I settled into a screening of VOL. 2, it was with a twinge of nervousness that the sequel would not live up to the original's greatness and impact. While I doubt that GUARDIANS 2 will do much of anything to reinvent the now familiar narratives of silly superhero movies, in many ways, the follow-up

There is a palpable need for acceptance running through every moment of the charming and irreverent film adaptation of Stephen Karam's quirky SPEECH & DEBATE. The story's three central characters are each longing for acceptance from their peers, their loved ones, or themselves in the way that is all too familiar for anyone who's ever been an awkward teenager. With loving references to the theatrical world, this delightful little film is a must-see for the drama kid in all of us.

Anyone familiar with the career of three-time Tony-nominee Marc Kudisch knows two things about him; 1) he is one of the most talented stage actors of his generation, and 2) he is as passionate as he is talented. Despite more than two decades of success on the New York stage, including 13 Broadway and seven Off-Broadway shows, countless readings, benefits, and concerts, and additional regional productions, the actor has been popping up on television much more frequently recently. Partly by choice, and partly because of the evolving landscapes of theatre and television, Kudisch has consciously made on-screen roles more a part of his plan in recent years, in fact, he begins an explosive Season 2 arc on Showtime's BILLIONS tonight as the new Axe Capital corporate therapist, Dr. Gus. BILLIONS airs on Sundays at 10p/9c.

There are very few characters on television as terrifying as SCANDAL's Eli Pope. The former (or is he?) head of the classified, covert government organization B613 has been the series' most dangerous and destructive force since Season 2, and with tonight's highly anticipated Season 6 premiere just hours away, Papa Pope's portrayer Tony-nominee and Emmy-winner Joe Morton is happy that the show is finally back.

Fresh off of his Broadway return leading the feel-good musical HOLIDAY INN at Roundabout's Studio 54, Tony-nominee Bryce Pinkham describes his next role as 'wildly quirky,' 'an iron fist in a velvet glove,' and possessing 'a certain verbal flair.' Beginning this Sunday, January 22nd, Pinkham joins PBS's Civil War medical drama, MERCY STREET, as Major Clayton McBurney III, the new head of the hospital at Mansion House.

Over the four-plus decades of his filmmaking career, Martin Scorsese has never shied away from looking at the brutal realities of people dealing with questions of faith and morality. In his latest film, SILENCE, which is in theaters nationwide, Scorsese unspools a two-hour-and-42-minute rumination on what it means to be faithful and to search for redemption, even when everything in your physical world is telling you to give up.

For a generation, M. Night Shyamalan changed the way that people viewed movies. With the words, 'I see dead people,' he became one of the most fascinating filmmakers in Hollywood, and, for a five-year period, rode nearly universal critical and box office success to near-superstardom. However, even though 2004's THE VILLAGE did a healthy $257 million at the box office, it was his most critically derided film to that point.

As we move into the holiday season, undoubtedly there is much for everyone to be thankful for, and if you head out to the movie theatre over the long Thanksgiving weekend, chances are good that you will be counting your blessings that the gods have brought Disney's latest animated musical MOANA into your life. With a screenplay by Jared Bush and music by Mark Mancina, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Opetaia Foa'I, MOANA is a gorgeous, charming film deserving of a spot amongst the Disney classics.

I am aware that what I am about to write is likely going to be a critical outlier, but I didn't hate FOX's television adaptation of THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, which they clumsily subtitled LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN. Now, I didn't particularly like it either, but to be frank (pun intended), I was expecting it to be far, far worse. While I am not a ROCKY HORROR expert, there didn't appear to be any horrendous missteps in the broadcast, in fact there were moments, even entire scenes, that were passably entertaining. However, on the whole, the endeavor just kept bringing to mind one simple question; 'Why?'

For decades, movie-going audiences have been subjected to crude, man-child comedies in which the female, romantic leads are portrayed as well put-together, successful, and sturdy, while their male counterparts get to be obscene, stupid, and juvenile. Well, after suffering through the oppressive piles of THE JERK, DUMB & DUMBER, BILLY MADISON, anything with Will Ferrell, Seth Rogan, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, or Jason Segel, ladies now have their turn to be profanely socially immature in the hilarious big screen comedy MIKE AND DAVE NEED WEDDING DATES.

There is an undeniable electricity that the world's greatest bring to everything that they do. There is something nearly tangible, yet dizzyingly elusive about watching legends at their best; that is how I felt when six-time Tony-winner Audra McDonald became the troubled Jazz icon Billie Holiday in tonight's broadcast of LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR AND GRILL on HBO. Though the material itself doesn't always rise to the level of its star's genius, the transformative power of McDonald's talent transports you into a completely different time and place; namely the small Emerson's Bar and Grill in Philadelphia in March 1959.

In the star-studded biopic TRUMBO, available today on Blu-Ray and Digital HD, Bryan Cranston plays the screenwriter and delivers a captivating, nuanced performance. For the role, Cranston has been nominated for his first Academy Award, up against stiff competition in Leonardo DiCaprio (THE REVENANT) and Matt Damon (THE MARTIAN). The film costars Diane Lane as Trumbo's long-suffering wife Cleo, Louis C.K. as his cantankerous fellow blacklistee Arlen Hird, Helen Mirren as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, and John Goodman as Frank King, the B-movie studio exec who hired Trumbo despite his banishment.

Just in case you were worried that the 15 years between ZOOLANDER 2 and the original male model comedy would lessen the latter's wacky sense of humor, fear not, ZOOLANDER 2 is every bit as stupid as the original, and for fans of the first film, that might be enough to overcome the lack of originality in the sequel's extremely thin plot.

When looking at the history of film, distinct well-worn patterns develop over time; tendencies turn into tropes and conventions become clichés. This has never been truer than in today's Hollywood as reboots and franchises have dominated the calendar for the last two decades, drowning out originality and creativity. However, once every generation or two, a film so exceeds the limitations that an assigned genre has placed on it that it is destined to change the way that we look at cinema forever; THE JAZZ SINGER, CITIZEN KANE, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, THE GODFATHER, PULP FICTION, and now DEADPOOL.

One would think that a movie like HAIL, CAESAR!, written and directed by two of America's favorite filmmakers, starring a veritable who's who of Hollywood heavyweights, and set in one of the most entertaining and romanticized eras in American history would be a sure fire hit. The first time that I saw the film's trailer, that's immediately what I thought. I just naturally assumed that it would be scheduled for a mid-December release, in time to scoop up the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture- Comedy or Musical, and to be the kooky, critical darling that snatched an Oscars' Best Picture nod, a la THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Instead, it was released in the first week of February, one of the slowest movie-going times of the year, eons away from awards-consideration, and is easily the most disappointing movie that I've seen in quite a while.

With the sixth and final season of beloved British import DOWNTON ABBEY quickly coming to an end, PBS is hoping to hold onto the fans of the early 20th Century soap with new historical drama MERCY STREET. The Civil War hospital series debuted Sunday night after the third installment of DOWNTON's nine-episode season, but beyond their proximity on the network's schedule, the two period dramas have little in common; but that's not a bad thing for either show. Where DOWNTON is mostly a light-hearted look at a wealthy English family and the people who serve them, which only occasionally delves into significantly dramatic fare, MERCY STREET is a bone-chillingly authentic look at one of the most traumatic times in American history that has only momentary flits of humor.

Who would have imagined that a film based on an absurdist comedy about two minor characters from a 400-year-old tragedy would remain an existential escape 25 years after its initial release? The 1990 film adaption of Tom Stoppard's Tony-winning play ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, which the playwright both wrote and directed, doesn't maintain all of the charm and intellect of the stage version, but is able to retain much of the delightful wackiness that made the play a defining work in the history of the American theatre in 1966. The 25th Anniversary Blu-ray/DVD hits shelves today, complete with a brand new interview with playwright turned director.

On the heels of winning the Golden Globe for Best TV Drama, MR. ROBOT, the most buzzed-about show of 2015, is releasing its first season Blu-ray/DVD on Tuesday, January 12th. The show, a trippy look into the mind of an unstable hacker anarchist hell-bent on leveling the financial playing field, received both critical and public acclaim when it debuted in June. Showrunner Sam Esmail created a world in which nothing was what it seems, prompting the online intelligentsia to speculate about what was actually going on.

No one is ever going to confuse ABC's medieval song and dance event GALAVANT for top-notch musical comedy, but after a promising, yet uneven, first season, this delightfully silly show has hit its stride in Season 2 capitalizing on what made it a modest, surprise success in 2015. The second season, which premieres tonight at 8:00pm ET, seems to have found a far more consistent sense of humor allowing it to fully realize the RIDICULOUSNESS that each character and actor is capable of bringing to the table. For the next five weeks, ABC will air two 30-minute episodes every Sunday, each featuring original songs by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater. While this is not exactly the typical Sunday night prestige programming, it is a delightful diversion before TV gets back to being serious for February Sweeps.

While the setting, style, and time period of Quentin Tarantino movies have changed throughout the years, there are three things that have remained consistent; ensembles of gleefully flawed characters; depraved, but often gorgeously bloody violence; and lots and lots of profanity. While the theatre is no stranger to violence or profanity, it is his legendary ability to create compelling, but bizarre characters that has led me to say in print and on podcasts that if the 52-year-old writer and director had been born a few decades earlier, Tarantino could have been one of America's greatest playwrights, alongside Williams, O'Neill, Miller, Stoppard, and Mamet.

In drama, there are three types of conflict: man versus man, man versus self, and man versus nature. In Ron Howard's new film, IN THE HEART OF THE SEA, Chris Hemsworth and Broadway favorite Benjamin Walker face all three types of conflicts as they battle a vengeful white whale. Loosely based on the nonfiction book of the same name by Nathaniel Philbrick, the film tells the story of the Whaleship Essex, which served as partial inspiration for the Herman Melville classic, MOBY DICK. Though Melville's novel is filled with Romantic language and rich, nuanced themes of class, obsession, and race, IN THE HEART OF THE SEA is a slick, depthless film that removes nearly all historical accuracy from this harrowing and terrifying tale. However, what the film lacks in emotion and authenticity, it nearly makes up for in visual majesty and grandeur.