Hollywood Outbreak

Back in 1996, this tiny independent movie about struggling actors, bad dates and a group of friends trying to make it in Hollywood landed in theaters. No big budget. No all-star cast. Just sharp dialogue, characters you actually remembered and a whole lot of laughs. It came out on October 18, 1996, and people just […] The post ‘Swingers’ 30th Anniversary: Why It’s Still Money app...

Back in 1998, Armageddon gave audiences a pretty simple plan for saving Earth from an asteroid: call Bruce Willis, grab a team of oil drillers, send them into space, put Aerosmith on the soundtrack and hope everything works out before the entire planet gets wiped out. That was Armageddon, and subtle it was not. Released […] The post ‘Armageddon’: Michael Bay Knew the Science Was...

 There are movie titles that require a little explanation. Cocaine Bear was never one of them. When the movie arrived in theaters in 2023, audiences knew exactly what they were getting. There was a bear. There was cocaine. And director Elizabeth Banks was not particularly interested in pretending the situation was going to remain calm. […] The post ‘Cocaine Bear’: How Elizab...

For many television viewers, Tuesday night was Smallville night. You could always count on Clark Kent, Lana Lang, Lex Luthor and plenty of strange things happening in that little Kansas town. After all, growing up knowing you’re going to become Superman isn’t exactly a normal childhood. October 16 marks the 25th anniversary of Smallville, which […] The post ‘Smallville&#821...

Friday the 13th arrived in 1980 and helped turn Jason Voorhees and Crystal Lake into permanent pieces of horror history. Now Crystal Lake is taking audiences back into that world, with Linda Cardellini stepping into the mythology for Peacock’s new series. And according to Cardellini, there may be a pretty simple reason people keep coming […] The post Linda Cardellini Teases the Thrills...

Helen Mirren’s latest television role comes with a particularly entertaining bit of James Bond trivia. Hollywood has a funny way of bringing people back into each other’s orbit. On MobLand, Mirren shares the screen with another actor who once played 007. On 1923, Mirren worked alongside Timothy Dalton, who played James Bond in The Living […] The post Helen Mirren’s Perfect...

Scott Caan may have been born and raised in Hollywood, but New York was never exactly foreign territory. That matters now. The actor is back inside the NCIS universe with NCIS: New York, this time as a regular alongside LL Cool J. And while Caan is playing a brand-new character, there is something familiar about […] The post Scott Caan: Dad James Caan Shaped ‘NCIS: New York’ Role...

Some movie relationships become bigger than the story they started in. Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Miyagi definitely belong on that list. More than 40 years after The Karate Kid introduced Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita as the unlikely student and teacher, their relationship still sits at the heart of the franchise. Sequels followed, generations discovered […] The post ‘The Karate Kid’:...

Twenty years ago, Tina Fey introduced television audiences to Liz Lemon, Jack Donaghy, Tracy Jordan and one of the most wonderfully dysfunctional workplaces in television history. On October 11, 2006, 30 Rock premiered on NBC, bringing viewers behind the scenes of a fictional sketch comedy show where keeping the cameras rolling was sometimes the easiest […] The post ’30 Rock’ Tur...

A Few Good Men has never really been one of them. More than three decades after Tom Cruise walked into a military courtroom and went toe-to-toe with Jack Nicholson, the 1992 drama keeps finding new viewers. Plenty of us remember seeing it when it was new, which makes watching another generation discover it through streaming […] The post Why ‘A Few Good Men’ Still Holds Up appeare...

Before Saturday Night Live became an institution, it was just a new television show trying to make it to air. Nobody knew what would come next. There would eventually be decades of sketches, breakout stars, catchphrases, movies and controversies. Generations of comedians would grow up dreaming about Studio 8H. On October 11, 1975, though, they […] The post ‘Saturday Night’: Jason...

How Colin Farrell built the real-time tension in Phone Booth is part of what makes the thriller still work so well. A phone rings. Most people would probably let it go. Unfortunately for Colin Farrell, answering that call is where everything starts going very, very wrong in Phone Booth. The thriller takes an incredibly simple […] The post How Colin Farrell Built The Real-Time Tension In Phon...

Mike Colter is no stranger to Robert King and Michelle King, or to fans of their television shows. From The Good Wife to starring for four seasons on the beloved series Evil, Colter has spent years working in the Kings’ television world. Now he is returning to it with their new legal drama, Cupertino. This […] The post ‘Cupertino’ Was An Easy Sell To Star Mike Colter appear...

How Michael Douglas ever wondered whether he had what it took to make it in Hollywood is hard to imagine. Almost 60 years later, we already know how that story turned out. He became a movie star, an Oscar-winning actor, an Oscar-winning producer and one of those performers whose career seems to have touched just […] The post How Michael Douglas’s ‘Helluva Ride’ Almost Never...

Released on October 6, 2006, The Departed brought together one of the most impressive casts of its era and gave Martin Scorsese another shot at a world of crime, loyalty, betrayal, and people who are rarely what they seem. Two decades later, the movie has lost almost none of its punch. Even when you know […] The post ‘The Departed’ at 20: Why Scorsese’s Hit Still Packs a Pu...

A pretty big one. LL Cool J is back in the NCIS world with NCIS: New York, bringing along the character he played for the entire run of NCIS: Los Angeles. Only now Sam is on the other side of the country. And there is something kind of fitting about that. Sam is a New […] The post LL Cool J Isn’t Just Back On ‘NCIS,’ He’s Back In New York! appeared first on Hollywood...

For Pierce Brosnan, life after James Bond has been anything but predictable. Since leaving 007 behind, he has spent years jumping between genres and clearly enjoying the freedom that comes with it. He sang his way through the Mamma Mia! movies, stepped into the superhero world with Black Adam and has taken on plenty of […] The post ‘MobLand’: Pierce Brosnan Praises Season 2 Growt...

Twenty-five years after Training Day arrived in theaters on October 5, 2001, it is still difficult to watch Denzel Washington as Alonzo Harris without getting pulled into his world. From the moment Alonzo sits down across from rookie officer Jake Hoyt, you know something is wrong. The question is just how wrong things are going […] The post Training Day At 25: Denzel Washington Classic appea...

Tom Hanks has made the kind of career where picking a favorite movie can turn into a pretty long conversation. He won back-to-back Best Actor Oscars for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, became the face of classics ranging from Big and Sleepless in Seattle to Apollo 13 and Saving Private Ryan, and created characters movie fans […] The post That Thing You Do! at 30: Tom Hanks’ Musical Gem appear...

Twenty years later, it really does not take much to bring Friday Night Lights back. A football field. Stadium lights. A packed crowd. Coach Taylor standing on the sideline trying to hold everything together. And suddenly you’re back in Dillon. The television series came along after Peter Berg’s 2004 Friday Night Lights movie, which grew […] The post Friday Night Lights at 20: Why...

Ella Beatty had plenty of history to work with when she stepped into the title role of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story. The tricky part was figuring out how much of that history should actually make it onto the screen. After seasons focused on Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers and Ed Gein, Monster turns its […] The post How Ella Beatty Prepared For Her Killer Role As Lizzie Borden appea...

Forty years later, Johnny 5 is still alive. Okay, maybe not literally. But for anyone who grew up with Short Circuit, it probably takes only a few seconds of seeing that familiar robot rolling around on screen to bring back a whole lot of 1980s memories. Released in 1986, Short Circuit was exactly the kind […] The post Short Circuit at 40: Johnny 5 Is Still Alive appeared first on Hollywood...

How Mary Tyler Moore inspired viewers is still part of what makes The Mary Tyler Moore Show feel special more than 50 years later. Maybe it is Mary Richards herself. Maybe it is WJM. Or maybe it is that group of people who started as co-workers and neighbors and slowly became something closer to family. […] The post How Mary Tyler Moore Inspired Real Journalists appeared first on Hollywood O...

Nearly six decades later, Barry Williams is still talking about the television family that became part of his life. And people are still hanging out with the Bradys. That is pretty remarkable when you think about it. The Brady Bunch premiered in 1969 and only ran for five seasons, but somehow Mike, Carol, Alice and […] The post Barry Williams on What ‘Brady Bunch’ Parents Taught...

There are plenty of movies where an actor gets sent a script, likes the role and signs on. But how Robert Pattinson became involved with Primetime took a slightly stranger path. The new A24 crime drama stars Pattinson as Chris Hansen, the television journalist whose To Catch a Predator investigations became a huge part of […] The post How Robert Pattinson Ended Up Starring in Primetime appea...