Matt Singer is the editor and critic of the website ScreenCrush.com. For five years, he was the on-air host of IFC News on the Independent Film Channel, hosting coverage of film festivals and red carpets around the world. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, he’s been a frequent contributor to the television shows CBS This Morning Saturday and Ebert Presents At the Movies, and his writing has also appeared in print and online at The Village Voice, The Dissolve, and Indiewire. His first book, Marvel’s Spider-Man: From Amazing to Spectacular, is on sale now.
Matt Singer
Some ‘MST3K’ Facts and Secrets From the Not-Too-Distant Past
You know Mystery Science Theater 3000 from ten seasons on Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Channel. (They used to spell their name right.) But did you know that MST3K started on a local station in Minnesota named KTMA? The original version of the show ran for 21 episodes before KTMA filed for bankruptcy and the series was sold to the Comedy Channel, which later became Comedy Central. That’s just one of the facts packed into the latest episode of the ScreenCrush series You Think You Know TV?
You Could Be the Next Actor Cast in the ‘Han Solo’ Movie With Star Wars: Force for Change
Apparently Daisy Ridley has never been to Skywalker Ranch. But you could go there.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Is Making the Most Interesting Movies of His Career Right Now
As a box-office draw, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best years were from the late 1980s through the mid 1990s. That overlaps significantly with his biggest years as an action hero, from 1984’s The Terminator to 1994’s True Lies.
Arnold Schwarzenegger on ‘Aftermath,’ 30 Years of ‘The Running Man,’ And His Greatest One-Liners
If you’ve been ignoring Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movies since he returned to acting after seven years as the Governor of California, you’ve been missing out on some of the most interesting roles of his career. Though Schwarzenegger’s comeback kicked off with old-school action schtick like The Last Stand and The Expendables sequels, his recent output has seen him shift into darker, sadder territory. In the new movie Aftermath, he plays a man whose entire family is killed in a plane crash. There are no terrorists, no hijacking; a simple human error causes a tragic mid-air collision. The airline tries to buy off his silence, but Schwarzenegger’s Roman cannot let the tragedy go. He wants an apology for what happened, and no one will give it. And so he becomes fixated on the air traffic controller (played by Scoot McNairy) who was responsible for the fatal accident.
How Fast Can One Man Eat the ‘Kong: Skull Island’ Johnny Rockets Menu?
Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, shrouded in mystery and a hurricane that never dissipates, lies a place beyond comprehension. It is Skull Island, a land where God never finished creation. It is home to monstrosities beyond imagination. Massive spiders with limbs like bamboo poles. Hideous lizard beasts known as skull-walkers. Also, street tots.
15 Lines We Never Want to Hear in a Movie Again
Last week, I got so sick of hearing a particular line of dialogue — “This isn’t a movie! This is real life!” — that I wrote a piece about it. While finishing it, I teased the article on Twitter by sharing the headline and inviting my followers to guess what line had set me off. I got well over 100 responses, but just one correct answer. But so many of the other replies were also outstanding examples of dumb clichés I decided to collect the best of the best (slash worst of the worst) in their own list.
25 Movies You Can Still Buy on VHS on Amazon Prime
For several years now, I have heard that VHS is the new vinyl. But aside from the occasional thinkpiece on the topic, I haven‘t see much tangible evidence to support that statement. A couple of the few remaining video stores in New York carry the analog tapes, but there hasn’t been a surge in new stores or specialty shops full of vintage VHS or VCRs. (And I live in Brooklyn; if such a place existed, it would be here.) With a few minor exceptions, I thought VHS was basically dead.
Orson Welles’ Final Film Will Be Completed and Released on Netflix
1,083 reels of old film represent one of the great Holy Grails of movie history. They’re the unassembled components of The Other Side of the Wind, the final unfinished project of director Orson Welles. Shot over the course of many years in the 1970s, and starring a cast that included directors John Huston and Peter Bogdanovich, The Other Side of the Wind was a complex tale about an aging movie director attempting to mount a career comeback. (Surely the story had no personal resonance for Welles whatsoever.) Financial and legal troubles mounted, and Welles was unable to complete the film before he passed away in 1985. For decades, those 1,083 reels sat in a French film lab, waiting for the right team to come along and do something with them.
The ‘Rogue One’ Script Originally Had an Opening Crawl
When all was said and done, the biggest movie of 2016 in the United States was Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the only film of last year to gross more than $500 million domestically. Director Gareth Edwards managed to do something not even George Lucas had accomplished: Make a well-liked Star Wars prequel.
‘Despicable Me 3’ Trailer: Gru’s Got Double Trouble With His Twin Brother
Trapped inside by today’s massive snowstorm? There’s a silver lining: Now you have time to watch the new Despicable Me 3 trailer 8,000 times.
The MTV Movie Awards Are Now the MTV Movie & TV Awards
The MTV Movie Awards are dead. Long live the MTV Movie & TV Awards.
Frank Oz Won’t Say Whether Yoda’s in ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’
If you thought things around Star Wars would get less secretive now that the notoriously unforthcoming J.J. Abrams wasn’t directing things, think again. Even knowing what we know about Star Wars: The Last Jedi based on the events of Abrams’ The Force Awakens, there might be even more uncertainly around Rian Johnson’s eighth episode in the Star Wars saga.