Unyil News Today Blog

  For many readers, this next sentence will be a major age-based trigger, so be prepared. Disney’s animated classic Beauty and the Beast is soon celebrating its 30th anniversary (that’s right, we warned you!) with a previously announced two-hour animated/live-action hybrid special set to air on ABC. Boasting an all-star call sheet that even the Beast would be impressed by, audiences are getting their first two looks at the new faces telling the tale as old as time in Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration. Front and center in the ensemble image are Josh Groban and H.E.R. who will be playing the leading roles of the Beast and Belle, respectively. The duo wears the iconic colors of their characters, with Groban clad in a dark navy suit jacket, reminiscent of the Beast’s cape and pants combo. H.E.R. is also going the classic route, wearing what we’ll refer to as a “Belle-gold” dress. The outfits are drumming up memories of the original animated characters sharing a dance to the film’s t

  Horror author Stephen King directly confronted the patterns of alcoholism and violence and how to get on the road to recovery in his 2013 follow-up to his classic novel The Shining, Doctor Sleep. It was the culmination of King's own decades of sobriety drawing on his own experiences as a former alcoholic who found a way out. Six years later, modern horror maestro Mike Flanagan would take up King's story with his film adaptation of the novel which also served as a sequel to Stanley Kubrick's classic adaptation. During filming, he, too, made the decision to stop drinking and has remained sober ever since. In a piece on Tumblr, Flanagan explained how Doctor Sleep helped him confront and ultimately overcome alcoholism. Doctor Sleep follows an older Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) who's traumatized by the events of his childhood at the Overlook Hotel and went down the same path of alcoholism as his father. As he tries to kick the habit and find peace as a hospice caretaker,

Anastasia is an outlier in the world of fairytale films. For starters, there's the fact that it's based on actual history rather than any fairytale. Second, despite sharing some similarities with the then-current house style of Disney's animated films, animator Don Bluth had left the House of Mouse to pursue his own animated projects, including The Secret of NIMH and All Dogs Go To Heaven. But what really makes the film stand out is the love story between the titular princess Anastasia (Meg Ryan) and con artist Dimitri (John Cusack). For starters, when the two first meet, romance is the furthest thing from their minds. The only thing on Anastasia's mind is finding her family. When she was young her family was killed in the Russian Revolution, and she suffered from amnesia after hitting her head. Dimitri is intending to seize upon the cash reward that Anastasia's grandmother Marie (Angela Lansbury) is offering, and sees her as the perfect mark. Compared to Disney'

In a shocking announcement late Sunday night, Disney has revealed that CEO Bob Chapek is officially out and set to be replaced by former CEO Bob Iger, who retired from the position just two years ago. Disney's board sent out an official announcement noting the swap without elaborating too much on Chapek's exit and establishing that Iger, who worked for Disney for over 40 years, has agreed to return as CEO for two years. Over the next two years, Iger will work closely with the board to find an appropriate successor to lead Disney moving forward. Chapek's exit comes as a surprise as he has served the company for just over two years and his contract was "unanimously" renewed through 2025 just five months ago. Upon his return, Iger sent out an email to Disney employees and Cast Members. In it, he wrote, "It is with an incredible sense of gratitude and humility—and, I must admit, a bit of amazement—that I write to you this evening with the news that I am returning

  It’s pretty easy to fall in love with movies from the Irish production company Cartoon Saloon. With a visual style that underscores the age of its protagonists but at the same time doesn't ignore their very real and often tragic realities, the studio has produced some top-quality films like Wolfwalkers and Song of the Sea. Their titles take viewers by surprise as they present complex and layered depictions of children living through challenging events. For that reason, it comes as a shock that My Father’s Dragon is happy with just mimicking the studio’s previous works, while favoring artificial and fleeting emotions. This animated movie’s potential to tell a layered story hits a high note right at the beginning. It’s impossible not to get won over by the story of Elmer (voiced by Jacob Tremblay), a boy who sees his mother struggle to raise him and do everything in her power—including having to endure constant humiliation—to guarantee she keeps food on the table and a roof over th

A predictable cycle always seems to crop up in the press right around the time that Netflix is gearing up to premiere a new season of The Crown. Someone makes headlines with the declaration that Peter Morgan's longtime series should come packaged with an indication that what's being depicted is fiction, the streamer responds to those assertions by issuing its own statement about the dramatization of events, and eventually, audiences tune in regardless of whether such a disclaimer exists. Rinse, repeat. While the trailer for the upcoming fifth season did specify that the story being told is only "inspired by real events," there's no doubt that the long-running show finds itself in previously uncharted waters, especially in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II's passing. On the one hand, I'm not sure anyone is actually watching The Crown for a factual version of history. Still, on the other, it's impossible not to see the stark parallels between one of the mon

Imagine: What if, thanks to the hard work of scientists, modern society has created a test that can determine, with 100 percent accuracy, who your perfect romantic match is. No more bad dates, no more heartache — all the guesswork involved in falling in love is a thing of the past. Whether or not that sounds like a dream or a nightmare, there's no denying that it's an interesting premise for a drama, which is perhaps why not one but two different British shows have come out in the last six months which are about exactly that: Last fall's Soulmates, which aired on AMC, and the brand-new The One, now streaming on Netflix. This is, to be clear, a review of The One, but as someone who watched Soulmates months ago it was pretty hard to separate the two in my head. To the best of my knowledge, there's no significant overlap between the creative teams beyond some visual effects artists; Soulmates, according to creators William Bridges and Brett Goldstein, was an original idea

 I’m oddly fascinated by Craig Gillespie’s Cruella, not because the movie is good, but because it’s such a perfect case study of every tired trend and trope currently infecting mainstream blockbusters. It’s like the way the Disney greenlit the project is that they looked across the company's vast array of intellectual properties (IP), picked One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and said, “This is a box. Fill it with something that is popular.” And that’s how you get a movie like Cruella where it’s part superhero origin but also a supervillain origin and also a tepid girl-power message and also the inevitable twist that shows a revelation about the protagonist’s lineage while also dumping on loads of style like dunking a rice cake in a vat of chocolate to mask the lack of taste. And yet for all the flair Gillespie and his cast bring to the project, they can’t hide that Cruella is too long, too bloated, and is a trend-chaser rather than a trendsetter like its title character. There are ti

  If there ever was a time to give The Hobbit Trilogy another shot, it’s with the release of all three films in stunning 4K. We all remember the intense anticipation that preceded the theatrical release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and we also all remember the feeling of disappointment that came soon after. Each generation gets its own upsetting prequel trilogy, it appears. The next two films in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit franchise made an insane amount of money, but didn’t come close to the greatness (or cultural relevance) of the Lord of the Rings movies. The Hobbit Trilogy was disappointing for a variety of reasons, but one major roadblock was Jackson’s decision to shoot and present all three films in HFR (High Frame Rate), which in turn made them look like stagey soap operas instead of immersive fantasy films. Even if you chose not to see The Hobbit in HFR, the downgrade of footage that was shot in 48 frames-per-second to exhibiting it at 24 frames-per-second still created a d

 It’s spooky season every season with the best streaming service for horror films – Shudder. Shudder is the home to hundreds of titles that are updated with new releases, classics, exclusives, and originals each week. Ranging from the supernatural to the psychological, with a hefty mix of creature features, sci-fi scares, and dark comedy – Shudder has something for everyone who’s looking to indulge in the genre for Halloween, Christmas, and every other holiday. ‘ Speak No Evil ’ (2022) One of Shudder's most recent exclusive releases, Speak No Evil, has had the Twitter-verse abuzz with discussion. Christian Tafdrup's disturbing thriller follows a Danish family – Bjorn, Louise, and their daughter Agnes, as they venture out to spend the weekend with a Dutch family they befriended whilst on vacation in Italy. Though the invitation itself seems friendly enough, it soon becomes clear to the audience – and to an uncomfortable Louise – that something isn’t quite right. Bjorn, desperate

Horror video games have gained huge traction in recent years. With the advancement of programming software and the video game medium as a whole, there is a lot that can be done with games that couldn't otherwise be done with movies. However, that doesn't mean movies shouldn't be pursued. Many horror games contain all the necessary ingredients for a spectacular Hollywood horror movie but just haven't been given the chance yet to make the leap to the big screen. But perhaps they should. 'The Forest' (2018) In The Forest, players take control of widowed survival expert Eric LeBlanc. He is on a plane home from New York with his son, Timmy, when the plane suddenly crash lands on an uncharted peninsula. When Eric awakens, he finds that all the other passengers, including Timmy, are missing. Using his survival skills, he begins the weeks-long search to find his son. This is when Eric realizes that the peninsula is inhabited by a tribe of mutant cannibals. And that ther