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There was a time—not so long ago in the grand scheme of human absurdity—when going to the movies felt like entering a temple. The lights dimmed, the curtain pulled back, and suddenly you were somewhere else. Mars. Middle-earth. Brooklyn in the 1970s. A spaceship full of emotionally complicated robots. It didn’t matter. The point was escape. Collective imagination. The shared ritual of strangers sitting quietly together while something magical flickered across a giant screen. Now the average movie theater experience feels less like a temple and more like a slightly sticky airport terminal that happens to show films between advertisements for luxury SUVs. If you say you love movies today, people assume you mean streaming. They picture you half-watching something on a laptop while scrolling your phone and occasionally pausing to reheat leftovers. That’s not loving movies. That’s background noise with a plot. And yet, despite everything—the $18 popcorn, the pre-movie lecture about turni...

4 There are box-office flops. There are critical disasters. And then there is whatever category we now need to invent for a movie so radioactive that an entire country looks at it, squints for a moment, and says, “Actually? No. All of us are good.” Welcome to the curious case of Melania , the glossy, heavily marketed, extremely expensive documentary centered on Melania Trump , a film that was scheduled for wide theatrical release in South Africa before being abruptly and collectively escorted out of every major cinema in the country. Not banned. Not censored. Just… declined. Politely, bureaucratically, and decisively. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a nation hitting “Do Not Recommend” and moving on with its life. And if you think this story is about one documentary, you’re missing the larger picture. This is about power, image laundering, political optics, and the limits of spectacle in a world that has seen this movie before—even if it hasn’t actually seen this movie. 🎥 The Movie T...

Hollywood just woke up, sipped its oat-milk latte, and said, “You know what the average exhausted, content-overloaded American needs? Thirty. More. Movies. Every. Single. Year. ” That’s right. Paramount CEO David Ellison took to a phone presser in the most Hollywood way possible—assertively, confidently, and with the gravitational pull of a man who absolutely believes your life will be improved by Mission: Impossible 19 playing every month in a half-empty AMC in Topeka. The pitch is simple: If Paramount acquires Warner Bros, they’ll pump out 30+ theatrical releases a year because “We’re going to satisfy the needs of the moviegoing public.” Ah yes, the moviegoing public—famously starved, deprived, wandering the wilderness muttering, “If only the studios made more movies about superheroes, musical biopics, and reboots of properties that should have stayed peacefully buried.” Welcome to the great 2025 studio merger circus. Let’s break it down, shall we? Hollywood’s New Holiday T...

Let’s all take a collective moment to appreciate that 2025 officially jumped the shark when a gang of art thieves strolled into the Louvre , in broad daylight , and made off with eight priceless pieces of jewelry as if they were on a coffee run. Somewhere, George Clooney just sighed into his espresso, muttering, “Amateurs — but respectable ones.” This wasn’t your average “smash-and-grab.” This was cinema . Paris woke up that weekend to the realization that someone had taken the phrase “art imitates life” and smashed it into a glittering, diamond-encrusted feedback loop. Within hours, journalists were tripping over themselves to compare the crime to Band of Outsiders or Lupin or Ocean’s 8 . Because in 2025, every major event has to come with a movie reference, a hashtag, and a streaming recommendation list within three hours of the crime scene tape going up. So naturally, the New York Times obliged — curating six “heist movies to watch while Paris panics.” Because why bother with ...

Film festivals, particularly TIFF, are like that one friend who insists their new boyfriend is “different” every single September. And, like the gullible enablers we are, we nod, smile, and pretend this year’s hot indie lineup is really going to change the world—or at least cinema. Spoiler: it won’t. But hey, who am I to kill the collective buzz of agents, producers, and actors who all just want to sell you an Oscar campaign with the same sincerity as a used-car dealer hawking a lemon with “new brakes”? TIFF 2025 has rolled into town like a giant film-shaped piñata stuffed with dreams, distribution deals, and lukewarm coffee for journalists. The players? Chris Evans, Sydney Sweeney, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaughn, and a supporting cast of buyers who all look like they haven’t seen the inside of a movie theater since Frozen II . Let’s get into it. Section 1: The Chris Evans of It All Chris Evans is back, but not as Captain America—no, that ship sailed along with Marvel’s Phase Infini...