How Emperor Palpatine Survived After ‘Return Of The Jedi’ Explained In ‘Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker’ Novelization We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Now that some copies of theStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalkernovelization are out in the wild thanks to advance sales by Lucasfilm Publishing at last weekend’s C2E2 convention in Chicago, details from the Skywalker saga finale that didn’t make it into the movie are slowly coming to light....

How Stanley Kubrick Pulled Off The Shining’s Brilliant Elevator Scene As we approach the end of the year, many of us are indulging in Christmas-themed films. Not a lot of people think of Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film “The Shining” as a holiday movie (and if they do, they definitely don’t consider it a happy one), but this cinematic treasure contains a visual feast of disturbing imagery that climaxes during the winter, so let’s add it to the list ofalternative holiday films....

In Praise Of Colin Farrell’s Penguin We love the Penguin, don’t we folks? Ever since the character first appeared in the pages of “Detective Comics” #58 in 1941, the Penguin has been one of Batman’s most popular, recognizable villains. And he’s gone through several different incarnations. At first, Penguin (or Pengy, as I like to call him) was an art thief, earning his nickname because he was a short, chubby guy fond of tuxedos....

Interview: David O. Russell Talks Incest And Music In ‘The Fighter,’ Plus ‘Uncharted’ And Other Projects From The Past As Imentioned yesterday, I recently had the opportunity to speak withDavid O. Russell, who directedThe Fighter, which wasmy favorite film of 2010. We chatted about a variety of topics, including themes of incest in his work, his musical choices, plus some of the other projects he’s worked on in the past and will be working on in the future....

iPhone Apps For Movie Geeks Most everyone I know owns an iPhone, and most everyone I associate with is some form of movie geek. Every time I’m out with friends there seems to be an exchange of an iPhone app tip. What do you use to access IMDb? Netflix? Twitter? Which got me thinking — why hasn’t anyone put together a good listing of iPhone apps for movie geeks? So here goes my first attempt and compiling a listing of good iPhone apps that every movie geek should know about....

James Gunn Translates What Groot Said At The End Of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ There are a lot of ways to interpret “I am Groot,” but there’s no question thatGuardians of the GalaxydirectorJames Gunnhas the definitive translations for each of the sentient tree-being’s phrases. While Gunn isn’t going around translating every single phrase that Groot utters (we can usually get the gist), there is one line of Groot dialogue inAvengers: Infinity Warthat Gunn is open to sharing with us....

Jeff Ewing’s Favorite Movies Of All Time As long as I’ve been a thing on this planet who knew what movies were, they’ve meant the world to me. I vividly remember being a scared but enraptured youngster watching “FernGully,” laughing with my family at “Anchorman,” or seeing “Age of Ultron” with a friend twice in a row on the same day — which was great, might I add. I’m beyond lucky that I get to review, think, and talk about films for a living, and can think of no cooler occupation than making them, and making people laugh, cry, think, or scream through them....

Jon Favreau Wants To Make A New ‘Star Wars Holiday Special’ Even though theStar Warsprequels received their fair amount of criticism from longtime fans of the sci-fi saga, nothing has ever received as much scorn as the totally weirdStar Wars Holiday Special. Aired in 1978, the program took place after the events ofStar Wars: A New Hopeand followed Han Solo and Chewbacca as they tried to evade the Empire and get to the Wookiee home world of Kashyyyk to celebrate “Life Day” with Chewie’s father Itchy, his wife Malla, and his son Lumpy....

Karen Gillan Reveals The Avengers: Endgame Sequence That Was Completely Improvised As someone who just rewatched “Avengers: Endgame” and sniffled through a number of scenes, I love this story. Karen Gillan was promoting her new film “The Bubble,” and spoke toThe Wrapabout the upcoming film “Guardians of the Galaxy 3.” She spoke about improv, and even gave us a peek at the improv scene she did in “Endgame.” The scene in question is the one at the beginning on the ship with Robert Downey Jr....

Kevin Smith Interview Part 2: The Walrus Suit, ‘Yoga Hosers’ Production And His Only ‘Tusk’ Regret We’ve already heard fromKevin Smithabout hisimpressive list of upcoming projects. He’salso told us about what makingTuskmeant to him. Now, in part two of our long interview with the filmmaker, we dig a little deeper. Smith goes into great detail about some of the more talked-about decisions he made inTusk, which is now on Blu-ray....

Lulu Wang’s Grandmother Has Just Learned That ‘The Farewell’ Is About Her Lulu Wang’s deeply personal, disarmingly universal story of culture clash and family grief became an indie phenomenon when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year. Based on Wang’s own experiences,The Farewelltells the story of a Chinese family who decides not to tell their grandmother that she has Stage 4 lung cancer, and the Chinese-American granddaughter (Golden Globe winnerAwkwafina) who struggles with this decision....

Mad Max Spin-Off Furiosa Pushed Back One Year, Salem’s Lot To Haunt Theaters Next September We’ve got some good news and some bad news on the release date front. The good news is, “Mad Max: Furiosa,” the long-awaited prequel to “Mad Max: Fury Road,” has a new release date. The bad news is it’s a whole lot further away than was previously expected. But in further good news for Stephen King fans, the new “Salem’s Lot” movie has been given a rather appropriate release date by Warner Bros....

Margot Robbie And Michael B. Jordan Joining David O. Russell’s Next Movie With Christian Bale Over the past six years,Margot Robbiehas become one of the most coveted actresses in Hollywood. During that time, she’s starred in over a dozen movies, two of them from filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino (The Wolf of Wall StreetandOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood), and another two that earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations (BombshellandI, Tonya)....