Matt Singer is the editor and critic of the website ScreenCrush.com. For five years, he was the on-air host of IFC News on the Independent Film Channel, hosting coverage of film festivals and red carpets around the world. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, he’s been a frequent contributor to the television shows CBS This Morning Saturday and Ebert Presents At the Movies, and his writing has also appeared in print and online at The Village Voice, The Dissolve, and Indiewire. His first book, Marvel’s Spider-Man: From Amazing to Spectacular, is on sale now.
Matt Singer
‘Popstar’ Trailer: This Movie Is a Far More Important Piece of Art Than the Mona Lisa
The new Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping trailer made me laugh out loud four times. If we assume the movie is 90 minutes long, and that runtime-to-laugh ratio holds, then this should be the funniest movie ever made.
20 More Recent Trailers With Sad Cover Versions of Popular Songs
When we talk about a “trend” in Hollywood, what we’re really talking about is someone having a good idea and then a lot of people copying it. When the trailer for The Social Network arrived with a haunting choral version of Radiohead’s “Creep,” it felt special, and it made the movie feel special too...
‘The Woods’ Trailer: Something Evil From the Creators of ‘The Guest’
The official synopsis for The Woods on YouTube says simply that it is “one of the scariest movies in decades. The Woods reinvents horror with a completely fresh and terrifying take on the genre.” Well, jeez. No pressure or nothing. Just be the scariest thing anyone has seen in years and completely reinvent one of the most formulaic genres in movies. Piece of cake!
‘Swiss Army Man’ Red-Band Trailer: Harry Potter’s Wand Really Is Magic
There is a quote from ScreenCrush in this Swiss Army Man, calling it “A fart-fueled adventure.” Technically, Erin Whitney called it “a bizarre fart-fueled adventure.” And the trailer does look pretty bizarre, what with Daniel Radcliffe’s rotting corpse farting and being used as a jet ski and, his erection being used by Paul Dano as a crude compass of some kind. Who says cinema is dead? As long as their is life in Daniel Radcliffe’s rotting corpse’s erection, the moves can never die.
‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2’ Trailer: Out of the Shadows, Into the Shadows of a Movie Theater
I like that this video explains who the Ninja Turtles are, for the benefit of those people who have been living in a cave (or maybe a sewer) since the late 1980s and have somehow avoided one of the six previous movies, five television shows, hundreds of toys, comics, and video games about these characters. “Oh Donatello is the purple one, ohhhhhh. For the last 30 years, I thought that was Raphael! My bad.”
‘Café Society’ Trailer: Woody Goes to Hollywood
See enough Woody Allen movies and you realize he only has like eight different stories and themes and he just mixes and matches them. Based on the trailer for his latest movie, Café Society, it appears that his latest effort (his tenth movie in the last ten years and 20th movie in 20 years) combines the standard issue Allen-esque nebbish (played this time by Jesse Eisenberg) who falls for a woman way out of his league (Kristen Stewart) with his deep nostalgia for the past (in this case Hollywood of the 1930s) in a story that takes a comic look at the futility of life. It ain’t the most original premise for Woody, but when make 20 movies in 20 years, how many original premises can there be?
Robert Downey Jr. Will Appear in ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’
He’d already majorly hinted that it would happen on Jimmy Kimmel Live, but now Sony’s official Twitter account says it’s confirmed: Robert Downey Jr. will appear in the upcoming Spider-Man reboot from Sony, Spider-Man: Homecoming.
‘The Founder’ Trailer: Do You Want Fries With That McDonald’s Biopic?
McDonald’s has been an American institution for so long that people just taken for granted. It is a part of the fabric of this country, like baseball, apple pie, and sitcoms with laugh tracks. But McDonald’s wasn’t always this ubiquitous. Someone had to make a massive success. And that man was Ray Kroc.
‘The Do-Over’ Red-Band Trailer: Adam Sandler Wants to Start Over. (We Can’t Imagine Why.)
You’ve got to figure the notion of a “do-over” has got to be kind of intoxicating to Adam Sandler.
New HBO NOW Releases: May 2016
Most subscribers will still be focused on Game of Thrones, but for those who don’t spend every waking second thinking about Westeros, May’s offerings on HBO NOW include some high quality moviefilms. Noah Baumbach fans should make sure they catch Mistress America starring Greta Gerwig, and Wachowskis partisans can watch their bonkers sci-fi movie Jupiter Ascending. Plus, masochists of all shapes and sizes can watch the disastrous Fantastic Four reboot. There’s literally something for everyone!
AMC Now Says It Won’t Allow Texting in Its Theaters
Just days after confessing, in an interview with Variety, that he was open to the idea of allowing texting in some of his movie theaters, AMC CEO Adam Aron has reversed course. Non-texters, you can continue to patronize AMC; in a statement, Aron announced that “there will be NO TEXTING ALLOWED in any of the auditoriums at AMC Theatres. Not today, not tomorrow and not in the forseeable future.” And he was the one that put “NO TEXTING ALLOWED” in all caps so you know he means business.
Now James Cameron’s Making FOUR ‘Avatar’ Sequels
James Cameron hasn’t made any Avatar sequels yet, but he keeps adding more.