The Drama’s Ending is As Sweet As You Want It to Be

This article contains full spoilers for The Drama.

Except for a few particularly illiterate trailer watchers, everyone going into A24‘s The Drama knew they were in for a bad time. The film stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as Emma and Charlie, soon-to-be newlyweds who fall apart after the former confesses that, as a middle schooler, she planned a school shooting, and only failed to complete it because another shooter launched an attack before her.

What follows is a cringe comedy as the couple and all their friends manage to make everything worse. Emma’s maid-of-honor Rachel (Alana Haim) takes offense at the revelation, which prompts her to get her friend fired, exacerbating tensions. Charlie continues to obsess over Emma’s confession, driving himself to the point that he breaks down and has a near-affair with his co-worker Misha (Hailey Gates).

And, yet, somehow, The Drama ends on a high note, promising a happily-ever-after for Emma and Charlie. Maybe.

Like writer/director Kristoffer Borgli’s previous films, Sick of Myself (2022) and Dream Scenario (2023), The Drama deals with social judgments and mob mentalities, often portraying communities as irrational and cruel. However, by limiting its focus to a couple and their immediate friends and family, the film has more humanity and, thus, more compassion towards its characters.

That compassion is clear in the final scene, in which Charlie—still wearing his tux from the failed wedding earlier in the day and still showing signs of the beating he took from Misha’s boyfriend (Michael Abbott Jr.)—arrives at a late night diner. Before it all went wrong, he and Emma had joked about making the diner their first stop as husband and wife, which makes Charlie’s post-wedding visit feel pathetic. Even worse, Emma arrives shortly thereafter, a puffy orange jacket over her white dress, and ignores him to march to the counter.

Yet, after ordering her food, Emma plops down in the booth across from Charlie and introduces herself. The two share some awkward but adorable small talk, before giving each other warm, forgiving smiles.

Some may argue that the final scene betrays the black comedy that proceeded it. After all that Emma and Charlie have said and done to one another, how could they pretend that everything’s okay? But that reading reinforces the very behavior that the film has been critiquing.

Everything falls apart when Rachel, and then Charlie, refuse to forgive Emma for her plans. Borgli visualizes that change of mindset by taking Charlie’s P.O.V. throughout the film. Where we once saw Emma as Charlie first saw her, a kind and sheepish bookstore clerk played by Zendaya, we see her as he imagines her now, the awkward and militant kid ready to kill (portrayed by Jordyn Curet). Every time that Borgli reuses a shot from earlier in the movie and replaces adult Emma with school shooter Emma, he shows us how Charlie literally cannot imagine his would-be wife as anything but a killer.

However, Borgli also uses other visual tricks to remind the viewers that our memories and perceptions are unreliable. Throughout the film, even while he and Emma are still in love, Charlie will be telling his best friend Mike (Mamoudou Athie, providing a welcome sense of calm to the proceedings) about some shared moment from the couple’s past. As he talks, Borgli will cut in shots of the two playing together, or of Emma giving him a loving smile. Borgli continues the practice later in the movie, but now he pairs Charlie’s praise of Emma with insert shots of her looking frightening or getting too angry over small things.

In these moments, The Drama illustrates the way people in a relationship edit their perceptions of their partner, both of the past and the present. At no point in the film do Charlie or Emma see one another as they are. Instead, they see each other as they want to see them, a fluid perspective created according to how they feel and need in the moment.

The film offers no firm objective truth for any of the characters stand, and even less for those of us watching the story play out on screen. For that reason, one could certainly argue that The Drama‘s last scene isn’t real. We could very well be watching Charlie’s fantasy, even if Emma is indeed at the diner, but brushed right past him.

Or, we could read the final scene as Charlie and Emma editing their relationship once again, this time to see the best in one another. Not unlike the ending of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), in which Joel and Clementine (Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet) understand that they’ll likely hurt one another again but still decide to stick with one another, the ending of The Drama finds Charlie and Emma committing to each other, flaws and all. They choose to see the best in each other, even if they know they’re bound to find the worst in each other again.

What is the actual truth of the scene? That’s up to you as a viewer. But the promise of a happy ending, or at least the attempt to have a happy ending, is there for The Drama audiences, if they want it.

The Drama is now playing in theaters.

American Horror Story Season 13 Is Shaping Up to Be a Timeline-Shifting Coven Follow-Up

As regular viewers of the FX anthology series already know, American Horror Story can be something of a mixed bag. Over the past 15 years, the series has tackled everything from serial killers and aliens to vampires, witches, ghosts, and famous true crime cases, with varying degrees of success. The show’s later seasons, in particular, have struggled to recapture the magic of the earlier outings, which saw its stars — most notably Oscar winner Jessica Lange — racking up awards season nominations and hardware. (In fact, if you haven’t seen them, you should probably just skip AHS: Delicate and AHS: Double Feature entirely.)

But the franchise certainly seems on an upswing again with its forthcoming 13th season, which will bring back many of the franchise’s most popular regular players, including Sarah Paulson, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Evan Peters, Emma Roberts, Billie Lourd, Gabourey Sidibe and Leslie Grossman, while adding Arianna Grande (who starred in Murphy’s wildly underrated Scream Queens) to the mix.

But, and perhaps most importantly for fans: Lange herself will be back this season, for the first time in a regular capacity since season 4’s Freak Show.

Lange’s long-awaited return is probably already enough to get the most lapsed of AHS viewers to return to the fold. But now that it appears the show is going to return to the world of one of its most popular installments? Heck yeah, sign us up.

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Creator Ryan Murphy has been cagey about what sort of story this Avengers: Doomsday-level season is likely to tell. But thanks to the events of American Horror Story: Apocalypse, any Coven follow-up has plenty of options. The ending of Apocalypse essentially erased or rewrote many events across the anthology’s interconnected timeline. The witch Mallory (Lourd) was sent back into the past, where she killed Michael Langdon (Cody Fern), the Antichrist child born at the end of the series’ original installment, Murder House.

His death not only prevented the apocalypse of season 8’s title, but also resurrected many dearly departed Coven characters, including Paulson’s Supreme with Cordelia Foxx, and her fellow witches Misty Day (Lily Rabe), Zoe Benson (Taissa Farmiga), and Queenie (Sidibe). It also revived Lange’s Constance Langdon, the grand dame of the infamous Hollywood murder mansion. Basically, at this point, any character who wasn’t already canonically a ghost at the end of the show’s first season is probably back on the table for a potential appearance in this presumed sequel series.

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Set images from Murphy’s production company have confirmed that Paulson and Roberts are reprising their respective Coven characters, and while there’s no official word about whether Lange is returning as Constance, the set images that have been shared sure look a whole lot like it. (That is not a Fiona Goode hairdo, is what I’m saying.) Does this mean we won’t see Fiona again? Never say never — if Madison Montgomery can be sprung from her department store hell, there’s no reason to assume Fiona can’t be similarly freed from her eternal prison of knotty pine.

Mallory has already been theoretically established as Cordelia’s successor and the next Supreme witch, so the question of what new danger or drama arises at New Orleans’s infamous Robichaux Academy is still up in the air.

But we won’t have to wait that long to find out — Murphy has already confirmed the new season will arrive in September, just in time for spooky season.

Luis Guzmán Looks Back on His Filmography: Super Mario, Community, and The Limey

For most of its cast and audience, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie offers a chance to make childhood real again. The film recalls those carefree days of sitting in front of a Nintendo Entertainment System or one of its successors, being dazzled by the fantastic adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom.

Not so for Luis Guzmán, who voices Wart in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. “We were too poor back then,” he tells Den of Geek. “My kids played the games, but I never really had the ability for it. But I would sit down and just watch how they manipulated all that stuff. When they’d leave the room, I’d sit down and give it my best attempt. But everything I know about the Super Mario universe came from my kids.”

If anyone can be forgiven for not being a super-fan of the property, it’s Luis Guzmán. The Puerto Rican character actor has a career that spans more than 40 years. He has worked on everything classics by auteurs such as Paul Thomas Anderson and Steven Soderbergh to pop culture phenomenons like Community and Wednesday.

“I’m just happy to have a job,” Guzmán says of those breaks. “I’m happy to be working with great people, and I’m always happy to have a foundation for my career. They’re all building blocks to where I am now. I’m very humbled to have been part of them, though.”

That humility is clear in his response to a subplot in the sitcom Community, in which Greendale Community College erected a statue of Guzmán, recognizing him as the school’s greatest former student.

“I got a call from the Russo Brothers, and they said they were sending someone up to my place to make a mold,” Guzmán recalls. “I wasn’t sure what was going on. And I didn’t find out until after the fact that they were making a statue of me as the most famous alumnus of Greendale College.

“I was very honored. Not so much because it’s a statue of me, and not to be egotistical by any means. But I saw it as an homage to the Guzmán legacy.”

Guzmán also responds with humility when asked if that connection to the Russo Brothers could lead to an MCU appearance. “I don’t like calling people like that, and I’m doing so much stuff right now. If it happens, it happens,” he says demurely. But then, a wry smile crosses Guzmán’s face, and he gives a little wink as he continues. “But I’m sure that it will happen sooner or later, now that you mention it.”

Until then, Guzmán hopes that roles in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Wednesday will inspire younger generations to look back into his filmography.

“The Limey was very special to me,” he says, pointing out the 1999 Steven Soderbergh film, in which Terence Stamp plays an aging English gangster avenging the death of his daughter. “That has one of my favorite lines, when I’m outside with Terence Stamp, and I say, ‘You know, you could see the sea out there, if you could see it.’ To me, that is a very iconic line in my career, you know?

“I love that movie. I love what Steven did with it. And I got to work with some of the OGs, you know: Peter Fonda, Lesley Ann Warren, Bill Duke, Terence Stamp. I learned so much from just being in the same space as they were. I wish people would take notice of that movie, because I think it was really special.”

As important as those screen legends were to his career, it was Guzmán’s kids who helped him with his latest role, as Wart in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

“They were so excited, saying, ‘Wart’s finally coming out in the movie!’ It was a huge surprise to them.

“The told me that Wart is a baddie, and I always look at that as a positive. Because I know the baddie is going to have an impact on the story, it’s part of the legacy. And he does really move the story along.

“What I liked about Wart is that he’s a really cool guy in this story. He’s sitting there cutting up an apple and talking about how apples are really good nutritionally, but I’m also bad and I don’t let them forget it.

“I feel like audiences were really waiting for him to show up, and I’m happy to do it for my kids.”

With that last observation, Guzmán perfectly encapsulates his legacy as an actor: always popping up in surprising places, always willing to do the work, and always thrilling the audience.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is now playing in theaters.

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan Talks Never Have I Ever and Why We Need More Teen Dramas Today

Though actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan’s latest role sees her playing a superhero that can talk to crows on The Boys, her breakthrough performance was as the lead of Netflix’s Never Have I Ever, a charming teen comedy that follows the coming-of-age journey of an Indian American girl in Los Angeles. Ramakrishnan played Devi Vishwakumar, an ambitious teen left reeling in the wake of her father’s death, and the show was consistently praised for its diverse cast and thoughtful depictions of teenage life, grief, friendship, and romance.

Never Have I Ever ended after four seasons in 2023, with a sweet and largely happy finale that included Devi getting into Princeton and officially starting a relationship with her former nemesis-turned-crush Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison). But that hasn’t kept fans from asking Ramakrishnan whether the show might continue someday, although the actress has done her best to draw a line in the sand about this possibility, often telling journalists that, in her mind, Devi is dead. From her point of view, saying goodbye to this character was a decisively final act, and one that’s meant to help fans move on.

“My fans have made me compilation videos of all the times I’ve said that I think she’s just dead. I’m so glad people are seeing that,” she tells Den of Geek. “Not because — and let me be so clear here — me saying ‘I hope Devi’s dead’ is not me telling people ‘Hey, don’t talk to me about Never Have I Ever.’ I love the show. I’m so proud of it. I love to continue to talk about it because the show is amazing. But it also ended when it needed to. You never want to watch a show and say, ‘Wow, those later seasons are not as great, but those beginning seasons are awesome.’ No! I can say confidently, top down, Never Have I Ever is amazing.”

For Ramakrishnan, the series is best kept alive post-finale by its fans and their theories about what happened next to its characters. Particularly because the Netflix show concludes at a place where viewers can embrace whatever ideas they want about the characters’ futures.

“Honestly, I love seeing people’s TikToks of them fantasizing about what Devi’s up to,” she continues. “It’s good! I’d rather take your guys’ fanfic than make something canon for everyone. Except for the fact that Devi is canonically dead. That’s my fanfic. What’s yours?”

One of the reasons Never Have I Ever became so popular is that it’s a teen-focused series that took the experience of being a teenager seriously. Yes, it featured characters who aren’t often centered in this particular genre, and it reckoned with some very adult issues. But at the end of the day, it treated its subject matter with respect and trusted its audience to come along for the ride.

“We all have a teen in our hearts. We’re not very far off from your younger selves, you know?” Ramakrishnan says. “I do think there are some good teen shows out there, but I think it’s kind of the same effect as like – and I put this in quotes because I don’t agree with this term – but “the chick flick” of it all. I love a rom-com, as do most people! And I can’t remember who said this recently, but if you want to go pound for pound, you want to make it a numbers game, look at the numbers from Mama Mia to like Barbie at the box office. Look at the point-proof evidence of a show like The Summer I Turned Pretty or Never Have I Ever, where the viewership is insane.”

After all, the viewer numbers don’t lie. And neither do the diverse experiences that Ramakrishnan has had with the show’s fans in the real world.

“One of my favorite things about Never Have I Ever is that a lot of people watch it who might have [initially] assumed, oh, that’s the brown girl show, that’s the show for brown girls. But, actually no, because I have some crazy fan interactions with people you wouldn’t expect,” she says.

“I was in Atlanta in the middle of the summer, and the show’s already been out and done for over a year. This group of like four white boys with their curly hair perms and gold chains come up to me in the middle of a peach picking farm and say, ‘Miss? Sorry, but are you Maitreyi Ramakrishnan?’ And I go, ‘Yeah, hi,’ and they get all excited like, ‘Yeah, bro! I knew it was her, I told you! It’s literally Devi, oh my God, Devi’s my GOAT. I was such a Devi in high school!’ And I was like what the fuck?

“I wish I had moments like those recorded because it just shows me that these are experiences everyone had at that age. It’s a testament to a good show. When a good show, with good writing, is given the space and resources to create a story, you’ll feel the results on the back end. And maybe, if we invest in good writing and creative human — notice I said human! — thoughts, you get a good show, because that’s what it’s about.”

As Never Have I Ever has more than proven, good stories have the ability to transcend genres and speak to all sorts of viewers.

“Just watch what you want to watch. I think people are too worried about what other people think, you know?” Ramakrishnan says. “Never Have I Ever was just a damn good show. The writing is spectacular. The acting was funny as hell. Mindy [Kaling] and Lang [Fisher, showrunners] ran that show like a tight ship, and it still shows because people are still talking about Never Have I Ever today.”

As for what’s next for the young woman who played Devi, Ramakrishnan is busy filming the second season of Prime Video’s Legally Blonde prequel series, and is set to lead a feature comedy set in the raucous world of collegiate Bollywood dance competitions.

“Right now, I’m working on Elle season 2, which is very good and very exciting. See, bring back teen shows!” she laughs. “But it’s been a blast and is very, very fun. And then I have a movie coming out, a dance movie, like Bring It On or Step Up, and it’s with Netflix. It’s also the first time I’m getting to lead a film, which is very exciting. I’m really ready for that movie to come out in particular because I think it’s gonna be a big hit, like genuinely.”

But, for the most part, the actress is still taking her career as it comes.

“I have a lot of aspirations and dreams, but I’m also open to the dreams I don’t know that I have yet,” Ramakrishnan says. “Especially in my job, I don’t know what is going to come into my inbox tomorrow. I didn’t know The Boys was going to come into my inbox, for example. And I would love to do more action and things that center around powers or magic. I’ve been on a real fantasy kick. Powers, magic, all that jazz. I’d love it.”

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Stars Kurt and Wyatt Russell Break Down Their Time-Bending Moment

The following contains spoilers for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2 episode 7.

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has what is probably the best stunt casting on TV right now. This isn’t an insult, by the way. And not even entirely accurate; it’s actually more like a very human sort of special effect. The sci-fi series, which revolves around the titular organization that tracks the movements of Godzilla and other prehistoric Titans, spans two time periods and features several generations of a family whose origins are tied to its founding. And at the center of all of this is Lee Shaw, an Army officer who plays a key role in both of the series’ timelines, as the show explores questions of legacy, regret, loss, and sacrifice.

Father-son duo Kurt and Wyatt Russell play the character at two very different stages of his life: Wyatt as a younger Lee during the 1950s-set portions of the story, and Kurt as an older version forced to live not only with the consequences of his younger self’s actions, but the world that the Monarch he created has helped to make. The show has, obviously, leaned into the remarkable physical resemblance between the two Russells, but, and perhaps most importantly, it has also used their dual performances to craft a shockingly layered portrayal of a complicated man who sacrifices much of his life for the benefit of others.

The obvious downside to the fact that the Russells are playing the same character is, of course, that it means they can’t act opposite one another at any point in the show. Or, well, that would be the case if Monarch weren’t a series that’s proven itself willing to play fast and loose with the rules of time, space, and even physics at various points. In season 2’s seventh episode, “String Theory,” both versions of Lee manage to cross paths across multiple decades, and the older man must stop his younger self from rescuing Keiko (Mari Yamamoto) when he discovers that she, too, is trapped in the interdimensional portal realm known as Axis Mundi along with him.

“It was something we discussed even before we started shooting the first season. I was adamant about wanting something like this to happen,” Kurt Russell tells Den of Geek. “We actually tried something in the first season that was so powerful that they called me and they said, ‘We can’t do this. It just takes the whole show into a whole different direction.’ And then in season 2, I was once again immediately like, let’s make this happen. So we started talking about possible ways to do that, and the way they… what they came up with to do that was really right in the zone of what the show is. In the end, I really liked everything that episode 7 has to offer.”

“Sting Theory” takes full advantage of Legacy of Monsters’ time-bending premise to pull off a twist that would, on almost any other show, be impossible. While testing out his machine to summon Titans, Dr. Suzuki and the 2017 edition of Lee accidentally manage to contact the time-displaced version of Shaw’s younger self. Trapped in the mysterious portal realm after Monarch’s failed Operation Hourglass mission — the one we saw take place during the show’s first season that would ultimately cost Lee 20 years in the real world — the younger Shaw initially assumes he’s talking to his superiors before learning he’s speaking to his older self.

“We knew Kurt and Wyatt had always wanted to work together, and I think that this show was a really exciting opportunity for them in that regard,” Monarch executive producer Tory Tunnell says. “I don’t think they anticipated playing the same character, and they’ve had so much fun with that. You see Lee getting a scar in the past timeline, and then Kurt having the physical scar, of course. But you also see the emotional scars born of the past tense that carried into the present tense. We also knew that we wanted to get them onscreen together, which is a challenge when they’re playing the same person. So that was something we were thinking about. What do we have in our toolbox? Is there a way to achieve that? And [still] have it be something that doesn’t just feel like it’s a trick or an event for an event’s sake? But [this] actually feels really baked into our storyline; it feels inevitable that you would need a moment like that.”

And while their two versions of Lee are technically separated by both decades and an interdimensional rift, the actors playing the character still found a way to tie their performances together on set.

“It was cool,” Wyatt Russell says. “The way we did it was, I was there when he was doing his part, and we had this command trailer where you could see and watch, because it was important for us that we were in each other’s ear. Having nothing against the set PA was who was reading, but obviously it’s not the same. It doesn’t elicit the same responses. We had a lot of fun being there for the other while we were doing our respective lines.”

While the duo’s unexpected interaction is entertaining enough for fans from a meta standpoint, it’s equally important within the emotional context of the series’ second season, which shows us a Lee who not only acknowledges his love for Keiko, but recognizes that he can’t risk the future — not to mention the existence of her grandchildren — by interfering with the established timeline to to save her. (And prevent her from missing over fifty years in the real world.)

“It was one of my favorite moments, getting to work with Wyatt in that regard and also getting to connect that character to itself,” Kurt Russell says. “That’s one of my favorite moments of the whole season, and it’s when he’s running down the three things about why not to [interact] with Keiko. And his [younger] character is still struggling with the impossibility of this all taking place. It was three things, but instead of saying “and what’s the second one?”, he says “What’s behind door number two?” And it works because only Lee would say that. So when he hears that, he remembers so many more things, and it’s [confirmation] that this is actually taking place, it’s not some wild screw-up. It’s happening, and it has to be dealt with perfectly. Otherwise, it’s all over.”

The anguish inherent in this interaction — in which younger Lee must leave Keiko behind, and his older self must essentially force him to do it, despite knowing what she has meant and still means to him — is a lot. But it’s also the kind of storytelling that makes Monarch unique in both Legendary’s Monsterverse and TV’s larger sci-fi landscape.

“I think one of the things we were most proud of in season 1 is when people would say to us, ‘I came to watch a really fun monster show, and I didn’t expect to have a moment where I was almost crying,” Tunnel says. “I think having that tenderness is something we’re always looking to achieve, these really tender moments like this that will break your heart.”

New episodes of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters premiere Fridays on Apple TV.

Corbin Bernsen On Embracing a Roger Corman Spirit, Working With His Son in Woodstockers

To hear him tell it, Corbin Bernsen became an actor when his father, producer Harry Bernsen Jr., recruited him to be in the 1974 Blaxploitation flick Three the Hard Way, starring Jim Brown and Fred Williamson.

“The script said, ‘A pair of naked young limbs, thrashing in the backseat of a Rolls Royce,'” Bernsen recalls to Den of Geek. “I went and did it, made out with this girl, and met Jim Brown. I had this Camaro that I’d really worked on, and my dad wanted to buy it from me so we could blow up for the movie, send it 20 feet in the sky.

“They gave me a production van at the end, which was just a van, and my dad handed me nine hundred bucks at the end of the night. And I’m like, ‘Okay, this is my career.'”

In fact, Bernsen’s credits go back even further, to a 1967 movie that stars Elvis Presley as a rich kid masquerading as a water ski instructor in Florida. “I’m credited in Clambake,” he says with a shrug and a laugh. “But I’m also credited with studying judo or karate with Bruce Lee. If you go look it up, it’s there. And I’m just like, ‘Okay…’ I think I might have been there with my mother [actress Jeanne Cooper], who was involved in Roger Corman movies. I might have been there as a baby.”

Those family connections continue up to the present, with his new independently-produced series Woodstockers, written and directed by his son, Oliver Bernsen. In Woodstockers, Bernsen plays Lenny, a former hippie who responds to the end of his marriage and the death of his best friend by going back to Woodstock to relive his most beloved memories.

“I am Lenny,” Bernsen admits. “I’m not everything Lenny is; I have a wonderful wife and I have kids who all get along, not a daughter who’s remote from me. But the thing Lenny’s going through about the resolution of one’s life, I’m definitely going through.

“I’m the bloodforce of Lenny, and in the show, we’re just changing the story about who he is. If we can make Woodstockers the way I want to do it, which covers all four seasons, it can be the four seasons of a man’s life. We can shoot all these beautiful seasons and make them all very distinct. The next season we do will be winter, and in the frozen cold he gives up smoking. Lenny’s just stuck in ice for six episodes of white nothingness.

“I’m very interested in taking the way my life changed via Lenny into the process of doing this project. It all started with me realizing at 71 that you’ve got to reckon with your life.”

Part of that reckoning for Bernsen involves bringing in his son Oliver to write the screenplay and direct Woodstockers. Fortunately, the prospect was equally compelling for the younger Bernsen.

“For me, the fun in anything is how much a story you can tell through someone’s life, and have it inform the character,” says Oliver. “I think that the greatest thing a director can do is pull life into fiction and blend them to create a surprising new character. I know very well what’s true of my father in real life and what’s not true, and I got to massage that a bit when making Lenny. I used my perspective of someone who isn’t 71 to comment on what he may have done wrong or done right.

“That dialogue is what’s exciting to me, to tell a geriatric story through the lens of a young boy. That’s dynamic storytelling.”

Corbin adds, “When Oliver accepted to do this, it just hit me that I would be seeing what Oliver thinks of me, as a father, as a Woodstocker.”

While that personal element did, at times, make for interesting situations on set, as when Oliver had to push his father harder while shooting a scene in which Lenny smokes pot (“I was like, ‘You wrote it, man! You’ve got to rip that bong!'” Oliver laughs), both Bernsens saw Woodstockers as a unique opportunity.

In part, Woodstockers allowed the elder Bernsen to get back to his roots, acting in indie movies produced by Roger Corman. Bernsen’s earliest memory as an actor begins with 1976’s Eat My Dust!, a car chase cheapo starring Ron Howard and produced by Corman. “I played a gas station, and I remember my line: ‘Ethyl lead? ethyl no lead? or Ethel Nordock, my high school teacher.’ That was my line to Ron Howard.

“Roger told Ron Howard, ‘Be in this movie, and I’ll let you direct the next movie,’ which was Grand Theft Auto. So I remember that as the first time really being on a set and really doing it.”

Those types of gambles are reflected in the creation of Bernsen’s current project. Woodstockers doesn’t follow a traditional production model, where a network or a streamer like Netflix orders a series and gives the creators money and space to make it. Instead, the Bernsens simply made the show on their own and put it out on YouTube, hoping to generate interest after the fact.

“This notion of indie TV isn’t something that’s really been done before,” says Oliver. “It’s a great testing ground for people, giving them a place they can explore.”

Corbin adds, “It also goes back to my earliest days. I was a little bit younger than Oliver is now, but I was still around the world because of the relationships I had during the Roger Corman days, the days of the true indie. We’d go out to Zuma Beach to do The Creature from the Black Lagoon or whatever it’s called. There was a spirit of people coming together.”

“You know, I love L.A. Law, I love the big things that I got to work on with eight thousand trucks and craft services and all of that. But there’s something exciting about bringing that independent thing they did in Roger Corman’s day.

“And that’s why I wanted to be part of Oliver’s show,” Bernsen says of Woodstockers. “For me, I want to get down there. I would like us to be pioneers.”

Clearly, the pioneer spirit has served Bernsen well, whether it’s making a TV show with his son or letting his dad blow up his car with Jim Brown.

20 Movie Facts That Just Make Everything Better

A clever improvisation, a happy accident, or a last-minute decision that somehow worked are moments that enhance what movies are trying to show. In many cases, these moments reveal just how unpredictable filmmaking can be, with some of the most memorable scenes coming together in unexpected ways.

Instead of breaking the illusion, these details deepen the appreciation for the craft and the people behind it. These are the kinds of facts that don’t ruin the magic, they make it even better. After all, if the people making the movies we love are having fun, so are we.

The Dark Knight

Heath Ledger improvising the Joker’s slow clap in the jail scene added an extra layer of unpredictability that made the moment more memorable.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Harrison Ford suggested shooting the swordsman instead of a long fight due to illness, creating one of the film’s most iconic moments.

Jaws

The malfunctioning shark forced Steven Spielberg to rely on suspense and suggestion, ultimately making the film far more effective.

The Princess Bride

The cast’s genuine laughter during several scenes, especially with Billy Crystal, made the humor feel more natural and infectious.

Good Will Hunting

Robin Williams improvised much of his dialogue, including key emotional beats that strengthened the film’s authenticity.

The Shawshank Redemption

The casting of Morgan Freeman added warmth and gravitas that elevated the film’s narration and emotional core.

Iron Man

Robert Downey Jr. improvised many lines, helping shape Tony Stark’s personality and tone throughout the film.

Back to the Future

Recasting Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly late in production gave the film its defining energy and charm.

The Silence of the Lambs

Anthony Hopkins chose to keep his performance still and controlled, making the character more unsettling and memorable.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Chris Pratt dropping a prop during a scene was kept, adding humor and a natural feel to the moment.

The Empire Strikes Back

Harrison Ford improvised “I know” in response to Leia saying “I love you,” creating one of the most iconic lines in film history.

Pretty Woman

Richard Gere snapping the jewelry box shut unexpectedly led to Julia Roberts’s genuine reaction, which was kept.

The Avengers

Robert Downey Jr. secretly bringing snacks for the cast led to improvised moments that made scenes feel more natural.

Casablanca

The cast reportedly didn’t know how the story would end during filming, adding genuine uncertainty to performances.

The Godfather

Marlon Brando added the cat in the opening scene, creating a more layered and memorable introduction.

Toy Story

Tom Hanks’ natural delivery helped define Woody’s personality, making the character more relatable and grounded.

The Big Lebowski

Jeff Bridges frequently checked with the directors about the character’s mindset, helping refine the Dude’s laid-back personality.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Tom Felton forgetting a line and improvising “I didn’t know you could read” added humor that was kept.

The Usual Suspects

The lineup scene includes genuine laughter from the cast, making the moment feel more natural and memorable.

Star Wars

Casting relatively unknown actors like Mark Hamill helped ground the story and made the characters more believable.

15 Movie Facts More Unsettling Than Informative

Not all movie trivia is fun to learn. Some behind-the-scenes facts and production details leave a very different kind of impression, the kind that lingers for the wrong reasons. Whether its actors pushed beyond their limits, dangerous filming conditions, or creative decisions that raise uncomfortable questions, these stories add a layer to certain films that can be hard to ignore.

In some cases, the reality of what happened off camera is more unsettling than anything shown on screen. These are the kinds of facts that, while slightly informative, change how you see the movie entirely.

The Exorcist

Several actors were injured during filming, including Ellen Burstyn, whose on-screen pain in one scene is reportedly genuine.

Life of Pi

The lead actor later spoke about nearly drowning during filming, highlighting the physical risks involved in water-heavy productions.

The Birds

Tippi Hedren was attacked by real birds during filming, causing real fear and injury that made it into the final scenes.

Jaws

The malfunctioning mechanical shark forced actors to react to unpredictable conditions, creating genuine tension but also a stressful shoot.

Roar

Dozens of injuries occurred while filming with real lions and tigers, making it one of the most dangerous productions in film history.

The Passion of the Christ

Jim Caviezel suffered multiple injuries, including being struck by lightning, during the physically intense shoot.

Oldboy

The lead actor reportedly ate a live octopus on camera, raising ethical concerns about the lengths taken for authenticity.

The Dark Knight

Heath Ledger isolated himself for weeks to prepare for the Joker, contributing to discussions about the role’s psychological toll.

Mad Max: Fury Road

The harsh desert shoot and intense stunts created a physically and mentally exhausting environment for cast and crew.

The Revenant

Leonardo DiCaprio endured freezing conditions and ate raw meat for realism during filming.

Poltergeist

Real human skeletons were reportedly used in one scene, adding a disturbing layer to the production’s legacy.

Cannibal Holocaust

The film’s extreme realism led to legal issues and controversy, with audiences unsure what was staged versus real.

Alien

The cast was not fully informed about the chestburster scene, leading to genuine shock captured on camera.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Filming conditions were notoriously grueling, with extreme heat and long hours contributing to cast discomfort.

Eyes Wide Shut

The prolonged shoot and intense secrecy surrounding production created a stressful environment for those involved.

15 Times Movie Critics Had to Eat Their Words

It’s hard for a movie to be a hit with critics right away. In fact, some films that are now widely loved were dismissed, misunderstood, or outright panned when they first released. Over time, audiences found something critics didn’t, whether it was originality, emotional impact, or simply rewatch value.

Through word of mouth, home releases, and changing tastes, these movies built strong reputations that outlasted their initial reviews. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine them being seen as anything less than classics or cult favorites. These are the films that proved early criticism doesn’t always tell the full story.

Blade Runner

Received mixed reviews at release, but has since become a landmark sci-fi film praised for its atmosphere and philosophical depth.

Office Space

Underperformed in theaters and received modest reviews, but became a cult favorite through home video and workplace relatability.

The Big Lebowski

Mixed critical reception at release gave way to a devoted fanbase, with the film now considered a cult classic.

Donnie Darko

Struggled critically and commercially at first, but found an audience later and is now widely analyzed and appreciated.

Jennifer’s Body

Dismissed by many critics upon release, it has since been reevaluated as a cult favorite with strong thematic elements.

The Cable Guy

Critics were divided on its dark tone, but audiences later embraced it as a unique comedy with a classic performance by Jim Carrey.

Speed Racer

Initially criticized for its visuals and style, it has since been reevaluated as a bold and inventive film, not to mention a worthwhile anime adaptation.

Cloud Atlas

Critically divisive at release, it has developed a strong following that appreciates its ambition and structure.

The Greatest Showman

Received mixed reviews from critics, but became a major audience favorite with strong box office legs and lasting popularity.

Hocus Pocus

Originally met with lukewarm reviews, it later became a seasonal Halloween staple with a dedicated fanbase.

Hook

Critics were divided, but audiences embraced it over time, especially among younger viewers who grew up with it.

The Boondock Saints

Poorly reviewed initially, it later gained a strong cult following through home video. It even gained a sequel that basked on its cult status.

National Treasure

Critics were lukewarm, but audiences embraced its fun, fast-paced adventure style, wishing for more films like this from Nicolas Cage.

Tron: Legacy

Critics were divided, but the film gained a strong fanbase for its visuals and soundtrack, even if it didn’t live to the potential of the original movie.

A Knight’s Tale

Mixed reviews at release gave way to audience appreciation for its unique tone and charm, having it succeed in home TV formats in particular.

17 Times a Movie Gave Birth to Conspiracy Theories

Some movies linger, inviting viewers to question what they just saw and look for hidden meanings beneath the surface. In some cases, that curiosity grows into full-blown conspiracy theories, fueled by ambiguous storytelling, strange details, or unexplained moments.

The internet has only amplified this, turning small observations into widely shared interpretations that take on a life of their own. Whether they’re playful connections or deeper, more unsettling ideas, these theories show how certain films inspire audiences to keep digging long after the story is over.

The Shining

Famously linked to the theory that Stanley Kubrick helped fake the moon landing, based on symbolic details fans interpret as hidden confessions.

Ratatouille

A key piece of the “Pixar Theory,” suggesting all Pixar films share a timeline, connecting events across movies through subtle visual clues.

Frozen

Sparked the idea that Disney named the film to bury search results about Walt Disney being cryogenically frozen, a long-running myth.

Home Alone

A popular online theory claims Kevin grows up to become Jigsaw from Saw, based on his early use of elaborate traps.

The Matrix

Often tied to theories connecting it to The Terminator, suggesting the Matrix is a later stage of machine rule over humanity.

Fight Club

Some viewers interpret the film as suggesting the narrator may have additional unseen personalities beyond Tyler Durden.

Inception

The ambiguous ending led to countless theories about whether Cobb is still dreaming, with viewers analyzing the spinning top and visual cues.

Pulp Fiction

The glowing briefcase has inspired theories ranging from containing Marsellus Wallace’s soul to being nothing more than a symbolic narrative device.

American Psycho

Debates persist about whether Patrick Bateman committed the murders or imagined them, fueling ongoing reinterpretations of the story.

Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Some theories suggest Wonka orchestrated the children’s downfalls deliberately as a form of selection or punishment.

Snowpiercer

A popular theory claims it exists in the same universe as Wonka, with parallels between characters and themes.

Blade Runner

The question of whether Deckard is a replicant has fueled decades of debate and competing interpretations, at least if we ignore the sequel.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Fan theories suggest deeper implications about time travel rules and alternate timelines beyond what is explicitly shown.

The Lion King

The “SFX” dust cloud rumor became a widely spread myth, with viewers claiming to see hidden messages in the animation.

Eyes Wide Shut

Its secret society themes have led to real-world conspiracy discussions about elite groups and hidden power structures.

Donnie Darko

The film’s complex narrative has generated numerous theories attempting to fully explain its timeline and alternate realities.

The Truman Show

Helped popularize the real-world “Truman Show delusion,” where individuals believe their lives are being secretly filmed.

Leslie Vernon Returns as Directors Announce Behind the Mask Sequel

Twenty years ago, a slasher aficionado invited a camera crew to follow him as he prepared for his killing season. With the infectious glee of a true believer, Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) walks a young journalist named Taylor (Angela Goethals) through his plan to create a legend, choose a survivor girl (Kate Lang Johnson), and go on a killing spree. He’ll follow her to a dilapidated farmhouse she is visiting with her friends, and there he’ll kill them like Freddy, Jason, Michael, and the other great slashers of yore.

What actually happens has long thrilled horror fans, leaving the faithful hungry for more and disappointed that Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon was a standalone effort and not a franchise starter. Until now.

“My three favorite words right now: Leslie Vernon returns,” writer David J. Stieve triumphantly tells Den of Geek.

Directed by Scott Glosserman from a script that he co-wrote with Stieve, 2006’s Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon was a unique take on the meta-slasher. Part mockumentary, in which Vernon explicitly explains tricks like how to disappear when his target Kelly turns around, or how to encourage his victim to choose faulty weapons, and part straightforward slasher, the film both deconstructed and celebrated the tropes that defined Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween.

Despite his high-profile coming out party, Leslie disappeared at the end of Behind the Mask, never to be seen on-screen again—no matter how hard his creators endeavored to change that over the years.

“We tried and tried, we’ve iterated and changed, coming up with stuff that just wasn’t right for the time,” Glosserman admits.

Stieve adds, “We’ve been trying to keep pace with the genre, but the sand kept moving under our feet.”

Apropos of their co-writing relationship, Glosserman picks up on Stieve’s metaphor and continues: “The sand keeps changing, especially with the self-referential part of it all. There have been any number of self-referential films across genres, and it can feel tired going back to the same well, even though the first film wasn’t proceeded by much.

“After us, though, the floodgates really opened because horror-comedy reflects the zeitgeist of its age. It’s not intentional, it’s not as though we had anything to do with it. But there was a moment that we had to ask ourselves ‘how do we come back to self-referential horror-comedy?’ or consider if it is too saturated.”

And yet, despite those fears, the duo knew they couldn’t forget about Leslie; in part because of the demand from fans who love Behind the Mask but also because they kept getting ideas for new scenarios.

“Scott and I started talking about how to continue the story, even when we were back on set in Portland, shooting the first one,” says Stieve. “We’d be beating out scenes in the middle of the night in a hotel room and realize that we just had a good idea for a sequel. And its just evolved throughout the years. It finally feels like everything has coalesced. Leslie returning now feels like it’s taken a long time, but we’ve earned it. The story and the metaphor has presented itself in a way that we can’t ignore.”

What is that story and metaphor? Unlike their main character, the duo aren’t ready to show the press what they’re doing before it happens just yet. But they can say that the original cast and crew are back for the sequel. And they can also tell us that Leslie has had to struggle with the changing times—especially since, these days, he doesn’t have to coerce a camera crew to get on people’s screens like he did in 2006.

“The most challenging thing about the movie isn’t just the mise-en-scène of how to portray the world in the film, but to actually shoot the movie and get that mixed media contrast that we got the first time,” Glosserman admits. “Then we had very simple hard lines when we were one reality and then another.”

Stieve explains, “In the meta version of it, Leslie is certainly aware of shortened attention spans and shock tolerance. All of that will factor into his planning and execution—no pun intended.”

One thing that hasn’t changed is Leslie’s love of the classics, even if the rest of the world has moved on from his favorite subgenre. Behind the Mask was a love letter to the ’80s slasher, and the sequel will be too.

“Throughout the ’00s you had torture porn, found footage, J-horror, and then there were sequels and prequels and remakes,” Glosserman says. “And back in 2007, 2008, 2009, during our first iterations of the Leslie Vernon sequel, we were really trying to keep up with the zeitgeist. But there’s just so much to cover. And this guy, at his core, he’s a slasher. And that raises a question: if you’re someone who’s used to your ways, how do you keep up with what the younger people are doing? Or do you stick with what you know? That alone presents a conflict. And it will be interesting to see where we, as real people, have come over the past 20 years. So the sequel will not only reflect the conventions and archetypes of horror, but also our own lived experience.”

According to Stieve, that lived experience does mean that he and Glosserman have to be honest about the type of horror they love best: “For Scott and I, ’80s horror is our core, that’s the DNA,” he admits. “So for me, it’s been a real process of trying to overcome my resistances to what slasher horror has become. I mean, I respect and admire the work, even when it’s not my taste, and I don’t want to be yelling at the kids to get off my lawn. But there’s part of me that wants to hold onto that feeling of ’80s and ’90s horror. But you can’t, and Leslie as a character can’t either.”

In the first movie, that love of ’80s and ’90s horror led to cameos from legends such as Robert Englund and Kane Hodder. Will more greats show up in the sequel?

“There’s going to be a crowdfunding component to this, because we want the horror community to come along with us and ‘buy’ into what we’re doing. So we’ll have stretch goals, and some of them will be cameo reveals,” teases Glosserman.

Until then, Glosserman and Stieve are just happy that they’ve had such fan support to carry them through 20 years of Behind the Mask.

“Twenty years is a huge landmark, especially for the unbelievable fan support we’ve been shown,” Stieve declares. “We have to give the fans something. If we miss this window, what are we doing out here?”

That’s a fitting sentiment for Stieve and Glosserman to take as they begin production on the Behind the Mask sequel. Because Leslie Vernon may be a psychopathic murderer. But first and foremost, he’s a fan.

The Boys: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan Wishes Countess Crow Got Merked by Homelander

The following contains spoilers for The Boys season 5 episodes 1 and 2.

The Boys has always walked a fine line between reality and fiction. One part satirical send-up of our pop culture’s superhero obsession and one part cynical display of the worst excesses of corporate greed, it’s a series that purposefully refuses to idolize its characters or glamorize the world they live in. Part of the reason its later seasons have often felt so uncomfortable to watch is that their subject matter has been steadily veering closer and closer toward our own reality. Just two episodes into its final season, The Boys has already featured everything from government “freedom” camps and AI hoaxes to the terrifying implementation of full fascism, as evidenced by Homelander’s (Anthony Starr) determination to jail those who have done so much as post a meme criticizing him.

Perhaps it’s a sign of just how bad everything has gotten in the world of this show that the introduction of a band of teenage TikTokers provides the premiere with its primary source of levity. But here we are.

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Maitreyi Ramakrishnan plays Countess Crow, a young supe with the weirdly specific ability of communicating with corvids. But rather than saving the day, she and her fellow teenage heroes spend most of their time hawking sponcon on TikTok. But while Countess Crow is busy half-heartedly extoling the virtues of Black Noir-branded eyeliner online, the actress who plays her was hoping to experience one of the show’s traditionally violent deaths.

“I knew of The Boys because my friends are huge fans, but I hadn’t personally watched before,” Ramakrishnan tells Den of Geek. “When the audition came through, I was like, okay, let me audition for this, because if I got it, that would be so cool to be a part of, just to show my friends. And I also really wanted my friends to see me die and maybe get merked by Homelander. Of course, I started watching the show and now I can say I am a fan. But… yeah! Kinda sucks that I got away, huh?”

A member of the young superhero group Teenage Kix alongside Jetstreak (Dylan Colton), Rock Hard (Andrew Iles), and Sheline (Emma Elle Paterson), Countess Crow is notable for her dramatic, almost Gothic appearance, which admittedly goes with the whole murder bird theme.

“Shoutout to the makeup department, because the eye makeup was crazy. And them having to match that perfectly [in every take]… the attention to detail on the show is crazy,” Ramakrishnan says. “The coolest part of working on The Boys was working on The Boys, genuinely, as a production, because I’ve never been on a set that is more obsessed with attention to detail than this show.”

Ramakrishnan cites the show’s immersive dedication to its sets and world-building as a helpful tool for its performers.

“There should be a The Boys museum,” she says. “Every piece of equipment in the gym, for example, was branded with ‘Vought.’ Every poster. Unfortunately, investing in practical effects is dying more and more, but… Rock Hard was real. And goopy. Real and goopy and way too huge. A person goes inside that! That’s crazy!”

Countess Crow’s abilities may be much less… overtly goopy, but they are equally unique. As her name implies, she’s capable of communicating with and possibly even manipulating crows. (Though her personal murder has decreased in size thanks to the cat-like Sheline.) This, in theory, could provide her with everything from physical protection to access to a vast web of information.

“At first, I thought okay, so, she just talks to just specifically crows, no other birds, alright, I guess that’s fine,” Ramakrishan says. “But then Laz [Alonso, who plays Mother’s Milk] and I were talking about it, and he actually had a lot of knowledge about crows, and was explaining to me that crows are incredibly smart and if you mess with a crow they’ll remember that for life. Then they’ll tell their friends! So crows that you’ve never met now will also hate you. Isn’t that wild? It is a cool power. And to think that Countess Crow once had, you know, a bunch of crows? That’s kinda scary. Also, the crow was real, by the way. Russell was real, and that was honestly so cool.”

Intriguingly, Countess Crow is also the only member of Teenage Kix who seems in any way reluctant about her life as an influencer or her involvement with Vought.

“I just kind of pieced it together based on everything that we saw in the episode,” Ramakrishnan says when asked to share her thoughts about her character’s personal history. “She’s this young kid who was given a nice little chunk of change to join the Teenage Kix situation and probably got a nice deal. She’s just an innocent, in her earlier days, when she had more crows. Obviously, I think she has realized that she hates this life, but she’s probably stuck in some shitty contract that she can’t get out of, and obviously is very depressed. She’s just a normal kid that would probably like to go back to living her life and going to school, maybe study abroad, and talk to crows around the world and call it a day.”

Everyone who has ever watched The Boys has probably wondered what kind of superhuman ability they might be able to wield in its dark — and often extremely messed-up universe. But while Ramakrishnan herself plays a supe, she’s not sure if she would want an ability like her character’s. Or anyone else’s.

“I don’t even know if I necessarily would want a power,” she says thoughtfully when asked about what sort of ability she’d like to wield in The Boys universe. “So many of them are bad. Or they have a drawback. That’s what it is. You can’t quickly say, like, A-Train, because look at the pilot episode. Shit goes bad. And also, if it’s a power from The Boys, then there’s a solid chance there were also some crazy drugs. I don’t want some serum. I think I’d actually just like to stay human.”

For Ramakrishnan, The Boys works precisely because its approach to the entire concept of a world where superpowers run rampant is so unique — and so unashamedly bleak.

“I think that’s why the show does so well, actually, because there are real consequences in this universe. That’s why I love the show, because it’s not just like, ‘Oh, a cool power, wow!’ It comes with a price, so it’s not something that’s been romanticized. I also think something the show does very well is that it takes the power that a person gets and puts it on a personality. So that if the personality was different, we’d have a very different story. And I think all those different factors, all those layered details make the show so much more compelling.”

Whether we’ll see Countess Crow again in The Boys’ final season is a question that only the show itself can answer. But whether we see her onscreen again or not, Ramakrishnan is hopeful her legacy as the corvid queen will live on.

“I can’t say anything, I guess we’ll never know!” she laughs. “I don’t know. But it was really cool to have that ending where she kind of walked away… a little mystery. In the Eric Kripke universe of it all, characters always love to come back. No one’s ever really gone. And you know what, maybe even if I’m not physically back, my legacy will probably be referenced. Countess Crow will be referenced, maybe at another point, you know?”

New episodes of The Boys season 5 premiere Wednesdays on Prime Video.

The Punisher: One Last Kill Trailer Reminds Us That Frank Castle is No Hero

A glance at the cast list for Spider-Man: Brand New Day promises a heap of Marvel Superheroes. There’s Spider-Man, of course, but also Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Sadie Sink (probably) as Jean Grey of the X-Men, and Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, the Punisher. Obviously, one of those things is not like the other. Where even the rampaging Incredible Hulk tries to minimize deaths, Frank Castle believes that anything less than murdering bad guys constitutes a half-measure that only perpetuates evil. Does his Marvel team-up with Spidey suggest that Frank is joining the goodies?

The first trailer for the Marvel Special Presentation The Punisher: One Last Kill shoots holes in that premise. Even beyond shots of Bernthal’s guilt-riddled face or images of Frank engulfed in frames as if immolated in Hell, fellow military man Curtis Hoyle (Jason R. Moore, returning from the Netflix series) intimates that God will not forgive Punisher’s sins. And with good reason: the Punisher is not a hero.

That’s been true since Frank’s first appearance in 1974’s Amazing Spider-Man #129, written by Gerry Conway and penciled by Ross Andru (incorporating a costume designed by John Romita Sr.). Inspired by exploitation flicks like Death Wish, that issue introduced Punisher as a vigilante who believes that society has spun far out of control, beyond what law enforcement can control.

The first story established Frank as a sympathetic killer, but a killer nonetheless, a broken man whose moral failures highlight the heroism of Spider-Man. But he quickly became a favorite among fans and, as mainstream comics grew grittier and meaner in the ’80s and ’90s, Punisher’s popularity only grew, and he soon started headlining his own books. Although he never really stopped killing his enemies (laser guns in the Spider-Man animated series notwithstanding), Marvel presented him as more or less a superhero.

Over the years, writers found ways to excuse Frank’s lethal tendencies while letting him join the side of the angels—including literally making him an angelic figure who killed demons with a magic gun. That last take went over so badly that Marvel recruited comic-dom’s greatest superhero hater to bring Punisher back to basics. Garth Ennis‘s run on the mature-rated series Punisher: MAX reminded viewers that Frank is a bad person, was a bad person even before his family was killed, and continues to be a bad person today, even if he kills people who are worse.

Ennis’ run inspired Bernthal’s version of Frank Castle, as the Netflix series directly adapted moments such as Punisher chaining Daredevil to a gun and forcing him to make a choice. And Frank’s MCU debut in season one of Daredevil: Born Again suggested that Disney hasn’t softened him… at least not until Daredevil forbade him from killing. But seeing him trading quips with Tom Holland’s Spidey in Brand New Day raised worries that maybe we’re seeing Punisher turn good.

Not so, says the trailer. If indeed the special showcases Frank’s final fatality, then One Last Kill promises that the Punisher is going out his way, unheroic and mean.

The Punisher: One Last Kill streams on Disney+ on May 12, 2026.

The Boys’ Kimiko Reveal is the Ultimate Improvement Over the Comics

This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 5 episode 1.

“The Female (of the Species).” Those words, presented in a caption block of white text on a black background introduce the world to the one member of the Boys who isn’t a boy. The caption appears in 2006’s The Boys #2, written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Darick Robertson, setting off a scene in which the character knocks on a door, stands silent as the men inside the house mock her, and then lunges inside. A few panels later, a bloody vivisected face slaps against a window.

Our latest look at the same character plays very differently. In the season premiere of final season of Prime Video‘s live-action adaptation of The Boys, “Fifteen Inches of Sheer Dynamite.” Midway through the episode, we find Kimiko Miyashiro (Karen Fukuhara) kindly sharing a family treat with a young boy. She communicates with sign language and a smile. She reverts to her comic book analogue when Butcher appears in her home, all snarls and sneers. But when she reunites with Starlight, Kimiko cannot stop laughing and talking.

Kimiko’s newfound gift for gab is just the latest improvement that Eric Kripke and the live-action show has made over the comics, and it may be the most important.

While the television show The Boys is an R-rated superhero saga that peppers its satire of American power politics with gore and gross-out gags, the comic book The Boys is an exercise in unpleasantness. Ennis, never a fan of superheroes who aren’t Superman, indulges every schoolboy gag about the cape and cowl set, and Robertson brings them to life with grotesque detail.

For that reason, it’s hard to hold the series to any moral expectation. It exists to disgust and offend, and it certainly achieves those base goals. However, even by that low standard, the Female is a particularly odious figure. One of the two major female characters and the only main Asian character, the Female embodies every negative stereotype to the extreme, reducing her to an unthinking, unfeeling hunk of flesh that murders everyone who isn’t Frenchie. The series never grants her agency, outside of maiming those who offend her—and even that tends to happen on someone else’s orders.

By the time of her death in 2012’s The Boys #69, her only character progression involves her being nice to Butcher’s dog, Terror. Not even her origin story did anything to humanize her, as we learn that she was a baby in a lab who fell into a pile of discarded Compound V. In short, the comic feels that the Female has always been trash.

At first, it seemed like the television series would follow suit. Despite Fukuhara’s energetic presence, she still played the Female: brutal, inhuman, unknowable.

But over the past several seasons, the character became the exact opposite of her comic book counterpart. She gained a backstory and a family, including a brother named Kenji who stayed with her after their parents were killed. Her powers are no longer a cosmic accident, but the result of American experimentation, an extension of the imperialism that finds its fullest form in Homelander.

Her inability to speak isn’t just a sign of her lack of humanity. Rather, it’s a response to the loss of Kenji, deep-seated trauma that in fact speaks to increased vulnerability and compassion, not the absence of those feelings. Moreover, she has a name. Even though Butcher never recognizes her as such, her friends come to know her as Kimiko, and her arc across the previous seasons have shown how she finds her identity and humanity once again.

Which makes her ability to speak so important, as Kripke himself acknowledges “It felt like she’s been evolving in terms of letting go of the trauma that caused her mutism in the first place,” he told Hollywood Reporter.” And she’s been working so hard to deal with it, that it felt right to then take her to the next step, which is she does get her physical voice back.”

Kripke’s phrasing here matters. According to him, Kimiko has gotten her voice back, restored something that she once had. The Female of the comics never had a voice, and thus nothing was lost and there’s nothing to restore. That approach fits the entirety of the comic’s ethos. The characters in the comics are, at best, stock figures from the history of Marvel and DC, and therefore any “satire” that Ennis and Robertson attempt can go no further than shots at the industry.

Kripke and his co-creators have turned The Boys into a satire about American politics and the people harmed by it. For that to work, the series must have human beings in it, even if the humans are absurd and even if they sometimes die in horrible ways (see: Love Sausage being strangled by his own member in the season 5 premiere).

By getting a name and agency and a voice, Kimiko represents the humanity of The Boys, which makes the humor that much deeper and the satire that much sharper.

New episodes of The Boys stream every Wednesday on Prime Video.

Animal Farm Trailer: Seth Rogen, Slapstick Jokes, and a Communist Dream Corrupted By Totalitarianism

All kids’ movies are equal, at least in some way. They fundamentally exist to entertain the youngest members of a studio audience, which requires broad jokes, over-the-top visuals, and simplistic morals. But some kids’ movies are more equal than others, as anyone who has seen a great Hayao Miyazaki or Pixar movie can attest. There’s a difference between simple and artless.

Judging by its latest trailer, it’s hard to tell where the big screen adaptation of Animal Farm will fall. The film certainly has the pedigree to be a higher-end kid’s film, as it draws inspiration from the 1945 George Orwell novella and is directed by Andy Serkis, a great motion-capture actor and solid filmmaker in his own right. But the trailer leans hard into jazzy music, obvious gags, and celebrity voices, suggesting that the picture resembles lesser Illumination and not even the 1954 Chuck Jones version of Animal Farm.

As any English teacher worth their tweed can tell you, Animal Farm is an allegory about the Russian Revolution and rise of Joseph Stalin. Set on Manor Farm in England instead of 1917 Russia, the story follows boars Napoleon and Snowball as they overthrow the human Mr. Jones and establish a new regime in which all the animals rule equally. However, when Snowball and Napoleon fall out over plans to build a windmill, the latter chases the former away and establishes himself as supreme leader. As the book goes on, Napoleon asserts more control, turning against his fellow animals and, in an ironic closing, adopts the same posture as the humans he once considered his enemies.

Between its ingenious use of allegory, its political relevance to the 20th century, and its fairly short length (at least compared to Orwell’s towering 1984), Animal Farm has long been a staple of high school English classes. But in the U.S. at least, Animal Farm has joined 1984 as a frequently misunderstood text, with too many readers missing the book’s pointed criticism of Stalin. Instead, they read it as a satire against all forms of communism, ignoring Orwell’s own democratic socialist beliefs (and, it must be said, Orwell’s warnings about misuse of the English language).

Will this latest Animal Farm adaptation avoid those problems? We can’t say one way or the other from the trailer, which promises a wacky adventure instead of a political science lesson. As voiced by Seth Rogen, the trailer presents Napoleon as a lovable goofball and Lucky (Stranger Things‘s Gaten Matarazzo) as his plucky sidekick. While the trailer does show that things will go badly on the former Manor Farm, one has to wonder if plot points like the fate of the horse Boxer (Woody Harrelson) will get the weight it deserves.

Can this glossy Angel Studios release with an all-star cast retain the depth of its source material? If it can, then Animal Farm will be a truly revolutionary kids’ movie.

Animal Farm releases in theaters on May 1, 2026.

Isaac Wright Combines Urban Exploring, Photography in Drift

It isn’t hard to find an aerial view of the world’s most major metropolises. The Empire State Building, Shanghai Tower, Lakhta Center, and countless other structures boast perfectly safe observation decks that provide birds-eye panoramas of the cities below. It is much more difficult to reach the true apex of those buildings, to climb to the very top with nowhere else to go but into the clouds. Despite the challenge, this is something that Isaac Wright, known under the artist name Drift and the subject of a new documentary with the same name, lives for.

Wright began coping with his PTSD through self-taught photography after serving in the United States Army. He combined his love of camera-work with urban exploring, specifically seeking the highest points of buildings, bridges, statues, and other institutions, often illegally and always with the intention of capturing unique and heart-stopping images.

“The first time I saw them, I was like, ‘This is absolutely incredible,’’ Deon Taylor, director of Drift, says. “But then when you realize there’s more excitement to his life than that is when you go, as a filmmaker, ‘Oh, I have to tell this story or I have to be a part of the story.’”

Taylor’s filmography is dominated by narrative features, boasting credits like Black and Blue (2019), Traffik (2018), and Supremacy (2014).

“Those features dealt a lot with telling human stories … I know this is a different medium, but I really believe I can tell this story in a documentary fashion,” Taylor says.

Roxanne Avent Taylor worked on Drift as a producer, a role she has filled on many of Taylor’s other films. The two have been married since 2014, eight years after they co-founded their independent film production company, Hidden Empire Film Group.

“When it first came to us, we went to his Instagram and these beautiful photos are just so captivating that it’s really overwhelming, and wondering why the hell he’s up there and what he’s doing was my initial reaction,” Avent Taylor says.

The documentary seeks to answer that very question through footage of Wright’s adventures and interviews with the man behind the camera.

“The documentary is a lot more than just my artwork,” Wright says. “It has to do with my life and what I feel like my artwork really represents and a full portrait of what I think the goal of life is and coming into who you truly are as a person, so it covers various different things I’ve gone through – which I think are a reflection of things we all go through – and how I found my way through that through my artwork.”

Among the events Wright experiences during the film are legal ramifications for some of his more illicit exploits. The documentary takes a dramatic turn into what Taylor describes as a “real-life Catch Me If You Can … with consequences and things that can actually kill you” that are unrelated to the danger of the climbs themselves.

“You realize very quickly that the climbs are more spiritual,” Taylor says. “They’re actually the safest thing that is happening in the film, because someone is playing with someone’s life.”

These themes take Wright from his position as an untouchable, superhuman figure and bring him back down to Earth for the rest of us to relate to.

“I had a spiritual connection first, to the human story and to the fact that someone is having to overcome adversity in life for real, and I believe that everyone could connect to the human story based on the fact that we’ve all been through something,” Taylor says. “We’ve all been misrepresented or someone has tried to tear down your character in some way, and I felt like this is a story that I believe people could really connect to.”

The film premiered in the SXSW Documentary Spotlight category and was met by cheers, tears, and laughs, according to Taylor. The next steps for the documentary and its subject are still unknown, but it’s hard not to predict the boldest and brightest of futures for both.

“I’m still engaged with the work, but also I’m branching into so many other artistic mediums, and so … I don’t necessarily know (what’s next),” Wright says. “I’m wide open right now, but I feel more creative than I’ve ever felt in my life. I feel the most in tune and aligned with myself that I’ve ever felt, and I believe that art comes out of a person, so I know whatever it is, it will be magic.”

Drift premiered on March 14 at the SXSW Film & TV Festival.

15 Unsettling Movie Facts That Might Change How We See Them

Rewatching a movie can often give us details that enrich the experience, although sometimes, those same details end up bringing the experience down. Beneath familiar stories and iconic scenes lie details, implications, and logical gaps that can make a film feel far more unsettling in hindsight.

These aren’t always intentional twists or hidden clues, but observations that shift the tone once they click. Whether it’s a troubling ethical implication or a flaw that raises bigger questions, these moments have a way of sticking with viewers long after the credits roll, no matter if you’re watching them for the first or second time.

Jurassic Park

The park’s safety systems rely heavily on automation with minimal oversight, making the disaster feel less like an accident and more like an inevitability waiting to happen.

Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Each child’s fate is left ambiguous, and the film never clearly confirms they fully recover, adding a darker edge to what appears to be a whimsical story.

Toy Story

Toys are fully conscious but forced to remain motionless around humans, implying a lifetime of suppressed autonomy and existential limitation.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

The procedure erases memories without addressing underlying issues, suggesting the characters are likely doomed to repeat the same relationship cycle.

Inception

Even if the ending is ambiguous, Cobb’s willingness to walk away without confirming reality suggests he may no longer care what is real.

The Social Network

The film ends with Zuckerberg alone, repeatedly refreshing a friend request, highlighting the isolation behind massive social connectivity.

Gone Girl

The ending traps both main characters in a toxic relationship, suggesting manipulation and deceit will continue indefinitely.

Nightcrawler

Lou’s success implies that unethical behavior is not only tolerated but rewarded, reinforcing a disturbing view of media culture.

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

The story repeatedly removes the protagonist’s agency, forcing players to confront how little control either they or the character truly have.

Passengers

Jim’s decision to wake Aurora is framed romantically, but it effectively removes her agency and condemns her to his fate.

Whiplash

The film blurs the line between mentorship and abuse, leaving it unclear whether the protagonist’s success justifies the trauma endured.

The Prestige

The cloning process implies repeated deaths of the same individual, reframing the magician’s success as a cycle of self-sacrifice.

Cars

The existence of sentient vehicles raises unanswered questions about human absence, creating an unsettling implication about the world’s history.

The Hunger Games

The tributes are meant to be malnourished children from impoverished districts, yet many appear physically strong and well-fed, creating a disconnect that softens the story’s intended brutality.

Signs

The aliens invade a planet covered mostly in water despite it being lethal to them, raising the implication that their plan was fundamentally flawed from the start.

15 Casting Decisions Nobody Trusted Until The Movie Came Out

Casting can make or break a movie, and sometimes the most controversial choices turn out to be the right ones. Over the years, plenty of actors have faced skepticism the moment they were announced, whether due to past roles, public image, or simply not fitting what audiences expected.

In some cases, the backlash was immediate and widespread. But once the movie finally hit theaters, those same performances ended up winning over critics and fans alike. These are the casting decisions that seemed questionable at first, only to prove that the right actor isn’t always the most obvious one.

The Batman, Robert Pattinson

Pattinson’s casting was heavily questioned due to his Twilight image, but his grounded, introspective take on Bruce Wayne was widely praised after release.

Joker, Joaquin Phoenix

Fans doubted another Joker interpretation, but Phoenix’s performance was acclaimed, earning him major awards and redefining the character for a new audience. Too bad the sequel didn’t live up to its promise.

Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr.

At the time, Downey’s troubled past made studios hesitant, but his casting became one of the most iconic and successful choices in modern blockbuster cinema. So much so that the actor is outliving the character within the MCU.

The Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio

Some doubted DiCaprio’s fit for the role’s excess and comedy, but his performance proved dynamic and was widely acclaimed by both fans and critics.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Johnny Depp

Depp’s eccentric take on Jack Sparrow worried Disney executives, but it became the defining element of the film’s success. Hard to imagine a better fit for the role.

Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks

Casting Hanks in such an unconventional role raised questions, but his performance became central to the film’s enduring appeal. He was able to carry a film with mostly only him to great results.

The Matrix, Keanu Reeves

Reeves was seen as an unlikely philosophical action lead, but his performance became synonymous with the film’s tone and success.

Mad Max: Fury Road, Tom Hardy

Recasting Mel Gibson with anyone was always going to be controversial, even if necessary, but Hardy delivered a performance that fit seamlessly into the franchise’s rebooted tone.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Chris Pratt

Known mainly for comedy, Pratt was an unexpected action lead, but his charisma became a key part of the film’s success. Not to mention his body transformation into the classic action hero.

Twilight, Kristen Stewart

Her casting sparked debate among fans of the books, but she became closely associated with the role. The debate likely rose from the lead of the books being a surrogate for the reader.

Casino Royale, Daniel Craig

Craig faced heavy criticism before release, yet his performance revitalized the James Bond franchise, turning the spy from smooth talker to gritty hero.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Elijah Wood

Casting a relatively young actor as Frodo raised doubts, but Wood’s performance became central to the trilogy’s success. It’s now hard to see him as anything other than Frodo even in other movies.

The Social Network, Jesse Eisenberg

Casting Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg raised eyebrows, but his performance was widely praised for capturing the character’s personality. The main issue was separating the film’s character with the real person.

Drive, Ryan Gosling

Known for romantic roles, Gosling’s casting in a quiet, intense thriller seemed unusual but proved highly effective.

Barbie, Margot Robbie

While initially questioned, Robbie’s performance anchored the film’s tone and helped elevate its cultural impact.

Movies You Didn’t Know Recycled Sets And Locations

Movies are designed to transport audiences to entirely different worlds, even when those worlds are built on the exact same foundations. Behind the scenes, filmmakers often reuse sets and real-world locations, carefully redressing them to look new while saving time and budget.

The result is a kind of cinematic illusion where the same street, building, or interior quietly appears across completely unrelated films. Most viewers never notice, but once you know where to look, it becomes hard to unsee. These reused locations reveal just how much creativity goes into making familiar places feel entirely different on screen.

Back to the Future & Gremlins

Both films use the Universal backlot’s Courthouse Square, transformed from Hill Valley into Kingston Falls with minimal structural changes.

Se7en & Catch Me If You Can

Both feature scenes inside the same Los Angeles diner, the frequently reused Quality Cafe location.

Die Hard & Speed

The iconic Nakatomi Plaza is actually Fox Plaza, reused in Speed, including its recognizable lobby.

Aliens & Batman

The same industrial power station set was repurposed, becoming a space colony in one film and a chemical plant in the other.

X-Men & Billy Madison

The Xavier Institute mansion is the same real location used as a comedic setting in Billy Madison.

The Big Lebowski & There Will Be Blood

Both films use the Greystone Mansion, a frequently reused filming location in Hollywood productions.

Star Trek Into Darkness & The Muppets

The same Greystone Mansion appears again, digitally altered in one case to resemble a futuristic setting.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider & Batman

Hatfield House serves as both Croft’s estate and Wayne Manor, showing how grand locations are reused across genres.

Blade Runner & 500 Days of Summer

Both films feature the Bradbury Building, used to evoke entirely different moods across decades.

Pretty in Pink & A Nightmare on Elm Street

Both films use John Marshall High School, a location repeatedly repurposed across genres.

School of Rock & Pretty in Pink

The same school appears again, demonstrating how common real-world locations become recurring film backdrops.

Ghostbusters & The Mask

The iconic firehouse exterior used by the Ghostbusters also appears in The Mask, reused as a New York location.

Casper & The Cat in the Hat

Both films reuse the Universal backlot town sets, heavily redressed to appear unique.

The Matrix & Dark City

Both films used the same rooftop sets in Australia, contributing to their similarly stylized urban environments.

Airheads & Die Hard

Fox Plaza appears again, reused in a completely different genre and tone.

Movies That Completely Changed Tone Halfway Through Production

Not every movie sticks to its original vision. In fact, some take a sharp turn long before they ever reach theaters. Whether it’s due to director changes, studio intervention, or reactions to early footage, certain films end up shifting tone in major ways during production.

What may have started as a dark drama can become a lighter comedy, or a grounded story might evolve into something far more exaggerated. These changes don’t always happen quietly either, and in many cases, you can feel the shift while watching. They offer a glimpse into how unpredictable the filmmaking process can really be.

Justice League

After Zack Snyder stepped down, Joss Whedon oversaw extensive reshoots that aimed to lighten the tone, shifting it away from Snyder’s darker style.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Major reshoots reworked the third act, changing tone from war-heavy bleakness to a more structured, heroic narrative while still retaining its darker edge.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were replaced by Ron Howard, shifting the film from a comedic style to a safer, traditional tone.

Suicide Squad

After trailers emphasizing humor were well received, reshoots added jokes and a lighter tone, significantly altering the film’s original darker direction.

World War Z

The entire third act was scrapped and rewritten, shifting from a large-scale action finale to a quieter, suspense-driven ending.

The Emperor’s New Groove

Originally conceived as a serious epic titled Kingdom of the Sun, it was reworked into a fast-paced comedy during production after major creative struggles.

Frozen

Elsa was initially written as a villain, but after “Let It Go,” the story was rewritten to make her sympathetic, fundamentally changing the film’s tone.

I Am Legend

The original ending reframed the creatures as intelligent, but the final version changed tone toward a more traditional action-hero conclusion.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Late-stage changes pushed the film toward franchise setup and spectacle, altering its tone from character-focused to heavily serialized.

The Wolfman

Reshoots and editing changes attempted to reshape the tone from atmospheric horror into something more action-oriented.

Payback

The original darker cut was replaced with a more humorous, stylized version after extensive reshoots and studio intervention.

The New Mutants

Initially pitched as a straight horror film, delays and reshoots shifted it toward a more traditional superhero tone.

First Blood

Originally had a much darker ending, but changes during production shifted the tone toward a more heroic and franchise-friendly conclusion.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

The ending and character arcs were altered late in production, changing emotional tone and romantic resolution.

Dark Phoenix

The third act was heavily reworked during reshoots, changing tone and scale after comparisons to other superhero films.

20 People Share the Movie They’ll Always Recommend

What’s the difference between a movie you love and a movie you’d recommend? It’s simple really: while something you love might be an acquired taste, what you recommend needs to be tailor made for someone unaware of the subject or genre. Therefore, a movie you recommend can either be a way into a genre, a franchise, or just new conversations.

A certain Reddit post went on the mission of finding just that, the movies people recommend the most. We’ve selected the 20 best examples so you know what to watch next, or what to recommend to your uninitiated friends.

Goodfellas

A fast-paced crime epic that blends narration, style, and character work, making it one of the most engaging and endlessly quotable gangster films ever made.

The Count of Monte Cristo

A satisfying revenge story with clear stakes and strong pacing, delivering emotional payoff while keeping the narrative easy to follow and consistently engaging.

Young Frankenstein

A parody that perfectly captures classic horror aesthetics while delivering sharp, timeless comedy that still lands with modern audiences.

The Truman Show

A unique premise executed with emotional depth, balancing satire and humanity while building toward a memorable and thought-provoking conclusion.

Galaxy Quest

A clever sci-fi comedy that respects its source inspirations, blending humor and sincerity into a story that works for both fans and newcomers.

The Thing

A tense, atmospheric horror film where paranoia drives the narrative, supported by practical effects that still hold up decades later.

Stand by Me

A coming-of-age story that feels grounded and personal, with strong performances and a nostalgic tone that resonates across generations.

Schindler’s List

A powerful historical drama that combines stark realism with emotional storytelling, leaving a lasting impact through its subject matter and performances.

Groundhog Day

A simple premise explored in depth, blending comedy and philosophy while maintaining tight pacing and a satisfying character arc.

Coming to America

A comedy driven by memorable characters and performances, with humor that remains effective thanks to its charm and cultural impact.

Heathers

A dark comedy that pushes boundaries with its tone, offering sharp commentary while maintaining a distinct and memorable style.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

An action sequel that improves on the original with stronger emotional stakes, groundbreaking effects, and a tightly structured story.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

A witty, self-aware crime comedy with rapid-fire dialogue and strong chemistry that keeps the story entertaining throughout.

The Mummy

A fun adventure that balances action, horror, and humor, elevated by strong pacing and charismatic performances.

Monty Python’s Life of Brian

A satirical comedy that remains relevant through its sharp writing, blending absurd humor with pointed social commentary.

Good Will Hunting

A character-driven drama that focuses on personal growth, anchored by strong performances and emotionally resonant dialogue.

Howl’s Moving Castle

A visually rich fantasy that blends imagination with emotional themes, offering a unique and memorable viewing experience.

The Matrix

A genre-defining film that combines action and philosophy, delivering a clear concept with lasting influence on cinema.

The Silence of the Lambs

A psychological thriller driven by performances and tension, maintaining a gripping tone from start to finish.

The Iron Giant

An animated film that blends simplicity with emotional depth, creating a story that resonates strongly with audiences of all ages.

Daredevil: Born Again Adapts One of the Most Interesting Bullseye Stories

This article contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again season 2 episode 4.

“Gloves Off,” the fourth episode of Daredevil: Born Again‘s second season opens with a bang. Dex Pointdexter, the assassin known as Bullseye, walks into an old-timey diner, orders a milkshake, and calls the Anti-Vigilante Police Force. When the cops arrive, Bullseye begins slaughtering them in his inimitable manner, throwing cups, utensils, and anything else he can find with deadly precision. After killing off all of the police, Bullseye turns to a frightened diner, who begs for his life.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Bullseye responds with a smile. “I’m one of the good guys.”

That moment was a longtime coming for Bullseye fans, not just because it finally turns Dex, who started out as a grounded character with a troubled mind, into a full-on supervillain. The moment also recalls a fantastic storyline from the comics, when Bullseye briefly joined the side of the angels—in his own uniquely murderous way.

Unsurprisingly, Bullseye’s face-turn occurred with the Thunderbolts, that team of superheroes masquerading as heroes. Bullseye’s tenure began with a particularly fraught version of the team, one that came to be amidst a period of turmoil in the Marvel Universe. After the superhero Civil War that saw Tony Stark and others turn against their comrades in capes to enforce a superhuman registration act, the government used S.H.I.E.L.D. to take a stronger role in the affairs of heroes and villains.

Businessman and sometime Green Goblin Norman Osborn used the disruption of the Civil War to take control of the Thunderbolts, which had become Marvel’s answer to the Suicide Squad, a team of villains forced to do dangerous missions on behalf of the U.S. government. In that position, Osborn forced Bullseye onto the team and used him as a private assassin.

However, Osborn’s greatest move came at the end of the Secret Invasion, during which Earth’s leaders discovered that shapeshifting Skrulls have been living among us, waiting to launch a hostile takeover of the planet. Thanks to his public actions against the Skrull, including killing their leader on live television, Osborn was promoted to Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., from which he transformed his Thunderbolts into the new Avengers. Venom became the new Spider-Man. The White Widow Yelena Belova, more amoral than her MCU counterpart, became the new Black Widow. And Bullseye took the guise of Hawkeye.

In most Thunderbolts stories, the villain starts to imagine that they can find redemption and become heroes. Not so with Bullseye. Instead, he was simply thrilled to get the chance to kill people and not have to worry about heroes getting in the way.

His attitude is captured in 2009’s Dark Avengers #2, written by Brian Michael Bendis and penciled by Mike Deodato Jr. After the press conference that announces the new version of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the team gathers in Avengers Tower to bask in their new glory. “You know, it’s too bad I killed my mother in high school, she would have loved this,” Bullseye says as he pulls off his Hawkeye gear. In the next panel, he turns to his shocked teammates and says, “Just kidding. She wouldn’t a’ cared.”

As much as Bullseye seems to relish his new role, the conflict between his public persona as Hawkeye and his desires as a costumed killer create tension, which gets explored in the five-part miniseries Dark Reign: Hawkeye, written by Andy Diggle and penciled by Tom Raney. After he murders an innocent woman, the same woman he saved as Hawkeye, to keep his secret safe, Bullseye finds himself angry that Hawkeye is getting credit for his kills. He begins to hallucinate another Bullseye, his “true” self who mocks him for losing his identity to a weak Avenger.

Dark Reign: Hawkeye represents one of the few times that Bullseye as a character gets a psychological evaluation. Unlike his TV counterpart, the Bullseye of the comics has almost no backstory, and doesn’t even have a proper name—”Lester” is the closest thing to a secret identity that ever comes up. By giving him a fractured psyche, the Dark Reign: Hawkeye gives Bullseye proper depth.

Before “Gloves Off,” Bullseye suffered from having too much depth and not enough supervillain psychosis. Now that Born Again is letting Bullseye be an unrepentant killer, his Dark Avengers tenure can be a guide, showing how much a bad guy can have when he’s acting like he’s good.

Daredevil: Born Again season streams new episodes every Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on Disney+.

Chris Pratt Got Confirmation About a Long-Rumored Super Mario Glitch

Today, anyone having trouble with a video game can just log onto the internet and find countless walkthroughs, guides, and tutorials. But back when Super Mario Bros. first arrived on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, we mostly had to get advice from other kids at school. Unsurprisingly, the playground approach led to an endless mix of truth and legend, where the sequence of the Konami code blended with tall tales about uncles who worked at Nintendo.

But Chris Pratt, who voices Mario in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, assures Den of Geek that one of the most famous playground tales is true. “There was a glitch, and it was confirmed to me the other night as I sat across from Miyamoto-san at dinner,” Pratt reveals, recalling his conversation with game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. “That was a glitch that they did not pick up in level three, where you could jump on a turtle when you’re at the edge of a screen and get a million free lives.”

For the youngsters who don’t know what Pratt’s talking about: in World 3 Level 1 of Super Mario Bros. you can use Mario to kick a green Koopa shell against a staircase. If you time it right, you can make Mario jump on the shell as it ricochets back, which will send Mario back up into the air to land on the shell again and kick it back toward the staircase.

The act creates an infinite loop, with Mario landing on the shell to kick the shell to stop it and kick it back to the staircase. Each time Mario jumps on the shell, the player receives points. Eventually, those points turn into 1-Ups, allowing the player to accumulate infinite lives.

Apparently, Mario designer Miyamoto did not intend for that to happen, but liked to reward players who figured it out, says Pratt’s co-star Charlie Day, a.k.a. Luigi in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. “Miyamoto said that there’s some glitches that they would discover and decide to leave in the game as fun things for people to find,” Day explains. “There were one or two that got past them, and that was one.”

Nice as it is to have the rumor confirmed by the man who gave us Mario, Pratt has fond memories of forming friendships over the NES. “I first played Super Mario Bros. probably in ’89, when I got my first Nintendo. I had played the arcade version of Mario, but also my neighbor Ron Wurst had a Nintendo.

“I was like, ‘That’s the game from the laundromat!’ and we played it, and that was the first time that you controlled it with left and right and up and down buttons instead of a joystick. I was like, ‘Wow, this will never take off.’

“Cut to a maybe a year or so later, my mom somehow tracked down a Nintendo from a pawn shop, meaning we were playing on a stolen Nintendo,” Pratt continues. “It was unreal, because it was the nicest gift we’ve ever gotten.”

“I probably first played it when it came out in 1986,” recalls Day. “My sister and I got a Nintendo, a lot of kids in my neighborhood was getting it, everyone was getting it. Everyone was playing it.

“The thing really coming back to me is finding the hidden levels, knowing that you could get to the top [of underground stages] and run along the bricks at the top of the level. There was no internet, so it was all word-of-mouth. One of our friends had to discover that and tell everybody at school.”

As the people who bring Mario and Luigi to life on the big screen, Pratt and Day no longer have to rely on such primitive techniques. They can get the answers from Miyamoto himself. But there’s still something magical about those early, innocent days of a pre-Internet childhood, a feeling of magic that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie hopes to recreate for a new generation.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is in theaters now.

The Boys: Vought Rising Creator Promises to Take an L.A. Confidential Approach to WWII

Superheroes would not exist without World War II. Sure, Superman debuted three years before the bombing of Pearl Harbor prompted the U.S. to join the battle, and was influenced more by economic and immigration concerns than any desire for international combat. But superhero comics became a favorite of G.I.s, so much that the industry suffered a near-fatal collapse when soldiers returned home, and left Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman behind.

That fact alone is enough to justify the series Vought Rising, a prequel to The Boys that looks at the early adventures of Soldier Boy and other heroes from the era. However, The Boys creator Eric Kripke added an additional wrinkle in his conversation with EW when he compared the show to a beloved neo-noir. “I would define [Vought Rising] as L.A. Confidential with superheroes,” he said. “It’s a murder-mystery, and it’s got that noir-ish — not Black Noir, but actual noir — movin’ through the streets and femme fatales and detectives, but also heroin dens and gay bars and pill-popping and famous people.”

L. A. Confidential, of course, is the 1997 Best Picture nominee directed by Curtis Hanson, based on the novel by James Ellroy. Set in the early 1950s, L.A. Confidential follows a group of LAPD officers dealing with crimes related to Hollywood. Guy Pierce and Russell Crowe play Edmund Exley and Bud White, respectively, the former an upright son of a legendary detective and the latter a brute who fancies himself a protector of women. The two investigate crimes related to a business that surgically modifies sex workers to resemble Hollywood actresses (including one played by Kim Basinger, who won Best Supporting Actress for her part), which reveals corruption in the department. Some of that corruption involves Hollywood Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), a well-known detective who serves as consultant on the hit procedural Badge of Honor.

As the summary above suggests, L.A. Confidential addresses pop culture’s role in mythologizing police work, a phenomenon we today call “Copaganda.” Badge of Honor is a loose stand-in for Dragnet, the radio show turned hit television series that popularized the police procedural and changed the public’s perception of police as corrupt and fallible (see Keystone Cop comedies, Charlie Chaplin silent shorts, or characters such as Sergeant Heath from S. S. Van Dine’s Philo Vance series for a better reflection of the police’s reputation at the time).

Nowhere is that more clear than in the scene that opens the movie, in which a group of cops, drunk during their holiday party, realize that a group of Latino men are being held in lock-up. Angered by the fact that a Latino man injured a fellow officer, the cops make their way downstairs and bully their way past the objecting Exeter to brutalize the captives.

That scene directly adapts an instance from history, the 1951 Bloody Christmas affair that left seven people with severe injuries. Bloody Christmas happened under the watch of Chief of Police William H. Parker, who, like his predecessor August Vollmer, crusaded against those who would criticize police in the media. To improve the public’s opinion of law enforcement, Parker worked with radio producer and actor Jack Webb to create Dragnet, providing case files for Webb’s stories and, of course, “consulting” on the production.

The connection between Badge of Honor and Dragnet, and the seamy tale of corruption in both the police department and Hollywood allows L.A. Confidential to show how our heroes fall short of their squeaky-clean image. Which is exactly what makes it a good model for The Boys.

The Boys began life as a mean-spirited satire of superheroes by writer Garth Ennis and illustrator Darick Robertson. Kripke’s adaptation managed to find something humane and smart in the material, but that satirical edge remained. In fact, Kripke managed to make the take-down of superheroes into a jaundiced look at American politics, particularly the Right’s obsession with power in its most absurd and grotesque forms.

That obsession did not spring from nowhere. We can trace its roots all through American history, including the World War II era that saw the dawn of superheroes. While it is true that Superman started out a social crusader who took on exploitative landlords and saved people from death row, and it is true that Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston to advocate for men to lovingly submit to women’s rule, all superheroes remain power fantasies, and most stories from the era were about powerful people exerting their will against anyone who would disrupt the status quo.

In short, Kripke will find plenty to work with by looking back at the early days of Soldier Boy and Stormfront (played by a returning Jensen Ackles and Aya Cash). We already know that the series will follow a murder mystery structure and, as Kripke’s comments above reveal, it will play with the tropes of hard-boiled fiction and film noir.

In doing so, Vought Rising can do for Golden Age comics what L.A. Confidential did for early Copaganda, uncovering the unsavory assumptions that go into our moral mythologies, assumptions that continue to this day.

Vought Rising comes to Prime Video in 2027.