1420 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Mandarin (Page 28)

When people first came upon Class of 1984 in theatres at the tail end of the summer of 1982, they likely had expectations about what they would see. Those not instantly put off by its sleazo ad campaign likely assumed they would be encountering a trashy update of The Blackboard Jungle. Perhaps one with far more blood, guts, and nudity than would have been permissible back in those comparatively innocent days of 1955. In many ways, that is essentially what it was, and that is how many people at the time chose to dismiss it. However, true fans of exploitation cinema came out of it with a genuine sense of surprise over what they had just seen. Here was a film that looked and sounded like the usual garbage but had far more wit, style, and intelligence than anyone expected. Those qualities continue to impress even today.  Continue Reading →

From Promising Young Women to Big Little Lies, we’re in a golden age of female revenge stories. Looking to add to the ranks is AppleTV+’s new series Bad Sisters. It follows the tight-knit group of sisters who slowly turn on their prick-ish brother-in-law after years of misogynistic torture. It’s a dash of thriller Big Little Lies with a sprinkle of the comedy of 9 to 5, all set in a coastal Irish town.    Continue Reading →

Amber’s (Alison Brie) dead-eyed stare in the opening montage of Spin Me Round tells you everything you need to know about where she’s at in life. She’s the manager of a fast-casual “Italian” restaurant, and from what we see about how they make the alfredo sauce, the quotes are very much warranted. Her life is small and dull and she’s secretly ready and hoping for an adventure to sweep her off her feet. When Amber wins a trip to Tuscany, the film doesn’t take her or the audience on the journey you’d expect, which creates something of a mess for everyone.  Continue Reading →

Thanks to all the pre-release press with show creator and head writer Jessica Gao, viewers already know what She-Hulk: Attorney At Law won’t be: a courtroom dramedy. Unfortunately, after the first episode, “A Normal Amount of Rage,” it isn’t clear what kind of show it will be either. Continue Reading →

Alright, there's only one way to start this off, so best to do it well. Continue Reading →

No one mistakes HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Los Angeles Lakers for a 30 For 30 documentary. So why does that series feel more authentic to the Golden Era of professional basketball, and the team that helped elevate the NBA into an American pastime, than a ten-hour documentary about the Lakers? Continue Reading →

Many of us have been called “old souls.” We are the people who feel out of step with our times. Director Katie Aselton’s Mack & Rita is a charming new comedy for us old gals that provides a refreshing update to the magical comedies of yesteryear. Continue Reading →

Better Call Saul is a tragedy. From the beginning, it focused on a rough-edged, yet decent man whom the audience knows will one day become an unrepentant merchant of death and destruction. What makes it so tragic, beyond the known destination, is that the series is riddled with missed exits. Time and again, Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) faced situations where -- if he’d just pulled back from the brink, if he’d only taken his lumps instead of wriggling out of them, if he’d simply chosen not to push things too far -- all of this could have been avoided. Continue Reading →

Ladies, sometimes life deals you a rough hand. Sometimes, in the blink of an eye, you can lose someone or something infinitely precious to you. Grief is so easy to slip into, it’s hard to pull yourself out of that darkness, but you know what will help? Spelunking. Or maybe ocean kayaking. Or, in the case of director Scott Mann’s Fall, climbing a 2000+ foot tv tower in the hopes that doing so will help to push through the horrifying memory of your husband’s death in a climbing accident.   Continue Reading →

In Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn’s spy thriller Rogue Agent, English actor James Norton plays Robert Hendy-Freegard. Or, more aptly, Norton plays every version of Hendy-Freegard — lovable, charming, terrifying, convincing, evil. Norton’s up to the task, and the film rewards a level of misunderstanding and a lack of knowledge about Hendy-Freegard and his history (he has already been made into a docuseries). With each passing moment, Norton becomes more persuasive, more potent in his convictions, and more believable in his alleged employment as an MI5 agent constantly on the run.   Continue Reading →

Our final dispatch from Fantasia features a blend of powerful stories with dynamic female characters. (This dispatch is part of our coverage of the 2022 Fantasia Film Festival.) There is perhaps no more literal or better example of Fantasia's killer run of female-centered stories this year than Amanda Kramer’s kaleidoscopic Give Me Pity! Following Sissy St. Claire (Sophie Von Haselberg) for her singular Saturday night special, this remarkable feat of staging and performance is a golden, glittery, and gothic descent into the twisted psyche of a performer desperate for acceptance. At once a TV concert, sketch show, and dramatic showcase, Give Me Pity shows off the exhaustive range of its visionary director and solo star. Continue Reading →

Chris Estrada is a Los Angeles-born and raised comedian specializing in a brand of sincere and upfront humor. His new series, This Fool, serves as a semi-autobiographical story for the actor, a way to channel and share his life experience through television. Lucky for him, it's a likable one, full of moments both touching and hilarious. Continue Reading →

Welcome to Right on Cue, the podcast where we interview film, TV, and video game composers about the origins and nuances of their latest works. https://open.spotify.com/episode/4o5jRlzLYUWWtUrjCObEN9?si=63ce4a3efcae4a89 While Apple TV+ is home to some of the biggest shows on TV -- your Teds Lasso, your Severances -- some of its best, most beguiling shows and miniseries don't get talked about nearly as often. Among those hidden gems is The Essex Serpent, the six-part adaptation of the novel by Sarah Perry, starring Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston. Set in turn-of-the-century England, The Essex Serpent follows Cora Seaborne (Danes), a recently widowed Londoner, who sees her newfound freedom as the perfect excuse to pursue her love of science. That pursuit takes her to the Essex countryside, where a small town has been besieged by what's been reported to be a massive serpent. Some, including the town pastor (played by Hiddleston), doubt its veracity, but the town itself is convinced, and Cora's arrival just puts more fuel on the fire. Continue Reading →

Like many movies about people who use their phones and social media in excess, each viewer's individual enjoyment of director Halina Reijn's Bodies, Bodies, Bodies may hinge on their tolerance for Twitter jargon. Newcomer Sarah DeLappe's horror comedy screenplay is sharp and funny when it's not bogged down by an excess of 2020s slang. The heavy use of internet-speak isn't a problem for the first two acts. By the third act, though, it feels glaring.  Continue Reading →

It’s fascinating to watch a movie that could have been made any time within the past 30 years. That’s not the same thing as “timeless,” I’m talking about a movie that just feels like the script lingered in development hell for possibly decades before finally getting made, with only the slightest bit of tweaking to bring it up to date. Netflix’s new horror-comedy Day Shift could have been made in 1996, 2005 or 2012, and the only thing that would need to be changed is the cell phone technology. Like a lot of Netflix’s original content, it’s polished, yet dull, with a budget that doesn’t explain how forgettable it is. Continue Reading →

The recent Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have gotten enormous in scale. It’s no longer only Avengers installments that span multiple planets and involve countless superheroes. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness explored multiple alternate dimensions, while Eternals concluded with a massive robot emerging from one of Earth’s oceans. Even the Earthbound Spider-Man: No Way Home made room for multiple Spider-Men. Continue Reading →

What would you do if you discovered your spouse was sexually abusing your child? Most people would divorce their partner and take them to court so they can answer for their crimes. If you have evidence, it seems like a clear-cut choice from the judge to give you full custody of your child and ensure that the abusive parent is no longer in their life. Continue Reading →

As the likes of Doogal and Planes make abundantly clear, there is no secret formula for making a great animated kid’s film. But there are some key things to avoid if you want to make a movie aimed at youngsters that satisfies its target demo. Luck, the first feature from Skydance Animation, trips over several of these shortcomings, particularly overwhelming your young audience with too much expository dialogue. Adolescents want wonder and soaring emotion, not endless chatter about how a fictional world operates. Devoting so much time to lore is just one of the many ways Luck underwhelms compared to its potential.  Continue Reading →

For writer/director/star James Morosini, I Love My Dad acts as therapy. The self-reflexive comedy-drama finds Morosini telling a story of a father catfishing his son to get back into his good graces, a true-ish story from his own life. Morosini is joined by Patton Oswalt, playing his pseudo-dad named Chuck, in one of the veteran comedian’s meatier roles of the last decade. Oswalt has the unenviable job of being distant yet hoping to remain close, of playing the roles of Franklin’s (Morosini) online girlfriend and absent father. He performs it with gentle, manic, absurd brilliance.   Continue Reading →

Season Two of Reservation Dogs opens with the aftermath of last season. Elora (Devery Jacobs) left fellow Rez Dogs Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis), and Cheese (Lane Factor) high and dry as she ran away to Cali with Jackie (Elva Guerra), one of their group's sworn enemies. They’re all trying to grow up and move on from their haunted pasts, and their friend Daniel’s (Dalton Cramer) death still lingers. Will a prayer and Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” be enough to lift the curse and bring the Rez Dogs back together? It’s a slow-burn season, balancing the drama and the comedy of the teens coming of age both on and off the reservation.  Continue Reading →

Perhaps out of fear that he will miss 100 percent of the shots he doesn’t take, Carter director Jung Byung-gil has compiled 100 shots into a single take—proverbially speaking. In the stuntman-turned-filmmaker’s latest—his first for Netflix and to feature English—every setpiece links into another; you can count on the passenger plane shootout to link up with the pig truck chase later on, and so it goes. As long as Jung scores each of these opportunities, it doesn’t matter if the bridging between moments will be smooth or rocky. Continue Reading →