Charles Bramesco

After the release of the shocking Sausage Party racked up an equally shocking $140 million (far more than any of us expected a movie involving anal beads forcibly yanked out of an anthropomorphized hot dog bun to make), it was only a matter of time until more bawdy animation followed. Cartoons for grown-ups may be on their way to a moment in the sun, as today brings the news that Netflix has launched production on an R-rated project in a similar vein. But they won’t stop at desecrating the sacred space of the grocery store. This time, nothing short of our nation’s origin story will provide the canvas for whatever vulgarity they’ve got in store.

You may remember pop star Beyoncé Knowles from her stint in the late-’90s/early-’00s R&B girl group Destiny‘s Child with “Pretty Girl Rock” singer Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams (not the one from Manchester by the Sea). But did you know that the celebrated performer has cultivated an active solo career in the years since the group that made her famous broke up? Believe it or not, Knowles released a string of successful studio records over the past decade, starred in the music-video-compilation film Lemonade last year, and wed rapping man Jayson Z in 2008. And with that, I have completed my impression of someone who only heard of Beyoncé when scanning her Wikipedia page just now. We all know who Beyoncé is. She‘s Beyoncé.

One of last year’s finest films, and certainly the most challenging documentary, was Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Christine. The concept was ingenious: the film tracks actress Kate Lyn Sheil as she prepares to portray the late newswoman Christine Chubbuck and tease out what factors could have compelled a woman to shoot herself in the head on live television. It was a beguiling interrogation of authenticity and artifice, tracing the limits of performance as a means to locate truth, and now the world of documentary film has begun to follow Greene’s groundbreaking example. The new trailer for Casting JonBenet offers a glimpse at a film using Greene’s methods, and applying them to an equally disturbing footnote in history.

Last night viewers shuffled in for a late showing of Moonlight at the Rio cinema in the Dalston neighborhood of London’s Hackney region. As they settled down with their bags of Licorice Allsorts, Sherbet Fountains, and Jelly Babies (all of which are, incredibly, real candies), they were greeted by a surprise on screen. Instead of the opening strains of a chopped-and-screwed remix of Boris Gardiner‘s “Every N----- Is a Star,” however, they were greeted by the bright blue sky and the first twenty seconds of “Another Day of Sun,” the opening number of none other than La La Land! “Cor, bit cheeky, innit?” the audience said in perfect unison, in my imagination.

We‘re now a couple days out from the incident itself, and everyone’s still trying to figure out just what in the Sam Hill happened at the Oscars on Sunday night. When Faye Dunaway wrongly named La La Land instead of Moonlight as the recipient of the Best Picture Academy Award, she created a buzzy moment and sparked a full-blown investigation as to how things could have gotten mixed up. Fingers have been pointed every which way, with the show’s producers and vote-tabulating accountants both scrambling to cover their respective hindquarters in the wake of the embarrassing gaffe. Today, however, Dunaway‘s co-presenter Warren Beatty – the man with his hand on the envelope — has offered his official response to the hubbub, and he’s decided to shift blame elsewhere.

I was fortunate enough to attend a screening of Get Out earlier this week, and hoo boy, that right there is one fine motion picture. Our beloved Editor-in-Chief Matt Singer made as much clear in his ringing endorsement from Sundance, but take it from me: very spooky, very funny, has something to say, insanely well-cast and even more well-acted. It’s an easy movie to love, and while the box-office receipts from this upcoming weekend will rule on whether audiences agree, the critics of America have already made their voices heard. And those voices are ringing out in perfect unison, a harmony sounding out as if from an angelic choir: “THIS MOVIE RULES.”

It was back in July that the news of an impending return from everyone’s favorite B-movie mockery program Mystery Science Theater 3000 first broke. Fans of Manos: the Hands of Fate and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians were atwitter with excitement for a revival of the long-running program last seen in 1999, breathlessly speculating on which schlock gems would get roasted this time around. And while the fodder for the upcoming eleventh season has yet to be named, Netflix has finally announced a release date and included a new press photo of the whole wisecracking robotic gang.

We‘ve still got months to go until Star Wars: The Last Jedi takes over cineplexes, but the people are hungry. By this time last year, we had already gotten our first teaser for Rogue One, and the barbarians are pounding on the gates demanding fresh material. Sure, Lucasfilm could placate their more rabid fans by pulling back the curtain on one of the new toy lines that will accompany the December release, but that’s thinking small, and Lucasfilm doesn’t do small. You want to see the new toys? Well tough tauntauns, because all you’re getting today is a look at the box they’re coming in. Here is that box:

Like any job, writing about the latest news in the world of entertainment can wear on you after long enough, so you gotta appreciate the little pearls of amusement where you can get them. Personally, watching the latest solo Batman project fall apart in slow motion has been a perverse thrill over the past couple of months: star Ben Affleck was gonna direct (maybe) the film titled The Batman, then he was definitely gonna direct it, then he backpedaled a little bit, then he requested that people stop asking him about it, then he face-planted onto the sidewalk with the costly flop Live By Night, and then look at that, he wasn’t taking the director’s chair after all. The indignities kept coming, as Warner Bros. ordered sweeping rewrites to this floundering project before landing Planet of the Apes remake maestro Matt Reeves to fill the directorial vacuum.

Donald Trump incited widespread panic among his many detractors when he first elbowed his way into the American presidency back in November. But even as matters got bleaker and bleaker, some tried to find a silver lining in the notion that a slide into fascism would at least yield some good ‘n’ furious protest art. Little did we know that the most searing indictment of Trump and his policies had already been scripted, completed, and released months before the noted reality TV star took office. I am referring, of course, to the complex political allegory Finding Dory.