We’ve all been deeply satisfied with the overall results of Liam Neeson, unexpected action star, even when the individual films have been occasionally less than stellar. And while the actor himself may have decided this whole “kicking ass and toughing tough” thing may have finally run its course, he’s got at least one…
Welcome back to Mailbag, a series about the sometimes weird, sometimes fun stuff we get in the mail. Today assistant editor Alex McLevy received a Bates Motel LP, complete with a pop-up gatefold cover. Bates Motel ended earlier this year, and the LP commemorates it’s five-season run with music from the full span of…
“I’m so sorry—for everything that’s happened. I know how much you loved her.” That’s Norma/n, expressing genuine sorrow for Alex Romero, but she might as well have been saying the same thing to Norman Bates. (Or the vast majority of the audience, for that matter.) Nearly every season of Bates Motel has concluded with…
This interview discusses plot points of Bates Motel’s last episode, “The Cord.”
Everybody knows Stranger Things was great, but it apparently it was so great that star Millie Bobby Brown not only gets to be in the Godzilla sequel, but she also gets to have pretty cool parents in the Godzilla sequel. We previously reported that Kyle Chandler will be playing her father, and now Variety says that…
We’ll have to wait a little longer for Liam Neeson’s latest action flick, The Commuter, which has just been forced to wait for the late train. Neeson’s latest collaboration with director Jaume Collet-Serra was originally scheduled for release in October 2017, but according to Deadline, that date’s just been pushed…
“A boy’s best friend is his mother.” For Norman Bates, that statement took on a little more weight than maybe it should have. One of the most iconic characters in American cinema is Alfred Hitchcock’s murderous man with mommy issues, as brought to life by Anthony Perkins in Psycho. (And again, to diminishing returns,…
With only one season left, Bates Motel is just going for it in its latest teasers: Norma Bates’ taxidermied corpse, Norman Bates more unhinged than ever, and Rihanna—playing future murder victim Marion Crane—checking in for a very famous shower. And yet, it’s a testament to Vera Farmiga’s wonderfully deranged…
A day of reckoning is approaching for Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore, who play the unwholesome mother-son team at the center of A&E’s Bates Motel. That series, a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho, begins its fifth and final season on February 20, and a new trailer promises the finale to be as ghoulish,…
Liam Neeson will next be unleashing his particular set of skills with a little help from Bates Motel and The Conjuring 2’s Vera Farmiga. According to Deadline, Farmiga has been cast in Neeson’s upcoming project The Commuter, which is described as a thriller with “Hitchcockian elements” but sounds more like the kind of…
After briefly trading haunted houses for skydiving cars, James Wan is back in the scaring business. This weekend brings The Conjuring 2, the sequel to his 2013 smash about real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). Back at Farmhouse Tavern, film staffers A.A. Dowd and…
First, the all-important question: Is The Conjuring 2 scary? Like, jump out of your seat, watch through your outstretched fingers scary? The answer to that is “yes.” Under James Wan’s direction, even the most clichéd haunted-house tropes (and this movie is bursting with them) are genuinely creepy, and although the…
Has The Conjuring sneakily kick-started a “cinematic universe” of its own? The ghost-hunting exploits of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren may not be the most likely source for a cross-movie franchise, but The Conjuring 2 marks the third time their research has been culled to scare the shit out…
The lucky ones among us don’t know what it’s like to attend the funeral of someone you love. But the very lucky ones go through that process over, and over, and over, because they surround themselves with love in this life. And they live long enough to have the privilege of feeling all those little pieces that were…
I’ll always remember Norma Bates at her most indefatigable. Despite her perpetual suspicion that the world was out to stick it to her and her family, Norma could rise to a challenge like few others. Remember when she first moved in to that big drafty old house? She didn’t see the cracks and the peeling paint; she saw…
Life can change on a dime, but family rarely does. Think of all the times you’ve expressed frustration with a parent, or a sibling, or a loved one, only to have whoever you’re venting to ask (oh so reasonably), “Well, can’t you just explain it to them?” Think of your mindset at that moment. We all know our families:…
Sheriff Alex Romero may as well have the acronym “MVP” permanently embossed on his business cards, because he is the saving grace of Norma Bates. The peacekeeper of White Pine Bay did something tonight that’s never happened before to the brittle and volatile mother of Dylan and Norman: He accepted her for who she is.…
In his book Why We Lie, philosopher and evolutionary psychologist David Livingstone Smith examines what’s so valuable about a lie. He claims there’s a fundamental need for deception, something about the way we tell ourselves (and others) stories that adds meaning to our identities and our place in the world. Leaving…
In good drama, as in life, the significant moments happen during the quiet beats, the small interstitial fragments of day-to-day existence. A wistful glance, a piercing stare, a barely noticeable gesture—these are the actions that convey meaning and emotion for those of us dropping in on characters’ lives. They are…
Ricky Gervais’ feature-film adaptation of “Radio Bart” is finally coming to Netflix. Okay, it’s not technically an adaptation of The Simpsons episode where Bart fakes falling down a well, but it’s the same basic format. Eric Bana and Gervais (who also wrote this iteration of the original 2009 French film) star as…
