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Telegraph
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Soulless ‘slop' is ruining cinema (and making my job impossible)
In 1967, humanity basked in the Summer of Love; in 2020 it writhed through the Summer of Rage. And this year's warmer months have another cultural phenomenon in store: prepare your snouts for the Summer of Slop. This particular S-word – as fun to say as it is revolting to think about – is having something of a moment right now, as online commentators baulk at the next few months of blockbuster releases. 'Sequel Slop: Hollywood Does Not Respect You' and 'The Era of Slop Entertainment' are typical of the titles of recent YouTube video essays to cast a sceptical eye over the major studios' 2025 slates. By its nature slop is hard to pin down, but as someone who watches a lot of films for a living, I can confirm that its oozy rise has been going on for some time. It might best be described as the sort of content for which the term 'content' doesn't feel like an insult: bland and uniform and corporately pumped out at volume and speed, yet just satisfying enough to keep its consumers waddling back to the trough. That's why it's so hard (and some would argue futile) for a critic to review. It doesn't outrage and only rarely dismays because it is expressly designed not to provoke either of those emotions in anyone. I have enjoyed some films which I also recognise to be slop because they hit the spot in ways their more interesting rivals might not. Take the recent Snow White remake: I had more fun watching it than I did the latest Almodóvar, even though the latter is obviously the more nourishing work, despite (or perhaps because of) its odd little wrinkles and frustrations. But then slop is a cinema of contradictions. It looks cheap, yet costs untold millions to produce. It employs huge stars who might as well be anyone, and often look faintly embarrassed to be involved. It dominates cultural discourse yet vanishes from the memory the moment the credits start to roll. Remember Cate Blanchett's star turn in the demented sci-fi romp Borderlands? Dwyane Johnson's attempt to become a superhero in Black Adam? Netflix's $200 million Ryan Gosling spy thriller The Gray Man? Of course you don't, and nor do I, despite having watched all three while scribbling furiously in a notebook on my lap. Slop, as a word, has been used to condemn individual films for decades: even the modern classic Clueless was daubed with it by one critic after its 1995 release. But these days, slop has become its own genre, and once you're aware of it, you'll spot it everywhere you look. The new live-action remake of the DreamWorks animation How to Train Your Dragon is a great – by which I mean horrible – example. The film just sort of squelches along for two hours, mimicking the experience of watching the 2010 original but without any of the distinctive flavours, colours or textures that made it so beloved in the first place. 'If you loved the first one, you'll…well, recognise a lot of this' and 'you'll remember none of this in half an hour' may not sound like winning pitches in straitened times such as these. But in fact these are slop's two big selling points, and audiences are guzzling with abandon. Disney's wildly successful new live-action take on Lilo & Stitch is unapologetic slop, as were the last two Ghostbusters and three Jurassic World films. Deadpool & Wolverine was meta-slop; Avatar: The Way of Water Slop 3D. Super Mario Bros was slop of such a staggeringly flavourless vintage it made the feebler Minions films look like the work of surreal Czech visionary Jiří Trnka. Wicked mulched down a distinctive and characterful stage show to the point that it could be strained through a fine-mesh sieve. Slop may be dismal, but every example above ranks among the most successful films in its year of release. So do we all love slop, or have we simply grown used to it? The case for the latter looks more convincing when you notice it really began to proliferate during Hollywood's quote-unquote 'woke era', when every other sci-fi and fantasy blockbuster was sold as protest art to court terminally online Gen-Zs and younger millennials. But now the political posturing is drying up – commercial expediency cuts both ways, kids! – and pulling in every pig in the sty has become the industry's main priority. Hence, for instance, the endless reshoots to depoliticise Disney's formerly girlboss-themed remake of Snow White – which, thanks to months of divisive publicity, went on to bomb earlier this year regardless. Yet the result is, in its way, a landmark film: perhaps the great transitional woke-to-slop work. Like slop, woke was a word put to work by a particular moment. At the end of the 2010s, an easy catch-all pejorative was suddenly needed to describe various new and interconnected currents in art and media which had begun to cheese off many non-believers. And woke, which had been used as a positive term in black American political discourse since the 1930s, was the one on which the broader discourse settled. By contrast, slop has been used in relation to art for around 150 years, but that was a relatively recent twist in its story, which stretches all the way back to Old English. 'We have evidence from around 1400 that it was used to describe a muddy place or mud-hole,' explains Craig Leyland from the Oxford English Dictionary's new words team. 'Then by the 1600s it was being used to describe food of a weak or unappetising kind given to convalescents, and in 1805, we have a quote identifying it as kitchen refuse fed to cattle or pigs.' Low-grade, homogenous dross fit only for consumption by docile livestock: it's a useful metaphor for low-grade popular culture, though it was only in the 19th century that a link was formally made. The first recorded usage came in a March 1866 newspaper article by Mark Twain about a visit to Honolulu, who poked fun at 'slop about balmy breezes and fragrant flowers'. Within 50 years, along with the more common 'nausea', it had become an unlovely film industry term for dialogue written for female characters. (Gemma Arterton is tasked with churning out the stuff in the 2017 period drama Their Finest.) Even so, only this year do we find slop discussed as a trend – and only then after the recent spread of generative AI created a sudden need for a label for digital audiovisual gunk. In a way, it's odd that it took so long, since sludgy homogeneity has been a keystone of the Hollywood business model for the past 20 years. It began with the rise of the so-called Save The Cat beat sheet in the mid-2000s, in which the scripts for every major release began to be built around the same heavily road-tested and focus-grouped 15-part plot structure. (This is why so few contemporary blockbusters' stories feel fresh.) A few years later came the advent of franchise film-making, which held that every instalment of any given series had to look and behave much like the last. (And its successful rivals by extension, which is why Marvel looks like Minecraft, which looks like Wicked.) And the international success of these mega-projects brought about the demise of many formerly popular genres – romantic comedies, courtroom dramas, family adventures – that had given mainstream cinema much of its texture and bite. The lure of potentially lucrative overseas markets, and China specifically, couldn't be ignored. Like Starbucks lattes, films suddenly had to sell as well in Shanghai as they did in Santa Monica, despite the local customers' vastly different attitudes and frames of reference. So out went the cultural specificity that made 1980s and 90s popcorn movies so evocative; in came more interchangeable superhumans cracking wise while mashing up CG cities. At the same time, three online revolutions were further reining in film-makers' visions. The ascent of streaming meant that close-ups became the default shot of choice in dialogue scenes, since they were easier to read on television-sized screens. Rising stars' double role as influencers meant that a tight in-group of popular players – Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh, Jacob Elordi, Zendaya, Austin Butler, Pedro Pascal, and so on – suddenly kept cropping up everywhere, as studios tried to shepherd their devoted followings towards auditoriums. (This is why character actors are a dying breed.) On the script side, meanwhile, social media's brittle intransigence and disproportionate sway over the news agenda meant that ambiguity and provocation were no longer worth the trouble. Why ask your audience to grope their own way through a moral grey zone when you can present the world in black and white and dodge a Twitter storm in release week? When all of the above became the industry default, slop was the unavoidable outcome, though the future may be sloppier still. Writers and editors are now muttering darkly about 'second screening': a new practice of scripting and cutting films and television shows so they can still be followed well enough by viewers whose eyes keep darting down to their phones – or only rarely dart up from them. 'It's grim,' says an editor with extensive experience of working with major studios and streamers. 'We're sometimes now asked to make sure characters are constantly announcing what they've just done and are about to do, because everyone's attention spans are shot.' It is, of course, impossible to say which individual lines are there by studio mandate, and which have been lovingly crafted in pursuit of great cinema. But one can draw one's own conclusions about the scene in the recent Netflix production Irish Wish in which Lindsay Lohan tells a suave English suitor: 'I admit it was a beautiful day filled with dramatic vistas and romantic rain, but that doesn't give you the right to question my life choices. Tomorrow I'm marrying Paul Kennedy.' 'Fine,' her suitor replies. 'That will be the last you see of me because after this job is over I'm off to Bolivia to photograph an endangered tree lizard.' 'It's like cinema and TV is becoming the new background music,' the editor adds. 'The idea isn't to make people actually want to watch your work, it's to not give them a reason to switch it off.' A film you can watch without watching feels like the slop era's logical end point, though our palates aren't entirely fried yet. The recent success of Ryan Coogler's Sinners – a ravishing, star-driven thriller whose genre-blending unpredictability is one of its greatest assets – suggests a market still exists for stylish, distinctive mass entertainment. Of course, if it's to flourish, audiences will have to continue to support it – and put their phones away while they're at it. 2025's top of the slops 1. How to Train Your Dragon A perfect summation of the slop aesthetic: everything in this DreamWorks remake is recognisable, and often spectacular in purely technological terms, but not an atom of it seizes the soul. Short-term commercial success seems a given, though in a few months, let alone 15 years, this won't be the version anyone's rewatching. 2. A Minecraft Movie The opening Earthbound 20 minutes suggested a charming small-town family comedy as Hollywood used to make them. Then the cast saunter through a portal into Familiar Franchise Environment #834 and the heavily branded, crushingly formulaic shenanigans begin. 3. The Electric State In adapting a niche graphic novel for Netflix, Marvel's Russo brothers turned their plaintive source material into a splashy sci-fi caper starring Gen-Z favourite Millie Bobby Brown. Far more fun than the bridling critical reception suggested, though slop is unquestionably what it is. 4. Captain America: Brave New World Watch cinema's mightiest franchise swill around for two hours as it tries to Do Politics without touching on any remotely contentious themes while half-heartedly tying up plot threads from a 17-year-old Incredible Hulk film. 5. Disney's Snow White This modernised remake of a very of-its-time classic was an amazingly misbegotten project that ended up squandering untold millions putting out the very fires it had willingly set. Nightmarish CG dwarfs aside, the result was perfectly watchable, though the discourse around it became the real cultural event.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pedro Almodóvar's Next Movie ‘Bitter Christmas' Set for Spanish Theaters and Streamer Movistar Plus+
Pedro Almodóvar has found his next project. The auteur is now at work on 'Bitter Christmas' for Spanish streaming platform Movistar Plus+. Almodóvar also collaborated with the platform on his English-language feature debut, 'The Room Next Door.' 'Bitter Christmas,' or 'Amarga Navidad,' stars a slew of Almodóvar newcomers and staples, including Bárbara Lennie ('Petra'), Leonardo Sbaraglia ('Pain and Glory'), Aitana Sánchez-Gijón ('Parallel Mothers'), Victoria Luengo ('The Room Next Door'), Patrick Criado ('Riot Police'), Milena Smit ('Parallel Mothers'), and Quim Gutiérrez ('Darkbluealmostblack'). The film will be released in Spanish theaters in 2026, with Warner Bros. Pictures Spain distributing. It will then debut exclusively on the Movistar Plus+ platform. More from IndieWire Studio Ghibli at 40: Can an Ethical Animation Studio Still Exist, or Even Survive? 'Eddington' Trailer: Ari Aster's Western of Pandemic Paranoia Hits Theaters After Dividing Cannes IndieWire has reached out to Almodóvar's representatives for details about a possible U.S. release, though it can be assumed Sony Pictures Classics will release the film in North America, as it has all of Almodóvar's recent outings. We're told that festival play and a U.S. release will take place before the Movistar+ premiere. 'Bitter Christmas' centers on advertising director Elsa, now mourning the loss of her mother over a December holiday weekend. The official synopsis, as shared by Variety, reads: 'She throws herself into work as a form of escape, not realizing she's denying herself the time to grieve. Her relentless pace is interrupted when a panic attack forces her to take a break. Her partner, Bonifacio, becomes her anchor in this moment of crisis. Elsa decides to travel to the island of Lanzarote with her friend Patricia, who is also looking to get away from Madrid, while Bonifacio stays behind in the city. The story of these three characters, and several others, runs parallel to that of screenwriter and film director Raúl Durán, intertwining fiction and reality. 'Bitter Christmas' explores how life and fiction are inseparably linked, sometimes painfully so.' The project is currently filming in Madrid and Lanzarote. Almodóvar and his brother, Agustín Almodóvar, produce through their El Deseo banner in collaboration with Movistar Plus+. Almodóvar won the 2024 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion for 'The Room Next Door,' distributed stateside by Sony Pictures Classics. 'I was very concerned about the English,' Almodóvar told IndieWire about his first film in English. 'We wanted an English that should sound American. My films have never been naturalistic. I have never aspired to the mumbling or babbling or pausing or some of those things that happen in regular language. I like my language to be concentrated and precise. In Spanish, it has worked well.' Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
The Guardian
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown review – a gorgeous take on a flawed musical
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is one of those films you really should have on your bucket list. Pedro Almodóvar's 1988 Spanish farce (currently streaming on SBS on Demand) follows actress Pepa, whose lover Iván has broken up with her over answering machine, and her long day trying to get in touch with him. Along the way, she collides with Iván's ex-wife, a young couple who turn out to also be connected to him, and her best friend Candela. Men are ruining everyone's day. It's funny, clever and dark. The musical adaptation, written by Jeffrey Lane (best known for his musical adaptation of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) with music and lyrics by David Yazbek (also Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and more recently the freshly Tony-nominated Dead Outlaw) premiered on Broadway 15 years ago – to middling (at best) reviews. Both its New York and West End seasons were cut short due to poor sales. So why is this musical getting a fresh run in Australia? Three words: director Alexander Berlage. He's the perfect fit for a show that needs to be stylish down to its bones – and needs a new vision. Berlage started out on the experimental side of indie theatre before he found his way to musicals (often as a lighting designer as well as director), immediately committing to theatrical rigour, camp and playful subversion. His first outing at the Hayes, Cry-Baby the Musical (based on the John Waters film) restored an anarchic spirit to a show that had turned saccharine on Broadway; the follow-up, a deliciously complex and sleek staging of American Psycho, was another success in finding the right tone for a show that had flopped in New York. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Who better, then, to take on Almodóvar's camp farce and make it pop? And this production really does pop: Hailley Hunt's set – Pepa's apartment – is a dream to look at, and cleverly evokes all of Madrid through just a few set pieces. It's red curtain-ringed and deliciously decorated, and when Phoebe Pilcher's lighting drenches the space in reds and blues, it's gorgeous. Amy Hack (who most recently starred in Yentl in Melbourne and Sydney) is glorious as Pepa: it's a deeply lived-in, individuated performance that takes inspiration from, but does not copy, the film. This is a character in crisis, but also comic and genuinely complex – the key is in the title, this woman is on the verge of a breakdown – and Hack gives a gorgeously risky and boldly funny performance that will be one of the year's best. Together, Berlage and Hack are doing great, inventive work (there are delightful staging choices, especially small moments of character and tableau detail, that elevate scenes). It's genuinely a pleasure to watch. There are, however, two big problems. The first, which is fixable, is the sound design and engineering: on opening night, it was often difficult to make out the lyrics. Musicals reveal key plot and character information in songs, from facts and exposition all the way to moments of revelation, so if we can't hear it, we're lost. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion The second is that it's just not a very good musical. Yazbek's Spanish-styled score sounds bright but isn't varied enough to have us leaning in and listening closely, especially when it's already hard to hear. The show has a male narrator (Aaron Robuck, playing the taxi driver who Pepa encounters several times in the film) who feels extraneous to the narrative. More broadly, the book is a mess. When taking a farce from film to stage, you need to recalibrate your narrative. In a musical, everything is already heightened, so you need to establish an emotional reality in your farce for it to have a sense of stakes. Lane and Yazbeck's musical saves the bulk of stripped-back emotional realness for the second act, but it's too late by then to introduce them – we've been dialled up to 11 since the first scene. Berlage does his best to mitigate this – and the ending is strikingly, surprisingly, moving – but he can't change the book or the score, which do not rise to the greatness of Berlage, Hack or the original film. So, should you see it? If you love musicals and want to see a performer at the height of her powers, yes. Hack is well worth the trip, and you deserve a treat. Otherwise, give the film a try. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is at Hayes theatre, Darlinghurst, until 8 June.
Yahoo
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
NEWS OF THE WEEK: Pedro Almodovar slams Donald Trump in fiery speech
As the celebrated Spanish filmmaker, famous for movies such as Talk to Her and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! expressed his gratitude for the honour, he fired off, "I doubted if it was appropriate to come to a country ruled by a narcissistic authority, who doesn't respect human rights. Trump and his friends, millionaires and oligarchs, cannot convince us that the reality we are seeing with our own eyes is the opposite of what we are living, however much he may twist the words.' "Mr Trump, I'm talking to you, and I hope that you hear what I'm going to say to you," Almodóvar continued.
Washington Post
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
A fresh perspective on the life and films of Pedro Almodóvar
The essential challenge of film books is that their ideal reader has already acquired a certain expertise — and perhaps even a collection of volumes — on the genre or filmmaker in question. Very few people require more than one comprehensive guide to a director's work, which leads to an increasingly narrow focus. James Miller's 'The Passion of Pedro Almodóvar' bucks that trend. By providing a close analysis of seven of Almodóvar's 'more or less autobiographical' movies, Miller promises to 'present an unusual sort of 'self-portrait' of the artist' and to explore the extent to which his mature work 'is engaged in … an implicitly philosophical quest for self-knowledge.'
