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 (A version of this article originally appeared on kernelnow.com / mynewslike.com) Pedro Pascal stars as the titular The Mandalorian - but not necessarily in its docuseries here (source: dtcimedia) If there’s one thing agreed upon about the endlessly-debated Star Wars: The Last Jedi , it’s that the accompanying documentary The Director and the Jedi on the film’s home release ranks among the all-time greatest makings-of. Rivalling legendary precursors such as Hearts of Darkness ( Apocalypse Now ) and Dangerous Days ( Blade Runner ) not just in length but in scope, the feature-length exposé followed the blockbuster production from project inception to release. Unsurprisingly, Disney would leap upon the success of the documentary and attempt to replicate it; the franchise’s very next film, The Rise of Skywalker , would have its own two-hour supplement in The Skywalker Legacy , and streaming service Disney+ has announced the upcoming Into The Unknown , a series examining the maki...

 (A version of this article originally appeared on kernelnow.com / mynewslike.com) Travelling via aircraft should be a simple experience. Whether boarding for business, pleasure or just to get home, the flight itself should be the least memorable part of a journey. But what if your straightforward transit quickly turned to terror? That’s the question rooted in Patrick Vollrath’s 7500 , which sees terrorists hijacking a pan-European flight from Berlin to Paris. After the stabbing of the plane’s captain, co-pilot Tobias Ellis (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) attempts to bring the craft to safety whilst also trying to maintain the safety of those on board – including his partner, air hostess Gökce (Aylin Tezel). Physical injury is the least of Tobias’s worries in one of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s tensest roles (source: Amazon Studios) After a lengthy opening prologue which does well to replicate the terminable boredom of boarding a flight for passengers and crew alike, the film wastes...

 (A version of this article originally appeared on kernelnow.com / mynewslike.com) Amongst the many traits common in Judd Apatow’s work is a penchant for taking aspiring comedians and launching their film careers – occasionally, all the way to superstardom. With his latest release The King of Staten Island , Apatow may well have done so again with Pete Davidson. This is the story of Scott (Davidson), a 24 year-old who outside of a barely-developed dream to be a tattoo artist has little in the way of life goals. In a state of arrested development and fighting a range of afflictions from ADD to depression rooted and amplified by the tragic long-ago death of his firefighter father, Scott lives at home and mainly just gets high with his similarly indifferent friends. Things change, however, when his mother Margie (Marisa Tomei) begins her first serious relationship since the death of her husband with – much to Scott’s horror – another firefighter, Ray (Bill Burr). Aft...

 (A version of this article originally appeared on kernelnow.com / mynewslike.com) In the fifteen years since his big-screen debut, director Judd Apatow’s name has become synonymous with modern comedy, arguably crossing over to become one of the most familiar names in all of cinema. Now,on the cusp of the release of his latest film The King of Staten Island, it seems like a good time to rank the famed film-maker’s back catalogue. Of course, his name is well-known for so many reasons more than the five films we’re about to look at below, having turned his hand as a producer, screenwriter and even documentarian . However, for the purposes of this article, we’ll be looking at the feature films that, like his upcoming video-on-demand outing, are listed as having been directed by Apatow – both to keep things at a manageable length, and to give all films not named Superbad a fighting chance at the top spot.  5. This is 40 (2013) Maude and Iris (left), Judd Apatow’s chi...

 (A version of this article originally appeared on kernelnow.com / mynewslike.com) What would you do if you’d worked your entire life for your dream job, for one specific goal, only for the terms of that dream to be changed just as you achieved it? And what if it was suddenly your responsibility to take humanity’s “final frontier”… and weaponize it? These are the lofty questions that plague the light-hearted Space Force , and more specifically its lead, General Mark Naird (Steve Carell), a career military man who assumes that his promotion to the rank of four-star general means that he will come into command of his beloved Air Force. Instead, he’s given the “booby prize” of leading the first-ever United States Space Force and its maverick team of scientists, soldiers and “spacemen”, including chief scientist Dr. Adrian Mallory (John Malkovich) and social media director F. Tony Scarapiducci (Ben Schwartz). Together, they contend with the complexities of a space progr...