Michael Caine). As Ellen and Hoagie begin a relationship, a huge shark appears off the coast of the island, and Ellen’s trouble with the great whites begins again.”

The post These are the worst movies of all time, according to Rotten Tomatoes appeared first on BGR.

The release schedules for streamers like Netflix have already started taking shape for the final weeks of 2023, giving us a good idea of the biggest titles still to come before the end of this year — while, at the same time, I’m sure one or more of the big platforms will drop a surprise or two on us between now and then. Until that happens, though, here’s what I’m looking forward to the most in December; specifically, these are the biggest upcoming Netflix releases I think every subscriber should, at a minimum, know about and will probably want to add to their respective watch lists.

Leave the World Behind (Dec. 8)

First up is the streamer’s highly anticipated adaptation of Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel Leave the World Behind, about a family’s vacation that’s upended when two strangers show up at their house seeking refuge from a cyberattack. What’s more, the newcomers claim the vacation house is actually theirs.

Mahershela Ali as G.H., Myha’la Herrold as Ruth, Julia Roberts as Amanda and Ethan Hawke as Clay in Netflix’s “Leave the World Behind.” Image source: JoJo Whilden/Netflix

The two families grapple with a looming disaster that looks increasingly terrifying, while also being forced to “come to terms with their places in a collapsing world,” as Netflix explains it. Leave the World Behind is an apocalyptic thriller helmed by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, and it was executive-produced by the Obamas’ Higher Ground Productions.

“This is a rare story that deals with race, class, what it means to raise kids in today’s world, and how external events start to seep into our consciousness and create fears where maybe there shouldn’t be any,” Higher Ground’s Tonia Davis explains. “This is a story that doesn’t necessarily provide answers, but asks fundamental questions about how we live, how we think, and who we trust.”

The Crown: Season 6, Part 2 (Dec. 14)

The Crown is one of Netflix’s biggest shows of all time — so, naturally, the streamer wants to squeeze every last bit of viewership it can out of the sixth and final season. With 10 episodes in total, the first four episodes drop on Nov. 16, with the final six coming on Dec. 14.

Meg Bellamy as Kate Middleton and Ed McVey as Prince William in “The Crown.” Image source: Netflix

From creator Peter Morgan, Season 6 of the groundbreaking Netflix series picks up with Diana and Prince Charles spending their first summer apart following their divorce. “We’re very much in the beginning of the Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed story,” executive producer Suzanne Mackie said in a promotional interview with the streamer.

“From the second she steps onto that boat and [you begin to see] some of those iconic images of her on the yacht, it does take you immediately to the whirlwind that was the press speculation around that romance.”

Elizabeth Debicki as Diana, Princess of Wales, in “The Crown.” Image source: Netflix

Maestro (Dec. 20)

As we get closer to the end of December, the Netflix releases get bigger and bigger — as with, for example, the latest from Bradley Cooper.

Starring as well as co-written and directed by Cooper, Maestro stands as “a towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, Maestro, at its core, is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love.”

Carey Mulligan as Felicia Montealegre and Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro.” Image source: Jason McDonald/Netflix

The film follows Bernstein all the way from his debut at Carnegie Hall to the autumn years of his life, and Maestro is also noteworthy for being Cooper’s second film as a director (after his acclaimed 2018 remake of A Star Is Born).

Rebel Moon (Dec. 22)

When it comes to the violent, over-the-top, spectacle-filled, and ridiculously entertaining film output of director Zack Snyder, viewers fall into one of two camps: It’s either “We want more – release the Snyder cut!” or “God, this guy is horrible.”

I happen to think his projects — like his Netflix movie Army of Thieves, to cite one of my favorite examples — are stylish, escapist delights, the kind of films that are really just a lot of fun and that don’t try to be anything more than that. And I have a feeling his upcoming Netflix movie Rebel Moon will absolutely continue that tradition.

Sofia Boutella as Kora in “Rebel Moon.” Image source: Clay Enos/Netflix

Sofia Boutella as Kora and Michiel Huisman as Gunnar. Image source: Chris Strother/Netflix

From the streamer: “When a peaceful settlement on a moon in the furthest reaches of the universe finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius, Kora (Sofia Boutella), a mysterious stranger living among the villagers, becomes their best hope for survival.

“Tasked with finding trained fighters who will unite with her in making an impossible stand against the Motherworld, Kora assembles a small band of warriors — outsiders, insurgents, peasants, and orphans of war from different worlds who share a common need for redemption and revenge. As the shadow of an entire Realm bears down on the unlikeliest of moons, a new army of heroes is formed.”

Berlin (Dec. 29)

Finally, like The Crown, Netflix’s five-season Money Heist remains one of its biggest shows of all time, so it should come as no surprise that the streamer green-lit a prequel series to expand the universe of the show and reward fans who remain hungry for more.

Image source: Tamara Arranz/Netflix

This new series from Money Heist creator Alex Pina takes us into the early years of Berlin, long before he learns about his terminal diagnosis and plays a leading role in breaking into the Royal Mint of Spain. At the heart of this new show is an attempt by Berlin to pull off one of his most extraordinary heists, making $44 million of jewels disappear. Like the man says, there are only two things that can turn a bad day into a great one: Love, and a million-dollar score.

The post 5 December Netflix premiere dates to mark on your calendar appeared first on BGR.

Goodbyes are rarely final when it comes to legacy rock stars. The genre, for example, has a long tradition of fake encores in concerts. As for recorded product, there’s always another compilation, packed with demos and assorted rare tracks, to release — even long after the group or artist is no more. New technology also brings fresh opportunities to remaster back catalogs. And, as we saw last week with The Beatles, technology also now allows for new songs to be cobbled together out of lo-fi, substandard elements recorded years ago and melded with musical contributions recorded today, resulting in a finished product that sounds fresh and new.

That was the case with Now and Then, the piano ballad released on Nov. 2 as part of a splashy worldwide rollout heralding the last-ever Beatles song. The song’s creation and release are thanks to two non-Beatles: John Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono, and director Peter Jackson. Ono is the reason this whole thing happened at all, as she proactively offered up the Lennon cassette demo, which ex-Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr then added new bass and drum parts to.

Director Peter Jackson, whose audio technology was used to isolate sounds in the cassette demo that became “Now and Then,” The Beatles’ new song. Image source: ANTHONY HARVEY/AFP via Getty Images

Jackson, meanwhile, developed a new technology that was put to use in Get Back, his three-part Beatles docuseries released on Disney+ in 2021. Basically, the tech uses machine learning to isolate sounds in old recordings — such that, for example, Lennon’s voice can be separated from everything else heard on that scratchy, hissy cassette demo, resulting in a clear vocal that sounds so pristine it’s like it was recorded today.

And now that Beatles fans have had several days to process the final release from the biggest pop-rock group of all time via this new song that was decades in the making, Jackson has also just given fans of the Fab Four another intriguing possibility to think about:

If he and the other two still-living members of the group wanted to, they could actually do this all over again. There’s that much material that ended up on the cutting floor, half-finished song ideas that were discarded but which could also be given the Now and Then treatment. If they wanted to.

“We can take a performance from Get Back, separate John and George, and then have Paul and Ringo add a chorus or harmonies,” Jackson told The Sunday Times in a new interview. “You might end up with a decent song, but I haven’t had conversations with Paul about that. It’s fanboy stuff, but certainly conceivable.”

It’s an interesting prospect, to say the least, and there are even ways it could be done without undercutting the billing of Now and Then as the band’s final song. There are plenty of Beatles curios still floating around somewhere that hardcore fans have been dying to hear, like the avant-garde track Carnival of Light. Jackson’s MAL technology could polish it or something else like it into a releasable form.

The market is still very much there for new Beatles material. As of this writing, almost a week after the release of Now and Then, it’s still #1 on iTunes, to the chagrin of BTS fans (The Beatles have so far managed to keep Jungkook’s new single Standing Next to You at #2). The Jackson-directed music video for The Beatles’ new song, meanwhile, has racked up 20 million views and counting on YouTube.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon hold their guitars while on the set of The Ed Sullivan Show at the CBS television studios in Manhattan, where the Fab Four made their nationwide television debut. Image source: Bettmann/Contributor/Getty

That kind of response, to be sure, belies the fact that it’s been six decades since the world got its first taste of Beatlemania. The only explanation for it all? To paraphrase an old Lennon quip on the band’s Let it Be album — yes, boys, you very much passed the audition.

The post Now and Then might not be the final Beatles song after all, according to Peter Jackson appeared first on BGR.