// Category Archive for: Pop Culture News

In Case You Missed It: April 24 – 30, 2016—Throwing Shade In The Green Room

By Less Lee Moore

Even Tommy Shelby wants to see more diversity in TV.

Did you know that April 8 is the day in Queer History that all homosexuals were cured? Hahaha, we’re just kidding. It’s actually the day that homosexuality was removed from the DSM.

And speaking of queer folks, here’s an open letter to the TV industry about why we’re so fucking sick of straight white dudes.

In other TV news, Sachin Hingoo bids farewell to Broad City until next season with the hilarious “Jews on a Plane” and Laury Scarbro reveals how all hell breaks loose on Outsiders in the appropriately titled episode, “All Hell.”

May is the month when the long-awaited Season 3 of Peaky Blinders arrives on our TV screens. Did you know David Bowie was a fan of the show? Try to keep your eyes from leaking when you read about what he sent to the show’s lead actor, Cillian Murphy. (Here’s a recent, wonderful, career-spanning interview with Mr. Murphy that includes some lovely photos.)

Everyone is talking about the talking animals in The Jungle Book movie but don’t forget about Jeremy Saulnier’s follow-up to Blue Ruin, called Green Room. Brian Baker took the plunge and reviewed this ultraviolent, ultra-brilliant film. You might forget about Hardcore Henry after you see it, though, as Tyler Hodg remarks in his review.

Meanwhile, on the home video front, Jeffery X Martin tackles the “bad crazy” with Arrow’s reissue of Niko Mastorakis’s The Zero Boys, Sachin has warm fuzzies over the white foam in the Blu of ‘80s schlock horror The Stuff, and Melissa Bratcher is delighted that Bayou Maharajah, the doc about infamous New Orleans piano player James Booker, is finally available for everyone to see.

Bone Tomahawk was my favorite movie of 2015 but I’ve never seen one entry in Charles Band’s bizarrely legendary Puppet Master series, so imagine my surprise (and delight?) to learn that the director behind Bone Tomahawk is helming the Band-less Puppet Master reboot. Modern Horrors has the deets.

Oh, and if you’ve always wanted to delve into actor Sho Kosugi’s career, The ScreamCast can help with their most recent podcast, “A Show on Sho.”

It’s been just over a week and we’re still trying to come to terms with a world without Prince. Here’s a stupendous 2009 article from the L.A. Times about the side of Prince that most people in the public rarely saw. Then, lighten up with this hilarious YouTube video, a compilation of all the times that Prince threw shade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4k-d88BEsI&feature=youtu.be

We have a ton of new music for you to check out this week: Tim Murr raves over the David Lynch aura of Dark Palms’ Hoxbar Ghost Town and insists that Grindmother’s Age Of Destruction is not a novelty album; Melissa calls The Jayhawks’ Paging Mr. Proust “a record for the ages” and marvels at the depth and breadth of Cherry Red’s latest comp, Another Splash of Colour: New Psychedelia in Britain 1980 – 1985; while X comforts us with the fact that at least Rob Zombie is good at coming up with song and album titles.

Could it be that Ke$ha is finally free? Find out about this and the “boycott Beyonce” movement on Unicorn Booty’s latest installment of NOW HEAR THIS!

Since tomorrow is a Monday (groan!), here is something that might make the day go a bit faster: a list of 11 hilarious and slightly political celebrities that you must follow on Twitter.

Noomi Rapace Stars In Sci-Fi Thriller Whatever Happened To Monday

By Less Lee Moore

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a Noomi Rapace movie in theaters. She co-starred in last year’s excellent The Drop with Tom Hardy, while another film with Hardy, Child 44, seemed to come and go with nary a whisper, unless you count the dreadful 24 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

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Beetlejuice 2: Has the Franchise Been in the Afterlife Too Long?

By Jeffery X Martin

Winona Ryder has reportedly confirmed that Beetlejuice 2, the sequel no one has been asking for, is actually happening. Director Tim Burton and the old bio-exorcist himself, Michael Keaton, are also on board for the film.

Beetlejuice came out in 1988. That’s 27 years ago.

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The Sword Release New Single For Upcoming High Country Album

By Tim Murr

I was late discovering The Sword. I came across their album Warp Riders at the library last year and checked it out based solely on the fact that there were tracks called “The Chronomancer I” and “The Chronomancer II.” Since I like a little sci-fi with my metal, I gave them a chance and just fell in love with the band’s brand of classic stoner metal.

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Exploring Ridley Scott’s The Martian

By Tim Murr

I’m always excited for a new Ridley Scott movie. I saw Alien the same year (1980) I saw Jaws and Jaws 2, which was two years before I saw The Empire Strikes Back (my first Star Wars film). So despite having Star Wars toys for most of my short life, my first sci-fi love came from Scott’s shocking, atmospheric, and dark film. When I was a kid, there weren’t many directors’ names I knew, but I knew George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg, and Ridley Scott. Of those three, the only one I still get excited about is Scott.

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Counting Down The Hours To True Detective Season Two

By Tyler Hodg

With the second season of HBO’s True Detective nearly upon us—June 21 to be exact—unanswered questions about the show continue to accumulate. Little information about the plot and characters portrayed by Vince Vaughn, Colin Farrell, and Rachel McAdams has been revealed, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing; ambiguity can preempt expectations one might have, as there isn’t much there on which to base opinions. The latest trailer for the upcoming season gives a decent visual of what’s in store—and it’s safe to say that it we are all in for a pretty sweet treat.

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The Walking Dead’s Jon Bernthal Joins Daredevil As The Punisher

By Tim Murr

For fans of the Netflix hit series Daredevil, the news is very good. A second season has already been announced. Since then, the rumor mills have been churning about who the antagonist might be. Fans’ wish lists of villains are long, but Bullseye and The Punisher have been high on almost everyone ‘s list.

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Legendary Actor Christopher Lee Passes Away At 93

By Tim Murr

The man who hunted Nazis in WWII and played some of the greatest villains in cinematic history has passed away. Christopher Lee was an intelligent, charming man. He was knighted. He was a descendant of Charlemagne. He recorded two metal albums when he was in his ‘80s and ‘90s. He was an amazing talent to say the absolute least.

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iZombie Is Another Entertaining Win For The CW

By Tim Murr

Throughout its first season, The CW’s iZombie has managed to be more entertaining than the last three seasons of The Walking Dead, which devolved from a must-see gory character drama to boring misery porn that suffers from hideous pacing. (And yes, I haven’t missed an episode and yes, some episodes were very good.)

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Jaws Stalks Theaters Again This Summer

By Tim Murr

I’d guess I have about ten films that are deeply important to me on an emotional level. They’re not necessarily all deep movies, but they are all films that represent very specific times and very specific situations, both good and bad. They are films that I can watch over and over and be transported back to a time and place and vividly relive a certain state of mind and/or heart.

Jaws is one if those films. I was four when I saw Jaws and Jaws 2 on cable. I watched it multiple times before I turned five, which is when my parents divorced. So for me, watching Jaws always takes me back to a time when the world didn’t feel like it was ending everyday. (A feeling that never went away, but evolved from fear to anger to bitterness.)

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