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The recent news that the upcoming installment of the Scream franchise will be titled simply Scream sparked yet another round of people on the Internet being confused by movie terminology. Most articles about this new Scream movie refer to it as a "relaunch" because if they call it a reboot, then certain people will get up in arms about how it's a sequel and therefore not a reboot due to the participation of Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courteney Cox. But, it's not incorrect to call it a reboot, even with those returning stars. 11 years will have passed in between entries by the time this one is released. It has new directors (RIP Wes Craven), new writers, many new characters, and a different studio is behind it. There are too many new elements for it to not be considered a reboot. But continuing the stories of Sidney, Dewey, and Gale means its also a sequel. The terms are not mutually exclusive. Confused? let's define some stuff. “ Reboot ” is an inclusiv...

The entertainment industry is at a moment of change. Resources that were once spent on TV networks and theatrical releases are being funneled into streaming services, as media conglomerates race to catch up with game-changing, industry-revolutionizing Netflix. The "streaming wars", the competition between the studios to sure up talent and content deals as they ask audiences to buy their monthly subscriptions, is in full swing.  One day, a book will be written about the streaming wars and it'll include a clear picture of which services crashed and burned and which ones emerged victorious. I look forward to reading that book and looking back on this moment in time with hindsight, but until that day, all I can do is offer my opinion on each service and say which ones I feel are worthy of your money and time. I'm only going to talk about the services that are directly vying to be the new Netflix, not niche ones like Shudder or the Criterion Channel. Also, a proper ranking...

When Hollywood stopped making big screen romantic comedies after the '00s, there was an entire group of actresses who were forced to pivot their careers to something else. Kate Hudson, Sandra Bullock, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Aniston, Reese, and Drew Barrymore were all members of this group. Today's news that Drew Barrymore's daytime talk show has been picked up and will premiere in fall 2020 has got me thinking about the career choices these actresses have made since the death of their genre. Reese moved into prestige vehicles on the big screen and mainly on the small screen these days. Sandra Bullock appears in far fewer movies than she did fifteen years ago, but when she does pop up it's mostly in prestige fare. Cameron Diaz retired from acting entirely. Kate Hudson, well I already wrote a thing about what Kate Hudson did. Nearly all of these women have started lifestyle brands or companies, following in the footsteps of the Empress of Celebrity Lifestyle Brands, Gw...

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR ALL OF SHARP OBJECTS TO FOLLOW  Sharp Objects , the HBO miniseries based on the Gillian Flynn novel, concluded its eight-episode on Sunday night with a killer installment that included one heck of a twist ending: Amma (Eliza Scanlen) is the person responsible for the killings that Camille (Amy Adams) was sent back to Wind Gap to report on. This series was a lot of things; a slow-burn mystery, an intense character study, and depiction of self-harm, a showcase for terrific actors, a perfect vehicle for Jean-Marc Vallée's trademark dynamic editing style. And there is a lot I could say about it, but for now, I want to focus on how Flynn, Vallée, and Marti Noxon subvert expectations about the characters we think we know, and how easy it is to do so because of societal assumptions about women. The set-up of Sharp Objects  is close to perfect. Camille Preaker is a deeply damaged woman with problems with alcohol and a p...

      Boomerang , the recently launched streaming service from Turner and Warner Bros, offers a host of classic cartoons from the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, and '00s that I loved as a kid. I have fond memories of watching Boomerang (the cable channel) as it always had old episodes of Scooby Doo and The Smurfs and without commercials to boot. It was the sister network of Cartoon Network, which had some cartoons I liked, but many that I didn't. But the cable channel known as Boomerang today carries primarily modern cartoons and is advertiser-supported, meaning the classics have been bumped to graveyard time slots or off the schedule completely. The first time I realized that the Boomerang channel of today does not resemble the Boomerang of my childhood is the first time I ever felt old . I mean, it's been less than a decade since I was obsessively collecting everything Scooby Doo I could find. But the past is past us now. I start college next week and no longe...

When I first heard that ABC had ordered a pilot of a live-action version of The Jetsons to be executed produced by Robert Zemeckis, my first thought was why ? Too many reboots! Come up with something original! But then I started thinking about the original series, which I have been rediscovering lately thanks to the  new Boomerang streaming service , and how good it still is 50 years later. Perhaps a new version that reintroduced the characters to a modern audience is not such a bad idea after all. The Jetsons revolves around George Jetson, his boy Elroy, daughter Judy, and Jane, his wife, a typical family living in the futuristic Orbit City (which I think is supposed to be in space?). It premiered on ABC, in primetime, in September 1962, the very first ABC program to be broadcast in color. It lasted one season of 24 episodes, before airing in Saturday morning reruns for the next several decades. The Jetsons, like The Flintstones before it, was an animated sitcom. It was ai...

Why has Kate Hudson been in so few good movies? 17 years later, the actress is still waiting to make good on the promise she showed in Almost Famous.  When Kate Hudson first appears about 20 minutes into Almost Famous , the tenor of the movie changes. She's like a lightning rod of energy that once Cameron Crowe's camera finds her, it has no choice but to tell her story. She radiates off the screen, demanding you pay attention to her performance. And what a performance it is. Intense vulnerability hidden behind a vivacious exterior of fur-lined coats and round sunglasses. It's such a great performance and a great movie that I was shocked to look at Kate Hudson's profile on Metacritic sometime in late 2015 (when I first saw Almost Famous ) and find merely one movie since Almost Famous   with a green Metascore. Could it be possible that an actress as talented as Kate Hudson has only been in two good movies in the past decade and a half? How had out of the 20-something...