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How 'The Dark Tower' Inspired 'Arrested Development,' And More From Rolling Stone's Piece On The Show's Creator Mitch Hurwitz

  • By Drew Taylor
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  • May 21, 2013 4:10 PM
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  • 0 Comments
Mitch Hurwitz, David Cross, Arrested Development
Features
If the hairs on the back of your neck are standing up it probably means you have Spidey-senses. It also means that the new season of "Arrested Development," available streaming instantly over Netflix, is about to drop on Sunday. We are so close to new episodes of the iconic cult series, about a family that falters during the financial crisis and must make do with each other, it's almost hard to fathom. But still – it's a reality. We've seen the bus stop posters. In preparation for the new season's launch, creator Mitch Hurwitz talked to Rolling Stone at length about the show, the potential movie, and what organizational chaos it was trying to make everything fit. Here are five things we learned from the interview.
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More: Arrested Development, Mitch Hurwitz, Features

Why 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Suggests J.J. Abrams Needs To Leave His Mystery Box Alone For A While

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • May 21, 2013 2:34 PM
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  • 5 Comments
Star Trek Into Darkness, JJ Abrams
Features
In 2007, J.J Abrams gave a TED talk about the mystery box; principally, a Tannen's Mystery Box he was bought by his grandfather from a magic store when he was a child. Abrams, in a typically articulate, engaging and funny address, talked about how the box had come to represent, for him, infinite possibility, and became a kind of manifesto for much of his work up to that point. And in the years since (quite deliberately, in a lot of way; it served as the front cover of an issue of Wired he edited, for one), it's become a recurring motif in his work, and often referred to in reviews or commentary of his work. And with "Star Trek Into Darkness," it's started to become a bit of an albatross.
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More: J. J. Abrams, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Wars: Episode 7

Ranking The 'Fast And Furious' Franchise Films From Best To Worst

  • By Drew Taylor
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  • May 21, 2013 12:59 PM
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  • 12 Comments
Fast & Furious 6
Features
This weekend sees the sixth (!) film in the "Fast and Furious" franchise, "Fast and Furious 6" (or, according to director Justin Lin, just "Furious Six") race into theaters. Once thought as a kind of also-ran franchise in the Universal canon, it has quickly become one of the studio's most important properties, with each subsequent film getting bigger and more bombastic (if not genuinely better). Sure, these movies might not be high art but they are consistently entertaining in a way that few Hollywood franchises are, full of muscle cars and beautiful women and tough guys who pummel each other just for the heck of it. In the spirit of "Fast and Furious," we thought we would run down every entry in the entire franchise, from best to worst. So put on your tiniest muscle shirt, grab that energy drink, and buckle up.
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More: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Eva Mendes, Michelle Rodriguez, John Singleton, Rob Cohen, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Features, Fast & Furious 6, Fast Five

The Best & Worst Of 'Star Trek Into Darkness'

  • By The Playlist Staff
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  • May 20, 2013 3:37 PM
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  • 43 Comments
Features
This past Friday saw the release of one of the more hotly-anticipated blockbusters of a packed summer; J.J Abrams' "Star Trek Into Darkness." The film was already on the radars of many, thanks to its well-liked 2009 predecessor, but sci-fi geeks everywhere became doubly keen to see when it was announced earlier in the year that Abrams would be helming "Star Wars Episode VII."
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More: Features, Star Trek Into Darkness, J. J. Abrams, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto

The Lost, Forgotten & Unmade Projects Of J.J. Abrams

  • By The Playlist Staff
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  • May 16, 2013 3:10 PM
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  • 5 Comments
Features
It's easy enough to think of J.J Abrams as some kind of overnight success. After all, it's only seven years since his first film as director, "Mission Impossible III," and "Star Trek Into Darkness," which opens on Friday, marks only his fourth film to date. And yet, even when he made that first film, he was already a brand name -- the man behind two bona-fide TV pop culture phenomena in "Alias" and "Lost," and that's only become more true since; his films have all taken at least $200 million worldwide, he's birthed several other successful TV shows, and he's taking over the Holy Grail of nerddom, "Star Wars," with 2015's "Episode VII."
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More: J. J. Abrams, Star Trek Into Darkness, Features

The 10 Most Promising Network Shows For Fall 2013

  • By Drew Taylor
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  • May 16, 2013 1:01 PM
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  • 8 Comments
Features
This week concluded the yearly "up-fronts," where advertisers and affiliates convene in New York City so that the various networks can trot out their exciting new fall products. It brings an end to "pilot season," in which initial episodes are furiously produced and then handily judged, and kicks off the excitement for the following fall. (Even though, as we're becoming increasingly aware, the traditional notions of when shows are supposed to air and how long they're supposed to be are blurring considerably.) Out of all of the new shows – dozens and dozens of hours of freshly scripted content – we have chosen the ten shows that we find the most promising; five hour-long dramas and five sitcoms. Don't change that dial.
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More: Television, J. J. Abrams, James Spader, Andy Samberg, Toni Collette, Anna Faris, Rebel Wilson

10 Movies Booed At Cannes

  • By Drew Taylor
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  • May 15, 2013 2:35 PM
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  • 34 Comments
Features
If the Cannes Film Festival is known for one thing, it's the festival's close proximity to topless beaches. But if it's known for two things, it's the emotional, emphatic responses that usually greet the films. These reactions come from audiences that are unafraid to tell the film (and the filmmakers, who are often sitting in the theater, squirming inside their rented tuxedoes and sequined ball gowns) how much they love or (just as often) hate, these movies. Not that these audiences are always right – far from it. Some of the movies that have been audibly shouted down are the ones (in the same festival) that take home the top prizes or garner widespread critical and commercial approval outside of Cannes. The Brooklyn Academy of Music is currently having a Booed at Cannes mini-festival, celebrating some of the best movies with the worst reputations. We wanted to also look at ten movies that got hissed at in Cannes and what happened afterwards.
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More: Cannes Film Festival, Features, Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Lars von Trier, Sofia Coppola, Ang Lee, Martin Scorsese

5 Things You Might Not Know About 'Star Trek Into Darkness'

  • By Drew Taylor
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  • May 14, 2013 12:57 PM
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  • 8 Comments
Star Trek Into Darkness, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto
Features
This week, one of the most hotly anticipated (and deliberately mysterious) movies of the summer movie season boldly goes into theaters nationwide. "Star Trek Into Darkness" is director J.J. Abrams' follow-up to the ridiculously entertaining 2009 "Star Trek" reboot, which introduced audiences to a younger, sexier Enterprise crew and turned the occasionally lifeless original series into a zippy space opera. The first film was the best kind of surprise – Abrams only had a single feature under his belt (the somewhat disappointing "Mission: Impossible III") and had yet to solidify his magic-loving geek-cred persona into an identifiable, Steven Spielberg-like brand. "Star Trek Into Darkness" is less of an unknown quantity in that respect, but Abrams and his confederates have tried, tirelessly, to keep the movie shrouded in mystery, offering all sorts of red herrings and deliberate attempts at obscuring plot details from being delivered prematurely. Still, there are some things we can tell you about this new 'Star Trek' experience. And so, without further ado, we will deliver five things you might not know about "Star Trek Into Darkness." Because in space, no one will hear you nerd out.
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More: Features, J. J. Abrams, Star Trek Into Darkness, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Jon Stewart, Benicio Del Toro

From Best To Worst: Elmore Leonard Movie Adaptations

  • By Oliver Lyttelton
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  • May 14, 2013 11:57 AM
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  • 17 Comments
Elmore Leonard feature
Features
Today sees the release of a sparkling new Criterion version of "3:10 To Yuma," the perpetually-underrated 1957 Western that's somewhat overshadowed by the more recent 2007 remake. Even those who have seen the earlier version may not be entirely aware that it's based on a short story by a man that we consider not just one of America's finest crime novelists, but one of our finest writers full stop: Elmore Leonard.
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More: Features, Elmore Leonard, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, The Essentials

John Boorman, Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight & Ned Beatty Talk 'Deliverance,' Casting, Marlon Brando & More

  • By Diana Drumm
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  • May 13, 2013 5:58 PM
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  • 1 Comment
Features
The 2013 TCM Classic Film Festival recently wrapped and we're still catching up on a number of great events that we got to sit in on. One of them was a screening of the '70s classic “Deliverance,” hosted by TCM host Ben Mankiewicz. Organizers managed to wrangle director John Boorman and three-quarters of the cast's leads – Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight and Ned Beatty (Ronny Cox was off somewhere playing folk music,) to introduce the film.
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More: TCM Classic Film Festival, Features, Ned Beatty, John Boorman

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