Streaming Roulette: Mister Tibbs, Maria Braun, Alfred Kinsey

by Nathaniel R

If you're new to the site this is how we share new streaming offerings for the month. We select a handful (or two) of titles and just randomly hit a place on the scroll bar to see what the film looks like - no cheating. Sadly despite the so-called "streaming wars" there just isn't much out there to suggest that any of the channels (barring the must-have Criterion Channel) want any viewers who are obsessed with anything other than decent to lame movies made between 2002-2019. Even the 1990s are getting fairly uncommon to see on streaming services. Ready? Let's play...

I think we should go very soon... like... RIGHT NOW."

Outbreak (1995) on Netflix
What better time to watch this oldie but right now in the midst of another massive global health scare. (In truth I barely remember this picture other than finding it ridiculous at the time. But then, I was younger and it's a truth that young people dont scare as easily as older people when it comes to their mortality.)

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Yes, No, Maybe So Top Gun: Maverick

by Murtada Elfadl

It’s been almost 34 years since Top Gun (1986) made Tom Cruise one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history. And now he’s back in Top Gun:Maverick. We don’t know if anyone was asking for this very belated sequel but it’s coming in 2020. Apparently this time he is the trainer, training a new batch of Top Gun fighter pilots and mentoring his friend’s son (Miles Teller). Yep Teller is playing the son of Anthony Edwards and we assume Meg Ryan. Will they make a cameo? 

Let’s give the trailer the Yes, No, Maybe So treatment...

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Horror Actressing: Kirsten Dunst in "Interview With the Vampire"

by Jason Adams

All of the best moments in Interview With the Vampire belong to the eleven-year-old. Re-watching the film now here on its 25th anniversary there's a lot to like (Tom Cruise allows himself to be camp in ways that he usually is but this time purposefully, and Neil Jordan floods everything with opulent blood-red atmosphere) and there's a lot to hate (it's a slog and Brad Pitt is awful) but there's really only one thing to love, and that thing is Kirsten Dunst every single second she's on-screen as the immortal vampire trapped in a little girl's perpetual curls.

The story goes that Dunst was the first girl that they auditioned for the role of "Claudia" but that she auditioned twice -- her agent supposedly told her she was terrible the first time through and forced her back into the room to do it all over again. "How avant-garde," indeed. Still that gambit worked, and one of our greatest actresses got her start by slashing up multiple nannies and kissing Brad Pitt on the mouth -- an experience Dunst maintains was "gross," speaking for exactly zero other people aged eleven to one hundred and eleven...

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The New Classics: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

by Michael Cusumano

Scene: Scaling the Burj Khalifa
In the course of writing this column, I eventually got around to asking myself the inevitable question:  “What is the 21st century scene I’ve watched the most times?” 

I knew with certainty that the answer was the Burj Khalifa scene from Brad Bird’s Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, even if I couldn’t immediately account for the why. Of course you could simply say ”Why not?” It’s already firmly established in the pantheon of great action scenes. But it’s not like the past two decades have seen a dearth of great action filmmaking. Why not “Ship’s Mast” from Death Proof or the centerpiece car chase from Drive? What exactly is it about Tom Cruise pawing his way up the side of the world’s tallest building? 

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YNMS: Top Gun Maverick

We're way behind on movie trailers. So here's another Yes No Maybe So courtesy of Tony Ruggio...

The interwebz collectively threw shade a year or two ago when Tom Cruise, Jerry Bruckheimer, and director Joseph Kosinski (Tron Legacy, Oblivion) announced the twenty-years-too-late sequel to Top Gun, complete with some premise about sons and legacies and an aging Maverick. Sounded like the same ol’ routine any time a long-dormant brand or franchise suddenly decides to reboot or, in the case of Top Gun, sequelize for the very first time. It’s somethin’ else what a good trailer can do...because all of that is here and more in the first trailer which dropped on Thursday, and yet it’s one of the best teasers this year...

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