It's entirely possible there has never been a movie as furiously, feverishly anticipated as J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The original films (and to a lesser but still notable extent the three prequels that followed) are not just elevated in spheres of Western popular culture - they're considered holy. No other franchise has contributed as much both to movies and to moviegoers.
Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are Hollywood's go-to gal pals, the most loved and respected comedy duo in the business today, and a quick glance at their past collaborations should explain why. From their years together on Saturday Night Live to co-hosting the Golden Globes twice (not to mention toplining a box office hit in Baby Mama), no pair of comic actresses has sustained as consistently fruitful and funny a partnership. Real-life best friends, the two complete and build off each other, wielding a thick-as-thieves camaraderie that almost always results in massive comedic fireworks, no matter the setting.
David O. Russell delights in supreme disorder - every movie the director has ever made bears a signature sense of organized chaos, of big personalities clashing with one another so loudly and violently they threaten to escape the edges of his carefully composed frame. Russell's willingness to simply roll the camera and document that mayhem, trusting his actors to do the heavy lifting and only bringing in stylistic flourishes when the material calls for it, is a rare trait in a Hollywood director. But in Joy, it backfires on him catastrophically - after expertly traversing three distinctly tricky thematic tightropes in The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, Russell loses his balance in his latest film, and the chaos he's usually so adept at orchestrating instead overwhelms both him and the picture.
Netflix's first foray into adult-oriented animated comedy, the bizarre and touching Hollywood satire BoJack Horseman, only really came into its own earlier this year, during a vastly improved (and much darker) second season. Progressing from clever amusement to excellent character study, the show somehow succeeded in at once being one of television's most rawly hilarious comedies, and one of its most poignant, occasionally soul-crushing dramas. Its brilliance has not yet been fully observed by the masses but, with a third season on the way, there's still time for more people to catch on.
As handsomely constructed as the wooden vessel on which it's largely set, yet dramatically choppy as the ocean its protagonists set out to conquer, In the Heart of the Sea feels like the most windless, workmanlike adaptation of its ambitious story possible.
Admittedly, the premise of NBC's latest single-camera comedy, Superstore, which aired two sneak peek episodes Monday and will return in January, isn't exactly what you'd call revolutionary. This is far from the network's first series to focus on an eclectic cluster of employees in a manifestly generic workplace setting, and it owes much not only to The Office (which was occasionally written by this series' creator, Justin Spitzer) but to the few successful Dunder Mifflin riffs that followed it, from NBC's own Parks and Recreation to Fox's Brooklyn Nine-Nine. From the pointedly diverse cast to the stabs at pop culture relevance, little about Superstore feels wholly original.
With December right around the corner, it's time for movie critics from around the world to start compiling their best-of-2015 lists, and the highly respected Sight & Sound magazine is kick-starting the process by unveiling its own list of the 20 Best Films of 2015.
Coming into the fall, some Oscar pundits voiced curiosity about whether Bill Murray-led comedy Rock the Kasbah could emerge as an unlikely contender, but let's just say times have changed. Instead, the pic has ended up leading the pack in a very different, far less enviable race - for the title of 2015's least profitable movie.
Though all eyes are on Captain America: Civil War in the wake of that Marvel Cinematic Universe entry's killer first trailer dropping earlier this week, the wheels are already turning on further-ahead Marvel installments, like next November's Doctor Strange.
One of the biggest take-aways from this week's sensational first trailer for next year's Captain America: Civil War was that Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier is not only back in from the cold after going on the lam at the end of The Winter Soldier - he's also key to sparking the central conflict between Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and the Cap (Chris Evans).
