Adam Epstein

As summer comes to a close in the US, so, too, does its blockbuster movie season, which this year was disastrous (unless you like horror movies). The sounds of gunfire and explosions will fade into the cinematic abyss, making way for period pieces, artsy character studies, and star-studded adaptations that are timely and thematically significant. Starting in September, studios release their most distinguished offerings—the awards contenders.

One of the best films I’ve seen this year was made for $3 million, or approximately 2.2% of the $135 million it cost to make this summer’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3D sequel.

American sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick once wondered what androids dream about. HBO’s upcoming television series Westworld asks the question, “What happens after they wake up?”

Once you hear it, you can’t un-hear it. It will be forever with you. Just a warning.

“A family that lost its way. A stranger with nothing to lose. An unforgettable true story. Discover the power of friendship.”

There’s a profanity-laced line in the 2006 cult classic Snakes on a Plane in which Samuel L. Jackson expresses his frustration with still having to deal with said snakes on said plane (video). That’s probably how Bill Nye feels about still having to repeatedly explain the reality of climate change in 2016.

Is David Lynch’s unsettling, hallucinatory meditation on Hollywood culture, Mulholland Drive (2001), really the best film of this century so far? According to 177 of the world’s foremost movie experts, yes. Yes it is.

On Wednesday, Aug. 17, something great happened.

Congratulations, linguists: You’re finally getting your big moment.

Donald Trump hates the media so much that he’s probably going to join it.

When music genius and PEGOT hopeful Lin-Manuel Miranda left the title role in his Broadway musical Hamilton, everyone was wondering what he’d do next. Create another hit musical? Release an album of hip-hop covers of the Great American Songbook? Develop an award-winning HBO miniseries about the life and times of the Marquis de Lafayette? No, none of these things (though they all sound terrific). Instead, Miranda has taken his talents to Disney, where he’s turning into the studio’s de facto chief songwriter.

We’re probably not getting a third season of True Detective, but maybe this will be even better.

I used to think Mr. Robot was the best show on television. Now, I have no idea what’s happening on it.

US presidential candidate and Yum! Brands connoisseur Donald Trump enjoys absurdly low support from various American groups, namely blacks and Hispanics. An NBC News poll from July found that 0% of black voters supported Trump in the crucial battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. As it turns out, there’s another group of Americans who don’t care for the businessman—historians.

We’re in the dog days of August, and so far this summer movie season has been a colossal bust. Some are wondering if it’s the worst ever. Tentpole superhero movies like Batman v Superman and X-Men: Apocalypse have disappointed, while essentially all of this year’s buzzy sequels, reboots, and remakes have performed poorly with audiences and critics. The film industry is on pace to sell the fewest total tickets in two decades.

It shouldn’t take a genius to make real improvements in the diversity of TV, but apparently it does.

If you’re sick and tired of hearing about the US presidential election, here’s another election with far less serious stakes to obsess over: the “GoT Party” election.

Music is coming.

There are few products in entertainment as influential as the HBO miniseries. From Band of Brothers to John Adams to Generation Kill to Olive Kitteridge, HBO’s mass of award-winning miniseries have become the crown jewel of television, showing off the medium’s star power and storytelling potential. To be a part of an HBO miniseries is to have summited television’s mountain of prestige.

Lin-Manuel Miranda is winning all the awards.

The 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro officially begin tomorrow (Friday), Aug. 5. If you’re reading this, you may be feeling overwhelmed about how exactly to watch it all. There are a lot of competitions, spanning three weeks, broadcasted on several different channels, streamed on a smorgasbord of apps and websites, and all of which are available on all sorts of devices.

The 2016 Olympic games kick off tomorrow (Aug. 5) in Rio de Janeiro with its opening ceremony, but most Americans won’t be able to watch it live on television. NBC, America’s summer Olympics broadcaster since 1988, announced this week that it will air the opening ceremony on a tape delay.

While their competition deals with clogged drains, leaky pipes, electrical outages, and other borderline “uninhabitable” living conditions, the American basketball teams will be living large abroad a luxury cruise liner docked in the Port of Rio for the 2016 Olympic games.

Fast food aficionado and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is at it again. Last night, after campaign stops in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Trump posted this photo to Twitter: