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Barry Levitt

Barry Levitt

The Daily Beast

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Mufasa’s clumsy number ‘Bye Bye’ shows exactly how Disney villain songs went wrong

Every day, Disney strays further from the wishing star’s light. And there’s one big reason for that: a staggering lack of animated villains. The...

24.12.2024 6

Polygon

Barry Levitt

‘SNL’ Movie ‘Saturday Night’ Shamefully Fails Gilda Radner

Saturday Night has a compelling concept: Instead of a film tracking the history of Saturday Night Live , which is celebrating its 50th season this...

11.10.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

The New ‘Abbott Elementary’ Season Might Be the Best Yet

Abbott Elementary 's third season (shortened due to last year's WGA strike) ended on a cliffhanger as teachers Janine Teagues (Quinta Brunson) and...

09.10.2024 3

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘It’s What’s Inside’: The Body-Swap Sex Scene on Netflix Everyone’s Buzzing About

It’s What’s Inside made waves earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, where its $17 million acquisition by Netflix made it the...

07.10.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Natasha Rothwell’s ‘How to Die Alone’ Should Be Your Weekend Streaming Binge

Though she never goes anywhere herself, Mel (Natasha Rothwell) spends her days working at New York’s JFK Airport, helping people travel to exciting...

14.09.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

The ‘Mistress Dispellers’ Brought in to End Extramarital Affairs

VENICE, Italy—Have you ever discovered the person you trust most in the world is being unfaithful? There are infinite ways of dealing with this...

03.09.2024 8

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

The U.S. Fentanyl Crisis Gets the Hollywood Thriller Treatment

VENICE, Italy—Fentanyl addictions have taken hold of America. According to the U.S. State Department, some 70,000 people died from fentanyl related...

02.09.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘The Room Next Door’: Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton Face a Beautiful Death

VENICE, Italy—Ingrid (Julianne Moore) is a writer, signing copies of her new book. She’s written it to help process her fears about death, but...

02.09.2024 8

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘Wolfs’: George Clooney and Brad Pitt’s New Movie is Shockingly Bad

VENICE, Italy—District Attorney Margaret (Amy Ryan) is in big trouble. On an impulse, she invited a younger man back to her hotel room—and it was...

01.09.2024 3

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Adrien Brody Could Be Headed for Second Oscar for ‘The Brutalist’

VENICE, Italy—It can be easy to overreact at a Film Festival. There’s a reason they’re so appealing—being surrounded by thousands of people...

01.09.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘Miyazaki, Spirit of Nature’ Is a Must-See for Every Studio Ghibli Fan

Animation maestro Hayao Miyazaki has given the world a lifetime of joy and entertainment via his Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki is behind some of the most...

31.08.2024 6

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘Cloud’: Japan’s ‘Master of Horror’ Kiyoshi Kurosawa Unleashes His Next Thriller

VENICE, Italy—Ryôsuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda) arrives at an older man's house. The man is trying to get rid of some therapy machines, and Yoshii...

31.08.2024 5

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘Babygirl’ Has Wildest, Most Explicit Sex Scenes of Nicole Kidman’s Career

VENICE, Italy—In a recent interview with Vanity Fair , Nicole Kidman said she’s scared to see herself in her new film Babygirl because it is so...

30.08.2024 5

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

The Shocking Truth Is Revealed About Hitler’s Go-To Filmmaker

VENICE, Italy—Few filmmakers have the notoriety of Leni Riefenstahl. After breaking out with The Blue Light in 1932, her filmmaking prowess drew the...

30.08.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Munich Olympics Massacre Drama ‘September 5’ Stuns Venice Film Festival

VENICE, Italy—“They’re all gone.” Those words, delivered by Jim McKay, host of ABC’s Wide World of Sports, are some of the most haunting...

29.08.2024 3

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Angelina Jolie Will Get Another Oscar Nod for ‘Maria’

VENICE, Italy—A legend of the stage, few people have become as synonymous with an art form as Maria Callas has with opera. Known affectionately as...

29.08.2024 9

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Trump’s Immigration Separation Policy Never Looked More Cruel

VENICE, Italy—Immigration is out of control. That’s a common talking point all over the world. The immigration crisis has become one of the...

29.08.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Doesn’t Disappoint—But Should Be Way Wackier

VENICE, Italy—Set long after the events of the 1988 film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice finds Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) now working as a television...

28.08.2024 4

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

The Secrets of ‘Baywatch’ Revealed in Splashy New Docuseries

Even if you’ve never seen a second of Baywatch , you’ve likely seen the indelible image of gorgeous women and hunky men running along the beach...

28.08.2024 7

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘Between the Temples’: Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane’s Unlikely Love Story

There are few films that are quite like Between the Temples . Now in theaters, it’s a sparkling and distinctly Jewish comedy. Written and directed...

27.08.2024 4

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘The Union’: It Took Halle Berry to Make a Mark Wahlberg Movie Watchable

In Julian Farino’s The Union , now on Netflix, Mike (Mark Wahlberg) is your everyday, All-American dude. He works in construction by day and hangs...

16.08.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

The Year’s Most Shocking Scene Is in a Movie You’d Never Expect

The best part of working as a film critic is discovering movies that make you feel something you didn’t expect, those films linger in your mind and...

12.08.2024 5

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Batman and Catwoman Finally Get the Steamy Love Story They Deserve

Batman: Caped Crusader is invigorating television. It can be easy to feel inundated by superheroes these days, with the MCU’s dominance of popular...

04.08.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Why Are They Ruining ‘SpongeBob Squarepants’?!

Everyone’s favorite Bikini Bottom resident is starring in a brand new film. No, not SpongeBob (though he’s still a main character). The focus, for...

02.08.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Every ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Cameo, Ranked by Badassery

Deadpool & Wolverine has taken over the world, shattering box office expectations, earning nearly $450 million worldwide on opening weekend. It’s...

31.07.2024 8

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘The Decameron’ Gifted Us TV’s Sexiest New Leading Man: Amar Chadha-Patel

In Florence, Italy in the year 1348, the pestilence has run amok killing countless people, leaving them unsightly piles of flesh and boils. Sure, that...

27.07.2024 7

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘The Boys’ Season 4 Finale: 7 Biggest Unanswered Questions

This season of The Boys has been wild. It dives deeper into political satire than ever before, leaving a divided nation in its wake. The series...

21.07.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

The ‘Longlegs’ Opening Is One of the Scariest Horror Scenes Ever

Osgood Perkins has made a beast of a film with Longlegs , which stars Maika Monroe, Blair Underwood, and Nicolas Cage. The horror thriller is a...

15.07.2024 8

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘Divorce in the Black’ Is Tyler Perry’s Worst Movie Yet

Tyler Perry is a fascinating case study. Despite constant critical dismissal, he’s one of the most successful filmmakers in America, consistently...

11.07.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘Exploding Kittens’: Netflix Adaption of Silly Card Game Somehow Works

Is Hollywood running out of ideas? Even stranger than rebooting seemingly every old hit for a new generation is the longstanding tradition of adapting...

11.07.2024 8

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘The Boyfriend’: Japan’s First Gay Dating Show Is the Best Reality Series on TV

The concept of The Boyfriend, Japan’s first same-sex reality show, is not unfamiliar: a group of nine gay men live in a house together for a month....

09.07.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘The Boys’: We Need to Talk About the Show’s Craziest Sex Scene Yet

The Boys never shies away from pushing buttons. This show, about a superhero group called The Seven, couldn’t be further from the comic-book movies...

04.07.2024 5

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

The Breakout Star of ‘A Quiet Place: Day One” Is…a Cat

Could you survive in a world of silence? That’s the question at the center of the Quiet Place franchise, which imagines a world where aliens...

03.07.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Nicole Kidman and Anne Hathaway Explode the Age-Gap Discourse

Some things in life are inevitable: Death, taxes, and somebody dredging up discourse about age-gap relationships. The mere act of dating someone...

30.06.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Sandra Bernhard Still Speaks Her Mind—With Some Exceptions

In the 2022 Netflix special Stand Out: An LGBTQ Celebration, Lily Tomlin introduces Sandra Bernhard as “indescribable.” That’s a pretty good...

18.06.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

If You Miss ‘Narcos,’ You Should Watch ‘Hotel Cocaine’

The glitz and glamor of 1978 Miami comes to life within the walls of the Hotel Mutiny, an exclusive members club. Here, you can leave your worries at...

16.06.2024 8

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

A Wookiee Jedi Master at Last: I Would Die for Kelnacca in ‘The Acolyte’

The Acolyte , the latest Star Wars series on Disney , takes us away from the Skywalker saga into the world of the High Republic. But none of that...

06.06.2024 8

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

IF isn’t a cute fantasy for kids, it’s a poisonous fantasy for adults

Who is IF for? Looking at any of the film’s marketing or the trailer, the answer seems easy: kids. But after seeing IF, written and directed by John...

22.05.2024 40

Polygon

Barry Levitt

Netflix’s ‘Thelma the Unicorn’ Is the Next Animated Romp Your Kids Will Love

17.05.2024 30

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘We Were the Lucky Ones’: Thomas Kail on the Emotional Finale Episode

Growing up, Thomas Kail—the Tony award-winning and Emmy-nominated director—loved It’s A Wonderful Life. “We were this Jewish family living in...

08.05.2024 30

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘Knuckles’ Is the Show Jews Need Right Now—Seriously

Knuckles is one of the most surprising new shows of the year—yes, really. I know what you’re thinking: How could a spinoff of the incredibly...

28.04.2024 40

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

The Scene That Should Win Netflix’s ‘Baby Reindeer’ an Emmy

Baby Reindeer is Netflix’s latest and most unlikely hit series, taking the world by storm in the weeks since its early-April release. The riveting,...

26.04.2024 20

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘The Circle’ Drops an Epic, Shady New Twist That Blows Up the Game

I love watching The Circle . The Netflix reality competition series—about a group of people who communicate exclusively through the titular social...

24.04.2024 30

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Jesse Plemons’ Disturbing ‘Civil War’ Scene Will Haunt You

It’s fair to ask: Is Jesse Plemons OK? He seems like the loveliest guy, but just looking through his IMDb is enough to make you want to re-up on...

15.04.2024 20

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

The Greatness of ‘Ripley’ Hinges on a Gorgeously Brutal Murder

Netflix’s Ripley , written and directed by Steven Zaillian (The Night Of, Schindler’s List), stars Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley, the loveable and...

08.04.2024 40

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘3 Body Problem’: Our 7 Biggest Unanswered Questions

Netflix’s mind-bending 3 Body Problem is one heck of a ride, and it's only getting started. The series, created by Alexander Woo and Game of...

07.04.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Does ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Have Two Gay Dads?

In Kung Fu Panda 4 , cinema's best panda Po (Jack Black) has two gay dads. Okay, so Po’s parents aren’t canonically gay, though if they want to...

13.03.2024 30

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘Feud’ Provides a Vital Reminder: Naomi Watts Is a Master of Her Craft

Finally, Naomi Watts is great again! I know that might sound weird: When did two-time Oscar-nominee Naomi Watts stop being great? Well, it’s not so...

08.03.2024 20

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

Against All Odds, ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ Is the Best Movie of the Franchise

Did we really need another Kung Fu Panda? The third film in the DreamWorks Animation franchise, featuring Jack Black as the unlikeliest of martial...

06.03.2024 6

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

‘True Detective: Night Country’ Ruined Its Entire Season in One Last Scene

If there were ever a series that could afford to take a massive swing in its finale, it’s True Detective: Night Country . After all, the fourth...

20.02.2024 10

The Daily Beast

Barry Levitt

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