Lauren Vanderveen

Lauren Vanderveen covers news for CinemaBlend, with a heavy emphasis on pop culture trends and streaming titles. She has also written reviews for AllMovie.com.
Featured Image

Minx

The streaming series about the intersection between feminism and smut could endear even the most skeptical. And what it might lack in delicacy, it certainly makes up for in swagger.

Featured Image

Love & Gelato

Love & Gelato is pretty corny but it’s the exact kind of sweetly innocent confection that will melt in your mouth. What’s more, the film offers a slightly more authentic ending than the average rom-com fare.

Featured Image

Becoming Elizabeth

Becoming Elizabeth goes beyond mere court intrigue and makes a testimony to the influence of the powerful over the powerless. It’s assisted majorly by an eager and incredibly telling arrangement of sounds that stitches the lofty narrative together. In short, it’s a bold entry in the arena of historical dramas.

Featured Image

Watercooler Guide: What You Need to Know about The Staircase

Our Watercooler guide to The Staircase will help you jump right into the conversation about HBO Max’s new true-crime series.

Featured Image

Outlander: What We Talk About When We Talk About Assault

It’s no coincidence every major character in Outlander has experienced some form of assault. I’d argue that’s what the whole show is about.

Featured Image

The Adam Project

The Adam Project is one of those movies you go into imagining big explosions and kids hilariously making life-or-death decisions (like Zathura, for example). And, to be sure it throws everything it has at the wall and then some: time-travel jiu jitsu soldiers, a stacked all-star cast, and lots of heart. 

Featured Image

The Alpinist

Joie de vivre never looked so effortless as it does in The Alpinist. While the spectacular cinematography wows the senses, the beautiful character portrait at its core of an eccentric, backwoods mountain climber stirs the humanity in us all.

Featured Image

The Best New Movies and TV Shows in February 2022

Love, history, and choices well off the beaten path are arriving on streaming platforms this month. See our picks in categories you won’t find anywhere else.

Featured Image

The Best New Movies and Shows to Stream in December 2021

This month’s picks include big stars, highly anticipated returns, sci-fi epics, and an international Oscar contender—all for your streaming pleasure!

Lauren Vanderveen

Lauren Vanderveen covers news for CinemaBlend, with a heavy emphasis on pop culture trends and streaming titles. She has also written reviews for AllMovie.com.
Featured Image

What Franklin Can Teach Us About Diplomacy

As conflicts rage on across the world and the need for diplomacy rises, the new Apple TV+ series Franklin — about America’s first diplomat — offers lessons for our times, as a former speechwriter for the US Ambassador to the UN explains.

Featured Image

Rising Star: Our Interview with Dune & The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare‘s Babs Olusanmokun

He is best known for his recent breakout sci-fi roles – from the fierce fighter Doctor M’Benga in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds to Jamis – the Freman and best friend to the protagonist Paul – in Dune Parts One and Two.   But Babs Olusanmokun has been acting for two decades. A Nigerian-American who speaks

Read More »
Featured Image

From Aristocrat to Waiter in a Grand Hotel: A Gentleman in Moscow

It’s 1920s Moscow, four years after the start of the Russian Revolution. The aristocracy has been put on trial, staring down their inevitable doom. Count Alexander Rostov, a Russian aristocrat, is sentenced by a Bolshevik tribunal for “social parasitism” — the crime of living off of the efforts of others. His fate is surely death,

Read More »
Featured Image

The Big Door Prize

A fresh, lighthearted comedy that doubles as a philosophical sci-fi mystery, The Big Door Prize’s biggest question is that regardless of how much we have, are we ever truly satisfied? And that’s a poignant query in our consumer-driven, must-document-every-moment-on-social-media world.

Featured Image

The Classic Film Education in Colin Farrell’s Sugar 

If you solely go by the trailer, Colin Farrell’s new Apple TV series might seem like a familiar L.A. noir: A private detective named John Sugar gets hired by a legendary Hollywood producer to investigate the disappearance of his granddaughter, and soon finds himself unraveling a wicked web of family secrets. Apple TV+ A genre

Read More »
Featured Image

You’re the Worst

Through the eyes of two cynics who seem doomed to be alone, You’re the Worst embraces the complexity of modern relationships and the many emotional layers they surface. It’s also an accurate and empathetic portrait of what it’s like to live with clinical depression.

Featured Image

The stars of Manhunt on the history we did not learn

It’s a story that none of us learned in history classes, and it unfolds as a taut, complex conspiracy thriller — one that raises all new questions. Set in 1865, Manhunt focuses on the aftermath of one of America’s most tragic events: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. With all of the biopics, TV shows, and

Read More »
Featured Image

Mary & George

A clever, dark and salacious historical drama that brings a much overlooked chapter of European history to vivid life. Mary & George is a richly drawn, rough and raunchy story about the quest for power – and survival – in 16th century England.

Featured Image

A Career Reinvention Watchlist

As layoffs continue in the wake of a year of ominous headlines about the bots who are replacing us, a recent EY report found that over 70% of employees are reeling from AI anxiety. That actually sounds low. The idea of having to concoct a new livelihood – one that won’t be taken over by

Read More »
2 watercooler-guide-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-staircase
Featured Image

The Best James Bond Movies to Stream (According to My Dad)

In honor of Father’s Day, I interviewed my dad about his favorite James Bond movies and why you should stream them.

Featured Image

Celebrate Pride with this LGBTQ Watch List

With an explosion in representation over the past decade, coupled with the advent of streaming, LGBTQ audiences are spoiled for choice in a way we never were before.

Featured Image

Loki Recap Episode 2: “The Variant”

Loki’s second episode demonstrates that there’s still a lot more to learn about the Time Variance Authority and this new corner of the MCU. It might even bring up more questions than it answers.

Featured Image

Lisey’s Story

Lisey’s Story is an enchanting, frightening tale of magic and memory that’s in the upper echelon of Stephen King adaptations.

Featured Image

What to Watch After In the Heights: More Diverse Musicals to Stream

What to watch after In the Heights? These musicals about inclusion have touched on everything from racial segregation to the struggle to make it in America.

Featured Image

In the Heights

Filled with life, music, color, and passion, In the Heights literally radiates joy. Come for the music and big dance numbers, stay for the touching and intimate portrait of the immigrant experience in America — from several points of view.

Featured Image

Loki Refresher & Episode 1 Recap: “Glorious Purpose”

It’s an overall promising start for a new series. Loki doesn’t look or sound like anything else on TV right now, streaming or otherwise, and the series is all the better for it.

Featured Image

Cruella

A gorgeous, jaw-dropping, fashion-and-punk-rock filled ride, Cruella is Disney’s nod to the parents and grandparents who grew up with the 101 Dalmations. More of an original than an origin story, it’s perfect for the whole family, tweens and up.

Featured Image

In Treatment (2021)

A timely reboot that depicts the vital relationship between a therapist and patient, and the meaningful role it plays in fostering growth and change.

Scroll to Top