King Casiodorus made an agreement with the dragon Vermithrax to offer her two young women each year as a sacrifice. However, others, like Valerian, wanted to kill the dragon and save these women. Dragonslayer is a quintessential fantasy story, and even after nearly 50 years, it’s still considered a standout example of dark fantasy for many viewers.
I was pleasantly surprised by how Avatar: Fire & Ash changed my opinion of Neytiri. After The Way of Water (2023) left her in a difficult situation, I developed a theory about her. But a surprising plot point in Fire & Ash completely proved me wrong about the matriarch of the Sully family, as portrayed by Zoe Saldaña.
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is truly amazing. Consider the movie Avatar: Fire and Ash – James Cameron used CGI to make Sigourney Weaver, who voiced a character, appear as a teenage Na’vi. It’s incredible what he can achieve! For the third Avatar film, Cameron digitally transformed the 72-year-old actress into Kiri, a blue alien. However, in their pursuit of a grand cinematic experience, they overlooked a key aspect of teenage life: romance. Kiri develops a romantic connection with Spider, played by Jack Champion, a human teenager living on Pandora, and they share a kiss. Importantly, Champion was actually a teenager himself – between 14 and 16 years old during filming – so Cameron and Weaver thoughtfully considered this detail.
Nielsen reports that the premiere week of Stranger Things (November 24-30) drew a massive 8.46 billion minutes of viewing time. This is a new record for any streaming show, exceeding the previous record by over a billion minutes. Stranger Things previously held the record with 7.2 billion minutes watched after the season 4 premiere in 2022.
Lauren Morais has joined the cast of the upcoming Marvel series, VisionQuest. She will play Lisa Molinari, a character connected to Thomas Shepherd, also known as Tommy Maximoff, who is played by Ruaridh Mollica, according to Variety.
Despite the violence, sexuality, and political schemes in Spartacus: House of Ashur, a touching romance develops between Korris and Opiter. Played by Graham McTavish and Arlo Gibson, this is the first time McTavish has played a romantic lead, and he welcomed the opportunity to explore a new kind of role.
What struck me most about The Martian was its commitment to actual science – that’s what made the original book so captivating, and thankfully, it totally worked on screen. Matt Damon delivers a fantastic performance as Mark Watney, one of a team of astronauts on a Mars mission, who gets accidentally left behind. It’s not a story about little green men or warp speed; it’s a gripping tale of human resilience and ingenuity, just happening to be set on another planet. Honestly, in the last ten years, I haven’t seen any other movie portray space travel with such believable realism – it felt less like science fiction and more like a plausible scenario that could actually unfold.
The movie Greyhound is doing well globally on Apple TV, according to FlixPatrol. It’s currently the ninth most-watched film on the platform worldwide, beating out Ghosted, the action comedy starring Chris Evans.
According to The New York Post, Chad Johnson, a former NFL player, discussed the recent controversy on his podcast, Nightcap. He shared that sources told him DK Metcalf was verbally provoked with insults and racial slurs before the incident. While Johnson didn’t excuse Metcalf’s actions, he explained the context he’d heard regarding what led to the altercation. He didn’t specify whether Metcalf directly told him this information, but shared what he’d been told with his co-host, Shanon Sharpe, and listeners.
The show’s fifth and final season is being released in three parts. The first four episodes are currently available on Netflix. Volume 2, with three more episodes, will be released on Christmas Day. The series will conclude with a finale on New Year’s Eve – almost ten years after the show first premiered.