Matthew Shepherd with ten A-list stars you probably forgot were in the MCU…The MCU has employed what feels like half of Hollywood over the past two decades. Most of the time the casting makes sense — a known face in a known role, building toward something larger. But occasionally a genuinely surprising name shows up […]
10 Star Wars Characters Who Deserve Their Own Disney+ Series
Matthew Shepherd with ten Star Wars characters who deserve their own Disney+ series…The best thing Disney has done with Star Wars is get it away from the Skywalker saga. The Mandalorian proved the universe works as a Western. Andor proved it works as a political thriller. The template is now established — find the right […]
10 Marvel Villains Perfect for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man 5
Matthew Shepherd looks ahead with a selection of potential villains for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in Spider-Man 5…Spider-Man: Brand New Day has fundamentally reset Peter Parker’s world. Operating without the safety net of Tony Stark’s technology, without his identity, and without the people who once anchored him, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is in the most interesting […]
The Snowman: The Blockbuster Nobody Finished Making
Matthew Shepherd on the 2017 Jo Nesbo adaptation The Snowman…Most directors, when their film is failing with critics before it has even opened wide, say nothing. They give a carefully worded statement about artistic vision, defer to the audience, and wait for the conversation to move on. Tomas Alfredson did not do that. In an […]
The Movie Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence Would Rather You Forget
Matthew Shepherd revisits Susanne Bier’s Serena starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence…Bradley Cooper rarely talks about Serena. Jennifer Lawrence does not either. This felt odd until learning more about it, now it makes a lore more sense. In early 2012, the two of them filmed a Depression-era period drama in the Czech Republic directed by […]
Suburbicon: When Even the Coen Brothers Can’t Save Your Movie
Matthew Shepherd on where it went wrong for Suburbicon…Hollywood disasters feel almost common these days. A production that loses its director, a star who drops out, a release date colliding with an unmovable franchise behemoth. These are all normal. Suburbicon though, the George Clooney 2017 dark comedy, is not normal. It is much stranger and […]
The Counselor: When an All-Star Cast Couldn’t Deliver a Hit
Matthew Shepherd looks back at Ridley Scott’s forgotten star-studded crime thriller The Counselor…Ridley Scott does not often admit when he thinks he has been wronged. The man who made Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator has a strong confidence in his own judgement that borders on geological. So when he told the Toronto Sun, years after […]
A Cast Too Good For A Film This Bad: Collateral Beauty
Matthew Shepherd revisit’s 2016’s Collateral Beauty…Hollywood humiliations are both rare and fascinating occurrences. Unlike other examples, this isn’t a quiet burial of a cheap production nobody believed in, but the very public implosion of a film that had everything — a-list cast, optimal release slot, financially bolstered awards campaign and an intriguing trailer that made […]
A Cinematic Anomaly: Serenity
Matthew Shepherd on 2019’s Serenity…There is a very specific kind of Hollywood film that defies all logic. Not a film that was always destined to fail — a cheap production with no names attached, quietly shelved and forgotten — but one that arrives with every conceivable advantage and still manages to vanish without trace. Serenity, […]
