Matthew Monagle

Do you prefer pie or strudel? It’s a valid question. If you ask the faceless horde over at Yahoo! Answers, the correct response is pie (and it isn’t really even that close). But if you ask Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them character  —  and noted muggle  —  Jacob Kowalski, there’s nothing that hits the spot quite like a piping hot strudel for dinner. The secret ingredient? Why, magic, of course.

How are your plans for Halloween shaping up? For me, the hardest part of throwing a Halloween party is choosing a soundtrack. We can probably all agree that those sound effect CDs  —  the ones with creaking doors and thunder and maniacal laughter  —  have no business outside of an elementary school haunted house, but then what? Do you put together a playlist of all the obvious soundtrack selections? Do you choose pop songs that have some vague tie-in to the season? Who really wants to hear Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” on Halloween for the umpteenth time, anyways?

For those of you anxiously anticipating the next round of Wonder Woman trailers, I have some good news, and I have some bad news.

Here’s something you may not know about me: it takes a tremendous amount of willpower for me to not spend the first paragraph of every Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children gushing about Eva Green. Nearly every time I write about this movie, I promise myself I’m just going to share a few thoughts about the clips and teasers that have been released so far, and instead, I hijack my own post to sing the praises of one of my favorite actors. Look, I did it again! I am not a strong man.

It’s been twelve years since Japanese film studio Toho released its last Godzilla movie, the longest gap between films dating back the first Godzilla movie in 1954. And while Japanese audiences have always loved their kaijū (“strange monsters”) movies, the fact that international audiences are starting to develop a taste for giant monsters has set the stage for Toho to bring back their most famous creation in the 2016 blockbuster Shin Godzilla.

While fans of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series may always secretly resent the Olympic Games for not recognizing Quidditch as an official sport, that doesn’t mean the Olympics have nothing to offer them. This past week, the newest trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them premiered during the international events, offering us perhaps our best look yet at the upcoming expansion of the Harry Potter universe.

Sad news today for fans of the Star Wars films and Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits: Kenny Baker, the man who brought droid R2-D2 to life, has passed away at the age of 81. According to The Guardian, Baker’s passing comes after a long battle with an unspecified illness.

If someone asked me to trace my personal development as a cinephile, I’m pretty sure that Mystery Science Theater 3000 would be one of the most important stops along the way. I grew up watching the show; it instilled in me an appreciation for pointless pop culture knowledge as well as an affection for so-called bad movies. Mike, Joel and the bots may have spent their time mocking ’70s and ’80s films, but there was always an undercurrent of good cheer and low-budget kinship that I admired.