News

This post contains spoilers for "Wednesday" and "Addams Family Values."

It's a new school year rife with woe, as "Wednesday" season 2 promises even more scares and mysteries for its titular protagonist. By the time the season picks up, Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) has undergone quite the transformation since she first arrived at Nevermore Academy. Indeed, she's far more receptive now to having friends and has (unwittingly) even gained some social footing after defeating season 1's big bad, Tyler (Hunter Doohan).

But normalcy is a foreign concept for an Addams, which is why Wednesday has to contend with fresh horrors in season 2, part 1, which includes hunting down a persistent stalker who has been tailing her since the season 1 finale. Juggling this issue with the sudden presence of her family on campus, Wednesday is forced to navigate some complicated emotions as she finds herself having to decide between sticking to her isolationist...

Like every other 90s kid with access to Cartoon Network, The Addams Family was one of the countless awesome shows that I grew up watching. The characters were odd enough to be interesting. The plots were almost nonexistent, thereby allowing my underdeveloped brain to keep track of what was going on. And what can I say about the soundtrack that hasn’t been said already? It’s iconic. Then there were the two live-action adaptations by Barry Sonnenfeld, which cemented this oddball family as an integral part of my childhood. And with each passing year, my respect for the performances delivered by Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia (Rip), Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Jimmy Workman, and Carel Struycken continues to grow. Despite the overcomplicated lore and storytelling of Wednesday, I did enjoy its first season, and I absolutely loved Jenna Ortega’s acting in it. Did I like the first part of the second season?...

While it’s nearly as frustrating to review a half-season of mediocre television as it is to see it solely as a fan — especially if you were anticipating its return for the better part of three years — “Wednesday” Season 2, Part 1, at least makes it easy to investigate the lingering questions in its mundane murder-mystery without verging into spoilers.

Showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar continue to map a conventional teen drama onto the ostensibly unconventional Addams Family I.P. Their star, Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega), may be allergic to colors and obsessed with the macabre, but she’s handled like any other identifiable introvert who doubles as a reluctant hero. Behind her dark wardrobe and dour demeanor lies benevolence and bravery. She solves mysteries! She makes friends! She cares, despite insisting she doesn’t!

Good for you, kiddo. Keep wearing that goth getup as long as you want.

One can...

Will Smith may have won an Oscar for his performance in 2021’s King Richard, but in the 1990s, the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actor solidified himself as a sci-fi powerhouse. A year after he fought aliens in 1996’s Independence Day, Smith once again found himself dealing with extraterrestrials in 1997’s Men in Black,which is now surging on streaming.

Men in Black, which also starred Tommy Lee Jones, Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D’Onofrio, Tony Shalhoub, and Rip Torn, is, as of Aug. 3, the No. 13 most-streamed movie on iTunes, according to FlixPatrol. The film is an adaptation of the Aircel Comics series The Men in Black, by Lowell Cunningham.

The sci-fi alien invasion movie comes from director Barry Sonnenfeld, who also directed Smith in 1999’s Wild Wild West, and the Men in Black sequels Men in Black II and Men in Black 3. Sonnenfeld also served as an executive producer on 2019’s Men in Black International,...

Don Zimmerman, a veteran film editor who scored an Oscar nom for Coming Home and worked on dozens of other movies including Being There, The Prince of Tides, Night at the Museum and two Rocky sequels, died July 24 of acute myeloid leukemia at his Studio City home. He was 81.

American Cinema Editors, the group that gave him a Career Achievement Award in 2023, confirmed the news.

Born in 1944 and nicknamed “Big D,” Zimmerman joined the Air Force during the Vietnam War and began working odd jobs — Western Electric, gas stations, insurance — after his discharge. A friend recommended he try being an assistant in show business, which led first to working as a sound editor.

“Then Jimmy, the assistant friend of mine, was working with Hal Ashby,” Zimmerman said in a 2023 interview with Ace’s Cinema Editor magazine. “Hal had just moved from editor to a director by Norman Jewison, and they needed a second assistant editor.

Wednesday is finally assembling all the classic characters together for Season 2.

Following their limited screen time opposite Wednesday Addams in Season 1, showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar spoke with Den of Geek about expanding the roles of Gomez, Morticia and even Pugsley in Wednesday Season 2, plus the arrival of Grandmama in this universe. "Her family informed so much of who she is that we wanted to find a way to bring them into the story organically so that we could see that interaction," Gough said, revealing that Wednesday's parents will join Nevermore Academy's alumni committee and, as a result, be more involved in story events.

Pugsley's enrollment at Nevermore, meanwhile, gives them room to build upon the Addams brother's interests, with Millar acknowledging how prior adaptations often treat him like "a third banana, really. He hadn't been explored in any way or complexity. For Wednesday, it's not something she’s going to enjoy,...

During Collider’s Directors on Directing panel at Sdcc 2025, hosted by Steve Weintraub, legendary filmmaker Rob Reiner revealed that he once passed on directing a film that would go on to win four Academy Awards, including Best Picture — Rain Man. But as he told the crowd, he doesn’t regret the decision for a second. Rain Man, which starred Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman, went on to become a massive critical and box office success in 1988, winning Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Hoffman), and Best Original Screenplay. Directed by Barry Levinson, the film became an instant classic — but Reiner believes everything worked out the way it was meant to, as it allowed him to meet his wife, Michelle Singer.

“You know, the only one that I wanted to do that I didn't do — and I'm glad, in a way, that I didn't — because I wound up meeting my wife,...

Despite having been made available to watch at home, Universal’s How to Train Your Dragon remake continued pulling crowds to theaters even in its sixth weekend of release. The film is inching closer to the $600 million milestone, and will find itself in a tight race with How to Train Your Dragon 2 to become the franchise’s top-grossing installment. This weekend, it crossed the $250 million mark domestically, and approached the $350 million milestone at the international box office. And, in doing so, it overtook a handful of past blockbusters.

The film’s $338 million overseas haul puts it ahead of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, Travis Knight’s Bumblebee, the original Men in Black film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and also last year’s Venom: The Last Dance. Starring Tom Hardy and directed by the debutante Kelly Marcel, The Last Dance served as the final film of the anti-hero trilogy, which began...

With a career spanning four decades and well over a hundred roles, it might be hard to pick the greatest John Goodman performance. But when it comes down to it, Goodman isn’t out of his element when he cites The Big Lebowski as a strike.

When asked by The Hollywood Reporter if there was a film he was most proud of, Goodman said, “People seem to enjoy The Big Lebowski, and since everybody else likes it so much, I’ll take that. But anything I did for Joel and Ethan [Coen].” Prior to The Big Lebowski, Goodman worked with the Coens on Raising Arizona and Barton Fink – a film he has been open about wishing he could redo – and later on O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Inside Llewyn Davis.

Recalling first meeting the Coen Brothers a full decade before The Big Lebowski, Goodman said, “It was great because...

Among Oscar-winning actor Will Smith's greatest cinematic setpieces is the Men in Black franchise, which continues to captivate audiences three decades after its inception. While it's widely considered the worst installment of the original trilogy, Men in Black II remains a cult classic, as evidenced by its climb up the Starz streaming charts.

According to Flix Patrol, Men in Black II is a new entrant on Starz's U.S. movie chart, coming in at #9 on the list. The 2002 sequel joins its 1997 predecessor on the Starz chart, with the original film ranking 7th on the streaming service, continuing its recent run in the top 10. The list is topped by the Mel Gibson-helmed action thriller, Flight Risk.

Why Is Men in Black II Slept On?

After Men in Black became a critical and commercial smash, as well as a pop culture staple, it was inevitable that the sci-fi action film series would get a continuation.

It’s been a quiet 2025 for Will Smith so far after starring in Bad Boys: Ride or Die last year, but one of the actor’s oldest and most iconic projects has returned to streaming charts years later. Smith stars alongside Tommy Lee Jones (No Country for Old Men) and Vincent D’Onofrio (Daredevil: Born Again) in Men in Black, the 1997 sci-fi comedy following agents of a secret government agency that investigates extraterrestrial life on Earth. Men in Black is currently streaming on Starz, and it’s one of the most popular movies in America on the streamer, sitting at #6 at the time of writing. Men in Black earned a “certified fresh” 91% from critics and an 81% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, and it also grossed a whopping $589 million at the box office against a $90 million budget.

Will Smith sat down with Kevin Hart in 2023 to talk about their respective careers, and...

The late, great Gene Hackman likely turned down 10 times as many jobs as he took. He was such an acclaimed actor, and so pliable when it came to tone and genre, he must have been highly in demand for several decades in a row. He was one of those performers who was both excellent at his craft and a massive box office draw, so naturally, everyone wanted to collaborate with him. Hackman was also notorious cantankerous on sets, however, often becoming enraged when working with actors he felt to be less-than-professional. The stories that director Barry Sonnenfeld has told about Hackman on the set of "Get Shorty" alone are quite colorful.

It seems that one of the many high-profile roles that Hackman rejected was William Somerset, the hope-drained homicide detective at the center of David Fincher's 1995 serial killer thriller "Seven." The role ultimately went to Morgan Freeman, but it...

With the trailer for Bill Hader’s animated The Cat in the Hat crashing its way to the web, we can expect just the sort of calamity shown in Dr. Seuss’ original book. But the story behind 2003’s The Cat in the Hat – wherein Mike Myers played the titular nuisance – is a bit more chaotic than anything the feline could inflict. Seriously, how in the hell did Mike Myers get sucked into starring in The Cat in the Hat? The answer lies with Saturday Night Live and a series of lawsuits.

Not every SNL character deserves a movie, but Mike Myers was pushing for one that centered on Dieter, the host of West German talk show Sprockets. Set up at Universal during his post-Austin Powers bump, the movie would have been Myers’s third SNL tie-in after the Wayne’s World flicks. However, Myers was completely dissatisfied with his own screenplay and pulled the plug,...

Will Smith playfully revisited his Wild Wild West days with a cheeky Instagram post marking the 26th anniversary of the film. The 56-year-old actor posted an image on Instagram of himself wearing nothing but a cowboy hat, which was a still from the movie.He captioned it: “Wild Wild West came out 26 years ago today — sorry this is the only photo I could find.”Will’s post sparked a flood of comments admiring his physique. One admirer said online: “Let me go frame this,” while another declared: “The only photo that matters.” A third joked, “Move The Hat!! …who said that omgg.” Others confessed their affection for the film, with one fan saying: “This is the movie that made me realise you are sexy.” Another added about Will’s still: “My favorite scene. Explanation not needed.”The Men in Black star starred alongside Kevin Kline, 74, and Salma Hayek, 57, in the Barry Sonnenfeld-directed project.

It's not easy to make a name for yourself in the world of film and television, especially when everyone else is trying to do the same thing. Some talent, whether they be actors, writers, or filmmakers, get lucky in their first few projects, while others won't get to see the fruits of their industry labor until much further down the line. Clint Eastwood technically made his big screen debut in 1955 in an uncredited role in "Revenge of the Creature," yet kept finding himself in bit parts over the next few years. Even "Rawhide," the television western career gig that got his foot in the door, would take up seven and a half years of his life on CBS. But not only would the experience of starring in those eight seasons serve as a testing ground as for his directorial sensibilities, it would also prompt him to travel to Spain, where...

Michael Jackson Nearly Backed Out Of His Men In Black II Role (Photo Credit – Prime Video)

Michael Jackson once cried after watching Men in Black. Not from laughter, but actual tears. According to director Barry Sonnenfeld, the pop icon sat in a Paris theater after the credits rolled and “wept.” Why? Jackson thought the Will Smith-led alien romp was a “weepy,” not a comedy. That should’ve been the first clue: his eventual cameo in Men in Black II was always going to be weird.

Turns out, the King of Pop really wanted in on the sequel. And not just any role. As Sonnenfeld details in his memoir Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time, Jackson insisted on being an Mib agent. Sonnenfeld initially offered him a gig as one of the famous aliens, but Jackson wasn’t having it. “All that mattered to him was that he wore that black suit,...

The film world has been abuzz with talk about Mikey Madison ever since the 26-year-old Los Angeles-born actress took home the Academy Award for Best Actress for her precise, athletic, uproarious performance in "Anora." As the center of the high-stress screwball comedy about a stripper who marries an impulsive Russian 21-year-old playboy (Mark Eydelshteyn) and then fights tooth and nail to keep her marriage from being annulled by her husband's oligarch family, there's an argument to be made that Madison is, in fact, at least partly responsible for all five of "Anora'"s Oscar wins — especially Best Picture. Not too shabby for an actress who'd never had a high-profile starring role before.

If that sounds bogus, you best believe it: Aside from two starring roles in a couple of little-seen 2017 and 2023 films, Madison had only ever played supporting parts in films and TV shows. But, if none of those...

The 1989 buddy cop movie "Tango & Cash" is a weird animal. Lieutenant Ray Tango (Sylvester Stallone) is the star cop of the LAPD's narcotics division on the Westside, while Lieutenant Gabriel Cash (Kurt Russell) is the star officer of the Eastside. People from Los Angeles know that these are vital distinctions. The two haven't ever met, but are both loathed by the criminal underworld, and are set up by drug dealers to take the fall for a drug bust gone wrong. Tango and Cash are pilloried in court, and end up together in a maximum security prison. To clear their names, they'll have to escape and track down the bad guys, including gangster Yves Perret, played by Jack Palance. 

The story is broad and all over the place, and the tone is weirdly slapstick. "Tango & Cash" is as slick as 1980s cop movies come, but its sense of humor is weirdly caustic,...

The Gold Standard is a Gold Derby series where we speak to legendary figures in Hollywood who take us through their award-worthy greatest hits. Here, Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG Award nominee Christina Ricci talks about her most iconic roles, including her current role as Misty Quigley on Showtime's Yellowjackets. Watch the video below.

Mermaids (1990)

Ricci made her film debut at the age of 9 in the 1990 Orion Pictures comedy alongside Cher, Winona Ryder, and Bob Hoskins. In the film directed by Richard Benjamin, Ricci plays Kate Flax, the youngest daughter of Rachel (Cher), an unconventional single mother who relocates with her two daughters to a small Massachusetts town in 1963.

I remember being flown to Boston for my final audition, meeting Cher and Winona in the production office, and then going and having an audition with them. Noni [Ryder] and I talked about sharks because I have a lifelong fear of sharks,...

Never meet your heroes — or Tim Allen, that is. Few things are quite as unpleasant and soul-crushing as finding out that an actor you've adored is a total d**k in real life. And rest assured, the silver screen Santa Claus that we Millennials used to cherish and laugh at growing up has done a lot to obliterate our immature fandom and warrant our utmost contempt instead. Case in point: /Film's Bj Colangelo previously wrote about a story that involved Allen being a prick to his co-star Rene Russo on the set of Barry Sonnenfeld's dark comedy "Big Trouble".

But even if you set aside Allen essentially calling Russo "unattractive" to her face, he has a long history of engaging in problematic behavior throughout his career with his co-stars and other celebrities. One of the most scathing of those comes from actor, comedian, and screenwriter Casey Wilson, who worked...

When I spoke to Alan Rudolph a couple months ago, he confirmed that Criterion had sought to release his Remember My Name but were held up by music rights––a situation so complicated that a lawyer hired by the director himself simply gave up. I like to think something’s changed in less than 60 days: the Criterion Channel will stream Remember My Name as part of a quartet featuring Afterglow, Trouble In Mind, and Breakfast of Champions, the latter recently given a 4K restoration. It’s part of a retrospective-heavy month that also includes a 12-title Johnnie To series, numerous films by René Clair, highlights of Amy Holden Jones and Ougie Pak, and Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip saga in both television and theatrical editions. Meanwhile, Gene Hackman is celebrated with six titles.

One of those, Night Moves, gets a Criterion Edition; so do Les Blank’s A Poem Is...

Whether you’re looking for an old favorite or something a bit more recent to watch, there’s usually a reliable handful of great movies to watch for free on the Roku Channel. This month is a particularly good one for action and thriller fans, with standouts ranging from the latest installment of the always impeccably choreographed action in the “John Wick” franchise to a must-watch pair of 1990s crowd-pleasers.

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) Donnie Yen in “John Wick” (Lionsgate)

If you want a straight shot of exquisite action, featuring several of the most accomplished action stars in the world, naturally, you turn to the “John Wick” films. This month, Roku has “John Wick: Chapter 4,” the most recent installment in the franchise, which travels from Tokyo to Paris and introduces heavy-hitters like Donnie Yen and Scott Adkins alongside Keanu Revees’ gun-toting ultra assassin. There’s really no one in...

Salma Hayek Was Once Pressured By A Filmmaker To Smell His Body Part(Photo Credit – Instagram)

Salma Hayek has played several memorable characters in her career, and the most memorable one is probably in Frida. There are roles that she enjoyed and then that she dreaded. One such role was of Rita Escobar in the Will Smith-starrer Wild Wild West. She felt embarrassed about wearing the costume in that movie. Another thing that made her feel disgusting was the filmmaker’s weird request. It was directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, who persuaded Hayek to smell a body part the actress thought was revolting. Keep scrolling for the deets.

The 1999 steampunk action comedy was loosely adapted from The Wild Wild West, a 1960s television series created by Michael Garrison. It received mixed to negative reviews and was a box office failure. Will and Kevin Kline feature as two US Secret Service...

Despite standing less than five-feet tall, Danny DeVito is a giant of the entertainment industry. With literally dozens of credits to his name, DeVito has towered over the film and TV worlds through sheer force of his talent for more than half a century, with no signs of slowing down. While he has made his name and earned his fame as an actor, he's also an accomplished director and a prolific producer. Heck, he has credits for screenwriting, editing, and even soundtracks! DeVito's a cinematic "Renaissance Man," and not just because he starred in a 1994 comedy with that name.

Despite DeVito's gargantuan cinematic contributions, this multi-talented, multi-hyphenated filmmaker has never won an Academy Award, and has only been nominated once, for producing "Erin Brockovich." Yet even while watching his buddies Jack Nicholson and Michael Douglas roll in gold, DeVito stays in good spirits, because that's the guy he is. Well,...

Which Movie Did Will Smith Begin Filming Without A Finished Script?(Photo Credit –Instagram)

Back in 2012, Men in Black 3 kicked off production without a finished script, and somehow, it still turned out to be one of Will Smith’s biggest hits. Risky move? Absolutely. However, Smith and director Barry Sonnenfeld believed the studio’s bold play had merit.

In fact, Sonnenfeld stood by the chaos, saying (via Newsweek), “Starting the movie without an absolutely finished script is not normally the right way to do movies. But I feel the decision Sony made was the right decision. On this one, we might still be waiting for the script. Sometimes, if you just dip your toe in, you’ll never dive in because it’s too stupidly cold.”

That icy plunge didn’t stop Men in Black 3 from pulling in a cool $624 million worldwide. Sure, it didn’t match the pop-culture explosion of the 1997 original,...

What Did The Director Of Wild Wild West Say About This Bizzare Scene Featuring Will Smith?(Photo Credit –Instagram)

Before Wild Wild West flopped its way into pop culture infamy, Will Smith was riding a red-hot streak. But one scene in that 1999 disaster left even the director shaking his head. Barry Sonnenfeld, who had just directed Smith in the blockbuster Men in Black, later admitted the moment “made no sense” and might’ve dragged the whole film down with it.

It wasn’t supposed to go that way. In the mid-’90s, Smith had been leveling up fast. He scored back-to-back hits from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to Bad Boys and Independence Day. Then came Men in Black in 1997. It dropped on July 4th weekend and cemented Smith as the summer box office king. So when Sonnenfeld pitched Wild Wild West, another summer spectacle with gadgets, comedy, and action,...

Discovering Old Gems in Netflix’s April 2025 Catalog: Navigating Netflix’s extensive catalog can be overwhelming, especially with the platform’s continuous influx of new titles. This April 2025, Netflix has enriched its library by adding a selection of classic and semi-old films that merit attention. For viewers who enjoy old cinema, these additions are a great chance to revisit timeless stories and performances. Watching old films now and then offers a refreshing break from modern movies and helps you better appreciate the history of cinema. Below is a curated list of notable movies now available on Netflix, complete with details to help you choose your next watch.

New Additions to Netflix in April 2025 The Age of Innocence | 1993 | Director: Martin Scorsese | Genre: Drama/Romance

Set in 1870s New York high society, this film follows lawyer Newland Archer as he becomes entangled in a love triangle with his fiancée and her cousin.

Just a year after delivering a memorable performance as Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, John Travolta came back as Miami Mobster in one of the decade's most celebrated comedies. In this 1995 gangster film, Travolta plays the character of Chili Palmer, a loan shark who had "an idea for a movie" and is fascinated with Hollywood filmmaking. He thinks that 'Hollywood ain't so different from the mob. Just a different kind of hustle.' And that's exactly what Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty delivers–a gangster drama that's not about shootouts and heists but about the hilarious clash between the underworld and Hollywood.

Adapted from Elmore Leonard's novel and written by Scott Frank for the screen, Get Shorty is one of the comedies that knew exactly where to be witty, serious, and genuinely funny. Travolta, who was fresh from Pulp Fiction success, brings the cool, fashionable and...

For Jenna Ortega, getting in touch with Wednesday's lead meant staying true to her character's artistic roots.

Speaking with Den of Geek ahead of the new film Death of a Unicorn's release, Ortega talked about playing the fan-favorite The Addams Family daughter and the role Charles Addams' The New Yorker cartoons played in helping her get Wednesday Addams right. "In between season 1 and season 2, I actually went to this antiquarian bookshop and I picked up some of the first published books of Charles Addams. I kept that on my bedside table as we were shooting just for reference. You know, looking at [his] dark tools," she said. On top of that, Ortega researched another of Addams' books "that was just stuff that inspired him throughout the years. Like weird families and weird things like that."

While Addams' characters weren't named in the original cartoons, their macabre humor and subversive tone...

It is well known that Will Smith once had the chance to headline The Matrix, a fact that has been prominent recently thanks to the actor’s involvement in a recent Matrix-inspired music video. It is also an undeniable fact that the movie he chose to make instead was a panned disaster. Over 25 years later, the steampunk-tinged adventure-comedy that paired cowboys with outlandish gadgets,Wild Wild West is now discovering a new audience on Tubi.

Smith was on a high at the time of the movie’s original release in 1999, having starred in Bad Boys, the alien blockbuster Independence Day, and another intergalactic adventure with Men in Black, but despite being a notable A-lister, Wild Wild West could not capitalize on it and was seen as a generally terrible, disjointed mess of a movie.

RelatedWill Smith's First 10 Movies, Ranked

Here's a look back at Will Smith's first 10 movies, from Bad Boys to Ali.

When you purchase through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

This March, Max is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the highly anticipated return of the brilliant comedy series The Righteous Gemstones to the streaming release of Hugh Grant‘s terrifying horror film Heretic. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Max next month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 5 best films coming to Max in September 2025 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Men in Black (March 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91% Credit – Sony Pictures

Men in Black is a sci-fi action comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld from a screenplay by Ed Solomon. Based on the comic book The Men in Black by Lowell Cunningham, the 1997 film follows Agent K and Agent J, two people from a top-secret agency that monitors the extraterrestrials on Earth.

There’s an indelible scene in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 masterwork, The Conversation, in which Gene Hackman’s reclusive surveillance expert, Harry Caul, visits his mistress Amy, played with aching vulnerability by Teri Garr. It’s the night of his birthday, and he arrives so late she’s almost given up on him.

She asks how old he is and then proceeds in a teasing, half-jokey way to pepper him with questions — where he lives, if he lives alone, what he does — that reveal how little she knows of this man she clearly loves and has been seeing for an unspecified length of time.

We feel Amy’s hunger to know him, just as we feel Harry’s wincing discomfort and paranoia as she gently pries information from him. “I don’t feel like answering any more questions,” he mutters, moving toward the apartment door and opening his wallet to...

Love the Men In Black franchise? It’s about to get a new streaming home! ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

The Men in Black franchise has been a defining force in sci-fi action-comedy since its inception in 1997. Based on Lowell Cunningham’s Marvel-published comic, the movies follow a secret government agency that monitors extraterrestrial activity on Earth, ensuring that alien visitors remain hidden from the public eye. Featuring iconic performances by Will Smith as Agent J and Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K, the series has since offered unforgettable cinematic experience for the fans.

The original Men in Black film was an instant hit, grossing $589 million worldwide and winning an Academy Award. Its success led to two direct sequels, Men in Black II (2002) and Men in Black 3 (2012), which further explored the universe’s expanding lore. Despite Men in Black: International (2019) receiving mixed reviews, the franchise remains beloved, with its first three...

The best science fiction films are movies that are able to balance entertaining action with social and political commentary, using the superstructure of elements like aliens and space-faring adventures as a way to tell stories about the human experience. Films like Blade Runner, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Denis Villnueve's Dune movies combine spectacle and clever writing to pull audiences into stories about everything from the evils of unfettered capitalism to the dangers of dogmatic nationalism.

Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Blackis a perfect example of how a hilarious and engaging action blockbuster about two secret agents who clean up the messes of alien activity on Earth can provide both popcorn entertainment and carefully observed insights about how society acts. Bolstered by excellent performances from Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, Ed Solomon's screenplay features one of the best scenes of the 1990s that continues to feel relevant today.

Before defining the archetypal anti-hero and becoming the face of prestige television in the 21st century as Tony Soprano of The Sopranos, James Gandolfiniwas a reliable supporting character actor in movies such as Get Shorty, Night Falls on Manhattan, the 12 Angry Men remake, and 8mm. After years of honing his craft alongside the biggest movie stars, like John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, and the most accomplished directors, like Barry Sonnenfeld, Sidney Lumet, and William Friedkin, Gandolfini was ready to take over television in 1999.

Barry Sonnenfeld joins Film Stories with a clickbait-free, longform podcast special – from the Coen Brothers to Get Shorty, and beyond.

With his brilliant new book – Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time – Barry Sonnenfeld joins Film Stories for a long, funny and candid conversation about his work.

The chat covers his director of photograpy days for the Coen Brothers, shooting the last two weeks of Goodfellas, and then moving onto directing. From his debut with The Addams Family, to the challenges of Get Shorty with Gene Hackman and John Travola, and a whole lot more.

Quite the chat, this. A little bit of fruity language too.

You can find Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time right here.

The post Podcast | In conversation with Barry Sonnenfeld: Coen Brothers, The Addams Family, Get Shorty, books, wearing two watches, a whole lot more appeared first on Film Stories.

Amongst the thousands of people who have lost their homes during the devastating Los Angeles wildfires this January, there are many familiar faces. This includes Carel Struycken, whose iconic presence has featured in numerous films and TV shows over the past several decades, including Barry Sonnenfeld’s Addams Family films and Twin Peaks, in which he played first The Giant, and then (in The Return) The Fireman.

Struycken may also be familiar from key roles in Men in Black, Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, The Witches of Eastwick, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. The 76-year-old actor and his wife, who resided in Altadena, lost everything after the Eaton Fire burned through their neighborhood. Their son-in-law, Michael Anspach, has launched a GoFundMe to help support the family. “We’re so very thankful they were able to safely escape the oncoming blaze, but like so many others, they lost everything to the Eaton Fire.

It began with the spark of a candle in 1941 related to the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons. Wait, a comic book genre?! No one was certain what to think about pages coming to life. The comic book genre has been under siege during "Awards Season" since 1978 when Christopher Reeve made the world believe a man could fly.

Recently, a different Bat signal had been emblazoned across Hollywood's sky, and it is solid gold. Can we stop hating on this genre now?

It probably won't happen as long as people like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Roland Emmerich, and David Cronenberg are helming Hollywood. They're so influential and vociferous against the comic book genre that it tends to make the award bureaus reconsider a person acting in spandex really isn't "acting." As if cosplay doesn't involve imagination.

And so, hate continues against any visual entertainment from comic books and graphic novels.

Will Smith shockingly passed on the leading role in The Matrix, which completely changed both the franchise and his career. Smith was offered the role of Neo in The Matrix before Keanu Reeves. By that point in his career, some of Will Smith's best movies, such as Bad Boys, Independence Day, and Men in Black, had already been released. Therefore, he had already established himself as a movie star. Additionally, Smith had proven that he had an interest in the science fiction genre, which would have made him a perfect leading man for The Matrix movies.

The story of the first Matrix movie follows Neo, who discovers that humanity is trapped inside the Matrix, a simulated reality that was created by intelligent machines. Lily and Lana Wachowski, the writers and directors of the first Matrix movie, offered the role of Neo to Smith. Smith accepting the role of Neo would have completely changed his career,...

Will Smith famously turned down the chance to don the iconic trench coat and sunglasses of Neo in The Matrix. The sci-fi film went on to become a cinematic gem with never-seen-before actions, groundbreaking visuals, and mind-bending storytelling. When Smith turned down the role, it went to Keanu Reeves who gave an unforgettable portrayal.

Will Smith as a fictionalized version of himself in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air | Credits: NBC

In a cryptic Instagram post, Smith recently teased a what-if scenario where he would’ve agreed to the role. Fans couldn’t help but imagine Smith playing Neo in the film instead of Reeves. They were sure that if things went differently, The Matrix would’ve taken a different creative direction.

Why did Will Smith turn down the role of Neo in The Matrix? Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix | Credits: Warner Bros. Pictures

Keanu Reeves + Kung Fu is...

Will Smith will not be joining Warner Bros. and director Drew Goddard in a new Matrix movie for the studio, insiders tell The Hollywood Reporter.

That leaves open a mystery Smith sparked on Monday with a cryptic Instagram post noting how Smith passed on the starring role of Neo in the original 1999 sci-fi epic The Matrix, directed by Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski.

The Instagram post — featuring Matrix-style computer font — stated: “In 1997, the Wachowski’s offered Will Smith the role of Neo in The Matrix. Smith turned it down. He chose Wild Wild West, believing it was a better fit for him at the time. But the question remains: What would The Matrix have been like with Will Smith as Neo? Wake up, Will… The Matrix has you…”

The Matrix went on to be a generation-defining hit, while Barry Sonnenfeld’s Wild Wild West was beaten up by critics...

We know why you're here, reader. We know what you've been doing. We know why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why, night after night, you sit at your computer. We know because we were once looking for the same thing. We were looking for an answer. It's the question that drives us.

When you purchase through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

This January, Peacock is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the intense biographical thriller series Lockerbie: A Search For Truth to the return of the hit British reality series The Traitors. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Peacock this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the seven best films that are coming to Peacock in January 2025 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Alien (January 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93% Credit – 20th Century Fox

Alien is a sci-fi horror thriller film directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Dan O’Bannon. The 1979 film follows the crew of a spacecraft that intercepts a distress signal from a planet. They soon set out to investigate, but they are attacked by an alien entity that invades their ship.

The jump from cinematographer to director doesn’t happen so often. Barry Sonnenfeld, Jan de Bont, Ernest Dickerson––an attractive list, if a short one. The latest to join their rank is Tato Kotetishvili, the Georgian Dp behind Uta Beria’s Negative Numbers and Levan Koguashvili’s Blind Dates, now on directing duty with Holy Electricity. The film, part city symphony, part docudrama, offers plenty of style and finds substance in unusual places. Results are compelling, if a little mixed.

It’s a film of real people in somewhat-unreal scenarios, built from precisely composed shots that are often medium, static, and doused with generous color and blunt irony. Take the opening: a shot of a family gathered around an open casket that cuts suddenly to a busted-up car in a scrap yard moments before it’s flattened by a slab of concrete. In the yard, Kotetishvili introduces his low-key, quixotic...

The first horror family to attend the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade may have been “The Munsters” back in 1964, but The Addams Family eventually caught up a few decades later.

It was in 1991 that the Charles Addams-created Addams Family debuted at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, taking over the short-lived “European Village” float in celebration of that year’s live action movie. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, the live action movie had just arrived in theaters on November 22 of that year, a mere six days before the November 28, 1991 airing of the 65th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. And the cast of the film even showed up in full costume, including Christina Ricci (Wednesday), Jimmy Workman (Pugsley), Judith Malina (Grandmama), and Carel Struycken (Lurch), joined by Cousin Itt.

The Addams Family float at the 1991 parade was paired up with the Cultural Dance Ensemble of Camden High School in New Jersey,...

Clint Eastwood is one of the biggest Hollywood stars of his generation, but that doesnt mean he can take on every single role thats offered to him. The actors career has stretched over seven decades, comprising a huge amount of different genres and styles, as hes continually tried new things and tried to keep up with the changing face of the industry. The reason Eastwoods career has been filled with so many great movies and lasted for so many years is his ability to change his signature style at the drop of a hat, which has kept him relevant.

Another reason that Eastwood has found such huge success is his ability to know exactly which roles are right for him, and which could be better tackled by a different actor. In his prime, the actor was starring in multiple different movies each year, but he wasnt just accepting any script...

“I don’t wanna hurt anybody. I don’t enjoy hurting anybody. I don’t like guns, or bombs, or electric chairs. But sometimes people just won’t listen. And so, I have to use persuasion. And slides.”

As the weather cools and the holidays approach, we get the urge to curl up with loved ones around a crackling fire to watch a good old-fashioned family movie. A film where a loveable clan tries to overcome their problems by leaning on love and respect for one another. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry, but we hopefully emerge from this loving cocoon reaffirmed in our own sense of family values. For horror fans, only one household fits the bill. Barry Sonnenfeld’s Addams Family Values features one of the genre’s most beloved broods, a lineage of morbid misfits who live by their own rules and love to take pleasure in the spooky and macabre.

The Addams Family quotes help make the live-action movies beloved by many thanks to the witty, kooky characters. The perfect cast, combined with cleverly written scripts, helped secure their positions as two of the most influential movies in pop culture history. Barry Sonnenfeld directed The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, with an iconic supporting cast including the talents of Christopher Lloyd, Joan Cusack, Dan Hedaya, and Dana Ivey.

Actors Anjelica Huston, Christina Ricci, and Raul Julia steal the show with their portrayals of main characters Morticia, Wednesday, and Gomez, delivering performances and dynamics that were so good, they're downright irreplaceable. The Addams Family movies endeared themselves with their gothic style, morbid sense of humor, and scripts filled with dialogue that is impossible to forget. The best Addams Family quotes include humorous, dark, and often sarcastic looks at the family and the world around them.

"I Would Kill For Her.

Not only is Halloween thankfully upon us, but the next major holiday, Thanksgiving, at least in America, is next. That can only mean one thing: it’s time for a re-watch of Addams Family Values! Our friends at Paramount Home Entertainment sent me a copy of their newest release of the 1993 Barry Sonnenfeld film, which comes out tomorrow, October 29th. You may have heard of Sonnenfeld, who not only directed the previous film, The Addams Family, as well as Men in Black and Get Shorty. Previously, he was the director of photography on a litany of Hollywood films, such as Misery, Miller’s Crossing, Big, Blood Simple, and many more. The official synopsis: Gomez (Raul Julia) and Morticia (Anjelica Huston) welcome a new addition to the...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

John Travolta‘s cocky attitude on the set of Get Shorty has left a mark on director Barry Sonnenfeld, 71, that has left its mark all these years later.

The gangster film was a blockbuster hit upon its release in 1995. At the time, Travolta was cementing his status as a household name, while Gene Hackman brought the weight of an Academy Award-winning actor.

Sonnenfield’s newly released memoir, Best Possible Place, revealed that the actors had quite different approaches to acting. Hackman would spend weekends memorizing his lines, whereas Travolta spent mere minutes.

window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'thumbnails-mid', container: 'taboola-mid-article-thumbnails', placement: 'Mid Article Thumbnails', target_type: 'mix' });

Sonnenfeld recalled Travolta casually asking Hackman about his weekend, to which the actor shot back, “Well, with eight pages of dialogue, I pretty much spent the whole weekend memorizing today’s work.”

Travolta could not relate. As filming progressed, it became...