The State of Scary TV
‘The Returned’ and ‘Ash vs Evil Dead’ join ‘The Walking Dead’ in offering high-quality horror.
July 25, 2014
The Right Reasons Podcast: ‘Dating Naked,’ Previewing ‘Bachelor in Paradise,’ and Taste-Testing New Chips Ahoy! Cookies
Juliet Litman and David Jacoby talk about ‘Dating Naked,’ preview ‘Bachelor in Paradise,’ and taste-test weird Chips Ahoy! varieties.
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The True Best Romantic Comedy of the Last Decade? ‘Anchorman.’
The characters of ‘Anchorman’ are incredibly fleshed out, and even if they don’t exactly resemble humans in life, they ping deeply with how we actually feel inside. Who among us hasn’t been trapped in a glass case of emotion at one time or another?
Read moreThe Red-Band, Slightly NSFW ‘Hot Tub Time Machine 2’ Trailer Is Fantastic
‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ was funnier than it had any right to be. And yet: Do we need a second one? This trailer makes a strong case.
Read moreJuly 24, 2014
HBO’s Making an Epic Sports Mockumentary With Andy Samberg, Kit Harington, and So Many More Stars
Also in the Afternoon Links: Great posters from Comic-Con, a Marvel rumor for John Boyega, and a good look at the new Batman getup.
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The Preserve Girl: Decoding the Mystique of Blake Lively’s New Lifestyle Brand
This week, American actress and one-woman empire Blake Lively launched her long-awaited lifestyle website. But who is the Preserve Girl?
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Countdown 2 ‘Sharknado 2’: Your Six-Day Warning — Fact-Checking Tara Reid’s Belief in Real-Life Sharknadoes
“You know, it actually can happen. I mean, the chances of it happening are very rare, but it can happen actually.”
Read moreLightning Round: Insta-Reactions to the First ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Teaser Trailer
This morning, the first trailer dropped for Fifty Shades of Grey, the much-anticipated adaptation of E.L. James’s mega-bestselling smut epic. Some members of the Grantland staff have thoughts.
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What Is Romance? The Lessons of a Cultural Exploration
For 10 years there were films that, when seen in real time, affected my notions of romance. Films with scenes and characters that, for better but typically worse, forged my thought process of what I should do once put in a romantic situation. Good things. Terrible things. Things that would later turn into successes. Things that would later backfire magnificently.
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Girls in Hoodies Podcast: ‘The Hotwives of Orlando,’ ‘The Purge: Anarchy,’ and Answering Mailbag Questions
Molly and Emily talk about ‘The Hotwives of Orlando’ and ‘The Purge: Anarchy,’ and take reader questions about Blake Lively’s new lifestyle brand, Preserve, and Lana Del Rey.
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Greatness in the Uncommon: Sports, Narrative Fiction, and Netflix’s ‘The Battered Bastards of Baseball’
‘The Battered Bastards of Baseball’ is part ‘Moneyball,’ part ‘Major League,’ part ‘Bull Durham,’ and part The Great American Novel, except it actually happened. It’s also part of a movement in sports filmmaking to find new stories to tell, particularly if those stories come from unfamiliar places or from times we’ve forgotten. And it’s worth your time.
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Being Robin Wright: ‘The Congress’ Scans an Actress Into the Hollywood Matrix
The Congress has enough on its mind that you can almost forgive it for being a little scattered. Even in its clumsiest moments, you can feel director Ari Folman (‘Waltz With Bashir’) trying to invent a vocabulary — visual, moral, metaphorical — to discuss things we’re not quite sure how to worry about yet.
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The Week in Gossip: Is Love Dead? Getting to the Bottom of the Carter-Knowles Divorce Rumors
With so much artifice, it’s hard to tell whether America’s sweethearts are really through or not. Let’s look at the evidence.
Read more‘Nightcrawler’ Trailer: Jake Gyllenhaal Is a Demented Go-Getter
In the directorial debut from Dan Gilroy — a longtime screenwriter whose credits include ‘The Bourne Legacy’ and ‘Two for the Money’ — Gyllenhaal plays the gaunt, intense Lou Bloom, a freelance crime journalist looking to make a name for himself on the eleven o’clock news.
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