Days of Our Lives puts EJ DiMera (Dan Feuerriegel) and Dr. Wilhelm Rolf (Richard Wharton) plotting and planning to revive even more dead DiMeras. So, is Abigail Deveraux DiMera (AnnaLynne McCord) the next recipient of Rolf’s miracle medical serum once they iron out the kinks?
I think after the chat today between EJ and Gwen Rizczech, it sure seems like there’s a stack of person pods with many dead DiMeras waiting to be revived. So, we have a lot to unpack about who else is going to be dragged from the grave.
EJ And Rolf Happy About Lexie’s Progress
All right, so we’ve got EJ and Rolf pretty happy about the progress that their pod person, Lexie Carver, has been making. So this week, we saw Gwen super excited, thinking they’re about to cash in on the big payday from the investment that she made in this twisted science lab.
But EJ told Gwen that Rolf is concerned. Even though Lexie reached her hand out for her son Theo Carver‘s (Cameron Johnson) hand, they’re not seeing the level of brain activity and other signs of awakening consciousness that they are hoping to see with Lexie by now.
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Days of Our Lives: EJ’s Bigger Plans?
So even though EJ’s focus is solely on his sister Lexie at the moment, I suspect EJ’s got bigger plans in the works. He explained that Lexie was the most viable patient to revive right now. So, her resurrection also was part of their dad, Stefano DiMera’s final wishes.
Now, we know that the Phoenix always felt really bad. Because Lexie’s inoperable brain cancer was caused by toxic fumes in the underground DiMera tunnels. That’s because years ago, Andre DiMera kidnapped Lexie, held her down in the tunnels long enough for her to be exposed to these toxins that wrecked her health and killed her. But hopefully with Rolf’s serum mixed in with the Versix, it’ll work a miracle for Lexie.
Now, I do expect she’ll finally wake up in May sweeps. I don’t know how long she may survive or not. But if you remember, the Versix by itself is what saved Bo Brady from the brink of death. And that was from a two-year coma. And he had that extreme sepsis.
Could Abigail Be in a Pod?
So Rafe Hernandez (Galen Gering) and Cat Green were also recently talking about EJ’s secret lab and the person pod they found during Stephanie and Jeremy’s rescue. And Rafe suggested that EJ and Rolf might be reviving Chad DiMera‘s (Connor Floyd) late wife Abigail when they discussed who might have been in that pod.
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So Lexie’s not on their radar. Not only that. But new Chad, played by cutie Connor Floyd, also speculated that his brother EJ may be trying to bring Abby back from the dead. In fact, he confronted EJ about it and Chad was grilling him about the pod.
Days of Our Lives: Clyde Knows the Truth?
Now, we know that Abigail’s body was never recovered. Her grave was empty. They searched for her remains. They never found them. And do you remember what hillbilly mobster Clyde Weston said? Before he was shot and put in a coma by Cat’s mom, Clyde hinted that he knew where Abigail was. Now, he didn’t say dead or alive. But it was a hint that he knew.
So, even though EJ denied everything, Chad’s still got his suspicions right now. And he was told back when she was stabbed to death that Abigail was too far gone to use Rolf’s serum. That was back in 2022. Now, that could have been a lie or it could have been a case of EJ and Rolf couldn’t bring her back at the moment. But they hoped that they would have the medical know-how to bring Abby back in the future someday. So, they, you know, didn’t ever see her in the grave. They put her in a person pod and, I don’t know, buried sandbags or something.
But apparently Clyde somehow knows the truth of what happened to her and why Abby was not in her grave. Plus, there’s the fact that EJ and Gwen have ties to Abigail, which makes it intriguing. And of course, after Cat Green pretended to be resurrected not-so-dead Abigail, obviously Chad should be very skeptical.
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Abigail And EJ’s Affair
And let’s not forget that Abby and EJ had a torrid affair back in 2014. That was when they were swapping actors around and Chad had left Salem for a bit. And Abby and EJ leaned on each other for emotional support and it turned into a full-blown physical relationship that happened even though EJ was engaged to Sami Brady at the time and EJ’s affair with Abby intensified.
They had all these secret hookups. There was that infamous sexy shower scene at the gym that Sami nearly interrupted. And if you remember, Abigail was obsessively infatuated with EJ at the time. And Abby tried to stop him from ending their affair.
Unfortunately for them, EJ and Abby’s affair was exposed in an article written by Will Horton. And when Chad returned to Salem that year, when Billy Flynn made his debut, he punched EJ for the betrayal and he confronted Abigail. Eventually Chad and Abby reconciled and there was no further funny business between her and EJ. And now we have new Chad and we could be getting a new Abby.
Days of Our Lives: EJ DiMera – Abigail Deveraux DiMera
New Actress Hired At Days
Actress Sophia Mattsson who used to be on General Hospital, she’s a really good actress, blonde, statuesque. She was recently hired at Days of Our Lives with lots of speculation about whether she might be resurrected recast Abby. I saw some chatter that Sophia was going to play a new character. But I haven’t seen it in official channels and they could start her out as somebody with a different name with amnesia who later turns out to be Abby. There’s a lot of ways to go, you know, to get around that even if they did say that, trying to keep the mystery coming. So, I do think she’d be a good fit to be Abigail.
And Sophia Mattsson makes her debut early next year, which is long enough for them to work out any kinks in Rolf’s person pod and the medication protocol so they can start bringing back whoever is in the other person pods. So right now EJ has the hots for Cat. So does Chad. But with Rachel Black blabbing all that stuff to angry Thomas DiMera, you know, they’re not together right now. But we probably will see Chad and Cat together in the future.
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Could EJ Brainwash Abigail?
So, if EJ sees Cat getting close to Chad, he might get jealous. And don’t forget, Rolf can brainwash people while they’re under his care. Remember, they did that with Stefan DiMera when he came out of the whole thing hot for Chloe. Because Leon bribed Rolf to mess with Stefan’s head so he wouldn’t pursue Gabi Hernandez (Cherie Jimenez).
So, if EJ’s salty about Chad and Cat, I wouldn’t put it past him to do something similar with resurrected Abby if they are bringing her back. You know, she was really into EJ back in the day. So, I could see him deciding to be vengeful and keeping Abigail for himself to screw Chad over.
Days of Our Lives: Chad Pushes EJ
Especially since the moment that Connor Floyd took over the role, we had Chad getting pretty aggressive with EJ in a way that he wasn’t usually when Billy Flynn was in the role. They had mellowed his brothers. But now new Chad is pushing really hard at EJ.
So, I think it would be especially interesting to have Abigail DiMera come back. And I think it would be interesting to have Cat and Chad as a couple by then and then EJ maybe having Rolf brainwash her and then staking a claim on Abby from the moment she wakes up from the person pod. That could be super super soapy. So, we’ll see how it goes.
Brit Eady is throwing a lil’ shade at Kenya Moore after footage showed items getting removed from her hair spa. Eady shared a video of herself driving past Moore’s salon on social media alongside a caption that has fans saying she basically just got her lick back!
Brit Eady Drops A Message After Clip Shows Items Getting Removed From Kenya Moore’s Hair Spa
Okay, so BOOM! If y’all recall, in 2024, Kenya Moore was accused of allegedly putting up explicit photos of Brit Eady during a private event at her spa. The situation even pushed Eady to file a $20 million lawsuit against Bravo. Now Brit is serving a lil’ clapback. She hopped on Instagram and shared a video of herself driving past Moore’s hair spa while items were being removed from the space. She basically gave “what goes around, comes around” energy as the footage sees her shaking her head while boxes sat outside the salon. In her caption she wrote, “Never win when you play dirty.”
What’s The Tea On Kenya’s Hair Spa?
Kenya’s salon clear-out comes after TMZ reported that she owed $87, 976 to her landlord. In April 2025, landlord Northland Chamblee LLC filed an eviction lawsuit, seeking $30,000 in backpay and claiming payments had stopped in December 2024.. By October, that amount had increased to more than $44,000. Kenya Moore Hair Spa pushed back on those claims and said the landlord failed to make promised improvements. A Georgia judge later gave Kenya two deadlines to repay the money — $43,988 by the end of February another $43,988 by the end of March. The judge also ordered her company to repay about $5,500 a month in rent unless she vacated the space. After she missed the court-mandated payments, the eviction of her business moved forward. Based on Brit’s video, it appears the process unfolded this week.
Kenya Denies Claims Of Owing Her Landlord
As mentioned, in February of this year, Kenya denied owing her landlord money. She shared a post on Instagram saying the landlord actually owed her. She also claimed that she spent six figures building the salon and said her landlord never reimbursed her.
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“The reports about me being behind on rent are false. As I have stated before, my company is in an active lawsuit against my salon landlord for failing to pay nearly $80,000 in tenant improvement allowance OWED TO ME. I invested over $300,000 of my own money to build out my salon in a commercial space from a white box. When the landlord failed to reimburse contractual expenses, I withheld rent in an effort to reach a fair settlement, and subsequently filed a countersuit for the amount they failed to reimburse.”
We’re well over halfway through this decade, which means that many film watchers are starting to look back at all the films that have been released to take stock. There have been plenty of great films and a few masterpieces in the 2020s, with more still likely to come. Every genre has gotten its fair share of new classics, and the action genre has been particularly potent. There have been installments in franchises new and old, bold originals and everything in between. They haven’t all been perfect, but many have been good, some great, and a select few are absolute masterpieces. Opinions are always going to vary on what films can be classified as true masterpieces, with debate still surrounding awesome action movies from this decade like Furiosa, John Wick: Chapter 4, and Tenet. While time may tell on those movies, and a handful of others, at least five action movies from the 2020s can currently be certified as masterpieces.
Every action fan has their favorite era of movies, whether it’s the bombastic blockbusters of the ’80s, their high-concept cousins of the ’90s, or the grounded and gritty efforts of the 2000s. There have already been a few apparent trends for the 2020s, but the action genre has shown a lot of diversity so far, and the five action masterpieces of the decade offer a wonderful cross-section of it. We’ve got a superhero sequel, an Indian epic, and no less than two Best Picture winners. Add to those one of the best franchise legacy sequels ever made, and there’s no doubting that these five films represent the best of the best of the action genre for the 2020s so far. When this decade has come to a close, there’s no doubt that these action movies will be counted as true masterpieces.
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‘Top Gun: Maverick’ (2022)
Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’Image via Paramount Pictures
The decade got off to a slow start thanks to COVID. The pandemic pushed the releases of many movies and caused others to struggle at the box office when it finally opened back up. There were a number of movies credited with bringing audiences back to theaters, but the big blockbuster that truly got butts back in seats was the long-awaited legacy sequel Top Gun: Maverick. While the Tony Scott-directed original is certainly a favorite for some action, it could hardly be considered one of the best of the ’80s or even in the careers of Scott or mega-star Tom Cruise. This sequel, helmed by Joseph Kosinski, rose higher and faster than its predecessor, thanks to some astonishing aerial action sequences. Those sequences, which were shot with the actors in real jets in the sky, gave audiences all the action they’d been craving, and the young cast proved proper copilots to Cruise, who was still firmly in the pilot seat.
Picking up decades later, the film finds Maverick (Cruise) still feeling the need for speed and pushing the buttons of his superiors with his devil-may-care attitude and reckless flaunting of safety measures. That gets him a one-way ticket back to the Top Gun flight school, now to serve as an instructor for the young blood cadets, including Rooster (Miles Teller), the son of the first film’s ill-fated Goose (Anthony Edwards), and Hangman (Glen Powell), who clearly takes after the antagonistic Iceman (Val Kilmer). Kilmer himself shows upfor a surprisingly emotional cameo that sees the once-bitter rivals embrace as old friends. While the action is superlative, it’s scenes like that between Maverick and Iceman that epitomize the effectiveness of this legacy sequel, which pays homage to what came before but isn’t afraid to chart its own flight path. Top Gun: Maverick succeeds where so many belated sequels failed by bringing in a solid new cast of characters, tinging itself with nostalgia without ever basking fully in its glow, and featuring action that will pin you to your seat.
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‘RRR’ (2022)
While Hollywood was patting itself on the back for remembering how to make great sequels, out of India came a film that showed everyone in America that the country was still outpacing us with original filmmaking. RRR, a Telugu-language historical epic with musical numbers and characters that rival superheroes for their athleticism, took international audiences by force with its blistering action set pieces. Directed by S.S. Rajamouli, who has been making films for two decades, including the two-part action epic Baahubali, the film is a non-stop thrill ride through its period setting. It combines history with folklore and wraps it in an over-the-top action style that makes it one of the most original action masterpieces of the 2020s or any other decade.
Set in India in the early twentieth century, during the British Raj, when the country was under British colonial rule, the film follows two fictionalized versions of revolutionaries. Tribal guardian Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) is brought into the action when a young girl is taken prisoner by the callous British Governor and wife, who enlist Imperial Officer Alluri Sitarama Raju (Ram Charan) to help fight him off. The two go from adversaries to allies as they join forces to take down the oppressive regime in some of the most kinetic and riveting action sequences to come out of any country. RRR put Hollywood on notice and made international stars out of its creative team, paving the way for more Telugu cinema and other Indian action masterpieces to break through to Western audiences.
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ (2022)
Stephanie Hsu, Michelle Yeoh, and Ke Huy Quan stand together looking scared in Everything Everywhere All at Once.Image via A24
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Maybe it was the year of COVID lockdown or the tumultuous politics that led to a flourish of creative energy, but 2022 was a banger year for action movies. Even that year’s big Oscar winner was the martial arts extravaganzaEverything Everywhere All at Once. Though Top Gun: Maverick was also nominated for Best Picture, and RRR should have been, it was this wickedly entertaining multiversal action-comedy from Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert that took home the gold. It’s truly one of the weirdest films to ever win Best Picture, but it richly deserved the award for its elaborate visuals, clever script, fantastic performances and wild action sequences. It made history with its award wins and proved that action movies don’t have to cater to more pretentious tastes in order to receive accolades.
Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is a laundromat owner who is struggling to balance her deteriorating marriage, estranged relationship with her daughter, and an IRS audit. Things get multitudes more complicated when she discovers that many parallel universes exist, and she may be the key to saving all of them from an alternate supervillian version of her daughter. That overloaded premise is only scratching the surface of the oddities that exist in the film’s many different realities. An Oscar-winning Yeoh is as dynamic a protagonist as ever, and she’s ably supported by her supporting cast members, including fellow Oscar winners Jamie Lee Curtis as a vindictive IRS agent and Ke Huy Quan as Evelyn’s husband. Everything Everywhere All at Once‘sballs-to-the-wall, absurdist approach isn’t for everyone, but it’s got more ideas in single scenes than many blander action films have across their entire runtime.
‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ (2023)
Miles Morales fighting Spot in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-VerseImage via Sony Pictures Releasing
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Everything Everywhere All at Once was far from the first film to make use of the multiverse concept, which had already broken through to the mainstream several years earlier in the animated action masterpiece Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. That invigorating comic book movie’s sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, expanded exponentially on its predecessor’s bold visual style and universe-jumping action to become the best superhero action movie of the 2020s. Introducing hundreds of new Spider-Heroes into its universe, Across the Spider-Verse broadened the creative possibilities of what a Spider-Man movie could be. It opened up a whole host of new avenues for potential future exploration, and while a third film is on the way, along with a live-action Spider-Noirstreaming series, there’s no telling where else the franchise could go from here.
The film picks back up with Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), who is struggling to balance his personal life with his superhero activities, longing to be reunited with his fellow webslingers. Meanwhile, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) has been recruited into a league of multiverse-defending Spider-People, including clever cameos and full supporting characters like Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) and Spider-Man India (Karan Soni), who bring even more diversity into the wonderfully colorful world. The animation pushes more boundaries than before, mixing media and radically different art styles for each universe and even individual characters. Like Miles, the movie does its own thing and manages to beat its live-action counterparts with more creativity and inventive action.
‘One Battle After Another’ (2025)
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
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As unusual and idiosyncratic as one would expect for an action film from arthouse director Paul Thomas Anderson, last year’s Best Picture winner One Battle After Anothergives you everything you might expect and then so much more. Based on Thomas Pynchon‘snovel Vineland, the film mixes social commentary with stoner comedy and propels it all with some of the most inspired action set pieces, including a climactic car chase that does more with a low-angle camera and a long stretch of road than many other modern blockbusters can with mountains of CGI. When it doesn’t have you laughing at the insanity of its characters or incensed at the social inequalities that surround them, One Battle After Another keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Former revolutionary Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) lives under an assumed identity with his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) in California. He is shaken out of his weed-induced fog when a dangerous figure from his past, the hardline Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn), comes looking for Willa. So ensues a feature-length chase plot involving white supremacists, revolutionary nuns, and a super-chill karate sensei named Sergio (Benicio del Toro). While the film’s themes of social unrest, generational political movements, and authoritarian governments were developed before they became dishearteningly relevant to the current political climate, they will likely always resonate with audiences. Even if you don’t get down with the film’s messy politics, there’s no denying it’s an action masterpiece.
When Michael first hit Rotten Tomatoes with a brutal 27 percent critics score, it looked like another high profile biopic was about to crash under the weight of expectations. Then audiences showed up. And everything changed.
The film has now surged to a staggering 96 percent audience score, instantly flipping the narrative and putting Michael in rare territory as one of the highest rated musical biopics ever from a fan perspective.
So what happened?
Critics vs Audience A Familiar Divide
Early critic reactions focused on pacing, tone, and the film’s approach to controversial moments in Michael Jackson’s life. Some reviews called it uneven, others said it played things too safe. But audiences saw something completely different.
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Fans praised the performance, the music, and most importantly, the emotional connection. Social reactions have been flooded with comments about how the film captures the energy, pressure, and genius of Jackson in a way that feels authentic and powerful. For many viewers, it is not about perfection. It is about feeling. And Michael delivers that in a big way.
The Power of Music and Nostalgia
Musical biopics live and die by one thing more than anything else. Connection.
From the moment the first iconic track hits, audiences are pulled into a shared experience. With a catalog as legendary as Michael Jackson’s, Michael had a built in advantage that critics may have underestimated.
The film leans heavily into that legacy. The performances, choreography, and stage recreations are being called some of the best ever put on screen in this genre. That alone is driving repeat viewings and word of mouth momentum.
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Jafaar Jackson, Michael [credit: Lionsgate]
Audience Scores Are Becoming the Real Indicator
We have seen this trend before. Critics analyze. Audiences react.
And in the era of social media and instant feedback, audience scores are increasingly shaping a film’s reputation in real time. A 96 percent score is not just good. It signals strong emotional resonance and mass appeal.
That kind of response can extend box office legs, boost streaming performance, and even reshape award season conversations.
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One of the Biggest Turnarounds in Recent Memory
Going from 27 percent to 96 percent is not just a rebound. It is a complete narrative reversal.
For Michael, it means the film is no longer defined by its early reviews. It is being defined by the people actually watching it. And right now, they love it.
The Bottom Line
Michael may not be a critic darling, but it is becoming a fan phenomenon.
And in today’s landscape, that might matter more than ever.
Stolas in the ‘Helluva Boss’ Season 3 teaser.Image via Prime Video
After months of waiting, Helluva Boss fans finally have concrete news, and it’s bigger than expected. The hit animated series has officially confirmed that Season 3 is on the way, but it won’t be arriving all at once.
This is a developing story. Please refresh your page for updates from Collider.
Brendan Fraser holding a torch in The MummyImage via Universal Pictures
This article covers a developing story. Continue to check back with us as we will be adding more information as it becomes available.
The Mummy is rising from its tomb sooner than anticipated. The upcoming film, which will reunite Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz for the first time in 25 years, will carry on the legacy of the horror-tinged action adventure franchise. But for the first time, it will be exploring some unfamiliar terrain; a new page on the calendar.
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The as-yet untitled Mummy 4 will now hit theaters on October 15, 2027. That’s a move of seven months up from its original release date on May 19, 2028. It’s also a change from the franchise’s previous entries; The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor were all summer releases. Tom Cruise‘s attempted Dark Universe kickoff, 2017s The Mummy, was also a would-be summer tentpole. Does this portend a more horror-oriented version of the film, in keeping with the film’s new release date in the heart of spooky season? Or was it simply a matter of the film being ahead of schedule? We’ll have to wait until next October to find out.
This article covers a developing story. Continue to check back with us as we will be adding more information as it becomes available.
While the most popular titles about World War II are movies, including classics like Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List, a handful of TV shows have gone on to also portray the dark chapter in world history. Among them is World on Fire, a BBC series that first released in 2019 and was abruptly cut short after two seasons. The series, led by The Little Mermaid‘s Jonah Hauer-King, depicted a series of compelling and at times heart-breaking storylines from the early days of the war.
In its two-season run, the series received some major critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, World on Fire not only has a 92% average score from critics, but received an impressive 100% for Season 2. So, while the series has yet to receive worldwide recognition, there’s no doubt that it’s one of the most ambitious, and critically acclaimed, WWII TV shows out there.
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What Is ‘World on Fire’ About?
Set in the earlier days of WWII, World on Fire follows the intertwining fates of ordinary people in Britain, Poland, France, Germany, and beyond, as they grapple with the effects of war on their everyday lives. Among them is Hauer-King’s character Harry Chase, a British translator working in Warsaw when the war breaks out. In addition to his convoluted love life, the series follows his character as he’s recruited to become a soldier, and later rises through the ranks of army intelligence. Other important characters include Kasia Tomaszeski (Zofia Wichłacz), a Polish waitress who joins the Polish Resistance against Nazi occupation, and Helen Hunt‘s Nancy Campbell, an American journalist risking her own life to expose the Nazi truth and propaganda in Berlin.
In each of the intertwined stories, not only does World on Fire paint a picture of what the war meant to all kinds of people, but the series also shines a light on some of the lesser known and overlooked moments of the war, including the Battle of Danzig in Poland and the Battle of the River Plate near Uruguay. In Season 2, World on Fire kicks off in the chaos of October 1940. This time around, viewers see how the Great War makes its way to Britain with Harry and other pilots like him revving their engines to defend the skies over Manchester. The series, created by Peter Bowker, also stars Lesley Manville, Sean Bean, Eryk Biedunkiewicz, Julia Brown, Yrsa Daley-Ward, and Parker Sawyers.
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Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
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🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
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What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
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Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
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How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
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What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
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What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
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Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
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What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
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What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
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How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
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What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
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Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
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You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
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You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
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You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
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You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
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You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
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‘World on Fire’ Is a Must-Watch Historical Drama
Image via PBS/BBC
From the critics’ reviews alone, World on Fire surely joins the list of must-watch TV. Among the highlights in the reviews are the performances on the show, notably Hauer-King, Bean and Manville. “Sean Bean has made a career out of playing noble leaders like Boromir in Lord of the Rings. But he’s wonderful here as a working-class pacifist whose mind World War I shattered,” writes one review. “The best thing about the show is the great Lesley Manville’s performance as Robina,” asserts another review. On the show, The Crown actress plays Robina Chase, Harry’s mother. “A believable and craftily comic portrayal of a woman who reluctantly lets down her guard in response to the war.”
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Most of all, critics praise the series’ perspective of showing individual emotional stories from their characters, and letting their experiences depict the atrocities of the war. After all, while statistics can go long in describing the horrors that happened during that time, the personal, heartfelt stories show them expertly instead. “World on Fire is, at times, unbelievably cheesy – but the characters’ broad strokes make for high-drama entry points into the true horrors of the historical narrative,” wrote one review.
With all that said, while World on Fire came to an end after Season 2, the series remains as one of the BBC’s most ambitious and critically acclaimed series on WWII. By using heartfelt character arcs to tell multiple stories, the series succeeds in not only being an emotional drama, but also an action-packed war series about the atrocities and realities of war.
Bold and the Beautiful has a stack of plots that is irritating viewers right now. And I tend to agree with most of the fan opinion on this. From RJ Forrester‘s (Brayan Nicoletti) abrasive attitude to Taylor Hayes (Rebecca Budig) happily never after just evaporating and a few other things on B&B that are just not proper. Not proper at all. And we’re going to discuss five of the worst plots on the CBS soap right now.
So, I see a lot of fans ranting on soap social media every day about the nonsense that we’re seeing on Bold. Some viewers are extremely ticked off. So, we’re going to talk about RJ, Electra, Taylor, Steffy, Hope, and some others.
Electra And Will’s Letter Situation on Bold and the Beautiful
So, the first thing we’re going to talk about is this whole thing with Electra Forrester (Laneya Grace) and Will Spencer (Crew Morrow) and the whole letter situation. And honestly, the whole scope of this storyline. We’ve seen how pouty that Electra has been. How she has no problem with somebody that she says is her friend living on the street eating out of dumpsters. And also, we’ve just seen her and Will and others that just won’t communicate clearly. And of course, we got RJ’s holier than thou bullcrap.
This could have all been cleared up if Electra had just asked Will why he ignored her letter or sent an email or a text or just had a conversation face to face or if Electra had actually listened when Will tried to explain that Ivy was lying about him. But Electra gave him no oxygen to even hear him. None of the people speak plainly and none of them listen. And on top of that, it feels like, and this is not just for this storyline, but across the board, almost every episode repeats the same exact conversation we heard the last time those people were on screen.
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If they’re on Monday, and then we see them Monday, we see them Wednesday, same conversation again. And the main criticism I see about Bold is storylines don’t move forward. It’s repeat, repeat, repeat. And then every three episodes or maybe once a week, something moves forward a little.
We’ve been on the same calendar day on Bold for a week of episodes. If you look at the outfits that Electra and Daphne and others are wearing, it is literally not moving forward. I see this same criticism on most plots on B&B. Repeat conversations day after day and then you pile in unneeded flashbacks to make it even more stagnant.
Ivy’s “Not Proper” Thing on B&B
Another thing really bugging fans for a while now has been Ivy and her whole “It’s just not proper” thing. Brad Bell has done some bizarre rewrite on her. This is nothing like Ivy ever was before on Bold and the Beautiful. I don’t ever recall her even using the word proper before all the years she was on.
Ashleigh Brewer’s character has been twisted around to make her an uptight helicopter aunt manipulating Electra. And frankly, it’s not a well-written storyline. If you have to have a character acting totally out of character to make it work, that’s not good writing.
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The whole storyline was not only dragged out, but after all this time, it’s frustrating to get a character that people actually used to like, Ivy, back on the scene, only to have her behave like an uptight, controlling weirdo. They brought her back, but made Ivy entirely unlikable. We were supposed to be getting her back to, you know, do something with Liam, maybe even with Thomas because they’re not related, something interesting.
Instead, she’s stalking Will and Dylan when she was supposed to be sick while Electra was out of town. And even now, Ivy remains unapologetic. She’s still rambling, hoping Electra doesn’t go back to Will. That’s on Friday’s episode after Ivy’s basically agreed it’s time for her to leave Forrester.
Everything With RJ Forrester
So, the next hot mess plot to talk about is everything with RJ Forrester since the recast with Brayan Nicoletti. It’s nothing to do with the actor. He’s fine. Handsome young guy. It is how Brad Bell is writing RJ. He used to be a much more likable young man. And he’s been a jerk from about five minutes after he walked through the door.
He was nice to Will for like a second and said, “Let’s not act like our dads Bill and Ridge. Let’s put that animosity behind us.” Will agreed. And then what does RJ do? He actually immediately started acting like his dad, Ridge Forrester (Thorsten Kaye).
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Because RJ latched on to the idea of being with Electra. And that was back when she and Will were doing great. They were totally happy. And Brooke Logan (Katherine Kelly Lang) even told him, “Don’t go there. She’s with Will.” But RJ did.
And then he is just doubled down and tripled down. He’s 100% unlikable. He has not been a big hit with the fans. I think he’s the worst nepo baby that Bold and the Beautiful has ever had. And honestly, I think the writers need to completely rehab RJ if they ever want fans to like him.
Bold and the Beautiful: RJ Forrester – Taylor Hayes
Bold and the Beautiful Fans in an Outrage
Some recent comments on soap social media about him. This one I like. Can they please ship RJ overseas and bring back Thomas? Another said, RJ and Ivy are total garbage. And another said, RJ’s such a weirdo. Other comments flat-out call him a dumbass. Somebody else posted a long line of laughing face emoji’s over RJ saying his life hasn’t been as easy as Dylan thinks. RJ actually told that to a young woman who lived in her car and ate from a dumpster. What? Did he not get the jacket he wanted from Neiman Marcus? Come on.
Where are Deacon & Taylor on Bold?
Another thing bugging fans is the lack of follow-through, next steps, or any kind of closure on Deacon Sharpe (Sean Kanan) and Taylor. Everybody’s asking, “Where’s Deacon and Taylor? What happened?” Last we saw, they’re at Deacon’s place. They’re kissing. Sheila Carter (Kimberlin Brown) is stalking and smirking, saying she’ll be back.
You know, we had Deacon and Taylor finally get together, but they still didn’t actually get together. They didn’t make love. You know, they were interrupted before when Sheila came in with the knife. And then we had that, you know, them kissing on the sofa and then the Sheila cliffhanger. Will she kill them or won’t she? And then all of them disappeared.
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So, are we going to circle back around to Taylor and Deacon? Has Taylor moved into Deacon’s little apartment? Did they get a house? You know, they didn’t even get a big pinnacle moment. Like, here we are. We can be together. He picks up Taylor in his arms, carries her to the bedroom, nothing. We got a very lackluster climax and then no climax. And they’re just on the back burner. Fans aren’t loving that.
Steffy And Hope Are MIA on B&B
The last thing to talk about is the fact that Steffy Forrester (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) and Hope Logan (Annika Noelle) are pretty much MIA these days. Bold fans are ticked about this, too. After Hope reconciled with Liam Spencer (Scott Clifton), we never see them. Basically, they show up to make commentary on other storylines, like talking about Taylor and Deacon or the Logan Fashion House. I was hoping to see Hope and Liam expanding their family, getting a place of their own. They don’t even show them in the cabin anymore. It’s Brooke’s living room.
Then, we got Steffy and Finn Finnegan (Tanner Novlan). We see them every once in a while, usually for sofa sex, and that’s it. They also were mostly side items in the Taylor, Deacon and Sheila drama and then they evaporated. I saw a comment on social media where a fan asked if anybody remembers Steffy and Hope. One fan asked, “Where is Steffy? She needs to kick her loser brother RJ’s ass.” That made me laugh.
So, I understand that Bold wants younger folks center stage trying to bring in a younger demo, but they also don’t need to neglect their other fans and their other characters. You know, Hope and Steffy and that generation should be center stage, not the barely out of their teens crew.
Roommates, what started as what families believed was a trusted community role has now ended in a courtroom verdict that has left a Ohio community with more questions than comfort, especially as the name Rushon Patterson II continues to sit at the center of a heartbreaking case involving a teenager’s final ride.
Former Pastor Convicted In Fatal Church Van Incident Involving Teen
An Ohio jury has convicted Rushon Patterson II, 27, a former volunteer pastor, in connection with the death of 14-year-old Malachi Nichols-Williams, who died after falling from a moving church van in September 2025. Patterson was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and allowing a child to ride outside a vehicle, but acquitted of reckless homicide. Prosecutors said Patterson was driving a church van for Alive Now Kidz Church in Canton Township when he allowed Malachi and other teens to hold onto the outside of the vehicle while he drove through a neighborhood.
Pothole Impact Leads To Fatal Fall From Moving Van
According to testimony, most of the teens let go when they noticed a pothole ahead, but Malachi did not. When Patterson drove over it, the impact reportedly caused the teen to fall and hit his head on the pavement, suffering a skull fracture and severe brain injury. Malachi initially attempted to stand after the fall, and a pediatric neurosurgeon testified that there were early signs he might survive, but he remained on life support for three days before his mother, Pamela Nichols, made the devastating decision to let him go on September 9, 2025.
Mother Mourns Loss While Describing Pastor As Father Figure
In the aftermath, Nichols described Patterson as someone who had been like a father figure to her son and other children, saying she did not see him as a bad person, but as someone who made a tragic mistake. She also made the decision to donate Malachi’s organs, telling reporters she wanted his passing to still help others live on. Patterson now awaits sentencing on May 12 as the community continues to grapple with how a routine church outing ended in irreversible loss.
Kristy Scott is keeping her summer curves in check with a lil’ help from a familiar face! On Thursday, the mega-influencer shared a photo from her gym session and Victoria Monét’s ex-boyfriend, John Gaines, was in it. For now, it’s unclear whether the link-up was strictly professional or something more, but it definitely turned heads on the ‘gram!
Divorce seemingly isn’t stopping Kristy Sarah from booking her gigs and hitting the gym in between! Yesterday, she shared a look at her day, which included a workout session with John Gaines. No word on how long they’ve been training together, but their casual selfie had her fans hype! In the photo, she’s throwing up her deuces, standing in front of Gaines while he flexes her biceps. They both had on black workout fits, from his durag to her glasses frame. She tagged him in the photo, writing, “GYM SESH” with a bicep emoji.
Social Media Reacts To Kristy’s Workout
In The Shade Room’s comment section there was a mix of everything. Some roomies kept asking WHO, needing a reminder that John Gaines is Victoria Monét’s ex-man and current co-parent for daughter Hazel Monét. Gaines and Victoria broke up in 2023, but didn’t reveal the news until 10 months later in September 2024. Their joint statement spoke of mutual affection and denied any rumors of infidelity.
“We both just have some fundamental growing to do that would be best done apart so we can remain the best versions of ourselves for our daughter,” the statement said, per PEOPLE. “It simply didn’t work out and that’s OK. We still think the world of each other and operate with love in every interaction for our family.”
Meanwhile, others had questions about the sweaty link-up and the history between Kristy Scott and John. Are they giving baewatch or trainer-client? Here’s a taste of the comment section.
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@fortheyappers wrote, “Our good sis found her some REAL fine shyt 🤭👏🏾👏🏾.”
“These the kinda rumors I like being started😂,” @jessicapastry joked.
“In terms of looks, this is an upgrade. That’s a beautiful man,” @dayday45890 commented.
Meanwhile, @g0al.diggaa added, “This is literally Victoria Monet baby daddy he’s a trainer yall be reachinggggggg 😂.”
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“Desmond somewhere cooking a meal, peacefully lol,” @tasha.raye313 wrote.
“That’s not a man, that’s a whole power supply 😭,” @faithdonna.z joked.
What do A Classic Horror Story, The Conference, and Oxygen all have in common? They’re all internationally produced, non-English speaking Netflix Originals that I wish more people knew about. Listen, I know that English dubs don’t emote properly, and subtitles may seem like a chore, but so is watching some of the stateside Netflix Originals like Time Cut, which is basically a 92-minute commercial for Olive Garden and Butterfingers masquerading as a teen horror flick.
Oxygen, one of the best sci-fi flicks I’ve seen in a very long time, may be a French-language film, but you’ll get so sucked into its bare-bones story and claustrophobic setting that you won’t even realize you’re reading the dialogue off the screen, which forces you to pay close attention, making it impossible to escape the uncomfortable atmosphere it’s thrusting on its audience.
An Uncomfortable Experience All Around
As somebody who has the stomach for the goriest of horror flicks, Oxygen f*cked me up because I’m claustrophobic, and adding the vast nothingness of deep space to the equation makes the story all the more terrifying because there’s no masked antagonist or deep state conspiracy that the viewer is introduced to– we’re simply dealing with a single woman alone with her thoughts, and the highly intelligent AI lifeform that’s trying to guide her to safety.
As its title suggests, the primary source of conflict in Oxygen is, in fact, a lack of oxygen. When a woman known as Liz (Melanie Laurent) wakes up shrink-wrapped in a tiny medical pod in an undisclosed location, she immediately finds herself hysterical because the only thing she knows is that she has about 90 minutes of oxygen to find out who she is, where she is, what kind of sick experiment she’s being subjected to, and who’s behind said experiment. Having access to a supercomputer named M.I.L.O. (Medical Interface Liaison Officer), Liz scrolls through vast databases in her attempts to remember who she is and how long she’s been locked up.
Using the limited resources she has at her disposal in Oxygen, Liz slowly but surely uncovers the origin of the pod, but is misled every step of the way whenever she uses M.I.L.O. to contact the authorities, or any other outsider who may have intel on her situation.
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Merde
Losing her sense of self as old memories of her sickly husband Leo (Malik Zidi) begin to occupy the front of her mind, Liz places her trust in M.I.L.O., who isn’t necessarily a force of evil, but clearly has been instructed not to fully reveal the truth about her situation. Having to choose between putting herself back into hypersleep and risk running out of oxygen, or suffocating while searching for answers, Liz has to think fast in her disoriented state while she waits for the authorities to rescue her, but doesn’t have a compelling reason to believe that help is actually coming any time soon. Facing her own mortality as a literal oxygen clock is ticking right in front of her, Liz desperately tries to remember who she is, where she is, and whether she’s locked up voluntarily or against her will.
A Powerhouse Solo Performance
Melanie Laurent has all the respect in the world from me because filming Oxygen couldn’t have been a pleasant experience by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, the pod she’s in, which probably isn’t bigger than a bathtub, is probably more spacious than I think from a production standpoint, but it’s still an immensely claustrophobic setting that made me all the more anxious when I realized that there probably had to be camera and crew members on-site to make Oxygen possible.
Technicality outside of the on-screen theatrics aside, Laurent’s genuine portrayal of fear and isolation-induced confusion will have you sweating bullets when you realize that she’s alone and has no reason to trust anything she’s being told while searching through vast databases for her origin story.
Oxygen Won’t Let You Look Away
To put it bluntly, Oxygen made my skin crawl, but its sense of urgency kept me from looking away because of how well-acted it is, which is commendable when you consider the fact that we’re talking about a lone woman conversing with a disembodied, artificially intelligent voice in such a limited setting.
If you’re ready to challenge yourself with one of the best Netflix Original sci-flicks on the platform today, I’d strongly advise you to watch Oxygen in a wide, open space because if you don’t you’ll feel just as locked up and hopeless as Liz.
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