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CinemaBlend •

The Oscars have disinvited Anatomy of a Fall's canine star Messi, and movie fans are hilariously livid

Awards season campaigning is a notoriously competitive and fickle thing, a calculated mix of schmoozing at industry parties, charming audiences at late-night talk shows and being not too publicly thirsty to take home the gold (sorry, Bradley Cooper). And apparently one Icarian hero flew too close to the sun this year: Messi, the Border Collie breakout of France's exquisite courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall, who will reportedly not be attending this year's Oscars after movie studio reps allegedly
The A.V. Club •

Saturday Night Live recap: Sydney Sweeney's debut has boob bits galore

The question wasn’t, “Is Sydney Sweeney funny?” Anyone who’s watched the actress’s barbed takes on Gen Z teendom as The White Lotus’ Olivia Mossbacher and Euphoria’s Cassie “I have never, EVER been happier” Howard knows that Sweeney can very much do funny. (She deservedly earned Emmy nominations for both roles.) The question, rather, was, “Is Saturday Night Live going to let Sydney Sweeney be funny?”
The A.V. Club •

Saturday Night Live recap: Shane Gillis stumbles back into Studio 8H

Saturday Night Live has never been above a ratings ploy—the powers that be (ahem, Lorne Michaels) have routinely tapped controversial figures to host the sketch-comedy show over the years, from polarizing POTUS Donald Trump to tech douche Elon Musk. (And sometimes it likes to sprinkle in a nonsensical Dave Chapelle cameo for literally no reason.)

So it wasn’t all that surprising that Studio 8H would welcome back Shane Gillis (with musical guest 21 Savage), the former SNL cast member who, a mere four days into his show tenure, was fired back in 2019 after instances of him using anti-Asian and homophobic language were resurfaced online.
CinemaBlend •

'I'm so sick of being so well-behaved': Mark Ruffalo explains why he wants to go full-villain after his caddish Poor Things role, and I need this to happen

The closest we've gotten to seeing Mark Ruffalo go off the handle onscreen is while playing that not-so-jolly green giant, The Hulk. (And, yes, the actor is down for a standalone Hulk movie, FYI.) However, whether he's starring as "rom-com Ruffalo" in sweet films like 13 Going On 30, or as a good guy taking down sinister business in dramas like Spotlight and Zodiac, the Oscar nominee rarely goes fully bad in his films—until now, that is.

In his Academy Award-nominated supporting role in Yorgos
The A.V. Club •

True Detective: Night Country finale recap

We’ve had a breakthrough—literally. The season finale of True Detective: Night Country opens with Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) cracking through the ice and descending into the caves that will finally reveal what happened to those Tsalal Arctic Research Station scientists, to Annie K (Nivi Pedersen), and to all of the Ennis residents who’ve been haunted by mine controversies or mass psychosis or whatever else has been making things go bump in the polar night.
The A.V. Club •

True Detective: Night Country recap: Ask the right questions

We’re almost out of the darkness, folks. There’s only one more episode of True Detective: Night Country remaining and while I’ve been very cool with the arctic chill and existential dread that this season has offered up so far—the ice edge between the dead and the living, the gloom and the light, the mundane and the metaphysical—the amount of frosty ground left to cover has me very worried. I’ve give
The A.V. Club •

True Detective: Night Country recap: “You’re not terrible”

Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) can’t sleep. It’s December 24, the seventh day of night, and the Chief is kicking off Christmas Eve by doom-watching that haunting ice-cave video of Annie Kowtok being killed. Adding to that holiday cheer is the unwelcome news that Captain Connolly (Christopher Eccleston) is early packing up the Corpsicle bodies for Anchorage—and is sticking around Ennis to mitigate the messy mine conflict—and the fact that Danvers discovers Navarro’s younger sister having a shirtless
The A.V. Club •

Saturday Night Live recap: Bottoms star Ayo Edebiri comes out on top

Has anyone been more booked and busy in recent memory than Ayo Edebiri? Everyone’s favorite Irish celebrity scooped up TV awards galore this year for her role as sous chef Sydney in The Bear, starred in two of 2023's funniest comedies (Bottoms and Theater Camp), leant her voice to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, and still managed to find time to pop up in episodes of Abbott Elementary, Black Mirror and Clone High (as Harriet Tubman, natch).
The A.V. Club •

Let rom-com leading men be attainably hot again

A mere 15 seconds into the first, very confusing teaser trailer for Anyone But You—the fizzy romantic comedy starring Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney as frenemies-turned-fake-lovers—it was clear that Powell’s Ben would be a specific kind of rom-com leading man: the ridiculously, life-ruining-ly hot kind. Flexing off the side of a sailboat wearing nothing but swim trunks with a Paul Mescal-approved inseam and an ungodly amount of abs, Powell’s blatant Men’s Health-cover hotness wasn’t just perfect
The A.V. Club •

True Detective: Night Country recap: It’s hunting season

Is Raymond Clark—that spiral-tattooed scientist who somehow wrenched himself free from the Corpsicle last week—the man responsible for those Tsalal deaths? Eh, likely not, given how early in the season it is for True Detective: Night Country. But Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) still need to track the dude down to get answers not only about what happened to those freeze-dried researchers out on the ice that night, but also Annie Masu Kowtok’s still-unsolved murder c
The A.V. Club •

Saturday Night Live recap: Dakota Johnson weaves a tangled web

One word: Oof. Fumbles were frequent during this week’s Saturday Night Live, starting with a football-themed cold open overrun with missed cues, a mediocre musical parody (of Charlie Puth’s “See You Again”) and meandering writing—along with lamenting the end of the NFL season, the clip saw sportscasters like Nate Burleson (Devon Walker), James Brown (Kenan Thompson) and Bill Cowher (Mikey Day) bemoan those Barbie Oscar snubs, Boeing 737s and Blue Bloods’ final season.
The A.V. Club •

Good Trouble's final run marks the end of an era for coming-of-age TV

To misquote Paula Cole: “Where have all the coming-of-age shows gone?” Well, to streaming, of course. Over the last few years, Netflix & Co. have become the de rigueur destinations if you’re looking for young-adult TV titles that are both spirited and substantial, that don’t render the plights of its bright-eyed subjects as overly sensational or silly. (See Heartstopper, Never Have I Ever, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Sex Education, and Ginny & Georgia for proof.) But back in the day, that safe z
The A.V. Club •

True Detective: Night Country premiere: Chillingly good TV

It’s been a long time since True Detective was on TV—and even longer since it was Much-Watch TV. A whole five years after the third edition of the HBO crime anthology, we’ve got a fresh new chapter of True Detective tales, with the first episode of Night Country bringing with it many of the elements that made the McConaughey-Harrelson original so addictive. There’s a starry detective duo with fraught pasts, both separate and mutual; a “dead” investigation mysteriously given new life; a setting s
What to Watch •

The most shocking movie moments of 2023

The most shocking movie moments of 2023 really ran the gamut in terms of genre, from terrifying horror movies to uproarious comedies to chilling psychological dramas.

Intimate awards contenders like All of Us Strangers, big-budget rom-coms like No Hard Feelings and scary robot flicks like M3GAN all offered up seriously shocking scenes that left us stunned well after the credits stopped rolling.

From disturbing demonic possessions to unexpected dance scenes, here are the most shocking movie mom
What to Watch •

The most shocking TV moments of 2023

A lot happened this year in entertainment, from writers' strikes to blockbuster concert tours (hi Bey and Tay!) to Barbenheimer and AI in the creative space. That's not even taking into account everything that happened on television this year — some of the best reality shows and our favorite scripted dramas offered up seriously shocking scenes this year that left us gob-smacked long after their seasons' ended.

Why did Succession diehards dub one Succession season 4 episode the "greatest episode
The A.V. Club •

Saturday Night Live's 10 best holiday sketches of all time, ranked

’Twas the night before Sunday and all through the house—the “house” being Studio 8H, of course—all of the creatures were stirring … with jolly-good ideas for a yuletide sketch. Yes, we’re talking about Saturday Night Live’s time-honored tradition of capping off the year with holiday-themed skits and bits, from the sweet (think Vanessa Bayer’s Jacob the Bar Mitzvah Boy adorably relaying the story of Hanukkah) to the silly (the seasonal “savior” that is a dusty, peach-scented Christmas Candle) to
The A.V. Club •

What’s your favorite Christmas TV episode?

“The Best Chrismukkah Ever” is a perfect snowglobe of an O.C. episode: pristine from the outside, with its palm trees, party dresses, and pretty cheekbones, but always with the threat that one jolly shake-up will disrupt the winter wonderland within. Fittingly titled, our introduction to Chrismukkah—a bi-religious tradition created by Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) to honor his “Waspy McWasp’’ mom (Kelly Rowan) and his Jewish dad (the forever well-browed Peter Gallagher), consisting of “eight days of p
The A.V. Club •

The Gilded Age season 2 finale: Breakups, shakeups, and make-ups

“Our day of reckoning is finally here!” We’ve made it, Big Hat Hive: the finale of The Gilded Age round two and, at long last, the epic final battle of our season-spanning war between the Academy of Music and the Metropolitan Opera. And the ep kicks off immediately with a battle cry: “She’s a thief! Mrs. Astor has taken my Duke of Buckingham!” Bertha (Carrie Coon) roars upon receiving word that her token royal has decided to side with the enemy and will be attending the Academy’s opening night i
The A.V. Club •

Saturday Night Live recap: Kate McKinnon brings the holiday cheer

Saturday Night Live’s Christmas episodes aren’t looking for cutting-edge or avant-garde comedy. They’re sketch-comedy at their most comforting, more wistful than weird, so it’s no surprise that the show would bring back one of its most beloved and reliably funny figures, Kate McKinnon, for this year’s holiday edition.


The SNL alum only left the show last year after season 47, though in post-COVID time, that’s about a decade, so it already feels like high time she should make her grand return
The A.V. Club •

The Gilded Age recap: Dreams and fireworks burst

Big Hat Hive! Our days of excessive headwear, extravagant parties, and extreme frivolousness are numbered, as we’re already on the penultimate episode of The Gilded Age season two. And the TV gods have dished up a doozy this week, one seasoned with deception, destitution, and—eek!—even death.


But let’s get to the celebratory stuff first: the President—Chester A. Arthur, that is—is coming to Manhattan for the unveiling of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the whole town is abuzz in patriotic preparatio
The A.V. Club •

Saturday Night Live recap: Adam Driver is a deranged delight

We’re two for two, folks: coming off of a solid episode last week, hosted by newly minted Five Timers Club member Emma Stone, Adam Driver pulled into Saturday Night Live last night for his fourth time as host, in promotion for his upcoming role as ex-racer turned auto emperor Enzo Ferrari in Michael Mann’s Ferrari.

With Gen Z pop icon Olivia Rodrigo as musical guest, the unlikely pairing already had TikTok-breaking potential, but the episode also solidified Driver as a VIP SNL host, a gifted dr
The A.V. Club •

The 30 best TV shows of 2023

Bravo’s sprawling cooking franchise hit the big 2-0 this season and it cranked up every burner in celebration. Not only was Top Chef: World All Stars its first season entirely filmed abroad—Padma, Tom, Gail and the cheftestants were based out of jolly old London for 12 episodes, with the two-part finale taking place in Paris—but it was also the first pulling cooks from its wide foreign archives. The cast was a best-of-the-best blend of previous contestants—including several champions—from both the show’s OG and international editions, from crowd favorites like Kentucky’s Sara Bradley and Mexico’s Gabriel Rodriguez to eventual victor Buddha Lo.
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Time Out New York •

Best vintage stores in NYC for retro shoppers

No shop in New York understands the need to express yourself through a cold-weather protector than one of Manhattan's most vibrant vintage shops, Spark Pretty. After the success of the store's '90's Forever pop-up, owners Amanda Dolan and Meagan Colby put down permanent roots in the East Village in 2018. The aesthetic is a combination of “I Want My MTV” meets '80’s hair bands, crossed with the flash of '70’s glam-rock. We dig it. We're particularly loving the early-90s Barbie tees, the rainbow-b
Time Out New York •

Top consignment shops NYC has to offer for designer clothes

With 24 stores in 11 states from Maine to Illinois, Second Time Around is a power player in the consignment business. Fitting with its Upper East Side location, the selection skews toward either preppy or timeless pieces, from high-end suits to designer handbags from polished fashion houses like Chanel, Prada and Hermes. Book an appointment to sell your in-season designer wares and receive 40 percent of the final selling price. The longer an item goes unsold during the 90-day consignment time fr
Time Out New York •

The quirkiest stores in NYC

Do you have a bookshelf practically heaving with romance novels? Add to your saucy collection at this indie Park Slope bookstore lovingly dedicated to the genre. Owned by sisters Leah Koch and Bea Hodges-Koch, the Brooklyn brick-and-mortar is the city of the Los Angeles original and it’s similarly stacked with sultry titles across a wide array of subjects, from erotica to paranormal to LGBTQ. (Recent bestsellers include Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses series and Elissa Sussman’s Funny
Time Out New York •

Best cheap haircuts at quality hair salons in NYC

From the unassuming storefront to the Saved by the Bell–style paint job inside, it would be easy to overlook Maria Papadelis’s pared-down Greenpoint salon after a cursory glance. But you’d be remiss to disregard it, since you can snag a high-grade haircut for as little as $20 (with wash $25, with blow-dry $33, long hair with blow-dry $40). The environment may be modest, but rest assured you’re in good hands: Papadelis studied hairdressing for three years in her native Poland, and has been mannin
Time Out New York •

The 22 best tacos in NYC

Tacos have it all: Portability, versatility and the ability to be filled with an endless array of crackling meats, gooey cheeses and eye-wateringly spicy sauces. Our list of the city’s very best tacos includes traditional tastes from our favorite Mexican restaurants, affordable options (how else can you get satisfying cheap eats for under $3?) and trendy dishes from fine dining hot spots. With out-of-the-way taquerias serving up juicy al pastor, a Bushwick tortilla factory serving the city’s best chorizo and a beach-side spot for fresh fish tacos, we’ve made it easy to plan your city-wide taco crawl.
Time Out New York •

12 Iconic New York Foods You Have to Try

In New York, everybody’s a little Jewish—and a little Italian, and Chinese, and Caribbean, and the list goes on and on and on. That’s because NYC isn’t just a melting pot. It’s the melting pot, a mélange of too many tasty ingredients in too small a cooking vessel. But wherever you’re from, once you’re here, you’re a New Yorker. And if there’s one thing a New Yorker knows how to do well, it’s eat. From iconic sandwiches to steamy soup dumplings to, duh, pizza, here are 12 essential NYC dishes you need to try if you want to eat like a local.
Time Out New York •

NYC's best new restaurants in 2020

Dining in New York City this year was chaotic, to say the least. Much of it took place on curbsides, in backyards and on park benches, or pulled from takeout containers and delivery bags. Eating out came with a side of rules and regulations, bureaucracy and bottles of hand sanitizer. But, like the city it calls home, New York’s restaurant industry proved resilient, resourceful and resplendent. Against all odds, new restaurants kept popping up all over town, and many of them were freaking delicio
Time Out New York •

Restaurant Review: Cosme

Enrique Olvera, the megawatt Mexico City talent behind Pujol (regularly ranked one of the 20 best restaurants in the world) made his stateside debut with Cosme, a bare-concrete Flatiron dining room slinging elegant, high-gear small plates.

Pristine, pricey and as market-fresh as anything coming out of Thomas Keller’s kitchen, Olvera’s menu is a masterpiece. Tacos make a solitary appearance, in an atypically generous portion of duck , cooked to the sinful midpoint of unctuous fat and seared fles
Time Out New York •

Restaurant Review: Mission Chinese Food

At his Mission Chinese redux, Danny Bowien has traded in beer kegs, paper dragons and a cramped, dive-punk Orchard Street basement for smart cocktails, banquet-hall booths and an ample, gleaming dining room in the far reaches of Chinatown.

That inescapable hour-long wait for a table can be spent in the downstairs bar, but the real party is upstairs—a lively hodgepodge of bespectacled food disciples and beanie-clad millennials spinning lazy Susans loaded with pork cheeks and turnip cakes while g
Time Out New York •

Best Tourist-Trap Restaurants In NYC That Are Worth The Hype

Some people equate tourist-trap restaurants to overrated hypebeasts, but this crop of crowd-pleasing eateries is here to disprove that notion. Sure, out-of-towners may show up at Katz’s looking to recreate that infamous When Harry Met Sally moment, but that doesn’t mean it’s not one of the best New York delis of all time. From the city’s best steakhouses to trendy bakeries to classic New York pizza, here are the tourist-baiting restaurants that are good enough for us locals.
Time Out New York •

Restaurant Review: ABCV

It looks like the inside of Gwyneth Paltrow’s brain: The crisp, spacious room is a Goop-y stretch of all-white furniture, with pops of color courtesy artisanal ceramic plate ware, millennial-pink wall panels and boho banquettes draped in handwoven Andean textiles that likely cost more than your rent. Each menu—already littered with wellness buzzwords like “restorative tonics” and divided into categories that include Energizing & Fresh and Warm & Sustaining—arrives with a supplementary insert cha
Time Out New York •

Restaurant Review: 4 Charles Prime Rib

It begins, as most meals don’t, with the snap of a surgical glove: The navy-suited server slips on the rubbery mitt before theatrically yanking out the steak knife that juts from a double-patty burger, like a chophouse Arthur pulling the sword from the stone. The burger is sliced, and slowly but deliberately its beefy halves are rotated for the customer’s view, less for inspection than exhibition.

It’s an awful lot of brouhaha for humble ground beef, but this is a burger with a mighty reputatio
Time Out New York •

10 Best Bakeries for Chinese Pastries in NYC

Han Chou’s steel-accented bakeshop has been a Chinatown staple since 1991, growing from a humble local bakery into a chain with more than a dozen stores throughout Manhattan, Queens, Connecticut and Chengdu, China. And the crowds haven’t waned one bit—sweets seekers line up, tongs in hand, before an amber-lit display of sugary buns, fresh bulk bread and Western-style pastries. There are American touches, like a chocolate-walnut swirl and pullman loaf—the baker who taught Chow learned from a U.S.
Time Out New York •

Restaurant Review: CUT

Wolfgang Puck is a global food icon—a Culinary Hall of Fame inductee, a six-time James Beard Award winner, a Michelin-decorated toque and the face of one of the most commercially successful restaurant empires in the world. What he ain’t, however, is a New York chef.


And it’s not just because Puck, unlike every other chef of his brand-name stature, has never opened a Manhattan restaurant during his four-decade, globe-spanning career. (He debuted a fast-casual outfit, Wolfgang Puck Express, at
Time Out New York •

The 100 best dishes and drinks in NYC 2016

The New York food scene was a spoil of riches in 2016—it welcomed regional specialties like Nashville-style fried chicken, Chicagoan Italian beef and a Detroit analogue to the city’s best New York pizza. It offered fresh takes on old-world French, shiny-new meccas of Japanese food and Korean BBQ, and top-notch breakfast sandwiches to cure our hangovers. These are the 100 best dishes and drinks we enjoyed this year.
Time Out New York •

Restaurant Review: Aska

“Wait, do I eat the rock, too?” It’s an admittedly odd-sounding question, but it’s a legitimate one to ask while dining at Aska 2.0, the revival of the Michelin-starred Scandinavian kitchen helmed by Swedish wunderkind chef Fredrik Berselius. “No, just the two leaves on top,” the server replies without judgment. Those leaves are dried bladderwrack sourced from Maine, which Berselius and his workhorse band of sous chefs fry to a crackle and bead with blue-mussel emulsion. The plating you might not immediatel
Time Out New York •

Restaurant Review: Le Coucou

It’s a scene out of Ratatouille: the open kitchen lined with copper pots and hand-glazed tiles, churning with chefs whose two-foot-high toques blanche skim the range hoods as they plate hazelnut-freckled leek vinaigrettes and foie-marbled veal terrines with an almost cartoonish hustle. It’s no movie—rather, it’s the animated stir of Soho’s Le Coucou, the graceful French spot from the prolific restaurateur Stephen Starr (Buddakan, Morimoto) and Daniel Rose, the thirtysomething American chef who was raised in Chicago but made it in Paris, by virtue of his much-loved seasonal restaurant, Spring, in the French capital’s first arrondissement.
Time Out New York •

Meet the winners of the 2016 Time Out New York Bar Awards

You could pick any year since 2011—when owners Joshua Boissy and Krystof Zizka brought their instant-classic brand of French Quarter charm and absinthe cocktails to Williamsburg—and Maison Premiere arguably would have deserved the title. But 2015 was a particularly standout one for the impeccably styled, sumptuously romantic Bedford Avenue boîte: It received its second consecutive James Beard Award nomination for Outstanding Bar Program and even took home the big prize.

And outstanding it is, h