Brendan Fraser gets candid about feeling uncomfortable with the praise being lavished on him after his performance in The Whale.

Notable authors like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman shared their funny stories of failed promo appearances to comfort an up-and-coming author after two people came to her signing.

Gwyneth Paltrow bore it all and had half her body painted gold.

Until Disney acquired Lucasfilm, every Star Wars movie was an event. Even after Disney resolved to crank out at least one new Star Wars movie per year from 2015 – 2019, those movies still felt like events; major cogs in a machine that if you wanted to know how it worked, you needed to show up on opening weekend to be part of the cultural zeitgeist. Whether you loved or hated The Last Jedi or The Rise of Skywalker, you still needed to see them because Star Wars movies were still relatively rare, and this was the big saga, the monomyth …

As we come to Christopher Nolan’s 2017 war film Dunkirk, it’s fascinating to see how his relationship with time has changed over the course of his filmography. In the beginning, it was something to be manipulated to better illuminate identity and truth. But by the time you reach Interstellar and Dunkirk, time is the enemy. It can still be construed and dilated, but it also relentless and unforgiving. Dunkirk spans three timelines, but they all head to a singular point where triumph is not domination or beating back the enemy, but merely survival. Leaving behind the intersection of …

Spoilers ahead for The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight, and the bulk of Christopher Nolan’s filmography, is about lies. It’s about the lies we tell ourselves in order to live and to interact with other people. For Nolan, he sees deception not as an inherently malevolent destructive force, but as a tool. After all, Nolan’s profession as a storyteller could be uncharitably framed as “professional liar.” He tells you things that haven’t happened in order to illuminate a larger truth, and Nolan’s films happen to be concerned with the nature of truth. Nowhere is that …

From our interview with the An American Pickle star.

My therapist often reminds me of the idea that 1% is better than 0%. I tend to view goals of growth, of positive change, either personal or societal, in a limited, binary lens. I've either succeeded or haven't. I'm either winning the battle against depression or not, helping make the world a better place or not. 100% is the only success; anything less is a failure by default. It's unfair to me, to all of us to view ourselves with such stringent judgment. Being a kind, constructive person (especially to yourself) is a sliding scale. Working …

Apollo 13 turned 25 this week, and it remains a movie I can watch anytime. It’s not because I’m incredibly into space mission stuff (it’s all well and good, but it’s not like I’ve ever watched For All Mankind or From the Earth to the Moon), but because it’s a movie that’s all about solving problems, which is unusual for most narratives. Traditional narratives thrive on conflict, especially interpersonal conflict. Apollo 13 has one big problem—how to get astronauts Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), and Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) …

I can’t stop watching Harry Potter. This isn’t a new phenomenon. Ever since I caught up to J.K. Rowling’s brilliant book series (far too late, I might add), immersing myself into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter courtesy of the eight-film franchise has been a frequent staple of my viewing habits. But recently, throwing on Harry Potter has become something of a self-care act, and it’s only as I’ve gotten older that I’ve realized why it resonates so deeply. On the surface, the Harry Potter films are just incredibly well-made. …

I can't quite remember the first time I saw Jumanji, but I knew I was going to love it forever after I saw it on VHS a year or two after its December 1995 release. For me, Jumanji is the ultimate comfort movie. It's a movie which never fails to thrill, no matter how outdated the special effects or pop culture references get. Jumanji has impacted my understanding of movies in the broader sense, helping me to understand that they can be escapist, pleasurable, meaningful, and if you're lucky, all three at once. Even though time has …

Usually, writing about why The Princess Bride is a comfort movie is like writing about why a tree produces oxygen. It just does. It's science. Thousands of microscopic events and millennia of basic evolution collided to create an objective truth, and to question "why?" would be like staring straight into the sun instead of just basking in its rays. However, we are living in trying times—unless you're a wasteland marauder discovering this piece in the future as an artifact, I don't think I need to re-hash why—and it can be worthwhile to explore just …

Hot Rod exploded into movie theaters in the summer of 2007, a halcyon year in which Spider-Man killed Topher Grace with loud noises and Transformers appeared to ruin movies forever. I only knew Andy Samberg from the Dick in a Box sketch that went viral the year before, and I didn’t know anything about his work with The Lonely Island. (Incidentally, Dick in a Box won an Emmy that year, which is absolutely wild to think about.) To be honest, when I went to see Hot Rod I was more excited to see Bill Hader in a movie; …

Sounds like the Creed movies needed some tweaking.

Feeling moody, out-of-sorts, anxious, or zapped of energy in these uncertain times? Do you need to settle in with something pleasant which doesn't remind you of, well, everything that's happening just outside your front door? Then you might want to consult this list of selected movies you can stream right now if you're searching for something comforting to help with your much-needed mental health break. It seems streaming services of all sorts are a major saving grace right now. With many of us choosing to stay home so we can ensure our own health …

Ah, the comforts of set life.

Exactly 10 years ago, duly-appointed U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels was in search of a woman. Teddy, a man wearing the burdens of his past in his furrowed brow and hunched shoulders, needed to locate an escape patient named Rachel Solando like his life depended on it. And, to a certain degree, his life was depending on something — but it wasn't finding Rachel. Over the course of all 138 minutes of Shutter Island, we saw just how tenuous the narratives Teddy had constructed to maintain control over his version of reality were. [caption id="attachment_871429" align="alignright" width="…

Nothing instills confidence like a $700 million box office!