What the Creator of ‘Watchmen’ Gets Right About Superhero Fans
The tragedy of Alan Moore, if there is one, is that his 1980s comics work—Watchmen, V for Vendetta—has been perpetually misunderstood by an audience too eager to learn the wrong…
John Carpenter Is Finally Happy—and Making Music
When he was 8 years old, John Carpenter picked up the violin. His father, a violinist himself and a music teacher, was his tutor. “The only problem,” Carpenter cackles on…
“The Little Mermaid,” and 14 Other Movies That Changed Their Source Material
Screenshot: The Little Mermaid/Disney+ The usual suspects have been deeply traumatized by the latest trailer for a Disney movie (as though we have nothing better to worry about). In the…
MoviePass Has Stumbled Repeatedly. Why Does It Still Have Fans?
Recently, I got an email from MoviePass, the movie ticket subscription service that infamously went bust. It was a promo message announcing MoviePass’ return. It was signed by the company’s…
Put ‘Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ in Theaters, Dammit
The Monitor is a weekly column devoted to everything happening in the WIRED world of culture, from movies to memes, TV to Twitter. Earlier this week, cinephiles got a treat:…
Director Owen Kline Calls ‘Funny Pages’ His ‘Self-Critical’ Debut
On a recent weekday afternoon in Manhattan, the director Owen Kline, 30, sat on a glass-doored conference-room couch. He wore a blue velour fleece adorned with a shiny brooch of…
Humanity’s Biggest Problems Require a Whole New Media Mode
Our media systems are at their limits. From climate change to Covid, the most pressing phenomena of our times cannot be captured by the flat media paradigm we’ve built up.…
‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ Is a Slasher Movie for the Extremely Online
When we cast the actors, we really worked with them, asking them every question, taking notes when they were privately speaking, asking them when we could use things they were…
25 Fake Fan-Made Trailers Better Than Real Movies
When it comes to marketing, the multi-bajillion dollar budgets of nearly every tentpole theatrical release of the past decade or so have left little room for experimentation, or often any…
‘Sneakerella’ Proves Disney Needs to Try Harder
From the first frame, Disney’s new musical Sneakerella offers a lackluster attempt at diversity: It simply takes one of the world’s oldest tales and adds Black characters and Black culture.…