Bill Murray, much maligned of late, is still welcome in the MCU; Gen Z scream queen Jenna Ortega takes on her “scariest” role; a double dose of Devon Sawa; Industry shall return. All in today’s Movie News Rundown.
But First: Sorry for the delay today. Technical stuff, charity work, answering fan mail.
Out Today: The horror phenomenon Barbarian is out now on HBO Max.
Bill Murray: Though increasingly under fire in our world, he’s quite welcome in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as we saw in the new trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania. At least he’s not accused of the awful thing Hank Pym did in the comics.
Jenna Ortega: The 20-year-old star of Scream, X and Insidious: Chapter 2 says her role as Wednesday Addams in Wednesday is her scariest so far. As we learned in January, she got her start at age 6 by delivering a monologue about her mom dying that her mom posted on Facebook. A casting director saw it. The best part: Her mom was totally OK.
Devon Sawa: He had a Jenna Ortega-like horror run in 1999-2000, starring in Idle Hands and Final Destination back-to-back. When the legendary Mahoning Theater played them as a double feature this past weekend, he gamely revisited his Idle Hands character for the occasion.
The Industry Renewed: One of the best shows on HBO Max will be back, Variety reports. They didn’t call it “one of the best shows on HBO Max.” That’s me editorializing, sorry.
Is The Industry Good? If you’ve just Googled “Is HBO Industry good,” the answer is YES. Think Succession meets Euphoria with a smackeral of House of the Dragon, but with money instead of dragons. If you’ve just Googled “Is oil industry good,” the answer is no, but we all need to get places.
Happy Halloweeniversary: The John Carpenter-Debra Hill film is 44 today. Here’s our recent interview with Carpenter, looking back on the franchise and his astonishing filmography.
Is Halloween Good? If you’ve just Googled “Is Halloween movie good,” yes, the first one is very good. Others are mixed. But David Gordon Green stands by his new one, Halloween Ends. Here’s a piece about how it follows a Halloween tradition. If you’ve Googled, “Is Halloween the holiday good?” the answer is no: It is a trick to turn our children into pagans. Run! RUN!
Did Devon Sawa Do Any Other cool Stuff? He did, yes.
Main image: Jenna Ortega in X.
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