Charles Bramesco

Will Arnett’s gravelly voice has defined some of his most beloved roles: it made his bombastic doofus G.O.B. into Arrested Development’s MVP, it turned him into a worthy rival for Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock, and it perfectly suited him for the role of the Lego universe’s Caped Crusader. As the star of The Lego Batman Movie, he brings a certain actorly gravitas to every punch line, and the best part is that he can take that skill with him anywhere. Trying to quell a dispute between his kids? Batman lays down the law. And in a new segment from the BBC Radio 1 station, he puts his voice to good use once more, as a prank on an unsuspecting toy store.

By the late ’70s, Clint Eastwood had made a name for himself as the tough-guy star of cop-on-the-edge flicks and spaghetti Westerns, his permanent grimace a symbol of macho heroism. As the star of the Dirty Harry franchise, he fashioned himself as a protector with an edge, and in Sergio Leone’s epochal Dollars trilogy, he nearly ascended into the annals of cinematic legend. Having built up all this public goodwill, Eastwood decided the time was right to use that clout on the kind of project actors dream of their whole lives: a buddy comedy where he stars opposite an orangutan.

Hollywood’s gonna keep returning to the well of the tried-and-true in search of remake material until it runs dry, which could never happen, for all we know. To mix a metaphor, the ‘80s and ’90s have been thoroughly strip-mined for new #content, to the point where stars of beloved nostalgia objects have to specifically state that they’d prefer not to see a remake to pre-empt what feels like an inevitable greenlight. Geena Davis is the latest celebrity to come out against the recent remakeapalooza, specifically voicing her disapproval of any potential plans to rework her most timeless success of all, Cutthroat Island. (That‘s supposed to be a joke.)

The 1988 caper comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a cracking good time, pairing Steve Martin and Michael Caine as a pair of no-good con men fleecing rich old ladies on the shores of the French Riviera. The mismatched duo — Caine’s the image of suave refinement, Martin’s an inveterate ham — team for one big score, but a mysterious rival con artist known as “The Jackal” complicates matters. Also a good time: the Broadway musical based on the film, the 1964 Marlon Brando picture Bedtime Story that inspired Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and now we can add to that list Nasty Women.

Donald Trump is the President of the United States now. Wily performance-art prankster Shia LaBeouf does not intend on taking that sitting down. The daring mind behind #ALLMYMOVIES (that time the Beef watched every single one of his movies back-to-back in reverse order at New York’s Angelika Film Center) and I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE (that other time when he put a paper bag over his head before walking the red carpet at the Berlinale) has unveiled his latest work of highly conceptual living art. And if you live in the New York metropolitan area and are willing to go to Queens, you could be part of it.

Forcing audiences to watch a movie in which a dog lives, finds true happiness, and then dies over and over again would’ve been an act of sadism all on its own. But the crew of the upcoming family film A Dog’s Purpose have recently been outed as sadists of another, more stomach-churning sort. TMZ posted a shocking video from a second-unit shoot for the film in which an animal handler forces a reluctant German Shepard into rushing waters, the dog begins drowning, and handlers rush to retrieve the animal amid cries of “cut it! cut it!” PETA has already called for a boycott of the film, with the most shame heaped upon the industry supplier Birds & Animals Unlimited, and the rest of the fallout has been swift.

Like many American moviegoers, I caught the new film Hidden Figures over the weekend. And throughout the true-to-life account of three pioneering women of color that broke boundaries at NASA, one thought kept reoccurring to me (well, two, if you count my realization that I am deeply in love with Janelle Monae): that much like the Wu-Tang, Hidden Figures is for the children. The story’s prevailing message that gender or skin color shouldn’t hinder anyone from achieving excellence is precisely what the youth in this country need, arguably now more than ever. The one problem, of course, is the astronomical price of a movie ticket — not everybody wants to or is able to shell out $15 for a day at the movies.

Chances are, you’re currently reading these words on a phone, computer, or tablet manufactured by Apple. Maybe on your morning commute, you listen to music downloaded from the ITunes Music Store. If you are an on-the-go sort of person who’s not afraid to be made fun of, you may have an Apple Watch wrapped around your wrist right now. The tech giant’s influence has permeated so many facets of modern life, and as we patiently await Apple’s big foray into the burgeoning field of teledildonics, they’ve announced plans to plant their flag on one more heated battlefield.

Among the most difficult aspects of parenting is the matter of simply filling the hours in a day. Kids become bored after approximately twenty unstimulating minutes, so moms and dads have to constantly plan out diversions to keep their offspring occupied. Disney just did the parents of America a real solid, however. Animated movies have long been a go-to option for parents hoping to run out the clock, and they’ll be able to go back to Moana for seconds later this month, when the film re-enters theaters for a one-day sing-along engagement.

Stocks in magic are down. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was less than fantastic (hey-o), the much-touted stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child won’t come to Broadway for months, and we can assume that the constant onslaught that was 2016 sapped many children of their belief in the wonder of magic. The Harry Potter-industrial complex needs a shot in the arm, and head honchos over at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park may have just the thing to inspire a little excitement.

More streaming services than you can shake a virtual stick at have cropped up over the past year, which makes it all the more aggravating when that one movie you want to watch is nowhere to be found. You shell out every month for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Shudder, Filmstruck and a dozen more, and yet once that craving to rewatch The Lion King hits, you’re plum out of luck. What’s the point of having countless hours of programming at your fingertips for your immediate enjoyment if that doesn’t include The Little Mermaid?

Cruel Intentions was so much more than the movie where Sarah Michelle Gellar kissed Selma Blair. (And yet, at the same time, it was and is very much that.) A retelling of Les Liaisons dangereuses set among hot, rich teens in New York, it brought a welcome dose of luridness and eroticism to neighborhood cineplexes in addition to scoring many a makeout sesh between randy adolescents during the late ’90s. Both campy and soapy, the yarn of seduction and betrayal has remained a roaring good time even as it’s turned into a time capsule of its era and all the attendant, difficult-to-look-at fashions. But a good time is all it’s going to be, as recent news indicates.

The Internet Movie Database is a fount of helpful information. With a few simple clicks, users can learn who shot the Miley Cyrus vehicle So Undercover (Things to Come cinematographer Denis Lenoir), which sequel in the Hellraiser franchise featured a performance from a young Adam Scott (the fourth one), or how old Taraji P. Henson is (who looks that good at 46?!). As a repository for loose factoids from in and around the world of screen entertainment, it can’t be beat. As a source for critical perspectives on those same films, however... hoo boy. Just take a gander at any comment section for a movie’s page and marvel at the IMDb is the site where rabid anti-Ghostbusters zealots congregated to downvote Paul Feig’s movie into oblivion weeks before its actual release, and the newly-released IMDb Top 10 provides an even clearer view of its user base.

Dick Van Dyke remains a beloved and esteemed entertainer at age 91, fondly remembered for his charismatic performances as a hapless songwriter in Bye Bye Birdie and a sooty-faced chimneysweep in Disney’s 1964 musical Mary Poppins. What he’s remembered decidedly less fondly for is the other role he played in the period-piece musical, elderly bank chairman Mr. Dawes, Senior. Clad in old-age makeup and credited as “Nackvid Keyd” (an anagram of Dick Van Dyke), the notorious D.V.D. busted out a frightfully bad Cockney accent in his scenes as the tight-fisted money man. Widely mocked at the time and voted the second-worst accent ever in a poll from Empire, it was not the high point of Van Dyke’s impressive career.

Music is everything to La La Land, not just its main mode of communication but its reason for being — all of director Damien Chazelle’s films have centered on the power of music to varying extents. For his most ambitious passion project yet, Chazelle figured he’d need a composer who was up to the task of capturing the swooning romance and the lingering melancholy of the film, and he found one in Justin Hurwitz. And now you can listen to the beautiful La La Land score a whole week before the film hits theaters.

For someone who’s oriented so much of her music around her relationships with men, Taylor Swift has remained strangely asexual. Though she’s often seen canoodling with her various paramours, her public persona has remained squeaky clean and her music matches. Her songs focus on romance rather than seduction, more concerned with the dress she’s wearing rather than the process of taking it off. She’s a big fan of the “just sort of bending over” dance move, which could be kinda sexual, if you insist on taking it there. But for the most part, she’s kept it chastely PG.