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TV never left “The Twilight Zone”

“Serling” author Alan Sepinwall didn’t know it, but he was about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind and, in his telling, unexpected connections. The scene was Los Angeles, where the veteran…

October 10, 2026 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

Josh Hartnett turned heartthrob fame into a career of risks

Of all the tawdry delights in “Verity” — Michael Showalter’s adaptation of bestselling author Colleen Hoover’s massively popular psychological thriller — the best and most unexpected is how well the film hides its secrets. Now, don’t get me wrong: The…

October 9, 2026 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

The rock critic who inspired “Saturday Night Fever” always preferred pop

Nik Cohn’s “Corner Boy: Loiterings New and Old” is alive with mystery, intrigue and revelation. An exquisite anthology of Cohn’s writing from his early days through the present, “Corner Boy” bristles with the electric, contrarian voice of a working cultural…

October 8, 2026 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

Michael Shannon’s R.E.M. tribute reminded me why I love the band

If you stayed up late on Sunday nights to watch MTV’s “120 Minutes,” if you made sure your VCR was correctly set up to record IRS Records’ magazine show “The Cutting Edge,” if your record collection is mostly vinyl because…

October 7, 2026 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

The Daily Wire is too mad to make a movie

Do me a favor: Picture Charles Bronson. Black moptop over a face lined like a well-traveled map, and a jacket with the collar turned up against the perennial winter of cinematic 1970s New York City. His hand’s in the coat…

October 7, 2026 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

Lizzie Borden was no suffragist, no matter what Ryan Murphy says

“Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story” takes a lot of liberties with the truth. But the most egregious one comes in the last fifteen minutes of the eighth and final episode of this portrait of an axe murderer. At this point…

October 6, 2026 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

HBO’s “Lanterns” was always about its heroes’ fears, and our own

John Stewart was always going to claim his ring. That much was a given on “Lanterns” from the moment HBO debuted the first images of Aaron Pierre’s John and Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan – there’s that, and DC Comics’ established…

October 5, 2026 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

There’s no solving a problem like Tom Cruise’s “Digger”

To film Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s new movie “Digger,” a satirical black comedy about an aging oil tycoon facing a potentially apocalyptic crisis he fathered, Tom Cruise needed extensive prosthetics — six hours of prosthetics, to be exact. Upholding his reputation…

October 5, 2026 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

“Oh my God! He tricked us!”: SNL’s Rubio and others panic over midterms

“Saturday Night Live” imagined a Republican Party scrambling for a winning message ahead of the midterm elections and finding little help from some of its biggest names. The show’s cold open featured Republican strategists trying to record campaign ads as…

October 4, 2026 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0

At 30, “That Thing You Do!” is the perfect fake one-hit wonder

With all apologies to David Lynch, in “That Thing You Do!” the film isn’t the thing. Tom Hanks’ directorial debut, which was released to critical praise but was a box office disappointment, doesn’t hinge on the charming, passable performances of…

October 4, 2026 · by Friedrich Arndt · 0