775 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Arabic (Page 17)

Armageddon Time, writer/director James Gray’s eighth feature film, follows a young boy named Paul Graff (Banks Repeta), a stand-in for Gray. He’s an unknowing, bratty, artsy kid. He breaks rules, makes fun of his teachers, won’t eat his mother’s cooking. He’s a regular, if not annoying, teenager. Paul’s family is Jewish and living in Queens in the 1980s. They send him to public school while his brother attends private school. They’re constantly hoping to get a leg up for their family amongst a sea of other discriminated families.   Continue Reading →

Can you have Starfleet without Starfleet? That’s the essential question Star Trek: Prodigy asks in the back half of its first season. As the villainous Diviner (John Noble) told his daughter last time, the advanced vessel ferrying the series’ young heroes contains a weapon that could decimate the Federation. If that weren’t enough, the flesh-and-blood Vice Admiral Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) has reason to think whoever’s piloting the Protostar stole the ship and marooned her dear friend, Chakotay. So despite how badly the show’s main characters want to join Starfleet, there’s a plethora of reasons to stay far, far away for the time being.  Continue Reading →

When Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) began this season, she harbored nothing but mistrust for Starfleet and resolved to rescue her mother all by herself, even as it turned out Mom didn’t need saving. Now, at season’s end, Mariner returns, ready to fight for both the people and the idea of Starfleet, and she enlists the help of her comrades and colleagues to rescue Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) in a moment where she could really use the save. Continue Reading →

North Carolina, 2032. Flynne Fisher (Chloë Grace Moretz) is a skilled gamer. Pro gaming (usually helping some rich schmucks win victories they couldn't on their own) is a viable way for her and her cyborg'd-former-Marine brother Burton (Jack Reynor) to earn extra cash. They live with their ailing mother Ella (Melinda Page Hamilton) a half-step ahead of financial ruin in a town more or less run by spiritual-cousin-to-Road-House-villain-Brad-Wesley Corbell Pickett (Louis Herthum, Westworld). Continue Reading →

(This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Chicago International Film Festival) Continue Reading →

Park Chan-wook fans can rest assured that the director who gave us the twisty, blood-soaked passions of Oldboy, Stoker, and The Handmaiden has returned with another romantic crime-fueled drama. His latest, Decision to Leave, is high-grade neo-noir, the newest installment in Park’s ongoing exploration of the genre.   Continue Reading →

We’re officially in the third decade of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson being a movie star. The former WWE legend made his cinema debut in the forgettable sequel to The Mummy, where he’s introduced as the dreaded Scorpion King, one of the most infamous early CGI debacles. Special effects have since improved, along with Johnson’s abilities as an actor and charismatic leading man. However, it feels like now we’ve come full circle with DC’s Black Adam.  Continue Reading →

I didn’t realize watching Wendell and Wild how much I’d missed Keegan Michael-Key and Jordan Peele bouncing off one another. Though restricted to just voice-over performances here, their incredible chemistry remains intact. The moment their demonic characters started exchanging dialogue, I felt like I was right back in 2014, watching sketches like “Gremlins 2 brainstorm” or “Fronthand Backhand” on YouTube, in awe of the witty rapport these performers shared. Continue Reading →

For the brave trick-or-treaters who venture to the front door of the old abandoned MCU Manor, a spooky treat awaits. All courtesy of one of Marvel’s more obscure characters—Werewolf by Night. Continue Reading →

Where do we even begin? Continue Reading →

When I got to my first advanced writing course in college, our professor, a large woman with a positively terrifying intellect, asked us all to tell the rest of the class what our favorite book was. I, at barely 19, told a room full of adults that I loved the writings of Anne Rice more than anything. I’d read and reread The Vampire Chronicles many times since I was fifteen, and the Lives of the Mayfair Witches since I was twelve. To say these books had a significant impact on my adolescence and young adulthood is an understatement. In those pre-internet days, I’d satisfied my love of storytelling by filling entire notebooks with my Anne Riceaverse Fan Fiction. It’s what made me want to be a writer. So you can imagine how mortified I was when Professor Arl, barely holding back an eye roll, told me that, yes, Anne Rice was very popular with teenage girls but was—at best—escapist beach reading.   Continue Reading →

First things first: Hellraiser (2022) doesn’t need to be Hellraiser (1987). The goal of a remake/reboot/what-have-you should be to put a unique sheen on the material, to make it one's own, not a carbon copy of what’s already been done. That being said…it’s hard not to watch David Bruckner’s new Hellraiser without wishing just a little bit for what used to be.  Continue Reading →

Cobra Kai has always been about comebacks. Each season plays with its cast of characters — from the old guns to the new blood — like action figures in an elaborate playset, constantly shifting relationships, rivalries, and set-ups to drive home the most bingeable drama-lite comedy it can muster. But ultimately, when you strip it down to basics, the show only really cares about how the characters get back up after falling flat on their faces.  Continue Reading →

Stephen King is best known for his massive novels that require weight training just to hold. Entire forest ecosystems have been destroyed so we can have The Stand on our bookshelves. These epic tales are his bread and butter, but if you want to get a pure distillation of what makes King a gifted horror writer and storyteller, check out his short story collections. They provide the strong, grounded characters facing terrifying circumstances that he’s famous for in his longer novels, but in a digestible format. He can be hit or miss (even the best writers may have stinkers when they write an astonishing ten pages a day like King) but if one short story is garbage, chances are the next one will be a fun time.   Continue Reading →

The original Hocus Pocus has grown to be a cult favorite over the years. The 1993 film followed the Sanderson sisters: Winnie (Bette Midler), Mary (Kathy Najimy), and Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) as they terrorized Salem, Massachusetts after rising from the grave—until their apparently eternal banishment the end of the film. Now, in 2022, the Sandersons have been resurrected by the corporate magic of Disney. Luckily, Hocus Pocus 2’s spellweaving will delight both nostalgic fans of the original and draw in a new crowd of young fans. Continue Reading →

“What is Vietnam?” is not a question with an easy answer, but The Greatest Beer Run Ever tackles the challenge anyway. Like the plethora of media featuring the country—in any capacity—Peter Farrelly’s film runs headlong into the notion that what is an S-shaped piece of land in Southeast Asia can also be a dream after the Fall of Saigon. Or that the starry banner that international bodies recognize is not the triple-striped one flying overseas. Or that any example henceforth will possess the same gist: try to ring up nuance when discussing Vietnam. Continue Reading →

Ever since Rob Zombie dug through the ditches, burned through the witches, and slammed it in the back of his Dragula, it was inevitable his career would lead to The Munsters. It’s where the coffin car originated and feels like the Rosetta Stone for Zombie’s lifelong passions for the weird and macabre. The TV show aired on CBS in 1964, just six days after the premiere of that other spooky household, The Addams Family. Both shows were satires of the lily-white (and, thanks to racially discriminatory laws, literally White) suburbs that were taking over America. The Munsters was the more popular show then--and the kitschier--which might explain why it holds a special place in Zombie’s heart.  Continue Reading →

Near the beginning of Bros, Bobby Lieber (Billy Eichner) meets with a Hollywood executive. The exec wants our protagonist to write a script for a gay rom-com. The executive is after something easy, a script that is palatable to straight audiences, a story about “nice gay guys.” Bobby, of course, isn’t having it. He tells the executive that gays have different stories than straight people before leaving, movie deal dead in the room.   Continue Reading →

Sidney Poitier lived an incredible life. He was undeniable in every sense of the word. Even a quick glance at his biography reveals the depths of his star power, his acting prowess in films throughout the 1960s and 1970s (A Raisin in the Sun, In the Heat of the Night, etc.), and his impact, with an Oscar, a Grammy, a BAFTA, and knighthood to his name. Sidney, a new documentary from Reginald Hudlin, is a down-the-middle biography of the late actor. Poitier’s gravity makes it watchable, but its filmmaking leaves much to be desired.  Continue Reading →

Since Lou greets you with the logo of J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot, a question surfaces: Is this a Cloverfield project? Or, like 10 Cloverfield Lane, it isn’t one until it is? Continue Reading →

With the exception of Clint Eastwood, Walter Hill is the contemporary filmmaker most closely associated with what was once the most American of film genres, the Western. They've been in relatively short supply for the last 50-odd years, but with projects like The Long Riders, Geronimo, Wild Bill, Broken Trail, and the pilot episode of Deadwood (not to mention modern-set takes on the form like Extreme Prejudice and Last Man Standing), Hill’s been doing what he can to keep the form and its traditions alive. His latest, Dead for a Dollar (his first film in six years), is unlikely to spur a revival anytime soon and its bypassing of theaters for a VOD release all but ensures that it will be overlooked by all but his most dedicated fans. The good news is that those fans—and any others who should come across it—will be rewarded with a sturdy, entertaining work that overcomes its occasionally apparent budget constraints to serve as a welcome reminder that Hill remains one of the most fascinating genre filmmakers of our time.  Continue Reading →